You’ve just joined the #1 community for experts who want to land five- and six-figure corporate contracts and scale their businesses strategically. Here at SPEAK Your Way To Cash®, we’ve built a reputation for excellence: we’re the 14th fastest-growing privately held company in Georgia and ranked 370th in the U.S. We don’t just teach sales—we create transformations. I’m Ashley Kirkwood, founder and CEO of SPEAK Your Way To Cash®. I left a $300,000 partner-track attorney job to build my own law firm and SPEAK Your Way To Cash®! Since then, I’ve personally closed five- and six-figure contracts with corporations and helped countless others do the same. If you’re here, it’s because you’re ready to take action and build a thriving business by selling your expertise at the highest level. This community isn’t just a group—it’s a movement of experts ready to unlock their full potential. We’re here to share strategies, celebrate wins, and challenge each other to scale bigger and faster than ever before. 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘: To unlock the best this community has to offer, complete these three steps in the next 7 days (and within 30 days, you must reach Level 2 to stay active—this is a space for action-takers): 1️⃣ Introduce yourself: Drop your introduction below! Share who you are, what you do, and what your goals are. 2️⃣ Engage with 5 other members: Comment, ask questions, or show support. Building connections is key. 3️⃣ Make a post: Share a quick win, a challenge, or a question to spark conversation. 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒: This isn’t a spectator sport. The most successful members are the ones who show up, connect, and contribute. This community thrives when YOU show up boldly. 🔥 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒: • 𝐍𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠: Keep the focus on collaboration, not self-promotion. • 𝐁𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐟𝐮𝐥: We’re here to build each other up. • 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲: This is a space for doers—not passive scrollers. When you’ve completed your first steps, keep the momentum going by:

Cities led by Black women are literally being threatened with federal takeover on live TV. And somewhere, Lillian Harris Payne is looking down on us like, “We’ve seen this movie before.” Welcome to Day 26 of Deleted History — the women they prayed you would never learn about. Right now, Trump is: ➤ Telling a Black woman mayor he can “take over” her city and run it himself ➤ Trying to strip Black women of control over their own police departments ➤ Floating federal crackdowns in Black‑led cities as if our leadership is the problem It looks new because the cameras are better. The playbook is not. Lillian Harris Payne lived through an earlier version of this in Richmond: No one handed her a title meant to be seen. So she went after the levers instead. She started as a teacher. That paycheck was step one. Through Black women’s clubs, she connected with Maggie Lena Walker and stepped into the Independent Order of St. Luke — right as it shifted from a small benevolent society into a financial powerhouse for Black Richmond. Lillian became the woman in the back room who quietly ran things. ➤ She steered mortgages and loans so Black families in Jackson Ward could buy homes. ➤ In media, she rose from proofreader to managing editor of the St. Luke Herald, shaping what Black Richmond read each week about money and power. ➤ In culture, she wrote plays and organized pageants that built pride and funded community work. Bank. Newspaper. Stage. Not three random gigs — one integrated power system. And here’s the part that should hit every Black woman leader watching this administration test your limits: They can undermine your title. They can insult your competence. They can threaten to “take over” your city. It is much harder to take over: ➤ A bank that you helped build ➤ A narrative ecosystem you edit ➤ A community that runs on the systems you designed Lillian’s life is the contrarian truth: The real power isn’t just in the mic or the mayor’s seat. It’s in the systems that decide who gets money, what stories get told, and which visions get resourced.

Hollywood is fighting over whether “Black Wall Street” should be a movie. Loula Williams built the theater. While studios debate how to package Tulsa for streaming, I’m thinking about the Black woman who ran one of its brightest screens before the massacre ever made headlines. Welcome to Day 25 of Deleted History — 28 Black women millionaires and leaders they prayed you would never Google. Her name was Loula Williams. She didn’t start as a mogul. She started as a teacher. ➤ She kept her day job in Arkansas ➤ Moved with her husband John to Tulsa’s Greenwood district as it was just becoming Black Wall Street ➤ Treated her paycheck like seed money, not a finish line First, they opened Williams Confectionery — a candy shop and soda fountain that turned into Greenwood’s social heart. Then, in 1914, Loula opened Dreamland Theatre — a 750‑seat cinema bringing first‑class entertainment to Black audiences during segregation. Most people stopped at “one successful business.” Loula built infrastructure. ➤ More Dreamland theaters in other Oklahoma towns ➤ A building that housed retail, offices for Black professionals, and her family’s home ➤ Multiple income streams stacked inside one ecosystem Then came 1921. A white mob, backed by local power, burned Greenwood to the ground. Dreamland gone. Confectionery gone. Homes and businesses wiped out. Insurance refused to pay. The city blamed the victims. History tried to skip the Black owners and jump straight to the trauma. But here’s what they rarely show you in the docudramas: Loula rebuilt. Not because the system suddenly grew a conscience. Because her system gave her options. ➤ Revenue from theaters outside Tulsa ➤ Assets beyond one block ➤ A mindset that saw business as community infrastructure, not extra cash Dreamland reopened in 1922. Same woman. New building. Same vision. That’s the part that matters in 2026: Everyone is arguing about representation on screen. Loula’s life asks a harder question:

What’s one area of your business you’re simplifying?

It was homage to our ancestors. As we stood here recording the 2026 Black Women Sell Live commercial, all I could think was: We are making them proud. I couldn’t help but wonder… What would Madam C.J. Walker say about the 2 million+ Black women–owned businesses operating today? What would Maggie Lena Walker say about the $98.3 billion our companies generate? What would she say about the fact that we’ve more than doubled our average annual revenue since the pandemic— even while traditional banks still hesitate to believe in our visions? What would she say about our ability to love each other, collaborate, and support one another— even in a world designed to fracture us? I don’t care what anyone says. Dedicating my life’s work to helping Black women experts rise and dominate their lanes was the best pivot I’ve ever made. Our history is RICH. Our creativity is RICH. Our love is RICH. We are all that and a bag of chips. When I wrote the script for the Black Women Sell Live commercial, I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed actresses to portray Madam C.J. Walker, Maggie Lena Walker, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Ellen Pleasant. I needed a full production team to bring the vision to life. I needed a director who could steward the assignment with excellence. And although I’ve written small commercial scripts before, this one was different. The first draft was 25+ pages… for a 5–10 minute commercial. Too long. But every word mattered. I had to research the figures. I had to build a narrative where the past and present collided. Some of it is fiction. Much of it is historically accurate. So who carried the vision mattered. So who did I call? A Black woman–owned production company. Of course. It’s fitting that a commercial about Black women’s economic power was built by sisters—and supported by strong men who honor that power. It’s fitting that I had to release control and trust other Black women to steward the vision. It’s fitting that this required collaboration, discernment, and trust