20 Years of Making It!

By Nelson Davis

 

Nelson Davis Television Productions was born in the late summer of 1988 along with the pilot episode of Making It! Minority Success Stories which had a self imposed predicted life expectancy of three years. Well, just like in the fairy tales, it took a wildly different than expected path.

 

Now with just about two decades on the odometer, I’m now feeling a bit like a historian regarding the evolution of small and minority owned business in America. And since I’ve always felt that the entrepreneurial spirit is truly the spirit of America, let me share some observations and lessons with you.

 

As with many other trends in America, California is where the modern entrepreneurial movement has shown itself in significant ways first. For example, the late 90s Internet boom and bust were centered in the Golden State. Here in the greater Los Angeles area, I’ve seen the biggest companies (such as ARCO) be absorbed in mergers and be replaced by a smaller business centered economy. Some of the smartest and most ambitious immigrants from many parts of the world have brought a new vitality to the emerging business community.

 

Of course, the Internet has been like a growth hormone to small business development enabling an enterprise housed in a spare bedroom to have national and even international footprints. When several years ago I met a woman in Chatsworth California who was selling thousands of dollars in dolls each month on eBay, I knew that a thunderbolt had struck the business of retailing. When I began in business, the word Internet wasn’t used often and when it was it dropped from the lips of eggheads and nerds.

 

When I first called on a bank executive (at Security Pacific Bank) to sponsor a TV show that focused on small and minority owned business, I was treated politely but somewhat like my mental deck was short a couple of cards! Today, the financial services sector, telecoms and others have deservedly embraced small business as the garden from which tomorrows big customers must grow. Minority owned businesses have earned a place at the table with all other businesses because opportunity is a very democratic phenomenon.

 

Small Business has become a new mantra for marketers, corporate castoffs and even the occasional smart politician. Staples and Office Depot have built their brands around us little guys. Verizon and AT&T say they now understand our needs. Blackberries sometimes function like an office in your pocket and Kinkos promises to print anything you need at anytime. 

 

It turns out that we pioneered something that is changing the television advertising business today and we are rather proud of it. What Making It! created for our advertisers was a modern version of program sponsorship. Starting in 1990 we began using the word sponsor rather than advertiser and we integrated them into the TV show with special interviews, placements and other services. Now, NBC and other legacy networks are attempting to do that very same thing. I must say that we simply adapted what America’s TV stations were doing fifty years ago!

 

Yes, the primary lesson is that everything moves in cycles. Ford Motor and the Walt Disney Company were once small businesses. A person translating dreams into reality is a forever thing. Small business and personal development has truly become a mission for me. My dream: Having Making It! and it’s siblings on a national TV platform, and a small business radio program.  And, we have incorporated the Making It Institute for the Advancement of Business to help nourish and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. As President Calvin Coolidge said “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence---persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

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