CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Clients call her an expert connector in the world of government contracting.
"What made me want to get connected to Lain Consulting is the knowledge and the wisdom that I knew this firm had with scaling my business and growing my business," Rashanda Broadway, who owns business consulting firm The Way to Serve, said.
For more than 10 years, LaPronda Spann has made it her business to help others get ahead and scale up, securing roughly $3.5 million in grants and contracts for her company Lain Consulting and clients.
"Money is different from this side of table than sitting over and being on that gerbil wheel," Spann said. "Since I was the only one woman in the room, I was going to learn all that I could and then I was going to open the door for everybody else."
With degrees from Johnson C. Smith University and UNC Charlotte, Spann started her career in the medical field, working behind the scenes for local hospitals. Until, one day, she decided to take those skills and build her own company, helping small, minority, and women-owned businesses achieve success.
"I was managing large federal grants for the hospitals and so I knew the language," Spann said. "Got certified and landed my first government contract in 90 days."
But, the path to success was anything by easy.
According to LendingTree, about one in every five businesses fail within the first year with rising costs, access to capital, and supply chain issues some of the biggest contributors to failure.
For businesses owned by people of color, those numbers are even more daunting, with McKinsey and Company reporting around 4% of black-owned businesses survive the start-up stage.
While Spann's business survived its first year, she said it still took about two and a half years to hit her stride.
"Sometimes we don't feel worthy, but I'm here to tell you, I went through all of that. I stood in places with my legs shaking and my knees knocking, but I told them who I was, I pitched, and somebody heard me and wanted to work with me," Spann said. "I do think you need to have a plan. I also think you have to have a lot of savings…. You can bring in partners. You can find investors… and always have a mentor that's been there and done that."
Despite being in business for more than a decade, she said there are still challenges, but she just keeps showing up, and that's her advice to others. She encourages those in business to keep learning, building confidence, asking questions, and pushing toward their dreams.