MSR On the Radar: LeBrent Speed on Building the B3 Project
On this episode of MSR On the Radar, LeBrent Speed, a licensed minister turned 30-year sales professional and BNI’s first Black regional director, explains why he founded The Better Black Business (B3) Project, an intentional networking community for Black entrepreneurs and authentic allies. Speed discusses defining networking as the intentional pursuit of impactful relationships, his nonprofit B3I that trains youth and justice-impacted people to become entrepreneurs, and his new book, “The Transformation Code,” which grew out of one of the lowest periods of his life.
LeBrent Speed founded The Better Black Business (B3) Project to intentionally combine commerce and community for Black entrepreneurs and “authentic allies.” Just over two years in, the professional networking program has more than 100 members and is expanding to other cities.
“I wanted to create an intentional community of people coming together, building each other up and doing business with one another,” Speed said.
Speed is a licensed minister who attended seminary, but he always aspired to work in business. In college, he was told that once someone enters ministry, they can’t do anything else, and that business was secular.
Although he loved his minor in biblical language studies, Speed said he felt an internal resistance to pastoring full time. The feeling that using his talents outside the church was wrong caused years of personal conflict, he said.
Eventually, Speed moved into real estate and then sales, where he has worked for 30 years.
In 2018, Speed joined a local chapter of Business Network International (BNI), the world’s largest business networking organization. He served as chapter president and became BNI’s first Black regional director.
“I was traveling, teaching all throughout the state of Minnesota. I spoke at the convention, but one of the things that disappointed me was that there were not many Black people,” Speed said. “And every time I went to Black [networking] spaces, there was no intentionality.”
Speed recalled a conversation 25 years ago with his bookkeeper, who questioned the value of social Black networking events and invited him to a 7:30 a.m. business meeting. That early-morning meeting introduced Speed to an effective networking model, but when he tried to bring those structured concepts to Black peers, he said, he met resistance.
Speed attributed part of that pushback to the lasting impact of systemic racism, which he said leads people to see each other as inferior. He noted that Black business owners are often judged more harshly for single mistakes than their white counterparts, a mindset he is working to undo within B3.
On Sept. 11, Speed released his first book, “The Transformation Code: 5 Keys to Transforming Your Life and Impacting the World.” He said the book grew out of one of the lowest periods of his life, before he launched B3 and his nonprofit, The Better Black Business Initiative (B3I), which offers training to help Black youth, next-generation allies and justice-impacted people become entrepreneurs.
“I was severely overweight. I was going through my third divorce, and life just didn’t look good,” Speed said. “I wanted to know, how do I actually change from where I am to where I want to go? And on that journey, I discovered these clues that seemed to keep coming out over and over again as I studied and read, and that’s where I came up with the transformation code.”
The concepts central to B3 run throughout the book, particularly the emphasis on building relationships over transactional pitching. Speed defines networking as “the intentional pursuit of impactful relationships,” which moves members away from simply trading business cards and sales pitches.
Another core tenet of both B3 and the book is service. Speed considers service essential to personal transformation and calls it “the elixir that changes everything.” B3’s primary founding principle is serving over selling.
“So before we sell each other, we serve one another. We support one another,” Speed said. “When you start with serving, it literally changes the whole dynamic of your relationship. It changes the whole dynamic of your business, because you’re going out intentionally seeking those you can help and serve. And from there, you find people who want to reciprocate that.”
Speed said long-term business success requires genuine investment and sacrifice.
“Community without commerce is nice, but it’s broke,” he said. “And commerce without community is transactional. We don’t want either one of those.”
That commitment to mutual support has paid off. B3 members have passed millions of dollars in referral business to one another, according to Speed.
For founders and business leaders, Speed said personal growth directly affects business sustainability. Reflecting on his own past struggles with burnout, he stressed the importance of maintaining mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well-being.
When it comes to growth, Speed measures success by depth of connection rather than membership numbers. B3 reached about 150 members at its peak, he said, and some former members became so busy with new business from referrals that they stepped back.
As B3 expands virtually into markets like Atlanta ahead of in-person launches, Speed advises entrepreneurs to stay anchored in their core purpose.
“Get locked into that why … and then once you do that, it will resonate with people, and you’ll attract people that will want to help you and support you and build you up,” he said.
Damenica Ellis welcomes reader responses at dellis@spokesman-recorder.com.