10/17/1999
IWDM Study Library 
Meeting with CPC Distributors
Hazel Crest, IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
I wonder what I had in my pocket. I got dhikr beads looking like a monk or a priest today. They remind me to remember G-d, but I care nothing about this here. I do it on my fingers. Cause monks had this before the Muslims had it. And the Catholics had it before the Muslims had it. So, this was really something that the Muslims took, took from others. Muhammad never saw these things unless he saw it in a vision. Peace be Upon him. Just give me a little time here to get settled. If you were talking, why don't you continue?
David K Hasan:
Okay, good.
IWDM:
Yeah cause I need to....
David K Hasan:
We just went through the list of the distributors that's present, some of them.
IWDM:
So, you totaled up the number now that we have...
David K Hasan:
Yes sir. We have 26, is that correct? That's my record. 26. I know some of this came in. Philadelphia came in right? Several have called and said they'll be here a little later by 11, 12 O'clock. One thing I would like to do is actually apologize to agree in terms of the meeting was scheduled due to the Imams schedule. Good question. He had to move back to the 17th. Allhamdulilah. So, we had it over here instead of Harvey, which is perfect right here with the garments here and everything right here. So, everything worked out very well. Very good. And hopefully Insha Allah, in the future we'll be able to be where we can be able to be under those seven days. So, we can make the flight before the next flight. Let me say brothers and sisters, we are grateful and thankful to Allah for having an opportunity to come together as business persons to work with the Imam with his vision as this economical program. This is a great opportunity not only for us as Muslims, but a great opportunity for African-Americans period to share in this economic vision, economical development. It's been a long time coming.
A lot of patience. Thank you. A lot of patience have taken place to see what you see now. A lot of work has been done but Allah has been with us every step of the way. And we can see the fruits of our labor today. When it was a concept, an idea, you know we are the type of people who like to see, feel, touch something. The first experience, we didn't believe nothing until it comes physically. When it comes physically we just start believing. But someone have to have the belief and the faith to see that which you cannot see with the physical eye. You know Allah Most High says in the Qur'an that we have to believe in the seen and the unseen. Both. That way we can be able to see with the eye and we have to have faith that Allah will bless it to come about.
So that's what we see now. Allah has blessed us to materialize what you see now. The garments are in and I understand Brother Imam that the Shea Butter has arrived as well. Shea Butter has arrived here. So Allhamdulilah. Takbir. So now brothers and sisters, we are ready to do business, we're ready to make money. And it's just a matter of, are you ready? The question is, are you ready? Are you set up properly to do business? Because you have to be properly set up to do business in order to do business. And if we have bought it to this level, then we certainly expect the distributors to take it to another level to really be the producers. Because the Imam can only do, or the people who work with CPC, the administration can only do so much and get it to where it needs to be.
Then you have to take it to the people out in the public. So that's what hopefully is going to happen very soon. And the products that you see now, and of course we got the brother Hajji here, who went over to Damascus and bought things you see here along with the other people that the Imam knows that's over there. This is not a major buy, a major purchase. This is more like a sample of products you see. When you talk about buying a major purchase for our community or to do real business, we talking about spending about a half a million dollars or a million dollars. Is that correct Imam? Once we get into knowing what we're going to do and how we doing it as time go on, it'll be a big purchase. You wouldn't probably be able to get in this room once that purchase is made. But this is basically just samples and we hope to be able to look these samples over and begin to see what we think. What do you think so far as you just looked?
I mean I was here two weeks ago and I was very impressed with the quality and the garments that's here. And I went back in some of my neighborhood stores that I go and where you go you feel the same way. And some of them you'll see that the prices is high, they're very expensive. Expensive, some of the same materials, some of the same fabrics. And based on what he was expressing to me that we're going to be competitive. Allhamdulilah. And matter of fact we'll be above competitive. Some of the garments, they're going to have to come to us. They may not have them in some of these stores and that's what CPC is supposed to be all about is to have the garments who in that instead of African-Americans, or any particular person, instead of them going to the mall, they can go around to the neighborhood store and get the same garment. It may not be Sears or Belks label on it, but the quality would be there. And that's what we after, the substance. So, Brother Imam, that's it. If you wanted him to say anything or turn it over to you.
IWDM:
Yes. Hajji Hasan, he was the one that we were blessed with to have represent us and select the garments for us from the factories of Damascus. And I think maybe he should take five to 10 minutes and just give you a report on his experience there and, well just let him report on his mission of going to select garments from the factories for us to sell to our customers or to our community and the consumers.
Hajji Hasan:
Allhamdulilah. I bear witness openly that there is no G-d but Allah and Prophet Muhammad, May peace and blessings be upon him and his descendants and companions. We ask that the Allah bless them and bless us and our leader Imam WD Mohammed in all our efforts to reach our goals and aspirations. This I say and I say with the most sincerity of heart and I greet you with the greetings of peace, As Salaam Alaikum.
Dear brothers and sisters, briefly, without getting into all the gory details of the Damascus trip, which entailed a lot of hard work that we were happy to do on behalf of our community. Many of the factories that we were introduced to had substandard quality merchandise and we declined to spend money with them. Not for any reason other than the fact that it was just bad business to do so. But we had to explain to them because they had the eagerness to do business with us, they anticipated our arrival not knowing who it would be but that someone from America and our community would be there to make purchases. So, they had the great anticipation that we would be buying their products and many of them were disappointed because the quality of their products was not what we were there to spend our money for and what our leader had asked us to do in going there. He was very specific and I agreed with him wholeheartedly as most of the community that we didn't want anything for the community that was going to be substandard in quality and to buy the best because our people, as you well know, we want the best.
Even if we can't afford it, we want it. So that was the mission. And Insha Allah, we asked Allah to bless us in going there and to protect us and to place His angels around us and to give us the best mind during the circumstances that we would be confronted with so that we would give a proper representation for our leader and for our community. And Insha Allah, I'm happy to say that these things we were blessed with. Proof of that other than in the business arena was with the established leadership there in Syria Damascus, primarily the Abu Nur Mosque and the heads of that were very supportive to the extent that the Grand Mufti offered us a personal invitation to his home and had television media there, which gave interviews to us and asked us various questions about our community. And I won't answer verbatim or speak to you in detail about everything that was discussed, but a couple of things I will mention that I think you'll be delighted to hear it, I'll share with you. And that was at my visit at the Grand Muftis home. One of the things was that he said to me, he says, "I'm glad the Imam WD Mohammed didn't make this trip." See when I heard that, that didn't set well with me.
I don't know what he's talking about when he said this, but I don't respond as of such, I'm waiting for something else. And he followed up with humor by saying that the reason why I say this is because it gave us a chance to meet you. So, I didn't let them swell my head. I said yes. And I said, that's a feather in my leader's cap. So, we kept things in their perspective. The ex minister of Kuwait was handling the television broadcasting and he asked the question, which had a little bit of a slant on it as far as I could interpret. He said to me, he says, "I understand that you all." When you come to me like that, then I know something else is waiting. He says, I understand you all when it comes to elections and politics that you all vote Democrat."
This is bothering me. But I said, well okay, I know how to deal with this. And so, I discerned the question and I said to him, I said yes in the past. I said that was very well true about us as a people. I say, but now I said, the situation is entirely different. When we vote for someone now we vote for them based on whether they have our best interests at heart. You see? And when I answered that question, I'm looking at him dead in the eyes and with both barrels cocked. You know, so we are on another level now. We are on another level. But Allhamdulilah, the visit there was a success and we also had the great opportunity to visit with the Grand Mufti who was the second person in charge at the Albu Nur Mosque at his home on three different occasions. And he was delighted to have us there.
