Text 4 Against All Odds: Barbara Proctor, Millionaire

“The spirit of enterprise is sparked by small business people with big ideas- people like Barbara Proctor, who rose from a ghetto to build a multimillion dollar agency in Chicago.” Thus did President Ronald Reagan describe Barbara Proctor in his 1984 State of the Union Address. Proctor& Gardner is on of the leading advertising agencies in the US. It specializes in the black consumer market and handles more than US$ 12 million in business annually. How did a black woman lift herself out of poverty to excel in a career dominated by men?

Barbara Proctor was born in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1932. Her parents never married, and Barbara was left in the care of her grandmother. “If there ever was a guiding force in my life it was my grandmother”, Barbara explained. “She is the one who taught me to accept your circumstances because it is only by accepting them that you can deal with them.” Barbara lived with her grandmother in a shack that had no water and no electricity. Her grandmother, who worked as a maid, was determined to see Barbara achieve her goal in life.

With the help of a scholarship and savings from summer jobs, Barbara graduated from Talladega College in Alabama. But success did not come easy. After a short career in the record business, Barbara worked for several advertising agencies in Chicago. The highest position she reached was copy supervisor. She was fired from that job when she refused to write a television commercial she considered offensive to blacks.

She had her own ideas about running an advertising agency. In 1970 she received an US$80,000 loan from the Small Business Administration that enabled her to open her own company. She called her agency Proctor & Gardner because, she explained, “clients assumed a Mr. Gardner was sitting back there manning the shop with everything under control”. There was, of course, no Mr. Gardner.

Starting from a few employees and working out of an office above a pizza store, Barbara worked incessantly to achieve her goals. Her single-mindedness combined with her enormous creative abilities to guarantee her success. She signed up large companies interested in advertising aimed at blacks. Before long her staff grew to 30 employees, and her clients included Sears, Roebuck&Co., Alberto-Culver Company and Kraft Foods.

Today she is considered one of America’s outstanding businesswomen. Her innovative marketing and creative concepts have been widely recognized. Her awards include Achievement in the Business World of Black Women, Women’s Day Advertising Merit Award, and Dynamic Woman of the Year. United Airlines Magazine called her “one of the most courageous people in the ad business, who is constantly tackling new challenges.”

Assignments to text 5:

1. Assess potential of M.Twain for entrepreneurship.

2. What struck your most in this story?

3. Read the first sentence and say if you agree that Mark Twain’s example should be avoided. Why?

4. Would you like to have M.Twain as your business partner?

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