Exploring winning strategies: upcoming conference helps take your business to the next level.

For close to 35 years, Earl G. Graves Sr. and his dedicated team at BLACK ENTERPRISE have served as a valuable source of business news and information for both aspiring entrepreneurs and veteran professionals. We've made it our obligation to provide black-owned companies with strategic financial, business, and industrial information in an effort to help them move forward. It's important that today's entrepreneurs discover the hidden opportunities in this economic environment. These opportunities will help create business success and financial wealth.

At next month's Black Enterprise/General Motors Entrepreneurs Conference, we will offer the nation's growing minority-owned businesses the tools necessary to be successful and maintain profitability. We have long believed that minority-owned firms are our nation's most hidden asset, critical to the economic vitality of our country as a whole. In this world, small-business owners and operators face unique challenges. To help get them through, our annual Entrepreneurs Conference promises to have sessions and workshops that specifically help level the playing field. We want African Americans and other ethnic businesses to have the same opportunities mainstream businesses have.

As we help today's businesses think beyond their natural boundaries, we must. challenge minority business owners to think larger--even worldwide. General Motors and BE have already shown their support for our country's efforts to create an environment that fosters black entrepreneurial growth. Despite certain social, political, and economic issues inherent to America, this is still an excellent place to start a business. By actively participating in our conferences, entrepreneurs raise their chances of succeeding.

During the many events scheduled over a four-day period, participants will hear from a diverse group of speakers handling a variety of topics that we believe will assist them in maximizing their competitiveness in the economic mainstream. As the new title sponsor of the Entrepreneurs Conference, General Motors has also shown its commitment and willingness to create new opportunities and to provide new sources of information crucial to African American businesses. So whether you run a financial services company, a construction company, or a small retail company, the Black Enterprise/General Motors Entrepreneurs Conference can help your business succeed and prosper this year. If you are an entrepreneur of color or a professional of color, let our Entrepreneurs Conference guide you through some of the challenges you might face as you take yore business or career to the next level.