And we shared so many wonderful experiences that he and the Imam, our leader, had shared together while he was visiting with him and he wouldn't let the situation rest. He finally got around to asking, he says, "Would you do us the honor? And now I'm wondering, what's next? He said, would you do us the honor of speaking to the women at the Abu Nur Mosque? Well now I didn't go there for that purpose. I went there to purchase as a designer, but yet being offered and asked, I just couldn't refuse. So, I said, sure, I'd be happy to. And so, I spoke to the sisters at the Abu Nur Mosque and as a result their response and the Sheik Ramadan's response was of such that he asked me after it was over, he said, brother, he says, "Would you do us the honor of speaking to the men tomorrow at the Abu Nur Mosque? I said, well sure I'd be happy to do that. And after doing that as well, I'm only sharing this with you so you can see what is happening because of our leader and how he's established things there. This could have been anybody, but I had to have a certain character too in order for this to take place. But mainly it was all instituted because of our leadership and our leader, Imam WD Mohammed.
He's known and respected highly over there and around the world. So anyway, after the success of speaking to the men, then the managing department at the Abu Nur Mosque, brother Ibrahim confronted me and asked me would I speak to the students of the university. So, it is just to make a long story short, my efforts and the prayers and things were answered in terms of giving good proper presentation of our community, on behalf of our leader and you and everyone involved. And it carried over in the business aspect and the factories that we went to, even where they wasn't happy that we didn't do purchases with them. Once we gave them the school of thought as to why we didn't do business with them and that it wasn't anything personal, but it was just strictly about the business of wanting to do the best we could to help raise our community to a higher level and establish the models and all the other things that our Imam has been talking to us about for more than 20 years. And so, they were happy and satisfied with that. And the factories that we did actually do business with, the proof is in the pudding here.
Quality could be seen in any fine store, bar none, based on what we have. And we are going to do even better, Insha Allah, then what you see here in the future because the aim and goals are to not just buy things that they represent and that we think will be good for our community in terms of purchase and sales, but we want to bring anew to them, where they're making things that we have created not just myself but other designers as well. So, this is an ongoing thing that Insha Allah, we hope that will really show how we can excel in this area of the garment industry. It's a big billion dollar industry and we have more than our fair share of opportunity to do wonderful things there and to help make these models that the Imam has been talking about and to improve upon our school system.
Sister Clare Muhammad School. That's a real heartbreaker for me personally. I want to do some things there as well as with the Imam schools you know, support that. But Sister Clara Muhammad School is very dear to me personally. And so, Insha Allah, as I begin to see any kind of profit margin, whatever it may be in the future, and we all will see some, a vast majority of my funds are going to be poured into the school because the education man, I tell you it's the future to keep what we are trying to do now a success and what have you. And I shared with some of the distributors earlier about how important it was in what we are trying to do to make sure that the foundation of what we are doing is in place correctly and not have to go back and correct something because you may very well lose and not be able to reestablish ourselves.
And what I meant by that was is that I've done a lot of research on businesses that are in this area that we are trying to raise ourself in. And the criteria for their success has been the quality of their merchandise, the garment construction, the fabric, the hallmark as to the kind of service they render and all of these things combined together along with the longevity that they've had in terms of building their clientele has established them. And that's what we want. Brooks Brothers was a store that I used to go in and have suits made when I was five and six years of age. Standing on a stool and their product, some of those things that I had as a child then that you can still take your child in there now and get them. That's just the hallmark of how they were. And we can do the same thing, establishing ourselves as being known for quality.
People will come to us only looking for that. They won't come to us expecting anything any less. And as long as we have quality merchandise, there's no question about us having our share of success in this field. And so, this is what we want to do over there. We could have taken that $80,000 and spent it on garbage. It would've looked fairly decent and we would've made even far more than what we could make on this. But it would've been short-lived and we would've been making a real mess of things. This is for the long haul. It's not a quick fix thing we are about. So as long as we stick with the quality and be determined to have the garment construction and everything like it's supposed to be, Insha Allah, our Imam and all of us will be very pleased and success will be with us and Allah will bless us.
So as far as the clothing and things here, as I encourage the many of the distributors that I talked to personally, there's nothing to have to hesitate about in buying this stuff and taking it back to your perspective areas. Get rid of it. Let's get it out of here. We got Shea Butter here that can take up this space and what have you. And if we don't move it, just the odor from the Shea Butter, eventually will take over the newness of the garments and then we'll have another problem on our hand. So, let's support, let's show that we are the real companions, like the early companions of Prophet Muhammad, Peace be Upon him, with our leader in the real sense, real companions. Meaning when he turn his back he can literally turn his back and not have to worry. You see? That's what I'm talking about.
And then supporting him in the things in which we know are necessary in order to take us to that next level. Not just rhetoric, but literally be able to do the thing that's going to raise us up and take us to that next level and being the real companions that we can do this. It's nothing complicated. We can do this. It's all within our grasp. So, on that note, I'm not going bend your ear too much, but certainly be prepared to purchase all this stuff and let's get it out of here and move it, Insha Allah. And then go back and buy an even larger purchase and get ourselves on the right footage. This was a big experience for us, all of us. And we can improve upon it and success will be ours. So, with that, I'll greet you with the greetings of peace again, As Salaam Alaikum.
David K Hasan:
All praises to be to Allah. Thank you. Allhamdulilah. Brothers and sisters, I just want to say that it do boil down to us and what we're going to do. The President and CEO, the Chairman has delivered. I mean am I right? He's delivered with the funds, he delivered with the distributors, he delivered with the members and supporters, the investors. He delivered the products. Now if he done did all that, now it's up to us to deliver. That's all I can say. Yes.
IWDM
Thank you, Hajji Hassan for a very, very successful mission that you accomplished and for your excellent report to us. Yes sir. And as you were speaking, especially when you mentioned that they were invited to go address the women, I was waiting too to see what was going to happen after that. And then you were invited to address the men. Yeah. And after mom and dad was pleased with you, they let you talk to their children. Yeah. We ought to be wise like that too. Yeah. I don't know if you are aware of me, but I'm a down to earth regular person and will never change I don't think unless G-d changes me. And I don't think G-d's going to change me. He let me be this way all my life. I'm 66 years old almost.
But at the same time I am a G-d fearing man, G-d conscious man and everything that I do, I seek G-d first in everything. So, this is the blessing of Allah and even the timing is not my timing, G-d's timing. It's Allah's timing. So, everything that I'm doing, I'm seeking G-d and I don't move until I feel that G-d is with me. G-d approves everything. I don't even get involved until I think G-d is the motivation behind me. Not just me. I have to believe that G-d is the motivation behind me, that G-d wants me to do this. So I don't worry about being corrupt. Trillion dollars won't corrupt me because I'm not after a trillion dollars. I'm after pleasing G-d.
I say that to you to really prepare you for my little address I'm going to make here a few minutes. Allah Most High says in the Qur'an, "There's nothing for the human being except what he strives for. And his striving will soon manifest." "Da Soufa Yura." And his striving will right away manifest. He uses Defa here as an indicator. That means nothing is going to happen to interrupt that. Nothing is going to block that. Nothing is going to interfere with that. You should immediately begin to realize success for your effort if you strive. And that goes for anything. If you strive to be the biggest con man in the world, you strive hard enough, you're going to get the results, you're going to be a pretty good con man. Maybe the biggest one in the world who knows. So that's what G-d is saying. That's a rule. That's a rule G-d has given us. G-d has given us a rule for human life. If you be constantly at something, working hard for it, it's going to materialize. Something is going to materialize. Now if you do it in the Name of G-d, you're going to get G-d's help and His angels help as the brother mentioned. G-d's angels. You're going to get G-d's help and His angels. He's going to put His angels at your disposal too.
You say there's a brother, I'm always hearing this. "There's a brother he can really help you Brother Imam. There's a sister Brother Imam. She wants to help you and she can really help you." It sounds good. Well, what has she done for herself? What has he done for himself? Where's his production? Where's her production? You see? So, I'm saying this not to criticize, I'm saying this so you'll know how to apply the rule that G-d gave to your own life. If you are the person, a good candidate for something, then as they say in America, where's your track record, right? Where's your track record? So, this is not to put you out, this is to wake you up if you are not in.
To wake you up that you have to work hard. Nothing is going to come to you if you just sit around and wait for it. You have to work hard for it. And don't think about working for something that you don't have an appetite for. Appetite is the first energy. Appetite. The appetite for something is your first energy. If you don't have an appetite for it, give it up. Don't try it. Don't force yourself into something that you don't have an appetite for.
