We recently connected with Richard Dillard and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Richard thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?

My failures is where all the gold is buried. Often successful entrepreneurs tend to not mention the failures because negative social exposure and criticism is a lot to take on. However if you were to ask a entrepreneur who took the stairs opposed to the elevator , you’ll find his journey is filled with failures and disappointments. I’m not an exception to the rule. Honestly I seldom enter in business agreements with business men and women who haven’t experienced a high level of failures in the past. My personal story is I went from homeless to 7 figures within 7 years. I started my first financially successful business while sleeping in my car to eventually into 100 sqft office space that served as my professional office during the day to my housing at night. I’d shower and groom myself at a local LA Fitnesses until I was able to afford actual housing. I learned a lot about myself during those trying times. I learned through the experience the type of business man /entrepreneur I was. I was built to withstand adversity and still provide quality service and uphold a level character and integrity that accompanies in my life; still til this very moment. I’m proud to have experienced the challenge and to have catapult myself into established position using the tools I took with me from the journey.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Again I’m a serial entrepreneur. Which means I create businesses as a means of living. I have more failures than success. However, I’ve won on high levels which has ultimately out preformed all my losses combined. I use real estate as a core component to my business strategy. Over the course of the last 15 yrs I’ve acquired residential and commercial real estate properties in key strategic areas. Once I identify a suitable property I negotiate and create means to finance the acquisition. However during the initial vetting of the property, I determine the best use scenarios based on key components and location of the property. Once I’ve determined how to best monetize the property I took legal possession via title of the property and open a business in inside the space and work the business model til profitable. My most resent acquisition is a wonderful piece of commercial property located within 5 min of the busiest airport in the world and walking distance from the largest production studio in the country. Being centrally located between the two and discovering a need for an upscale nightlife experience I opened The Rich & Pour Opulence Lounge. The Rich & Pour is not a restaurant but it’s a artfully designed lounge which offers a dining experience. We offer three main pillars for our guest experience. First we have “Rotating Plates” which periodically we bring in celebrity chefs to curate a unique dining experience for our guest during a contract period. Next we have “The Rich Experience” Thursday we have a dynamic live jam session. Musicians and vocalists across the metro area and the country come to grace our stage and perform covers and original material across diverse genres of music. Lastly is our “ Dark Spirits” we are the very first lounge to focus on hand crafted signature cocktails using only Black owned liquor brands and spirits-celebrating the hues “dark” of the spirit (liquor) brands we carry on our shelves. We have successfully continued to find new and creative ways to expand our brand through great partnerships and relationships with other movers and shakers across the metro area and abroad.

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

Maya Angelo said : A person will tell you who they’re you need to believe them. I’m a firm believer in that statement. I also believe how you do things sometimes is how you do things all the time. Thus if you pride yourself on being honest in business. Be honest in business at all times not merely when it benefits you to be honest. I walk in every scenario with high character as a man. I present myself honorable and trustworthy in business because that’s my personal mantra as a Man. I hold myself to that standard daily. Thus when I entered into this business sector, I made it a point to establish myself as a stand up business man, who honors his agreements and always does stand up business. It’s helped me establish myself in the community and amongst my peers as quality businessman.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve learned over the course of business career that you’ll grew faster and further if you chose to focus on your ecosystem opposed to simply how to make another dollar. Focusing on growing your ecosystem (the people you employ/those you are responsible for) helps one get out of a selfish me mentality into a progressive we mentality. The we mentality leader finds a faster success route and provides a healthier work experience with staff/employees. That’s a lesson I wish I had rrr er learned earlier in my career.

Contact Info:

• Website: TheRichandPour.com
• Instagram: TheRichandPour
• Facebook: TheRichandPour
• Youtube: TheRichandPour
• Yelp: TheRichandPour