Black Entrepreneur Book Club: The Making of a Black Millionaire by C. Sunny Martin
Gems from one of Columbus' most storied Black Business Owners
Strategy as a practice involves asking the right questions and gathering the right intel to produce results for businesses and brands. As a result, great strategists are voracious learners, constantly seeking out the next “aha” moment that will illuminate opportunities for brands and shape a future of growth.
One of my favorite ways to learn and grow is by delving into a good book. With pages filled to the brim with enlightening context, stories, and facts, every strategist should be equipped with books that inform their directions when providing direction for brands.
The Making of a Black Millionaire, the subject of my first Black Entrepreneur Book Club series, is the story of serial entrepreneur C. Sunny Martin’s journey to acting upon his many brilliant ideas throughout his decades in business, what it means to bet big on Black excellence, and resourcefulness in the face of uncertainty as he wades the opaque waters of entrepreneurship.
In this book club series, I aim to share learnings and reflections from entrepreneurship books made for business owners as we face the challenges and thrills of growing businesses. One of my core values as an entrepreneur is that small business owners (especially those from Black and minority backgrounds) deserve to know the secret success strategies of large corporations to make people care about their businesses! Every large corporation started as an idea and those ideas can be found in the pages of the books I’m perusing as I hope to grow my businesses and yours.
Sharing the wealth of other experienced business owners is one of the ways we can lift as we climb and grow our businesses together, so I hope this encourages you to share what you’re learning along the way!
Born and raised in the Arch City, it wasn’t always obvious to C. Sunny Martin that his life would lead him on a path of entrepreneurship. In fact, if you asked him when he was growing up what he aspired toward, you’d be more likely to hear him discussing his dreams of playing college football for The Ohio State University than you would be having a publishing empire.
What became clear to Martin was that his athletic prowess imparted a strong work ethic in him– the diligence and determination to be collaborative and creative in the face of mounting adversity would be what set him apart from the masses. While injury kept him from pursuing his dreams as a football star, his community rallied around him to ensure he was able to embark upon a collegiate crusade at what became Ohio Dominican University.
Although motivated to graduate, he dropped out during his junior year after being told he was placed on academic suspension. His resourcefulness shone through in his early career when he was a journalist for the local news station and a radio DJ. He pursued these communications-oriented paths with the knowledge his early degree studies gave him but soon grew tired of being undervalued and forced to push negative news about the Black community in Columbus.
The need for positive news depicting the Black community set him on a career-long journey that would eventually lead him to become the Founder and Former CEO of Who’s Who Publishing Company– the imprint that would publish 65+ books over thirty years, many of which focused on notable figures in Black metropolitan areas. He currently publishes Mahogany Columbus, the city’s Urban Lifestyle Magazine.
Ever the innovator, he read books about self-publishing as he was years into writing the first Who’s Who publication and stumbled upon a tidbit from Dan Poynter in “The Self-Publishing Manual” that talked about selling books at full retail value at events and creating meaningful experiences for those that seek to purchase your book. That’s right– Martin was aboard the direct-to-consumer train decades before it became the go-to strategy for thriving online business behemoths including Glossier, Casper, and Harry’s. But instead of being able to rely on the internet to spread the word about his books, he created the Atlanta Black Professionals Network and fostered meaningful relationships between supporters of his publications and the notable featured individuals within the pages.
C. Sunny Martin adeptly weaves the epiphanies of his many entrepreneurial endeavors with smart lessons for any business owner. His championship of Black leaders across the country through his publishing empire, networking events and mixers, and business coaching and mentorship serve as a guiding force for businesses large and small.