Go after what you have an appetite for and you'll be very successful. I'm going after what I have an appetite for. That's serving the community so G-d will be pleased and we'll have the community. Inshallah. And this has been my spirit all my life. I've always gone after what I love and we should not love anything more than we love G-d and His Messenger. Peace be upon the Messenger of G-d. And G-d says that. That's not me saying that. G-d says that to the Muslims in the Qur'an. And never forget yourself. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says, "Know yourself and never forget yourself." Know who you are, not just as a Muslim, but know yourself in your picture that you value. The picture that you value of yourself. Know yourself in the picture that you value of yourself and be conscious of yourself in that picture while you're striving and trying to do things.
Very important. You know G-d over and over again tells us in the Qur'an when the people got off the track and got into trouble and He said "And they forgot themselves." They forgot their souls. That's themselves, the real self. Alright. Now let me say something to you first. The distributors. The distributors. We are not just doing business, we are doing business the best way. That's what we are striving for. We're not just doing business, we are striving to do business the best way. Okay. So, understand the concept we have. We are a Collective Purchasing Company. Firstly, CPC is a Collective Purchasing Company. Its function is to do nothing but make a purchase and keep records of it and fulfill its responsibility to you, to investors, to the IRS, to its accounting department, et cetera. That's CPC. So, we don't need a big workforce, we don't have it. We have Albina, my wife and had her almost up until just yesterday. And now she got some help. We've got how many in there now? Two. Two people. Three people in the office on payroll. I've never been on payroll and I deserve it. Believe me, I deserve to be on payroll. Rafah has never been on payroll and he deserves to be on payroll. Why? Because before these came in, we were doing all this.
I should say we were half doing, no, not even that much. We were doing as much as we could of this. That's why it's taking so long. We didn't want to spend your money on salaries and we didn't do it. And now I'm pretty sure the salaries haven't increased more than the interest yet. So, your principal is not being touched. It's the interest that's paying the salaries and the expenses for CPC. The expenses stop for CPC with that small staff we have and the office needs. That's the end of the expenses for CPC. Alright, so who's really going to do the business? We are. The distributors.
We're a distributor. I belong to the distributorship here. ComTrust. We started out with the name UniTrust, which was nice but we decided to change it and so I decided and they supported me in change the name to ComTrust since we had to go back and register again anyway. Something happened. The attorney used some language that was not suitable for us or did not open up the opportunities as big as we wanted. Didn't open up enough opportunities for us under that concept. So, we had to go around anyway. So, I was looking at some of you'all's distributorship and I saw one that had community in it. I said I like that. I said I can't take his name, that's not legal but I said I can take part of it. ComTrust. So actually I got community from one of you all and just shortened it to be COM like COM like COMED and added trust.
Because i wanted the trust in there. ComTrust Community Trust. Community Trust. But it's ComTrust the name of the company and we have a strong distributorship. Maybe not the strongest. We don't have the strongest but we have a financially strong distributorship. We are not average, we are above average. We have more than the average distributor and could really grow because of me, my popularity and my responsibility in the community. So, I know a lot of them be coming up. They're going to be coming up wanting to be in this distributorship, but we are not going to allow it. We are going to carefully selecting the people that will be with us in this distributorship. And the numbers has to be kept down. We don't want a big number. And all of that is in the interest of us staying equal and no one monopolizing. In fact, as long as I'm here, no one will ever be able to monopolize. For example, this is the point of talking to you in this vein right now.
These goods. You think if you got $50,000, and some of you got more than that. You think you got $50,000 distributorship, you think you can buy as much as this as you want. You can only buy 1/26 of this. It's 26 of us. Cause we bought it for all of you all. We didn't buy it for one of you all. We bought it for all of our distributors. So, you can only buy 1/26 of this purchase. And you can't buy or select, saying "I want so many." No, you can only buy 1/26 of this style, of this garment. So, everybody will have a fair chance and the same opportunity to take the nice goods back home. You think that's right? Is that just? Am I a good man? No, G-d is good. We are trying to be good.
Yes. So that's the protection I want you all to vow to keep. You should take a vow that you're going to keep that if I have a heart attack today. You should make a vow to G-d that you're going to stand for the principles of Imam WD Mohammed. And going to do things as he would do them. That's what you should do. Because that guarantees the success down the road. Yes. Let's see, is there anything else on the garments? Now that's the main thing I want to tell you. We also have a brother Hajji Hassan with us. Not just for what he'd done. That's his big job. That's the job that he will be paid for. We have to pay him for that. Although he didn't ask. I don't think he got a penny yet, have you? No. Isn't that a wonderful person? Yeah, he didn't ask for a penny. He hasn't got a penny yet. Not for himself. For expenses, yes, but not for himself.
Another role he mentioned that he's a designer. So, second to that special role that we've hired him in for, he's a designer and we are going to be looking to him for designs and he also wants to put on fashion show. And we have a sister that we had selected Hajji Hassan, to be an advisor to me and to put on fashion shows for us. And I told her that when she comes today, she's here, that I was going to arrange for the two of you all to meet. Then after the two of you all meet, then I want to meet with you after you all meet. And we are going to see just how we can work for the best fashion shows, the best garments, the best fashion shows with you all supporting us. Because a fashion show would be much more impressive when we say Sharif designed this. Sister Sawa designed this. Habiballah design this. It'd be much more impressive. Yes, you can speak, anybody can speak. This is business. This is not Khutbah. So, speak if you like, we welcome your comments at any time. There's no special time that you have to ask to comment. Just let us see your hand.
Stand. Yeah, it's your voice. I can hear it better if you stand up too.
Sis Ijlal:
Got a couple questions. Let's say a distributor had a product. Is this arrangement set up so that everyone is independent, everybody's operating independently. If a distributor has a product, do we bring the product and that particular distributor have a partner? Does that distributor, can that distributor bring that product to all of us? And is it proper how this is arranged to have a CPC distributor purchase from that independent distributor? Is that true?
IWDM:
Yeah. Now that's your first question. Yeah. What's your second question? Maybe it was all in that big first question. It probably was in there.
Sis Ijlal:
Can we present our product to this group?
IWDM:
Okay, let me answer your question now. The answer is yes, but. Or, yes and no. Yes. If it's suitable for the concept that we have of how we should do business and how we should operate. For example, it may be unattractive to most of us, then we won't do it. It might be too small for our business. We won't do it. So yes and no. And at any rate it would have to be presented to our distributors after we have looked at it. That's myself and maybe two or three officers or managers or officers of CPC. We have to look at it first and then as we look at it, if we feel comfortable to pass it on to the distributors, meaning we are not going to waste their time with something we know is not going to be accepted.
But if we have faith in it that they might want to accept this, then we will present to them and get their decision on it. And if their decision is unanimous, it has to be unanimous. If their decision is unanimous then we'll accept any product from any distributor or from any believer. You don't have to be a distributor. From any believer in the community. And that brings to mind another interest that we have and have to protect. We don't want this too be a free for all. So, we are going to set up a club and we're going to call it pledgers club and all of us going to have membership cards. And that gives us the right to not to give the same opportunities to Non-members. Because if someone comes up, they find out what we're doing, they can walk right off the street right now and it's against the law for us to say no to them unless we set it up to protect ourselves. Yeah. So, we are going to do that soon InshaAllah.
But now if you have a product, and this, I feel I should say this at every opportunity when I meet with you all, if you have a product and you want to reach more of the believers with it, pass your product, get it to us, mail it to Post office box 2777.
Same information is the same for the rest of it. Country Club Hills, three words, Country Club Hills and then Illinois, 6 0 4 7 8. And also send a glossy copy like a catalog sheet quality, picture of your product or products. And with your permission, you desiring that, we will advertise your products in our supposed to be seasonal magazine but we are behind now. In our seasonal magazine, Private Label Products Magazine, Quarterly Magazine. We will have your products in there. Right now we got a lot of products from the community in the magazine. Now the distribution is limited to distributors but we encourage the distributors to show the magazine to their customers. So, the customer will also see what other product creators have in our community. So, we don't have money to do thousands of copies of the magazine right now. So, we are just doing it the rough way, the crude way. She puts it together herself. No printer. My wife has put that together. She deserves a raise too, especially if she do that magazine again. But if she doesn't get on that magazine soon, she deserves a demotion.
