Taking Over the World One Business and Many Songs at a Time: Personality Profile of Lawrence Watkins
by: Samantha Ragland

 

 

 

Ask 24-year-old Lawrence Matthew Watkins about his boyhood dreams, and he will say he wanted to be an entrepreneur because adventure was there.

“The thing I love about business is that it’s an experiment, an itch I always had,” Watkins said.

Watkins is the founder and director of Great Black Speakers, a bureau launched in January to market African-American speakers to colleges and universities for seminars and conferences.    

Among Watkins’ clients are country singer, Erica Dunlap; columnist for The Black Collegian, Al Duncan and civil rights activist, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Watkins has a speaker search on the bureau’s website, www.greatblackspeakers.com .

He saw the unfulfilled and untapped market of minority speakers as his niche, and he was not alone.

Great Black Speakers is critical, especially to predominately white institutions that don’t get to hear intelligent conversation led by black speakers often, if ever, said Jeff Thompson Jr., Watkins’ Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity brother.

“Lawrence is filling a gap, a service that without it would be detrimental to all parties involved. Students. Officials,” Thompson said. “It’s a domino effect.” If one group is deprived, all end up falling or suffering in some way.

Watkins works from his home and uses social networking to grow the business. With a staff of three during the school year and one intern, the business is growing.

Watkins’ mentor, Carl Brazley, a Louisville area businessman, noticed that he had exactly what a successful entrepreneur has: “a willingness to learn and excitement.”

“All I am is a glorified network on steroids,” he said.

He talks to people all day by which ever medium he can, and it works. Great Black Speakers is Watkins sole source of income.

What is impressive about his business is that he sees it as a journey and not just a starting point, Brazley said.

The plan is to grow Great Black Speakers into a full-service business that works through the clients’ career from start to finish and includes a publishing company and involves three other initiatives: publicity, products and search engine optimization, Watkins said.

He began with speaking engagements as the first key to business and has no specific order to which the others will fall, he said.

But search engine optimization is big, he said. He wants his clients’ names or sites to be the first link that pops up in a Google search.

Watkins is described by his friends and family as a “persistent” and “ambitious” “self-starter.”

“He really takes the time, not only to focus on himself but also to focus on other people. This really gives other guys [black men] something tangible to aspire to,” said Brandon Childs, who has known Watkins since age six or seven.

Watkins said he always knew that what really mattered was what he learned in other places. He graduated from the University of Louisville in Kentucky in 2006 with a degree in electrical and computer engineering, but by his third year, he knew that was not the career for him.

Upon graduating, he moved to Syracuse to do public relations for his older brother, Boyce Watkins, who holds a doctorate in finance and is a professor at Syracuse University and motivational speaker.

Watkins did not care much for publicity, he said. He saw the value in it but didn’t believe he was cut out for the work that he described with a smile as “very aggressive” and “very New York.”

“I’m more of a Southern gentleman,” he said.

When it came to booking his brother for speaking engagements, Watkins found his way. Turn up the charm, turn up the sales.

“I’m literally helpless without Lawrence,” his brother said. “He’s one of the more outstanding people I know.

“We believe the victory comes in how hard you try,” he said, success doesn’t happen by accident.

Watkins’ five to six year plan does not surprise his big brother.

The future is bright for Watkins, and it does include a Master of Business Administration, possibly at Harvard, Dartmouth, or Duke.

`Still he sees two options.

For Great Black Speakers to continue its success, Watkins hopes to penetrate the college market more deeply or to expand in a more corporate direction. Even though an MBA is part of the plan, he is honest in his endeavors, he said.

“My cut off point is a million dollars this school year,” he said. “If I make it, I’m not going to grad school [immediately].”

But life is not just about business with Watkins. He is an avid reader.

“I have to make time to read, or I won’t be productive,” Watkins said, who is a singer too.

“And Lawrence cannot sing,” his girlfriend, Andrea Dozier said through a laugh. “He breaks out into song out of no where.

“He doesn’t just sing a small part. He sings a full part. It’s like, he’s not complete if he doesn’t finish it,” she said, adding that it’s funny and he does it all the time.

He’s extremely silly, Dozier said. “To be so intense all the time would probably be stressful. He laughs at everything. I think it balances him,” she said.

Watkins unwinds to his favorite rapper, Andre 3000, or to UGK mostly, but there is a favorite song for every mood, he said.

“He looks for people who push boundaries, that look to advance rap/ hip-hop as an art,” his best friend Childs said.

One of Watkins’ favorite lyrics by Ludacris is for his sense of humor: “So if you see me in ya town/ and I appear to be moody/ it’s cuz I’m thinkin’ ‘bout plans/ that’s bigger than Serena booty.”    

If not music, then television is also a choice, Watkins said. He loves “Entourage” and “The Family Guy.”

“He has a healthy sense of humor,” his older brother said. He’s very subtle and quiet, and people take this as a weakness.

“He won’t start a fight, but he’ll finish it,” Watkins’ brother said proudly.

This is all part of his ambition and should be since his future is already in the making.      

“I see myself running for Congress,” Watkins said.