What You See IS What You Get

How Natalie Cole Put Our Weekly on the L.A. Map

When it comes down to it, succeeding in business is really about having a vision and getting others not only to see what you see, but to also buy the picture, hook and frame. This is, of course, easier said than done—particularly for first-time and minority entrepreneurs.

Take the case of Natalie Cole, CEO and Publisher of Our Weekly. Before it became the largest verified newspaper for African Americans in Los Angeles, Our Weekly was an idea that most investors and advertisers weren’t too keen about.

“Nobody wanted to give us seed money because they thought it was a dying industry,” says Natalie, “but the fact is that aside from the World Wide Web, ethnic press has been the fastest-growing media sector over the past two decades, so I knew there was a huge potential there.” Sticking to her guns and vision, Natalie partnered with an ex-colleague from the L.A. Times, David Miller, and the duo pulled together their own funding and 55 years of industry experience to launch the publication in 2004. Within a year, their circulation numbers grew to 50,000—but not without hiccups, hard work and lots of hard selling.

“We didn’t get the contracts we had hoped for initially,” says Natalie. “It was difficult to convince advertisers because we were still new and unverified. But getting involved in the community and volunteering helped. Being connected to ‘movers and shakers’ also helped, and further legitimized how people saw me and who came to our table.”
 
Indeed, this quest for “legitimacy” and building a name that other people will recognize and respect, seems to be the “frame” that holds the image of a business in place. Here, Natalie gives us an inside look on the lessons and experiences she gained during the process.

On Getting Your Name Out There

“Visibility, branding and marketing all made a difference in how I am perceived in the community and helped to propel my business forward,” says Natalie. “I’ve raised my hand and made a lot of noise. I have been the most visible publisher out there—going to community-related events, participating in organizations and doing outreach work.”

And it shows: Aside from her position as CEO and publisher of Our Weekly, Natalie also serves as a commissioner for the City of Los Angeles. She is a member or has served on the board of several organizations, including NAWBO’s Los Angeles Chapter, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Black Business Council, the United Negro College Fund, the Los Angeles Greenlining Institute, the Black Business Association, and the Black Commissioners of Los Angeles. She also recently founded the Urban Media Foundation, a non-profit with the goal of educating and training South Los Angeles youth on journalism and print media.

There is, however, a caveat to getting involved, as this mother of four can attest: You have to know your limits. “Only look for what you really care about,” she says, “because you have to recognize when you’re already stretched too thin and can’t make things happen.”

On Standing Out From the Crowd

What do you do when you’re up against well-respected competitors who have been around for decades, like The Los Angeles Sentinel, The Wave and The Watts Times? You differentiate yourself, and that’s just what Our Weekly did. “All the newspapers in the market were broadsheets, so we came out with tabloid-style design, provocative covers and interesting content,” says Natalie. “People were intrigued. We did cover stories on Hurricane Katrina, on the genocide in Sudan, and on kids carrying guns and serving in the front lines of war. We also had a column called ‘News Across Black America,’ which featured snippets about African Americans nationwide—something unique to our publication and which grabbed the attention of our readers.”

Another way Our Weekly stood out is through their distribution process. Not content with just dropping copies at strategic retail locations, Natalie had copies delivered right on the doorsteps of their target audience—the affluent African American communities in Los Angeles. “We are reaching directly to movers and shakers, those who make influential decisions nationwide, and that’s huge,” she says. To make an even bigger impact, Natalie upped the bar by using clean, vibrant colors on magazine-style paper, instead of cheap newsprint.

Finally, Natalie understood that in today’s technological era, it’s crucial to have a strong presence on the World Wide Web.  That is why instead of simply handpicking articles to feature on her Web site, as her competitors were doing initially, Natalie chose to have all her content fully archived. “I knew that my chief responsibility is to record news and information about black folks at this time,” she says. “It’s a matter of record, and it has to be done right.”

On Getting Independent Validation

Instead of just telling the world about what you can do, another way to get noticed is to have other people tell it for you. In an industry where well-established publications have been sued for falsification, for example, Natalie stresses the importance of having her circulation numbers verified by an independent auditor, the Verified Audit Circulation Company. “Advertisers know they can rely on our figures because they have been verified, and that’s important in building trust and loyalty,” she says.

On Delivering As Promised

Once you get your name and business recognized, the next step is to figure out how to hold people’s attention. “We do this by doing what we say we’re going to do,” says Natalie, “which is to raise the bar, have our ear to the ground and keep our finger on the pulse of the community.”

In fact, Our Weekly prides itself on having original content drawn from its African American constituents, and not just stories drawn from wire services. “Ninety-five percent of our content is written by somebody interviewing people locally,” says Natalie. “Readers are intrigued because they can recognize the names, which produces loyal readership, which in turn creates a loyal ad environment and a good return on investment.”

On Having a Plan and Seeing It Through

Having survived the two main hurdles faced by most first-time entrepreneurs and minority business-owners—1) lack of capital and 2) lack of interest and support—Natalie now has her eye on even bigger and better goals.

“We’re already there in Los Angeles,” she says. “Statewide, we’re very close, so our next step is to raise national visibility. From having just mom-and-pop advertisers, we now have the support of companies and organizations like Bank of America, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Metropolitan Transit Authority. We now have a story to tell because we have major players on our side.”

Telling a good story, however, also means knowing the many ways it could end—and Natalie is prepared for that as well. She regularly puts aside part of her earnings as a safety measure, for example. “I treat my savings account as if it’s a bill I have to pay,” she says.

She also champions the value of having a solid succession plan. “You have to have a strategy in place for any possible outcome,” she says. “If you’re in business with a partner, for example, not only do you have to outline individual responsibilities, but you also need to plan what to do in case one of you decides to move on.”

This visualization—seeing everything you want to do from start to finish in your mind’s eye—is definitely Natalie’s roadmap to success. “When you get people to see what you see, they will line up to do what you need to get done. The whole universe will line up to help you. That’s how I approach the world and how I do business.”