Yeah, and some other thoughts come to my mind. I don't know whether these thoughts are with you or not, but it's a good idea because distributors are independent business people, independent business operators. And say I'm going to Ghana with Hajji Hassan, I'm going to Ghana maybe to make purchase for all of us. But I have some money to invest myself and I'm interested in some things that's too small for you all but it's big for me and I got a chance now to make this purchase in Ghana. So, I go there and I make the purchase for us but I also make my own purchase for myself. Nothing wrong with that. For us, there's nothing wrong with that. But some companies, they don't want you to do that. You can't do that. They have a law to prevent you from doing that. But for us you are welcome. You're welcome. Now, I don't know whether you were saying or suggesting that we ourselves own trucks. My advice, strong advice to you is not to do that.
The biggest companies in the world are hiring companies to do those things for them. They got much more money than we got. How come they don't have their own truck? They don't. Because it is practical, more practical for you to hire a company that's already set up in that business and got that track record, and that's all they do. So, they got the best price for repairs on their truck. They got the best price for parts, to buy parts, they got the best everything because they're so big. They're doing that in big volume. See why you can't compete with them? Don't dare go buy a truck. No, hire them. They got the insurance too. Hire them. And if they mess up, they lose your products, you go to court, hire them.
David K Hasan:
We got brothers among us that have trucks.
IWDM:
But if he's too small we don't want to look at him. No, we don't want to look at him if he's too small because he can't give us the price, he can't give us the guarantees that those big companies can give us. But we'll look at him. We'll sure look at him. You got two or three trucks and he's the mechanic too half the time. That's too risky.
David:
Brother all the way in the back I think.
IWDM:
No, right here. Okay.
Bari:
Those of us who are purchasing today, how would you recommend that we ship items? How would we ship our items back?
IWDM:
Yes. Say if you made a purchase today, which I don't expect you to do, but all the information for making a purchase, we'll send that to you. We are not expecting you to make a purchase today. In fact, we're not prepared for you to make a purchase today. Yeah, but I would say you should look yourself at the best way for you to the safest way and the best way, the less costly way for you. The least costly way for you to get your garments from here to where you have to. We don't have that. We don't do that for the distributors. You have to do it. You have to do it yourself and my advice to you is see what they charge and then if your distance is not too far, you'd be better off renting a vehicle and coming here and picking up your own goods.
Bari:
Alright, I have to renew. Postal employee.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Okay, thank you.
Bari:
Thank you. Thank you. Got your new name on it also. Oh, it's beautiful if you like that. Beautiful.
IWDM:
Thank you.
That's beautiful, isn't it? Thank you very much. Yes, yes, yes, yes. No, no, no. You going to bring it here and then InshaAllah going to show it just before we finish here. That's a beautiful job. That's a very beautiful job. We'll show It to you later after we finished. We're going to show it. I want all of you to see what he's done for us.
Bari:
Thank you.
IWDM:
Another important point that that's my strong advice to you. No matter how big a distributor you are, don't try to sell to these big companies like Walmart, Walgreens, Kmart, JC Penney's. Don't sell to those big companies because they buy directly from manufacturers like we do. And if you sell them something they might, cause you could tell them too. You take them to court too. So, I had a product here and they didn't give me a chance to present it. They discriminated against me. You can take them to court. You really can. So, they'll listen to you, they're going to listen to you, but after they listen to you, they're going to say no. And you can't take them to court for saying no.
And the only way they say yes is that you going to have the product they buying from the factory but going to have it cheaper than what they're getting. Then they'll say yes and you ain't going to be able to do that. We can't do that. No way we can do that. We can't compete with those big companies. They're bigger than us and they're at that level in the economy that we are, buying directly from producers, from manufacturers. They're doing the same thing. So, we can't sell to them. So, who do we sell to? We sell to retailers, we sell to ourself. Retail. What's wrong with you retailing? Then you'll make a lot of money. We retail, we sell to retailers. That's the way it should be. Don't try to sell to wholesalers. That's my advice. That's my strong advice. Don't even try to sell to wholesalers.
Even if the wholesalers are strong or small, don't try to sell the wholesaler. Don't be lazy. Say "I've got a chance to get all this out right now." Unless you got a financial squeeze on you and you had to have some money right away. That's different. Then you can do anything you want to do and get enough money to get out of trouble. But if you ain't in trouble then don't try to sell to big companies. Don't even sell to wholesalers. Sell to retailers only and sell to small retailers. And there are plenty of them. This economy is the best economy in the world for the poor man. Yes. What has developed is the best situation that the poor man has ever had.
Concept that I talked about. This is not to put it, bring attention on me. Concept that I talked about when we had the Collective Buying Program. You remember AAMCOP? AAMCOP And I advise you. Just like a mall will have different businesses in it and that's one environment there. One business environment in one location under one name. The mall. Such and such mall. I say you can look at a small situation for yourself. Say you are good in selling oils. Another brother good in selling socks. You all go and rent a place together, five or 10 of you, share the rent, share the overhead and you'll have a store. Operate separately. Have your own little calculator, operate separately, report to the IRS separately. But you got your own and the people don't know you're operating separately. They don't see you making out your IRS report.
They don't see that. All they see is somebody making money. You got five or 10 people making money and all of your working seem like one store. That's impressive for the poor man. Now I said that 20 years ago or more. I said that a long time ago. But look now what has happened to the marketplace. That's what it is. They will take 40 feet and put two or three stores in there. If you want to take that little space, you could have six by five space. Six by four space in the mall and sell your products. Now those people with that small quantity, they're not buying from the big companies. They can't afford it. They're not making enough money to go to the factory. They're not making enough money to go to the big wholesalers. They're not making enough money.
So, they go to some little most likely Korean or somebody in that neighborhood that's making money on them. So those are people we should be looking for. Go to the mall, find those small people. Say, well look, I just want to leave my card with you. I can supply you with these goods. Show them pictures of your goods. In fact, maybe take us to have a bag on your back like you've been shopping. Open it up and let them see. Say "This is just a small sample here of what I can supply you with. The prices are real good. I want you to look at them here," Work out the percentage, which we will do. You'll do the same thing, work out the percentage, show them what kind of percentage they will be able to get profits. They'll be able to make the profit margin for them if they purchase from you. And tell them we are buying directly from factories. In this hemisphere and outside. In the states and outside. In America and outside.
We are really outside of this hemisphere, Damascus. And they're not selling to anybody in this hemisphere. They told me. And we are going to try to work it out with them where they won't sell to anybody over here unless they come to us. And I believe they're going to accept it. Yeah. So that's the edge we have there, you see. That's a competitive edge we have. So, we don't have to worry about them getting this garment. "Oh I bought that garment." No you didn't. You a liar. You went overseas. Or you got it from us.
Isn't that comfortable? Isn't that comfortable? Cause you know if you sell them one price and they find it for nothing, they come back to you say, "I got this garment from there." No, no, no. Say no. You're lying. You're lying. You got it from one of our distributors. Say if he sold it to you, under sold it to you, say he going to be out of business. Cause we all work together. Yeah. See, so this is a great protection we have. Yes. Boutiques, they have fine boutiques in your neighborhood sometimes. You live in a nice neighborhood. Fine boutiques. Go to those boutiques. They're looking for something nice. They're looking for something special like what you got over there. They're looking for something looking just like that to put in the window. They hungry for it right now. If their vision and appetite could reach us here, they'll snatch it right off that wall right now. Put it in their window. The window of their boutique. That's the comfort when you have a man like that selecting for you. That's the comfort you have selling it. Now you don't beg nobody to buy something like that. You just hold it up there and they don't show an interest right away. Put it back in your bag right away and walk out the door. And if they were bluffing you they'll say "Hey wait a minute, wait a minute, I didn't look at it." Say, "Well you have to hurry up. My time is valuable." That's true. Nobody respects a beggar.
