Beyond Horizons: Sheila Eldridge's Media Evolution

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And that's a.

Good lesson in that you have to put yourself in environments that are outside of your sphere of business. So I started going to more conferences in corporate you know, advertising and marketing conferences, more diversity conferences. I started going to Chicago where the black ad agencies were, so I kind of brought my scope because I knew I wanted to, you know, broaden our services as a business. So we really that was and then the industry was growing the Internet.

It just really took off for us in that area.

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Hey money Movers, welcome back.

Today we continue our conversation with the driving force behind Miles Ahead Entertainment and Broadcasting, Sheila Eldred.

Okay, let's talk about this. Is this where Orchid Communications was born?

Oh no, Orchid Communications was the first my first business. That was a PR business. Okay, that was my first business.

Wow, where'd you find that?

Okay?

Are we find everythin? We go deep into the crates?

That was deep in the crate.

All of us started Orchid Communications when I had just moved to California straight out of Howard and I was doing PR and you know, I just thought I want it.

Meant I wanted people to know it was owned by a woman. So what man is going to name their company orchid?

Right?

And so uh, that's how it got the name, but it really did stick. And then as the business changed. And then, mind you, when I started my business, there was no internet, So you talk about OG.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I lived through that time. I was right there on the cusp of it.

But yeah, wow, So you had to have offices in LA in Chicago and New York, in Atlanta, you know, in DC you had to have these brick and mortar offices and so so the technology was changing and people had associated the business very much with just PR and I knew I wanted to expand I could do, we could do more than that. And I was slowly moving into broadcast and marketing as the industry.

And the markets were growing.

And so that's how Orchid Communications morphed into Miles Ahead Entertainment and Broadcast. I am a huge Miles Davis fan, so I said, Miles Ahead. Yeah, we're on the cusp of new technology and the Internet.

It just came.

So I used that as a theme for the business and services that we could all wow, And that's really how Miles Ahead became Orchid became Miles Ahead Entertainment and Broadcasting.

Oh I love this, but an interesting trajectory and actually just that incredible time period of like seeing the Internet being ushered in and you know, money morrors out there don't remember this. I exactly remember dial up going from encyclopedias in the library to how the Internet changed. How I mean, I'm right there with you, and I think it's interesting times right now. We see new technologies from AI to you know, blockchain coming in. So pay attention

But what was in the in between.

Well, what was in between when we morphed into miles hit entertainment before broadcasting came about. My goal there and focus was, Okay, you come from the entertainment industry, you know radio, you've been you know, people in the entertainment side, and a lot of corporate America at that time was just beginning.

To use music artists and celebrities.

In their campaigns and that was kind of the beginning stages of hip hop. So I said, well, what if we become the go to agency that can align your brand with artists, speakers, or personalities that speak to in the same audience. And no one was kind of in that space because a lot of people hadn't come out of.

The entertainment industry.

My background was in the entertainment industry and radio and you know, in the music industry. And so my first client was Coca Cola and we did a campaign for Sprite.

With Curtis Blow.

Oh god, I remember that one and just it was Curtis Blow, I think, Dougie Fresh and a couple of other artists when Sprite was beginning to play around in the hip.

Hop and that was one of my first projects.

And then we did some work for Ford, so you know, then we did McDonald's. McDonald's was in getting to move into the faith based and gospel market and so you know, those execs, they didn't know the industry. So if we were there, then you know, we became the go to agency for that. And that's a good lesson in that you have to put yourself in environments that are outside of your sphere of business. So I started going to more conferences in corporate you know, advertising and marketing conferences,

Okay, I want to talk about buying stations because this is a mix of you know, building a network, fundraising, trying to figure out where to buy a station, and radio was popping at this time. So how did you know, like, how did you narrow down to Augusta? How did you know what markets to go into?

Well, first of all, you have to two things, find a deal and she and her son gave me a great deal.

That was first and foremost.

And second of all, you've got to look at a market where the business at that time, the stations were underperforming, and they were underperforming because they owned stations in Atlanta, in Charlotte, in Washington, d C.

In big markets. So for them, Augusta was.

Too small for them to keep their eye on, you know. And for me, it was big and it was perfect because it was underperforming, but it had the potential. And so when I got there, they had like thirty employees.

I cut that down to nineteen, you know.

Because I knew we could do it for less because I had an eye on it and I was in the market.

That's the other thing.

You can't purchase something that you are not there in the market to really dissect what your product is and figure out what's the best way to market it and to go to the market. So that's really how we began to grow. But I made a big mistake.

Oh I love the big mistakes. Oh I hate that they happened, but we learned from them. That's not what a mistake is.

For I guess it was always say, maybe a mistake is just a next step to where you want to go. I thought that Augusta was just like a small version of Atlanta. The mindset and the people and the progressiveness.

You know, it is not, it is not, it is not, it is not.

You know, there's some places that are open to the new, then the other places that are kind of rooted in what he is and don't necessarily embrace a new technology or embrace new and so Augusta was you know, the biggest thing that happens in Augusta, I say.

Is are the masters? Okay, I mean, yeah, that's about it.

Let's let's be frank. It is the South. Yeah, you know, Atlanta was is still is a mecand we saw this with our elections politics and Georgia. Augusta is a different place. So and what year was this.

That you were Oh that was fifteen, that was fifteen, twenty fifteen.

Yeah, so that's definitely not the same. So knowing your market is certainly.

Knowing your market.

I mean, I did my due diligence, but there are just some things that you you don't know, you know, you just don't know. I was fortunate in that I was a good money manager. I learned that your biggest asset is always in business. The people that work with you, your team. I made sure that I had a team around me and in my business. Now that there, I say, these young people are smarter than I am. You know, you have to have a great team. And so we got through it and I ended up selling those stations

I need to.

Create content where my landscape can be the world, not just one market.

Oh fascinating.

And had I not gone to Augusta, I never would have moved into the syndication business. And so that is so, you know, it was a tough I'm not going to see it was a mistake. It was a learning experience. Let's put it there.

I'd like to say exactly.

It was a learning experience and on the outside, you you know, were able to make a sale out of it.

And move on to the next day. And this is I think something is so interesting about your journey. You continue to pivot and evolve.

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