Yardstick Management

Yardstick Management is America’s Leading Black-owned management consulting firm. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, we provide strategic solutions to mission-driven organizations. We are intentionally diverse because it’s in our DNA. We transform the narrative for underrepresented people all around the globe — it has always been an access gap, not an ability gap.

Did Yardstick Management face any business challenges in 2020 and 2021 (especially due to COVID)? What was the impact?

2020 was the most roller coaster year I could have ever imagined. Spring 2020, when COVID first happened, was terrifying — we didn’t know what was going to happen with our business. We lost a significant amount of revenue and there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty.

But in May, in the midst of racial unrest, our business skyrocketed. We have always believed in the caliber of underrepresented talent but in order to maintain our growth, we need the capital to pay people. To do that, we need to collect on our invoices but when they’re net-60 terms or more, that makes things challenging.

What attracted you to the Facebook Receivables program?

The terms are incredible. I immediately signed up for Facebook’s program to support minorities because just charging us 0.5% is unreal. An invoice of $100,000 might take four months to receive but using the Crowdz platform, it only takes a week for just $500.

Most lenders will offer 3% if you’re lucky, but many are charging 5% of the total. That’s $50,000 on $1m worth of revenue, which is going to hurt. But, now, I can get $1m in a week for just $5,000. This gives us an unbelievable advantage and enables us to serve the large fortune 100 companies that we work with.

I’m just extremely grateful to Facebook for being a leader and taking a step forward to advance the work of minority-owned businesses.