Yeah, you defeated right away. You defeated from the get go. If you are beggar. You don't beg anybody. Be sure you buy something that you feel proud of, you feel proud to sell. And then your dignity shouldn't allow you to beg somebody to buy it. Okay, so I think I covered most of that, what I wanted to say about to you as a distributor, but now I want to speak to you just as members of the community who share our interests. Same interest we have. Many of you interested in Shea Butter too.
Oh, wait a minute. I see some more hands. So, if it is on Shea Butter, I haven't addressed Shea Butter yet, so don't ask me a question on Shea Butter yet.
Yes. Yes. If you withdraw your money and invest it in the distributorship and you don't leave enough in your account to hold your CPC account open, then you're no longer an investor in CPC. You have to keep a minimum of $500 there in order to keep that account open. And my advice to you immediately build it up to one share because you won't get any interest or benefit until you do that. You won't get any interest or benefit on $500 or $1500 or $1,999. It has to be $2,000. At least one share. Unless you bought a smaller share. Because recently we opened it up to smaller shares. I think a hundred dollar share now, the smallest is a hundred dollars now. So, the hundred dollar share will get the benefit for the hundred dollars, but you won't because you are not in that category.
Imam WD Mohammed (01:08:22):
That's not your classification. So, you won't be able to get it. So, you'll either have to take that $500 and invest it in five $100 shares or you have to build it up right away back to one share to get the benefit. Well, we have some more hands back there. Let me stand up so I can see the hands that I saw. Yes, yes.
Speaker 9:
And Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Countries.
IWDM:
Yes. Mostly the Germany and France, but some to England. Yeah.
Speaker 9:
A question about the investment. For a hundred dollars, could you please explain as some people might want to know.
IWDM:
Those who went in for $2,000 you in. And it went up to protect you. It went up to protect you.
Speaker 9:
I'd like to ask you a question.
IWDM:
You deserve it. Yeah. You had faith and you came in early the Now it's gone up. Yes, buddy.
Speaker 9:
My question is on the label.
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 9:
I noticed on some of the garments that have I saw on there, if that will be the permanent label that we will promote?
IWDM:
Now not necessarily. That's just temporary.
We'll decide. Oh, you mean the label that we intend to carry? Yeah, you can put your own name on your label if you like, but the label for the product coming from us is Grace Line. Grace Line. But under Grace Line you can put anything or above Grace Line. You can say Salahudins Grace Line products or Grace Line products, Salahudin or Proprietor, whatever. You can work with that yourself. Just design it for your own, personalize it for your own self and that'll be fine. But all of us are asked to use Grace Line.
Speaker 11:
In terms of putting that label in. He couldn't put that label in once the product is here. It'd have to be at the manufacturer, his name. Wouldn't it not? He wouldn't put it after we fly the shipment here.
IWDM:
The cheapest way is for the factory to do it. That's right. For each distributor. And they don't have any problem with that . And it looked better and everything.
Speaker 11:
That's right. Just wanted to make sure.
IWDM:
They have no problem. They have no problem with that. In fact, they asked us if we wanted to put special labels in. It brings up another question.
Speaker 11:
So that means that in advance we will know how much we would like to purchase so that we can have along with Grace line our label and code it on there.
IWDM:
Yes, in the future we should tell you what's available and then you should make an order and we bring back your order. Now those who don't come with enough money, then that's going to increase the number of goods that the remainder of the distributors can purchase. You understand? Yeah. So the next shipment shouldn't put us in this kind of situation. The next shipment, each distributor should know what we got available and should order the quantity and the styles and everything. And then we have your name and your order. We give it to the factory and the factory puts your name with Grace Line on the tag, right? On the label. Yeah. That's the way it'll be done.
Speaker 11:
Very back brother. Brother in the very back.
IWDM:
No. Once you make an initial investment of $20,000, you remain a distributor until you pull out. Spending your money does not erase you as a distributor. No. You still remain distributor, but you can't make a big purchase unless I think the minimum purchases are like $14,000. The minimum. Minimum purchase. Yeah. You have to purchase at least $14,000. Yeah, but that would leave you about $6,000 in your distributorship.
Speaker 12:
That would be the first initial purchase.
IWDM:
So, if you want to spend all your $20,000, you should try to keep $500 in CPC though. So, you'll remain a member of CPC. That's your business, you can spend it all and build it back up when you're able to build it back up. And I would say as soon as you get your return, you should not only put back, but you should increase your buying power, your purchasing power.
Speaker 12:
People come in.
IWDM:
So, for a long time you'd probably be just working for your business. A business won't be working for you, you'll be working for your business, but in time your business would be big enough to take care of you and your family and everybody else that you want to take care of maybe. Who knows.
Audience Member:
That brings a question that I have as far as the paying of the merchandise. Would it be a good idea to use cash vouchers instead of using actual cash between the distributor and Grace Line and then the distributor and the purchasing investors? Because if we use vouchers, it would eliminate having to transfer money using just actual cash to go and pay. Say like we were to purchase $14,000 worth of merchandise from Grace Line. And then when we put it into our respective businesses or warehouses, whatever we're going to do, then the purchasing investors around the country or whatever section you're in, will come to purchase our goods. They could get the cash voucher from CPC when they draw out their money and bring it to us for payment of the goods. And then we in turn, whatever we've gotten from as far as the voucher are concerned, we turned back into CPC for the distribution center. It would eliminate having to use a lot of cash. I was thinking that cash voucher would be the better way to go as far as the big purchasing is concerned and things like that. I would like to know what your thinking is on that.
IWDM:
Well, my opinion is, I know that's done, but it's usually done by companies that already have arranged the store or the service place for that voucher. So, if we give you a voucher to use to purchase from distributor, say from another distributor, you can use that cash voucher to pay to buy from another distributor. To me, the advantage is not more than the disadvantage. The benefit is not greater than the risk to me. I don't see how it's any problem for us. If you want to make a purchase with your money, there's no problem for us to just give you your check and you cash your check and do what you want or you write a check. You don't have to use cash. We give you a check, you put it in your account and you write a check too. So, there's no need to use cash. So, I can't, right now, I can't see enough benefit in having cash vouchers to offset what I see as a risk. Because it is hard to reproduce a check. It's hard to reproduce American US currency. It's hard to do that, but it's easy to go and print you out another voucher. Right. So, there's risk too.
Speaker 11:
We're going to get him Brother Imam. He needs to ask a question.
IWDM:
Up front where? Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Probably, probably,
Speaker 11:
I think you answered this question already last time we met, but I wanted to hear again. I have my partner with us. We have a very aggressive group in Philadelphia. Now in your corporation, do the dollar control the vote?
Imam WD Mohammed:
No. No. All of us have equal votes no matter how much you put in. But there's a minimum amount for the investor to invest just like it is for CPC. For ComTrust, there will be a minimum that they have to put in before they can even be a voting a member. And if they reach that level and qualify for membership or to be part of our company, then no one would have more vote than the others. All equal.
Speaker 11:
You want to establish suggested retail price? It's just the wholesale price right now right?
IWDM:
You mean how are we going to price the garments? We're going give the distributors the distributors price. It's going to be distributors price and distributors then will retail. I'll sell to you wholesale. We can't put a law on you saying don't do it. If you want to sell it to a wholesaler, you can do it. But then if you sell to a wholesaler, you're going to have to know how to price. Because if you don't, ain't going to be to sell to wholesalers. And let me tell you, once the distributor sells to a wholesaler, you don't have much left. No, you don't have much left. The distributor works on big volume. Big volume, real big volumes. And you want to get rid of it quick and you got another shipment coming in. They just coming in regularly and you dealing with big, big volume, you make money. But we are not ready to deal in that kind of huge volume. So, you don't need to sell to any wholesalers. That's my advice to you. Do it if you want to. I wouldn't do it.
