Bright and vivacious finance mogul, Lahteefah Parramore knows a thing or two when it comes to helping others achieve their finance goals in life. When she founded, INQUE Management, she wanted to help people around the world become more aware of they should be moving in their own personal journeys. In her success, she has helped artists and business owners across the nation understand the nitty gritty details when it comes to business deals, documents, and much more. We recently caught up with the finance guru to discuss everything from her start, the global pandemic, and much more!
What inspired the creation of INQUE Management?
That is a great question. One, my mother is a creative. She was a professional ballet/modern/West African dancer and at an early age, she said I always had a natural propensity for business and managing money. When I was in high school, she said that she wanted to take her passion and God-given talent through dance to another level. I helped her establish businesses and helped her build her brand. I was able to diversify her money and revenue stream just based off her talent. I always loved seeing how happy she was when we accomplished her goals. Her focus was always using her talent to give back to the community and children specifically of the community. I saw how it made her happy and in addition, I helped her with her finances. I found that many creatives, influencers, trendsetters, and storytellers love to do their art. They want to wake up and do what they love. They don’t want to focus on the business aspect of it, but they really need people that they can trust have their best interest to handle that part of it. It was a natural transition. From that experience of helping my mother, I went into corporate America and owned my own independent record, ran multi-million-dollar businesses, and through my professional career, I wound up going back to focusing on artists and people in entertainment.
There’s a young lady, Keema Chang – she is a professional makeup artist and hairstylist in entertainment. Her demographic is celebrities. Her and her husband deal with and they have a great working relationship. Keema and I met seven years ago, and she said she needed someone like me to help manage her business and career goals. At the time, I was not really focused so much on entertainers and creatives. I was inspired to create INQUE Management based on the relationship I had with Keema. She reminded me of my mom. She focused on her craft and needed someone to help build the foundation of her business as well as help her grow her business. She inspired me to start INQUE and she said to me, ‘God gave you this gift to speak to creatives and we understand. A lot of times, that doesn’t happen. You really do get entertainers and creatives, so you have to do this.” Originally, my love and experience were hands on in growing my mom’s business at an early age. IT came back around when I met an extremely talented young lady.
With so much experience in the entertainment industry, what would you say is the best lesson you learned along your journey to success?
I would say the best lesson on my journey is the acromion DNA. Documents, numbers, and assets. I’ve had so many great experiences but it all kind of boils down to those three things. From a document’s perspective, you want to ensure that you set up the right company. A lot of times, people start businesses and the paperwork of just starting the business isn’t correct. It’s important to be able to really focus on that and make sure that they are documented appropriately in a document. An attorney once told me if you don’t like what the document says, you don’t have to sign it. Scribble it out and put what you want. I needed an attorney to tell me that my voice mattered. A lot of times in business, people are hesitant to speak their truth or outline what their wants are. You need to do it and that’s why documenting is so important. I say numbers because at the end of the day, numbers don’t lie. It can be manipulated, but they never lie. That’s one of the key things that needs to be measured when it comes to your financial success. People that don’t understand the numbers of their life find it hard to achieve the goals that they want. I say assets because you want to accumulate that. It can be spiritually, emotionally, or physically. You want the assets in your life that make you feel good. It should excite you when you wake up in the morning. I always say DNA is the summarization of all my lessons.
How have you had to shift in your career during this time of the ongoing pandemic?
I really haven’t had to shift my career during the pandemic. Things have been going very well from a career perspective. I would say that I’ve had to help clients refocus and re-strategize during this time. As you can imagine, in entertainment, production isn’t still ramped up as it was pre-pandemic. It took me and my team to help them focus on other ways for them to generate revenue.
What are you currently working on and what can we expect to see from you in 2021?
My firm merged with Prager Metis CPAs LLC and I’m proud and excited to be working with the number one management firm in the world. That is something we’re transitioning through there, which is exciting. I joke with my assistant that you can expect the continuation of building a multi-million-dollar enterprise or brand. I have helped clients in the past build their brands so that is something I’m working on for my brand. In specific, I have three e-books that are launching. They focus on the fundamentals of what creatives and people in business need in terms of tools. I’ll continue to strengthen my brand in that space and footprint. I want to empower people to ensure they are getting their money.
For more on Lahteefah Parramore, follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
Featured Image by Robin V
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