Joseph Business School Wants To Create 100K Million Dollar Businesses

Dr. Deloris Thomas, President of Joseph Business School, announcing the school’s initiative to help 100,000 entrepreneurs scale their businesses to $1 million in annual revenue. Photo provided by Jerry Thomas.
Dr. Deloris Thomas, President of Joseph Business School, announcing the school’s initiative to help 100,000 entrepreneurs scale their businesses to $1 million in annual revenue. Photo provided by Jerry Thomas.

Joseph Business School Wants To Create 100K Million Dollar Businesses

By Tia Carol Jones

The Joseph Business School and the Joseph Center have been proving entrepreneurs with the skills to be successful, based on biblical principals for more than 20 years.

Recently, the business school, which is located at 7600 W. Roosevelt Road, in Forest Park, announced its mission to help 100,000 entrepreneurs scale their businesses to $1 million in annual revenue throughout the next five years.

The Joseph Business School was a vision given to Dr. Deloris Thomas and her husband, Ray Thomas, by Dr. Bill Winston, Founder of Joseph Business School and Founder of Bill Winston Ministries. Thomas, President of Joseph Business School, said the mission of the school is to help entrepreneurs start businesses as a way to eradicate poverty and close the wealth gap.

Thomas said that people in the Black and Latino community have experienced a high level of poverty and unemployment, and in Chicago, recent data shows 17.2% are at or below the poverty level, when the National average is 12.5%. Winston wanted to not only preach the Gospel, but also to put hands to faith and make a difference. The school is named after the Biblical character Joseph, who had a dream.

“Similar to many of the entrepreneurs in our Black and brown communities. They have a dream, either they’re first generation or nobody believes in their dream. But, it didn’t matter, his faith in the dream that God had given him led to where he persisted despite being imprisoned, despite being lied upon and through that persistence, he became second in command,” she said.

Thomas said that while the entrepreneurs Joseph Business School serves might be the first, they will be able to go back to their communities and create jobs and turn those communities around for the better. Thomas said throughout the school’s history, more than 50 entrepreneurs have been able to achieve millionaire status. With the initiative, Joseph Business School will train the entrepreneurs through an ecosystem of mentors and advisors to help them grow their business to scale.

“We believe that we’ve now managed to identify what are some of the core principles in which we can help these entrepreneurs get to scale. Now we’re ready to launch it in a much bigger way,” Thomas said.

With Joseph Business School, Thomas wants to be able to support entrepreneurs’ that are interest in starting a business and to do it in a way that they can employ other people and change the trajectory of them and their families’ lives for generations to come.

In addition to the in-class training, Joseph Business School requires the entrepreneurs to do practical work. The focus is on the entrepreneur’s dream, and they are taught how to put theory to practice, using principles that worked for other companies but tailoring it to their businesses.

Thomas said the feedback from the students who have completed the program has been positive. They have spoken about how they feel people believe in their dreams and believe in them, as well as the school feeling like a community. The Entrepreneurs also appreciate the faith component that has enabled them to think big and achieve big dreams because they believe God has placed a gift in them.

“When we’re able to transform the inside of someone to believe in themselves and believe in their dreams and to be around others who believe in them, as well, it makes learning easy. Additionally, we put them with access to capital, access to networks and access to resources,” Thomas said.

For more information about the Joseph Business School, visit jbs.edu.

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