Dr. Velma Trayham
MEET DR. VELMA TRAYHAM — FOUNDER OF MILLIONAIRE MASTERMIND ACADEMY, AN ORGANIZATION THAT EDUCATES AND FACILITATES GROWTH OF WOMEN-OWNED BUSINESSES THROUGH THEIR ENTREPRENEUR ACCELERATOR PROGRAM.
SHE IS ALSO THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF THINKZILLA CONSULTING GROUP, AN INNOVATIVE BRAND DEVELOPMENT AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AGENCY.
Entrepreneurship isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes determination, persistence, vision, consistency and perhaps the most telling trait of a successful entrepreneur: to continue trying after failures.
Dr. Velma Trayham has many titles and accomplishments to her name: Founder of Millionaire Mastermind Academy, Founder and CEO of Thinkzilla Consulting Group, marketing expert, leader and author, but what lies at the heart of her many ventures is one thing: helping others.
Trayham has been featured in CBS, NBC, Fox, Voyage ATL, NewsOne, Forward Times, Rolling Out, Vizaca, Black News and the Atlanta Tribune. She is also a social media influencer, motivational speaker and author of When God Says Go: Turn Your Storms Into An Unshakable Relationship With God, Leaving It All Behind.
Millionaire Mastermind Academy (MMA) was established in 2017 by Trayham to educate and support the growth of women-owned businesses while supporting local economies and combating the threat of poverty through entrepreneurship. To date, MMA has mentored more than 4,600 women entrepreneurs to become successful in their industries.
Trayham was 21 when she began her entrepreneurship journey, and her first three companies failed, and after that point, was ready to give up, but decided to learn from her failures to try to establish another business: Millionaire Mastermind Academy.
“In the process of the failures, I realized I did not have a mentor at the time or access to resources,” Trayham says. “I knew what I needed as an entrepreneur, but I was not able to articulate what I needed because I was just starting out. So by understanding my failures and the lack of access to resources, I wanted to create something with Millionaire Mastermind Academy that could solve these problems.”
Trayham moved from Houston to Atlanta to expand her consulting company, Thinkzilla Consulting Group, which she founded in 2013, but didn’t know she would be creating another venture to empower women through her speaking engagements and work at Thinkzilla; Trayham remembers the day she had that realization clearly.
“I was in prayer one day and I heard the voice of God tell me, ‘It’s time for you to share some of this wisdom and knowledge with other women’ and at the time I thought, ‘I’m in a transition right now, I don’t know if this is the best time to be speaking to women, I’m still trying to figure out why God sent me to Atlanta.’”
After that point, Trayham developed the business plan for Millionaire Mastermind Academy, starting with what problem she wanted to solve with her organization, and how that program or service could empower women in their entrepreneurship journeys.
“I wanted to create an ecosystem of resources that could bridge the gap of knowledge for women in business by empowering them from an economic perspective,” Trayham says. "There are a lot of empowerment resources out there but I believe economic empowerment is very important so that is what led me to create Millionaire Mastermind Academy; through understanding what I went through in my early journey and what I didn’t have and to know firsthand from experience what women need in order to succeed.”
“I believe faith is important, you have to have faith — it is the substance of the things that we hope for and it’s the evidence of the things that we don’t see, so if we never walk in faith or wait for the perfect time, we would never get anything done.”
Millionaire Mastermind Academy offers their 12-week Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program, which aims to position women entrepreneurs as the solution to end poverty and economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic and to educate, from a business perspective, women with low income and from economically unstable environments.
MMA’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator program equips participants with:
College-level business training
Access to business networks
An inclusive business environment to learn
Networking with fellow entrepreneurs
A safe space to ask questions and cultivate knowledge
“The Accelerator Program empowers women to plan, start and build a successful business,” Trayham says. “We launched the pilot program in October 2020 and our ladies graduated in December. The program is an economic recovery plan for COVID-19, as a lot of women have lost their jobs amid the pandemic, and a majority of them were African American and Hispanic women,” Trayham says.
“The goal of this program was to implement and accelerate entrepreneurial hope for women, as a lot of women-owned businesses closed down were not able to take advantage of resources available through the federal government like the Paycheck Protection Program because their business wasn’t set up properly.”
