Growing up in the small, blue-collar town of Laurinburg, North Carolina, 45 minutes outside of Fayetteville, Emma Allen saw how hard people worked for a dollar. She also saw how quickly that hard-earned money could be taken away.
“What I discovered pretty quickly, my community, which is an African-American community, was really being taken advantage of by the financial services industries,” Allen recalled.
She watched family members and neighbors who scrimped and saved, fall victim to predatory lenders, pay-day and high-interest loans, and snake oil salesmen.
“Watching the tragedy of it, right? Someone goes and gets a washing machine that costs $300 dollars and by the time they’re done paying for it, they paid $1,000. And sometimes they still had it taken away and sold to someone else!” Allen said incredulously. “Being incubated in that leaves a lasting impact on you.”
An impact that would become Allen’s life’s work.
“I always knew this was what I was born to do,” Allen said. “I was going to do something around financial literacy. Creating impact and information particularly for our community but also for the community at large.”
Allen enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and went on to embark on a 20-year banking career, immersing herself in financial literacy work, and rising to the highest levels in some of those organizations.
But over time, Allen grew frustrated, believing those bigger institutions were stifling her autonomy.
“I could do more than really be siloed and be restricted by the culture and the will of any one banking institution,” Allen said.
Allen started her own insurance agency through State Farm. She was still able to provide financial literacy coaching, while also providing insurance and financial services information under her own umbrella.
“I’ve got some really specific ways that I think that people can better themselves,” Alle said. “Being in my own business allows me the flexibility to be able to share products and services that I think make sense to people and frankly, to be more transparent.”
Allen has now been in business for herself here in Charlotte for nine years and is consistently one of the highest performing insurance agents. Recently, she was ranked in the top 1% of State Farm agents in the entire company.
“We just do the right thing and go out of our way to be sure that people understand what they’re getting and what we provide for them,” Allen said. “You can’t be in this business for a long time if you don’t have integrity.”
Allen’s continued success and potential for longevity inspired her to take a hard look at her business to ensure it was built to last.
“I had to look myself in the mirror and make a long hard decision about whether or not I really had the fortitude and commitment to do what it took,” Allen said.
She decided she did.
So, Allen joined the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance® Foundation’s Scale Up CLT program. The initiative, a partnership with Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) and the city of Charlotte, accelerates the growth of minority-owned businesses.
“My personal commitment has made me pull back and get really focused on the business really look at the business,” Allen said. “Really looking at the numbers, knowing where the money is going, knowing the staff we need.”
The work has been challenging, Allen said, but rewarding. The opportunity to engage with other like-minded entrepreneurs has also brought a new level of peer accountability.
“Entrepreneurship, typically, is a pretty lonely place to be,” Allen said. “I can’t have those conversations with my team, but I can certainly have those conversations with people who may not be in the same industry but certainly are like-minded.”
Allen plans to take everything she learns in Scale Up CLT and pour it back into her business which, in turn, pours into the communities that need it most. Another set of lessons to pass on to others, another tool in her toolchest to right wrongs of the past, and change the course of the future. Because to Allen, the financial health, literacy, and prosperity of any business, begins at home.
