We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Malla Haridat. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Malla below.

Malla, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

As a business owner, our mission isn’t just a statement plastered on our website or printed on our products—it’s the heartbeat of my company’s work. My mission is to leverage entrepreneurial growth as a vehicle to bridge generational financial and sustainability gaps for BIPOCs.

It guides every decision we make.

For me, the journey began with a realization—a moment when I saw a gap in the market. There is a ton of information for entrepreneurs. And even BIPOC entrepreneurs.

But there are gaps where you can’t have safe space discussions that combine strategy AND mindset from the point of view of a Black or Brown entrepreneur.

So I wanted a space where it wasn’t just about making profits or achieving success—it’s about creating meaningful change, leaving a lasting legacy, and making the world a better place for future generations. It’s about aligning our business goals with our values, ensuring that every step we take brings us closer to our vision of a brighter, more sustainable future.

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

I am a dynamic leader and seasoned entrepreneurship coach. Focusing on tangible results, I empower individuals and organizations to break through barriers and achieve their goals with precision and efficiency.

Specializing in cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset, I equip my clients with the practical tools and strategies needed to drive profitability and innovation. Whether I am training social and business entrepreneurs how to run successful enterprises that educate, empower, and support; helping under-engaged corporate employees tap into the power of intrapreneurship or the entrepreneurial mindset; or coaching women to become more independent, I catalyze transformation.

My track record speaks for itself, with a client roster that includes industry giants such as Verizon, Ogilvy, the City of New York, and Columbia University. I spent several years in Higher Education and Human Resources developing innovative programs and events that increased outcomes in recruiting.

My clients seek my assistance for two primary reasons: 1) They are hard-working but not achieving the sales that they know they can earn. They are tired of spinning their wheels. 2) They require a creative yet non-judgmental space to brainstorm ideas and innovate. I am excellent at keeping client’s larger vision at the forefront while they test new products, new sales processes, and marketing. It leads to less ambiguity and better long-term outcomes.

I am most proud of the fact that as a first-generation college grad and entrepreneur, my daughter is growing up knowing that she too can leave a legacy for her future by owning her own business.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Everyone has a story from the pandemic, so I’d love to share mine because I hope that it helps other people win in their businesses today.

One of the things that I encourage entrepreneurs to do is to interview their prospective customers. You really have to get under the hood and understand why people buy, what their problems really are, what their pain points are, and how you can help them as an entrepreneur. And a lot of times, we’re too close as entrepreneurs to the solutions; we don’t really understand the problems from our clients’ perspectives.

So when the pandemic started and I found myself with A LOT of time on my hands, I reached out to people.
I quickly found out that my ability to use virtual platforms like Zoom was a BIG deal. It sounds funny now. But if you remember those early days, it wasn’t so common. I remember a few calls where people had me book events on the first call because they were so excited that they found someone who understood the challenges and nuances of virtual learning environments.

Be clear. When the pandemic happened, I lost A LOT of my annual business. Most of my clients immediately canceled their contracts and/or did not return my calls – even though I was anticipating having a solid year of opportunities.

I will be forever grateful for having that skill of interviewing prospects and really listening. I mean DEEP listening.

It’s one of those things that I think our society glosses over, but it’s such a powerful skill… and can be really a key to your business growth. So I encourage others to use it. It literally turned into new client opportunities and contracts for my business. And I hope that this encourages others.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

As someone who has run a service business for years, I have an endless list of suggestions. From marketing to tech to legal, the list is long. LOL

However, if I had to focus on one area, I would probably recommend that people look at creating a sales plan. I think it’s one of the areas that’s often not talked about.

I’ll share a story from my own business about how I got started developing awareness around this topic. For many years, my business focused on creating and delivering youth entrepreneurship programs to other businesses – groups like conferences, nonprofits, and schools. Anyone who had the desire to empower their youth with life skills like financial literacy, negotiation, personal branding, etc.

I was really good at delivering my services, hiring team members, coming up with new ideas for the students, and creating a curriculum.

But I would run into this problem every year – there were only so many conferences that I could attend at one time. I always maxed out on clients.

But I would have these huge gaps where I couldn’t work with clients – i.e., too cold/winter/holidays.

That roller coaster of ‘feast and famine’ cash flow was a nightmare in my business. I couldn’t outwork the gaps, and there wasn’t anything that I could do to supplement the growth.

At one point, I remember wanting to completely give up. But thank goodness I just started doing what I was teaching the young folks and documenting everything. I started with things like:

Tracking the number of proposals that I sent.
Recording the number of meetings and coffee dates that I had.
Writing down the follow-up processes – did I even follow up after 1 or 2 calls?
How much was I spending on marketing? And what exactly was I doing?

It was wild.

I started seeing patterns. Patterns that I couldn’t see when I was looking at my income statements and dealing with taxes.

I know now that I was drilling down in the areas of my business around client acquisition that REALLY turned the dial. Once I started tracking them and testing which ones I could spend more time or less time on, I realized that I had the formula for how to really GROW my business. It’s not enough sometimes to spend more money.

You have to figure out exactly HOW your business can grow. Too many of us are caught up in the day-to-day. But if you spend some time reviewing the metrics that matter to your business – you can say, I want to earn X amount of money, and reverse engineer a plan that gets you there.

Or at least pretty darn close.

I started sharing this advice informally with people attending my speaking events. And then I realized that I could make a bigger impact with the women and BIPOC groups that I was speaking to – no one was sharing these insights. It was all about ‘well sales just happen’. And I knew that we could find a way to leverage our specific strengths and gain more wins in our business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mallaharidat.com/free-trainings/
• Instagram: @mharidat
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallaharidat/
• Twitter: @mallaharidat