In December 2020, MMA awarded $30,000 in seed funding ($5,000 each) to six of the women that went through the MMA program.
Participants of Millionaire Mastermind Academy’s Entrepreneur Accelerator Program in 2020.
The program covers a module every week that range from business operations to finances to securing funding, and includes opportunities for participants to learn from C-suite advisors or women in senior level corporate positions and successful, experienced entrepreneurs who serve as mentors, plus weekly meetings.
“Women leave the program with business plans, understanding their business model, who their target audience is, how to go to market and how to market their product, so it’s pretty much an entrepreneur college degree,” Trayham says.
“It’s very rewarding for me to be able to help people tap into their purpose through things that may lie dormant in them; to help them manifest their gift from their talents.”
“The first module is understanding your why,” Trayham says. “Understanding the why is important because when you want to give up or when you’re faced with adversities and obstacles, when you go back to that why, it will allow you to continue to move forward and is the thing inside of you that will push you into the area of greatness.”
Thinkzilla Consulting Group is 100% Minority Owned with WBE, MBE, WOSB Certifications and has helped over 200 distinguished organizations meet their marketing, branding and communications goals. Thinkzilla builds programs and initiatives for clients in the private and public space that deliver sustainable results. Their ability to strengthen relationships between companies and communities is the core reason why their clients thrive.
Trayham started Thinkzilla from her experience working with high-profile pastors such as T.D. Jakes to Joel Osteen, helping them with marketing strategies to content development, then as the company grew, entrepreneurs and small business owners took notice of her work and began reaching out to her for assistance. Trayham then started working with some small businesses and realized how she could help them find solutions to the challenges they faced.
Thinkzilla also works with large Fortune500 companies, providing consultation services in their three main specialty areas: community engagement, economic development and social alignment.
“We help large companies, Fortune100, public and private companies connect to communities, we help them to diversify their marketing initiatives, and most companies now have a Supplier Diversity Program, which allows them to diversify their supply chains by working with minority-owned companies,” Trayham says.
“We are one of the only agencies that specialize in the community aspect, we’re a culturally aware brand engagement firm that works on helping businesses innovate and grow, so that’s how we use our marketing and PR. I believe that diverse organizations perform better and we use a value based approach that builds community and strengthens economy.”
Trayham attributes her success largely to her leadership skills, as it has helped her navigate uncertainty and determine the mission, strategy, goals and direction of both Millionaire Mastermind Academy and Thinkzilla Consulting Group.
“Management is very important in leadership because if you’re not able to lead yourself, then you can’t lead anyone else. Wisdom is also important, the ability to make the right decisions, how you treat people, communication skills and negotiation skills,” Trayham says.
“I believe you don’t have to be skilled at everything, but you do have to be skilled at understanding the people that are skilled in the areas that you need in order to grow.”
“Women leave Millionaire Mastermind’s Entrepreneur Accelerator program with business plans, understanding their business model, who their target audience is, how to go to market and how to market their product— we call it an entrepreneur college degree.”
“I also believe faith is important, you have to have faith. Faith is the substance of the things that we hope for and it’s the evidence of the things that we don’t see, so if we never walk in faith or wait for the perfect time, then we won’t get anything done. You also have to have vision, if you don’t, you can’t bring other people on to your business or venture because you’re unable to articulate what your vision is.”
Trayham says it’s rewarding to empower people and to help people realize they may possess the solution to a problem. “I don’t build businesses, nor do I help people based on how much money they can make, I help them based on how big the problem is that we can solve. So it’s very rewarding for me to be able to help people to tap into their purpose through things that may lie dormant in them; to help them manifest their gift from their talents.”
In the future, Trayham hopes Millionaire Mastermind Academy will empower and help millions of women around the world to tap into their greatness.
“I aspire to have MMA as the conduit that bridges the gap between large organizations and women in business. We are in the process of starting a venture capital, a private equity company, so that we’re able to fund small businesses. What I see is women all around the world tapping into something they did not know that they had and MMA and myself is playing a small part in that.”
Millionaire Mastermind Academy is currently accepting applications for the Spring Session of the Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program, click here to learn more.