I understand your question. Okay. Say you are not a distributorship, but you have $15,000 invested. If it's CPC. If you want to buy a $14,000 order just like a distributor, you could do it. You don't have to be a distributor to make a wholesale purchase. If you got $14,000 plus it's a little over. I don't know the exact figure right now you can make a purchase and it doesn't matter whether you went in as a capital investor or a product investor, you can change that anytime you want to. You can change it anytime you want to. Go from a capital investor to a product investor anytime you want to buy product. It's just to distinguish for us so we know who we're dealing with. But you can change if you're comfortable with it. Anytime you want to change, you change.
Speaker 11:
Brother Imam, would he not, would that person also would not come through the distributor in this area to make that purchase? He wouldn't come direct.
IWDM:
No. That person would have to come through some distributor.
Speaker 11:
Okay. Make clear that you have to go to some distributor,
IWDM:
CPC is not doing that kind of business. That's right. Yeah. That'll mess us up. We don't want to complicate our simple situation. With the IRS too. We have to have a different situation with IRS if we do that. Yes.
Speaker 11:
How many distributorships can you open per state? Are we limited to just one?
IWDM:
No. No. If there's room for another one, open another one. What I mean by that, if the distributor got $20,000, if you got a hundred thousand dollars, how many citizens of that state can he supply if they came in? See that was in an earlier stage of our development and now we got a situation now set up better. So, the Pledgers club has to be represented by distributors. And the way I have conceived it, the Pledgers club should be two, on two levels. There'll be a Pledgers club for street sales selling on the street vendors. Street vendors. And there'll be another club for retailers. Retailers. And they'll be able to, they'll have to pay more for their card. And the distributors board should represent both of those entities, both the street sales and also the retail. And retail, yeah. Have to be represented by the distributor board. And we got our Convener back there. Brother Shakar from Georgia.
It's not registered, therefore it's not going to be protected by law. It's going to be protected by our honesty and respect for each other. We're not going to even register. But he is, Brother Shakar is the Convener and I'm the chairman of the distributor board. Until you change that and we would have to decide how are we going to set up these two Pledger clubs and how the members will invest and make purchases. Imam Pasha, I asked him to organize, look to recruit persons, males and females, recruit persons and organize them under the Pledgers club name Street vendors and also retail. He can handle both. So, anyone who has a retail business and you want to purchase volume from us through our distributors, then you should contact Imam Pasha of Atlanta, Georgia and he'll help you work it out.
Street vendors and wholesale operators. Yes. Now I said two more and I saw a third hand. Osman. Brother Osman. Yes. Did you have a question? Did you have a question or comment? The remainder, yes. Right, right. Yeah. It would be shared equally by us. Distributed equally over the remainder. You're welcome. We have another distributor just walked in from Alabama, New York, Birmingham and New York. Come right in. Have chairs there. If you don't have chairs there, get some more chairs here. He got a chair here. Right here. We have a tape. So, we are not going to be able to go over everything, but we do have a tape and where is Brother John. Brother John, can you make a tape for those who came in late. In fact, everyone should have a tape. You'll be charged for them. We got a bill to give you. Yeah, nothing but cost. Not for the work or service, just the cost. Alright, so we have to cut it off here. Let's cut it off and get on something else.
Speaker 13:
Isn't that beautiful?
IWDM:
Oh, I can see that on my white van right now. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I don't have a van but I could see it on that green van. You know why I'm doing this? Because you can't beat that. Why not get the best? Have him do it for you. Pay him to do it for you. We're not making any money off this. We already paid you guys. You need to make money. This is business. Yeah, business.
Yeah, that's right. That's right. It is an excellent job. Beautiful. See, the colors shouldn't hurt your eyes. It shouldn't be hard on the eyes. Your eyes should be pleased. It should be plain enough to see everything right away. And this is it. This is beautiful. Whoever did this they knew what they were doing.
Speaker 14:
He had red in there. I told them take the red out. Red stripes going to the United States.
IWDM:
Thank you. That would've messed it up. Thank you. Right? Oh that is beautiful. He took care of mine. Alright, now you are going to bring my poster back, right? Yeah. Here, I can't use that.
Speaker 14:
Oh no, no. The concept on the one you have and on the one that Bina took with her.
IWDM:
Okay good. Like this?
Speaker 14:
You can have this one. We'll send you another one. We have the connection that takes two weeks.
IWDM:
Okay. Alright. And you can send the bill. Yeah, send the bill. Yeah. I'm looking at that on the van. The white van that's going to drive up to those boutiques.
Speaker 14:
Your name is down here too. Your name is at the bar. That's my name.
IWDM:
All right. All right. Now I would like to see us all with the same picture on our trucks. Same picture. I was thinking it magnifies it. Yeah, it magnifies it. Just the name. Only thing to distinguish should be your name. Very good. The same graphics, same graphics. Beautiful. So, you're going to give us a discount rate now man. I mean for all of us at discount rate. Not for me. All of us coming to him. Information on the Shea Butter right quick. The Shea Butter is raw. You can look at it over there and we setting up a little operation here, a little crude operation. I guess you all say the Imam into everything. No, I'm not into everything. But I was never a priest. I was never raised to be a priest. I was always the son of a poor mother and father and they told me to get out and get some work and if I didn't they said he going have to get out of the house. They put me and my brother out of the house and I was only about 15 years old and my brother was two years older than me. He's 17. And we didn't deserve it. My father came in the house, he told us what to do. He told us get a job, gave us a job.
We were just moving into this house, the 48, 47 Woodlawn moving up big, going up to big. We came from a little frame house like chickens could have been in there with us and nobody would've been surprised. Everybody would've been at home. And you all helped my father with your donations and put him in, the pioneers put him in a nice big house in Woodlawn. So, he told me and my brother, he said, "You all sleep over there tonight on the floor." No furniture. But the place was so nice and had carpet, it was better. The floor was better than the beds we were in. So, we were happy to sleep there. We slept there overnight and the next morning we were supposed to get the walls ready for the painter. We were supposed to wake up early, get the walls ready for the painter wash, just washing the walls for the painter. That's all.
My father walked in and Elijah and myself, we sitting on the floor talking. And when he opened the door, that's what he called us. He didn't ask any questions. "You boys get out of here, get the things and get out of here. Go back and get the things from the other house. Get out of here. You can't stay in my house anymore." That's what he said. That's what he did. Now I don't know whether that was a revelation to him or not to prepare his children for a hard time or whatever was, but I know it wasn't fair because we had finished the wall. We had washed all the walls. We were through with our jobs. That's how come we could have relaxed like that. But both of us got put out. I slept in a hallway. It was wintertime too. I slept in hallways. I found a hallway. I slept in different hallways. Got too cold, I remembered a fellow telling me that you can ride the L. I had enough to get on the L. I got on the L train and I rode back and forth on the L train all night long. My brother heard about it. He felt sorry for me. My brother was married. He told me to come stay with him. Soon as my father found out that I had a place to sleep he said come back home.
He did that to both of us. Elijah Junior. Oh yeah, you know Elijah Junior. Elijah Junior and myself. And that's what he did to both of us. And I'm telling you, I don't know what's wrong with us. We some crazy African-Americans. I started to say niggers. We didn't have the sense to get together and say, look, let us stay together man. Well we got to sleep in the hallway. At least we could have some body heat next to each other. He went his way and I went my way. Well I guess he didn't want to take me where he was going.
Elijah was kind of bad in those days. So, I excuse it. Yeah, it was something. Okay, so the Shea Butter, I'm getting on the Shea Butter now. The Shea Butter's in and I want you to take a look at it. And what we want to do, we want to encourage you to have operations, making your own Shea Butter, processing your own Shea Butter regionally. We don't want one place shipping you the processed Shea Butter all over. But we could buy containers together. We can buy the labels together. That keeps the prices down. We can buy our supplies together and keep the prices down. We can even buy our equipment together that we need to do it. Buy it together maybe.
Speaker 15:
I don't want to follow him.
IWDM:
Don't hurt your back now big man. Let your brother help. Oh he is strong. He's a terrific street salesman. Larry. Brother Larry.
Speaker 15:
How are you?
IWDM:
Yeah, that's my niece's husband. That's her man.
Speaker 15:
It does work.
