Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alicia Hemphill. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alicia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea for my business Ebonyopoly “The Reconstruction Era” began during a time of uncertainty for Americans. The George Floyd murder by a police officer was viewed on television and Black families were in turmoil. I was greatly concerned about our community and I along with my partners had a desire to help build black families and capture our rich history. We believed that the strength and dignity of our people during the most difficult times in American History contained secrets of our future generations success.

The concept was formed as three ideas were shared among friends. I was actually filming a video for my personal coaching business, Beyond the Limitations when my photographer and now business partner shared his idea for a Monopoly based board game to illustrate the challenges of Generational wealth building for black Americans. I was intrigued. The company was formed when I asked a single question. . . “How much is the game”? It was just a concept at that point and there were no plans to bring that creative idea to the market. Appalled, I insisted that we form a company to create a game that would be interactive and help families learn history in a fun, new way.

Within a few weeks, we formed a company and registered it with the state and IRS. Every week, we decided the segments of society that Black American’s contributed during Reconstruction: Politics, Business, Real-Estate, Banking, Education and Sports. Our team researched important properties and decided the lay out of the game. It was important for our research team to understand if we infringed on existing patents or trademarks and for us to design the game outside of any restrictions.

Our unique approach to sharing the history with players is the QR code we added to the property cards. When scanned with a phone camera the link displays a brief history and significance of that property. Since the inception of the game, we have traveled to those locations and interviewed historians, 6th generation survivors and other notable figures to add a rich context to learning history while having fun!

Next, we used real-life examples of Black American experiences during the era and captured those on the Chess and Chance Cards. Finally, we worked with a designer to incorporate images and to design the cover and board. Within 2 months we had designed and sent the game to be manufactured.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a medical device consultant who has worked for 30+ years in the medical device industry. As a minority, I encountered many difficulties in my professional career to advance up the corporate ladder. Despite the setbacks, roadblocks and obstacles I remained optimistic and became highly strategic to excel in my career. My greatest asset is my desire to share my life lessons and over the years I helped my clients with the same success strategies that helped me become a VP of a consulting company.

As a highly regarded professional coach, I became known for my transformative approach and unwavering commitment to her clients’ growth and success. I have learned that every lesson we learn and every achievement is a skill that transcends across the entire spectrum of our life. To be truly successful means to translate passion, discipline, vision, empathy, faith and a win-win attitude personally, professionally and in our business dealings.

I believe in mastering skillsets and developing a mindset of abundance that has enabled me to become an author, a game developer, a television producer & host, a leader in my company and in ministry. My passion is to help others find and develop their unique attributes for their own area of influence.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My greatest story of resilience was one of the first jobs I held early in my career. I was one of 4 women who were hired to a technical group within a company. I was to train engineers to repair our products at customer accounts. Unfortunately, at the same time I was going through a divorce and custody battle. Learning a new job or skill can be difficult without having personal problems at the same time.

My manager made it his mission to ensure my failure at my new job instead of fostering my success. The typical training period was 1-year during which time new hires were to learn how to conduct in house training for the repair reps. I was told to teach this class with less than 4 months training. As expected, my scores were horrible and I was soon put on a performance improvement plan. Although, I knew that my situation was unjust, I was also the sole breadwinner for myself and 2 daughters who needed stability. They became the strength to stay the course and use every opportunity and resource available to learn how to train. Within 5 months, I re-taught the class and achieved the highest reviews. My position was secured and I continued to excel within that company.  I learned the value of perseverance in the face of difficulties which has been foundational for my career development.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Ebonyopoly has leveraged social media to bring brand recognition for over 1 million people over the last 2 1/2 years. To build our brand we post and create content around our 3 key passions: building the family, fostering financial acumen and sharing our history. Every post is connected to one of those three purposes behind creating the boardgame Ebonyopoly.

We have learned to capture our customers excited about a product that represents them and represents them well. We try to bring untold stories to life through our posts. A key success is we want to educate and bring our customers along with us on our journey. We are all in this together to preserve our history.

One of our most successful campaigns have been the Ebonyopoly Road Trip. Through Lives, videos and stories we bring our customers along with us as we visit the property pieces on the board. We love giving unknown historians a voice and our customers really respond to those campaigns.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ebonyopoly.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ebonyopoly/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ebonyopoly

Image Credits
Photo by Cheryl Gilbert Photography