Lamar and Ronnie Tyler: The Power Couple Helping Black Founders Build Generational Wealth

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler are determined to uplift, support, and strengthen Black American families and businesses.

Driven by a passion for advancing the Black community, the power couple has built from the ground up the internationally recognized company, Tyler New Media. The ever-evolving brand is the parent company of two groundbreaking entities: one to uplift Black families and the other to help Black entrepreneurs create generational wealth.

For nearly two decades, the duo has been reshaping the description of black families. First, with Black and Married With Kids, now, they are demolishing the systemic barriers Black communities face by closing the wealth gap through Traffic Sales and Profit.

“We want to show that successful black families, doing great work that honors their clients and delivers 5-star service, exist,” Lamar Tyler told UrbanGeekz in an exclusive interview. The power couple is telling the positive stories of the Black community rather than waiting for outsiders.

In fact, data shows news about Black people is often more negative than news about other racial and ethnic groups. According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 63% of adults say news about Black folks is more negative than news about other racial and ethnic groups. And 43% say news coverage typically stereotypes African Americans.

Humble Beginnings

Fed up with the pervasive negative images of black marriage in the media, Lamar and Ronnie launched the Black and Married With Kids online blog in 2007. The site combats negativity by focusing on positive messages about marriage in the black community.

“We must own our narratives as black people, and that’s what we did with the blog,” Lamar said. “The whole purpose was to show that successful, happy black marriages existed. We wanted to show that successful black businesses did exist.”

They grew the platform from a personal blog to the largest independent African American marriage and parenting website. At its peak blog had a social media presence of over 500,000 Facebook fans, one million readers per quarter, and more than 40 staff writers.

Inspiration For Starting Traffic Sales and Profit

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler, founders of Traffic Sales and Profit

However, Lamar and Ronnie aren’t stopping there. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area Lamar knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur but didn’t know how to become one. “I didn’t have anyone around who was an entrepreneur, so I had to figure things out myself.” Anyway, help came when he discovered Black Enterprise Magazine as a teenager.

“With Black Enterprise Magazine, I could see black people building massive companies and corporations,” Lamar said. So, during my early 20s, I tried many different things. While building Black and Married With Kids people saw us grow the business right before them and asked us to teach them how to create a business. We started making the transition from that point.”

The couple also realized that helping Black people build profitable businesses was crucial to contributing to the community. The transition was completed when Black and Married With Kids was sold to Dunamis Woman Enterprise LLC.

Traffic Sales and Profit teaches entrepreneurs how to drive more traffic, convert more sales, and generate more profit. The community has grown to over 40,000 members and helped more than 20,000 Black-owned businesses collectively earn $100 million in revenue annually, year over year.

Helping Build Profitable Businesses

How Traffic and Sales makes a difference? Well, Cecily is an entrepreneur who sews dresses and teaches women how to sew. She wants to keep the culture of sewing fabrics and garments alive. Although she had a great business, she couldn’t get it in front of enough customers.

When she joined the TSP community, Cecily learned how to get more people to see her business. She was also taught how to get customers to visit her website and spend time there. This increased her website visitors, cash flow, and revenue and ensured that she helped more people.

Indeed, research on New York-based start-ups shows that founders mentored by top-performing entrepreneurs are three times more likely than their co-located peers without mentors to become top performers.

Traffic Sales and Profit is trying to fill the gap Black entrepreneurs face due to a lack of access to the networks and relationships that could help them make optimal business decisions.

Most entrepreneurs who come to TSP already have great products but need help getting enough attention. They also need a community of entrepreneurs with whom they can bounce ideas off and be guided along the path.

“At TSP, we help Black entrepreneurs magnify their work and reach more people. The community also provides an enabling environment for entrepreneurs to thrive, “Lamar said.

Helping Entrepreneurs Maintain Human Interactions

A recent Forbes article revealed that Black business ownership is growing at the fastest pace in 30 years. The share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled from 5% to 11% between 2019 and 2022. However, they’re still held back by formidable challenges like lack of funding, visibility, and community.

Furthermore, Black business owners are locked out of opportunities because of various barriers throughout the business-building process. These barriers are economic, market, sociocultural, and institutional.

Economic barriers relate to disempowerment and low starting capital for individuals, families, and communities. Market barriers result from unaddressed needs, often associated with a lack of access to capital, expertise, and services. A McKinsey report contends that Black entrepreneurs are denied small business loans every year or have their credit refused at an alarming rate.

Alongside being held back due to the unavailability of these resources too often, Black entrepreneurs try to do it alone. They stay in their silo, thinking all they need is the internet.

The Power of Community Engagments

The Tylers believe more can be achieved in a community of like-minded individuals “Oftentimes, it’s not another strategy, system, or information that Black entrepreneurs need, Lamar stated. “What you need is human interactions. Another person who can connect you to a whole new world, a whole new community, and an entirely new opportunity. And we can only meet those people if we get outside our comfort zone. This may be going to a conference, workshop, meeting, coffee shop, or anywhere you can meet people.”

To maintain human interaction, Traffic Sales and Profit hosts two signature marketing conferences each year: TSP Game Plan in January and TSP Live in June. The events help entrepreneurs learn the latest trends in digital marketing while also focusing on the fundamental principles of running a successful business: traffic, sales, and profit.

Over the years, Lamar and Ronnie Tyler have received a host of prestigious awards and accolades from being winners of the ClickFunnels Two Comma Award to featuring on Ebony Magazine’s Power 100. However, their real passion is making an impact and transforming lives.

Interested in attending TSP Live in Atlanta June 27th to June 29th? Register here.