IWDM:
That's right, that's right. I use it too. I haven't stopped since the first day the brother gave it to me. That was a few years ago. I can't do without it. I have to use it. You can see the product down there from a distance. See how good that product looks. Now let me tell you what we got to do.
He's the one who directed us to Africa to get it so we could supply more and get it much cheaper. And he knew how we had to process it. So, he also got the boiler, the melting pot for us. And we going to have strainers. It's got a little spot on it so it'll be strained. And we're going to set up a crude little production line right here. Don't need much space. Maybe about 10 feet. All we need, 10 feet or less. And we're going to set up a little crude production line. It'll be melted, then it'll come out and be strained. And if it's pure Shea Butter, it doesn't have to have to be mixed like a formula. It'll go directly into the little four ounce jars. The jars, the look for the jars. That's up to you. You can select the jars. That's up to you. But I would suggest that we all get the same jar because we would get the advantage of a smaller, a lower price for the purchase. Yes. So, once we strain it goes into the jar, you cut it off manually. And I would advise you to look for your children. You don't have children that need jobs, then look for somebody else's children. Youngsters can do this. Don't have a man doing this. But if you're going to pay them a salary, watch out for the child labor law.
They have to be 16, I think. 15 or 16. Some states, I think maybe 15, but most in 16. I think 16 years old, 16 years old, they have to be 16. You can put them to work. And believe me, the amount of Shea Butter we going to be doing now, I think I can supply all of us. But I don't want to do it. But I think I can supply all of us with a few youngsters. And as we get big business, the business grows, then you have to have a real modern sophisticated production line where it's operating automatically and everything and jobs and slapping labels on automatically. But now it'll be manual. I said, you all don't know me. I'm a shop man. I read blueprints. I can also do my own drafting and then go to the shop and get the metal in sheets, in angle lines or whatever and pipes. I can put it all together from scratch.
Can put it all together. I can put the pipes in, I can thread the pipes, I can bend the pipes, I can do all that. I can bend the sheet metal to make it just like I want it, make my jig and put it in and come out with that pot over there or anything bigger, big as this room. Really. I worked on pieces as big as this room, but then I'm also a production welder. I got a job. They didn't pay me enough money in this job so I had to go up there to take care of my family. I had to go to International Harvester. I welded for International Harvester. I welded for US Steel. You can check all this out. International Harvester Chicago, US Steel, Chicago, Bethlehem Steel in Barre Harbor, Indiana, Bethlehem Steel. I've worked as a combination welder in all those places. So actually I'm the man here until I find one knows more than me. I'm going to set up our crude operation here and I'm going to have a trough with smooth, you know the.....
Speaker 16:
Cream Style?
IWDM:
No, the board. The smooth board like formica. Smooth. See? So, the jar will go down there so smooth. I'm going to tilt it just a little bit. Not enough for the jars to slide on their own but so that when I make this little foot to push it and the trough is going to be just wide enough for the jaw to get in there and not go this way or that way. That way it won't be able to go anywhere. But it's going to go easily down the trough and the foot's going to be made perfectly to fit into the trough with a long stick and the youngster will be standing there at the trough. And every time it's ready to go, he's going to take his little stick and push. And if was me, I'd imagine I'm playing shuffle or doing shuffleboard. Make the job more pleasant. He'll push them right down the line and the next one, the other one at the end of the line gets it, we are going to have a gun, handgun.
Slap the label on with a handgun. Youngster put the top on. That's a job for youngsters. We don't have to do nothing but just look at them every now and then and make sure that everything's okay. And you need low heat. Don't heat the Shea Butter up high, it melts. You have to slow heat it but once it melts, once it's heated enough it melts. You don't need any high heat, very low heat melts it. So, my advice would be to put it in at night and put it on very low temperature and then the next morning it'll be all melted. Very low temperature. You don't want high temperature. It hurts the quality. I'm a scientist too. I've already tested it. Too much heat will ruin the quality of Shea Butter. So don't tell somebody to use it for pressing oil. It won't work. The hot iron is no good. But just the hair okay, But if you're going to use it for pressing, no, don't do that.
Speaker 15:
But the hair dryer's okay.
IWDM:
Hair dryer's okay, but don't put it too close to your head. If your hair start to feel like it's burning, the Shea Butter is losing its quality.
Speaker 15:
I had a question I wanted to ask you. It's been rumored that you can even cook with this.
IWDM:
Yeah, they do it. Yes, they cook with it.
Speaker 15:
Cholesterol level is real low.
IWDM:
Yeah, they cook with it, they eat it, they put it on bread. But I ain't going to do it. I used to eat chicken feet, chew all that gristle. If they had left the toenails on it, I'd probably be trying to chew the toenails. But I won't do that anymore either. I can't eat gristle anymore. I used to eat gristle, eat all the knuckle off the chicken bones. I can't do that. That ain't for my stomach. Crack the bone, eat the mar out of it. Yeah. Really. Really we did man.
Speaker 15:
They still doing it with the chicken.
IWDM:
Nah, the quality of my life has been raised.
Speaker 17:
I'm with you Brother Imam.
IWDM:
I don't want to crack no bone and suck that juice out that mar. No.
Speaker 17:
Brother Imam, seems like it could be a shoe polish too.
IWDM:
You didn't hear me man. You tell them what I said. I said that two years ago.
Speaker 17:
Three years ago.
IWDM:
That it works good on leather. It works good on leather. If you have a purse or anything made of leather, if it hasn't been treated already. If shoe polish or something been on it then that's no good. It won't help it. But if it's newly bought and it hasn't been polished, I wouldn't say shoes, but a bag, a book covering, leather book covering a purse, anything that you haven't already put polish on or something, use Shea Butter first and it will give, hold the newness for a long, long time.
Speaker 17:
Even furniture too, right?
IWDM:
I did three years ago. I tested almost three years ago and the covering for my Qur'an is just as perfect and it looks so nice. It keeps the leather supple. It is just like new. Stays that way. It goes right into the leather and hold it. Can you all find some chairs somewhere? It would be nice if you can, but if you can't I understand. Somebody take this chair. Here's one chair. Just make sure it doesn't fall with you. It's wobbling. Alright, let finish about this. Let's finish with the Shea Butter so we can go to something else. Yes. So, we going to have this crude, this crude process, production line for processing Shea Butter and I'm going to suggest that you have the crude system too and we'll give it to you on paper, show you everything. You'll have it.
You'll know just how to put it up yourself, to put it to make it yourself. It's simple. That ain't going to be nothing. It'll be very easy. In fact, I'm not going to do the carpentry work. They'll do that. They can do it. I'm just going to give them a design and they'll put it together for me and we'll be operating. Brother John, we finish that. We'll finish it in a half a day. It'll be up. Yeah, we get the materials in and half a day it'll be put up. We'll be operating. When the label's all on, the jars sealed. And you should have a seal. It should be a seal because tampering, it's easy. It's not costly or anything. It's easy to get just a little tape, a little tape. "Oh I got to buy a seal." Why? You get you a white piece of tape, stick on tape, strap it around the jar and make the top and make it lap. And put on there, "Do not buy if seal is broken." That's a fact. You can just stick one little piece there. Get one little sticker, one little sticker, one little paper sticker, oblong or square. Stick it there so it touches the jar and the top. Anybody turn it or take it off- "If seal is removed or damaged, do not buy." That's all you have to do.
Speaker 18:
That speak for itself.
IWDM:
Yes, and very easy to do. The children will do this for us. But like I said, the demand comes in heavy and it might cause I'm pushing for the big market. Ain't enough Muslims for the amount of money I'd like to see coming here. No, I'm not looking at Muslims. I'm looking at the American people, American public. That's who I'm going to try to sell. And we can get them. Inshallah, the volume going to go up and pretty soon this house won't even house the Shea Butter operation, the whole place won't house the Shea Butter operation. That's what I'm looking to. Yeah.
Speaker 18:
I was wondering is there any way that you can have it so that Africans can't sell Shea Butter to nobody but you?
IWDM:
No, you can't do that. You can only ask your friends. You can only ask your friends to do that. I don't have enough friends over in Africa today.
Speaker 18:
Shouldn’t we have them sign a contract. Since you're buying in such a large quantity?
