Fearless Entertainment hosts urban and contemporary gospel shows aimed at reaching a wide audience. We aim to showcase nationally distributed, and local, artists who are as good or better than what is played on the radio and most video shows. We plan to present this music and artistry in a 1st-class concert experience with banging music that glorifies God. We look forward to seeing you at one of our events.

*Tell a little bit about yourself and what you do ?

Fearless Entertainment is a promotions company that hosts urban & contemporary gospel shows aimed at reaching a wide audience. Our goal is to encourage people to change their musical influences through hosting hot, banging shows, through being a continual resource for highlighting good new music, and by offering workshops to give details on the importance of managing musical influences given it’s potential impact on our day-to-day lives.

Our desire is to not only to have outreach to those who don’t know Christ through music but also provide “in-reach” to those in the church as there are a lot of people who serve God on Sundays but listen to music with ungodly lyrics Monday through Saturday for their entertainment. We believe that there is a lot of good music that is entertaining and edifying at the same time such that people in the church can remove those negative musical influences from their lives and still enjoy their music Monday through Saturday.

We talk about musical influence as we believe that all music affects us one way or another. It affects some people more and some less. Uptempo music might influence us to get into our workout routine while slow music might influence us to want to dance with our significant other. We believe that the more people at-large listen to music with edifying and Godly lyrics, their influences will be better and their ability to live for God becomes easier, particularly for teens and young adults.

* What ignited the spark in you to start a new business venture or to make significant changes in an existing business?

The team of us who make up Fearless Entertainment (Dante Crockett, Mike Gordon) decided to start the business in order to reach more people, particularly teens and young adults, through music. We have seen how the quality of urban & contemporary gospel music has improved in recent years and we are trying to grow the audience for this music, through improved marketing and promotion of the artists and events.

We believe that the more people hear high-quality urban & contemporary gospel music, that the acceptance of the genre will increase and more people will have edifying Godly musical influences. We want to be part of the solution in providing the Godly standard to popular ungodly mainstream music.

* How did the idea for your business come about?

We have helped plan and promote events for churches and other production companies along with providing financial support for a few years. The business idea came from our experiences behind-the-scenes and feeling we could help advance the reach of this genre of music in more of a leadership capacity as opposed to only in a support capacity. We will continue to support other organizations as time allows but that support is now in addition to events and initiatives that we will lead ourselves.

* What three pieces of advice would you give to other Christians who want to become entrepreneurs?

1) Serve others first. The Word says that a man will reap what he sows. We believe that anyone looking to have God’s success in business should sow time, money, and/or resources into others whether through business partnerships or just as support to another organization.

2) Be open to constructive feedback as you develop and maintain your business. It can be a challenge to lead a project and not feel like constructive feedback is someone talking about “your baby.” Having a mindset to listen to constructive feedback with a willingness to implement changes in your plan that will be fruitful will help maintain support for your business and likely help your business results.

3) Partner with other Christians to make your business more effective. It is hard for organizations that aren’t churches to be full service. We recommend partnering with organizations that provide complementary services and resources so together you can accomplish more than working individually.

* What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

1) Strong planning skills. We believe that someone who can understand their field of business and develop a good plan based on available market data has the opportunity to become a successful entrepreneur.

2) Flexibility based on the market. We believe that successful entrepreneurs need to remain knowledgeable on the market and understand if they need to update their operating practices to maintain business success.

3) Willingness to take calculated risks. When starting your own project, there are always risks that may not pay back financially. A willingness to take calculated risk without fear is key to pursue initiatives to grow the business. The entrepreneur should also seek wisdom to discern when a risk is too great to take also.

* How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?

Between us, we have full-time jobs, wives, children, educational pursuits, etc. Our wives are involved in our efforts as much as their schedules allow, our children(all 6 and under) are growing up as gospel music fans and take as much interest as they can so Fearless Entertainment is something fun that is integrated into our family lives. As an anecdote, both our son’s ask for flyers that they keep in their rooms until they loses them and needs another one since, if daddy is passing out flyers, they wants one.

* How do you generate new ideas?

We generate new ideas by doing like:
–hanging out together and talking about different concepts for future events
–observing what other organizations and companies are doing and picking their brain for lessons learned
–seeking input from people not deep into the music but potential future fans

* What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?

We wouldn’t call it a fear as we are Fearless but our greatest challenge is maintaining a break-even budget. Given we all have had consistent employment with jobs we like that allow us to take care of ourselves and families, we aren’t trying to pay bills with funds from Fearless Entertainment. We do want to break even while putting on a great show or turn a profit so we can reinvest the entire profit into future events. Essentially we want to count the costs to have sufficient to finish our work and in this case continue our work in future events.

We have approached the challenge for our April 10 show by seeking multiple partners to help us with ticket sales which is a primary source of revenue to give ourselves the best chance of getting the number of attendees needed to break-even.

* What are your ideals?

We will demonstrate a high standard of Christian business ethic and govern our operations by:
–doing unto others as we’d have them to do us(not how they do us)
–sowing into others organizations
–doing all things in our business as unto the Lord.
If we do make any mistakes, we will seek to learn from them, not repeat and be open to constructive feedback on how we proceed.
Through our 15+ adult years of involvement in corporate America, real estate, gospel music & movie promotions, sporting events, family business, etc., we have seen a lot of interactions that we believe would benefit from a stronger Christian business ethic and we will seek to maintain the highest standard and not repeat mistakes.

* How do you define success?

Success for Fearless Entertainment would include:
–packed out shows with a lot of people coming into the knowledge of Christ in a non-”churchy” experience
–church people changing their musical listening preferences from ungodly mainstream music to edifying, banging and/or entertaining gospel music
–event budgets being met with profit for reinvestment in future events

* What is the best way to achieve long-term success?

We believe the best way to achieve long-term success is to maintain the ideals we mentioned in the earlier question with consistency over time. Essentially, we will not become weary in well-doing and let God take us where he wants to go. We’d rather not do this business than do it without maintaining our ideals.

* Who has been your greatest inspiration?

Our greatest inspiration for this particular business interest is our children. We’d like for them to have more opportunity for positive peer pressure on the music listening preferences than the teenagers and young adults have today. We are trying to be an active part of the solution.

* What book has inspired you the most? (OR What is your favorite book?)

The Holy Bible. Thank God for His word.

* What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?

We all have some degree of gaming skills on the PS3 & XBOX 360, like to spend time with our families, and are in various stages of putting more time into fitness activity.

* Where you see yourself and your business in 10 years? 20 years?

Down the line, we would love to be part of a gospel concert which showcases rap/R&B and has other genres(praise & worship, rock, etc.) on the bill that packs out Fox Theater in downtown Detroit where contemporary gospel artists like Kirk Franklin & Mary Mary fill the auditorium now. We hope to be part of the growth and audience expansion of this genre which we believe will be around for a long time and be a positive musical influence for more and more people.

* If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?

Do you guys need any help in your business venture?

As we try to reach more people, we hope to garner support from more people who believe in our vision so we can do more. We welcome sponsorship to help us provide more low & no-cost opportunities for people to attend our events and to help us buy more mainstream radio advertising time both of which will allow to reach more people who know and don’t know Christ.

We also welcome investment from people who believe in our vision and who, given a comprehensive business plan which we’d share, trust that we’d return their investment

FearlessEntertainment.net

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