We were lucky to catch up with Darryen Richardson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Darryen , appreciate you joining us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

It’s definitely been one of my goals in life to assist people that look like me. I am not just speaking about skin color but also speaking about the ones who drop out of school, never make it to college, don’t fit in specific social groups because of expansion of taste, those who are limited to a specific environment and may have a handful of knowledge but not exactly sure how to apply it or take that to the next level because there is no one else around to set that example.

Darryen , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Darryen Richardson but I go by the nickname “Rich”, I wanted people to begin calling me this at first because I was in the Marine Corps and it was a shortened version of my last name; but as my life began to develop so did my mind and the name “Rich” quickly became an acronym for me. R.I.C.H “Refused Instant Comfortability Heavy” nothing in my life came easy and I had to literally physically, mentally, verbally and financially work for everything I have. The story of my life is very long so I won’t get into the deeper details but I was “homeless” at 16 and taken in by a friends family and eventually that life lead me to joining the Marine Corps, going on deployment, coming out and never working a 9-5 situation again. Creating a handful of businesses from scratch and scaling ALL of them past six-figures.

But the most important part of that process were the goals I set for that. I didn’t just want to do these things for the money, I had been at one of the lowest lows life could offer, as hardcore as the Marine Corps was as well everything was hand me downs from other branches as well so i was used to a lifestyle already of “less is more” my ultimate goal in creating these businesses were how can i affect the people around me? I want them to win at what they want to do more than myself.

So ultimately, this led me to a life of becoming the Master Middle Man and I just find what people need/want and help them secure it and take less than 20 percent.

The businesses are growing and self-sustaining so now it has left me with more time to focus on the brand of ME. Being able to share and tell my story and make things count in my personal life to inspire others that may not receive the opportunities I have going from homeless to self sustained.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

So for one of my companies which is more on the for-front of a service based business you have Range of View Productions; we are a production company based out of South Florida but several contractors across the East Coast currently over 25+ contractors specializing in photography and videography.

How we were able to build a reputable reputation in a market and main state that we were told several times is “over-saturated” is because we provide a certain level of 1. Customization, where we understand that every customers needs are different so pricing isn’t so generic that it can just remain the same. And 2. Customer Service; we take pride in providing essential customer service to all of our clientele making sure we are fulfilling their needs properly even when it involves things they didn’t necessarily ask for or especially if it is something they generally wouldn’t know to ask for considering that’s why we are here. We are the professionals.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I started my journey to entrepreneurship in Multi-Level Marketing where I was a young kid trying to basically be a salesman; sell all these products and services stating how it could be life changing and etc. meanwhile the whole time I really wasn’t making much money if any at all!

The amount of no’s, being told off, hung up on, in extreme cases death threats I would receive made me really look at things like wow maybe “self-employment” isn’t for me. But all of those denials, all of those no’s have literally changed my mindset and level of the consistency to the thought process of just keep going, because eventually maybe not in the same field but in the field of my life and experience they all turned into a yes.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mastermindrich
• Facebook: Darryen Richardson
• Twitter: @mastermindrichh

Image Credits
Me