IWDM:
The Syrian factories that we deal with, they under the influence of a big, you know the Mufti is like the Governor. That's what the Mufti of Syria is. The Mufti of Syria is like the Governor but only we ain't talking about a state. We talking about a whole country. He's like a Governor for a whole country of Syria. Not Mufti of Damascus. He's the Mufti of Syria. The country.
The whole country. Yeah. So not just him. Anybody belong to his organization that's known by them, good reputation and they endorse that person. Whatever business he's in.
Speaker 18:
They'll stand behind him.
IWDM:
No, if he's in the clothing business, he can go to any of the factories there and they respect him. They're going to give him special treatment. That's the kind of situation we have with the brother Nofal. He goes to these factories and plus he'd been in business, he was in business for 25 years. So, they know him, they respect him and the factories that are owned by members of Abu Nur Mosque, many of them owned by the members. You can get anything you want from them. Yeah, get anything you want from them. So that's a special situation. So, you can't have that with Africa and all that. But because of my father and our development after him, we have a very special situation. I can go to South Africa and mention one person's name over there and I will be taken to anywhere I want to go in South Africa. Government business, big businessmen, wherever in South Africa. I can do the same thing in many countries of Africa but not all of them. I can go directly to the top people. So, we are blessed. We are really blessed. Not only Africa, Asia too.
Speaker 18:
What's going to happen when these other companies and these other businesses find out how good you're doing business with Shea Butter?
IWDM:
Well hopefully they won't find out. I'm not going to tell them..
Speaker 18:
I mean because you remember like McDonald's.....
IWDM:
And when it comes to these clothes, they can find out what they want to find out. They'll have a war with Syria trying to get us out of here and they probably can beat Syria but they don't want that. Not over some garments. I ain't worried about this. They cannot get between us. Nobody. I don't care how big they are. Ain't enough money to get between me and those people. he'll tell you. No, they ain't looking at money. They looking at something bigger than money. You say what's bigger than money? There you go. Yeah. Okay. So, you can see now it's going to take us some time. Maybe a week or two weeks. We should have the first Shea Butter ready. Now let me show you something. We got so many fine Shea Butter products. My advice is the more the merrier. Oh that's too many. No it ain't too many. If it's attractive somebody's going to like it. So, you all got Shea Butter. Let's make all the Shea Butters available. I don't care if it's a hundred different Shea Butter products. Fine They have room on the shelf for them.
Speaker 18:
I know you made mention in terms of setting up shops on a regional level, in order to get the raw product, they're going have to come through CPC on the raw product.
IWDM:
Does it smell bad?
Speaker 18:
Smells good.
IWDM:
It smells like you can put your finger in it.
Speaker 18:
I don't know about eating none.
IWDM:
No, don't do it. Don't do it now.
Speaker 18:
But what about the region?
IWDM:
Huh?
Speaker 18:
The regional sales.
IWDM:
Now don't put your finger in it. It got to stay pretty like that. Don't sample it. That's just for you to smell and look at it. You know the feel of it already. If you don't, go over there, stick your hand in that bag over there. Nice and mild. Huh? Nice and mild. You can't hardly smell it, can you? Right.
Speaker 18:
I don't know whether it was processed here or not. Was it processed here?
IWDM:
It's processed in my kitchen.
Speaker 18:
In his kitchen.
IWDM:
I'm the scientist.
Speaker 18:
It's processed in his kitchen. You put a little mint in here, didn't you?
IWDM:
Now that that man got sharp a nose.
Speaker 18:
I said it before he did.
IWDM:
You did? Yeah. There's a little mint in there. Right.
Speaker 18:
So, you processed it from your kitchen?
IWDM:
Yes sir. This morning.
Speaker 18:
You got Chef Boy Ardee don't you?
IWDM:
No. That's going to be ComTrust. ComTrust. That's our distributorship. Yeah. Pass it back when you get through there. I got another one coming. Another one coming around.
Speaker 18:
Now that looks like peanut butter.
IWDM:
That smells nice right? Smell nice. Yeah. And look at the quality. Already strained. Already boiled. Already strained in my kitchen. Not boiled. No, I'm sorry that's the wrong term. Melted. Already melted and strained in my kitchen.
Speaker 18:
That low temperature.
IWDM:
Low temperature, very low temperature and I use a double boil effect. The double boil of protection. Yeah. My mother used to make her own lemon pie custard. So, I saw double boiler method long time ago when I was a boy. A little boy. Little boy. Yeah, right. They had one pot fit into the other pot. Yeah. Water in the bottom one. Yeah. Yeah. See a lot of people, they don't know anything about that.
Yeah. This is mine. This is ours. For our distributorship. We might have different flavors, different scents. Pardon me. But this is mint here.
And I like the mint because it's penetrating. That's mint oil. That's mint oil. I don't know. It might work. But that's mint oil. And mint oil is high penetrating. High penetrating effect. So, you'd be surprised the little small quantity of mint oil I got in that jar. Five drops. Five drops. That's how much is in there. Yeah. And it's going to stay there. It stays there.
Speaker 18:
This is a hundred pound sack, right?
IWDM:
That's about a hundred pounds. Yes ma'am.
Speaker 18:
Have you set your price?
IWDM:
No. No. That's why I say you can't purchase right now. Even the clothing. You can't purchase clothing right now. We haven't done the paperwork. We got the pricing, we got the pricing formula for everything here. The Shea Butter and everything. But we haven't put it on paper yet.
Speaker 18:
You've got some stuff marked as suggested retail price.
IWDM:
Yeah, but that's not final though see? No, not until we get all the paperwork.
Speaker 18:
Be clear on that region setting up Shea Butter manufacturers like you were setting up here, they're going to have to purchase that Shea Butter from CPC not going on your own to get Shea Butter. They couldn't go to Mali like we've done. They couldn't buy the raw right? Buy raw.
IWDM:
Yeah they could.
Speaker 18:
You want them to do that? Based on what we do?
IWDM:
They'll lose money.
Speaker 18:
Okay. Alright.
IWDM:
Unless they can get as many people I can get. They can't buy the volume I can buy and they're going to give you a price based upon volume. You can do it but you'll lose money. I guarantee you that. But we are not making money off of you. This is for us. So, distributors, only thing you're doing is paying the 40%. The distributor get it straight from CPC. We don't even charge you for handling, the handling we doing here. Which we should think about it. We should think about that. Maybe you should put a charge on it. But we are not so far. You just pay the 40% and you pay for your own shipping from here and that's all. You pay 40% on the dollar to the investors and you invested too. So, you're giving yourself money too.
I know I'm an investor and I'm going to stay an investor
Speaker 18:
You're not making money off of us. You're making money with us.
IWDM:
With us. Everybody else making money with us. That's what it is. We are making money together. You're right.
Speaker 18:
I ain't never seen nothing no better than this.
IWDM:
It looks good. Did somebody put their finger in there? Me?
Speaker 18:
Somebody put their finger in it.
IWDM:
Man, you gonna cause me to go back to my welding business. I'm going to ask them to bang me an anvil and put your hand out and hit it with a hammer. Put your finger on an anvil and hit it with a hammer. Look like birds are wrapped in there. Shit, look at that. I hope you didn't eat it. I know it looks like ice cream but don't eat it.
Speaker 18:
Man. That's all right. Right out of the kitchen.
Right back like it was.
IWDM:
See I prepared. I know the risk I take when I'm dealing with you. So, I had already prepared for it. I filled it up enough where the lid will smooth it back out. Yeah. See it's all right. And it's good we ain't eating this. You contaminated it putting your fingers in it. They can't resist. Can't resist. And that's the one that ain't going to make no money, won't be able to make money. You have to discipline yourself to make money. You got to have high respect for everything. And then discipline yourself to make money. Angry spirit destroys wealth. Prophet said don't give into anger. That what he told us. Peace be Upon him.
Speaker 18:
Treat anger with kindness.
IWDM:
Don't give into anger.
Speaker 18:
That's what he told us.
IWDM:
Someone came up to him and asked for advice. He told him "Don't give into anger. Fight anger. