LaBrent Speed, founder of The Better Black Business Project and BNI’s first Black regional director, talks about intentional networking for Black entrepreneurs, his nonprofit B3I and his new book The Transformation Code.

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LaBrent Speed spent 30 years in sales, served as chapter president of a BNI chapter and became BNI’s first Black regional director, traveling and teaching across Minnesota. And the whole time, he kept noticing something that bothered him.

When he attended Black networking events, there was no intentionality. No structure. No mechanism to actually build business together. Just cards and pitches and socializing.

In this On the Radar episode, host Damenica Ellis sits down with Speed to talk about what he did about it, what he has built, and the personal journey that shaped all of it.

Speed founded The Better Black Business Project, or B3, on one foundational principle: serve before you sell. The organization is a professional networking community for Black entrepreneurs and authentic allies, built around what Speed calls the intentional pursuit of impactful relationships. In just over two years, B3 has grown to more than 100 members who have passed millions of dollars in referral business to one another. The organization is now expanding virtually into markets like Atlanta ahead of in-person launches.

“I wanted to create an intentional community of people coming together, building each other up and doing business with one another.”

Speed also runs B3I, The Better Black Business Initiative, a nonprofit that trains Black youth, next-generation allies and justice-impacted people to become entrepreneurs.

On September 11, Speed released his first book, The Transformation Code: 5 Keys to Transforming Your Life and Impacting the World. He says the book grew out of one of the lowest periods of his life, before B3 existed, when he was going through personal upheaval and actively studying what it actually takes to change.

“I was severely overweight. I was going through my third divorce, and life just didn’t look good. I wanted to know, how do I actually change from where I am to where I want to go?”

The principles he discovered on that journey are the same ones that run through B3: serve first, build genuine relationships, prioritize community alongside commerce and stay anchored in your why.

“Community without commerce is nice, but it’s broke. And commerce without community is transactional. We don’t want either one of those.”

Full story at msr.media.

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In this segment, Denise Rolark Barnes sits down with Nicola Charles, Curator of 11:Eleven gallery. They talk about Washington Informer’s 62nd anniversary, as the gallery is hosting Photogallery Exhibit and Reception, creating an opportunity to celebrate the power of photography to preserve history and tell stories that might otherwise go unseen. This is one conversation you don’t want to miss!

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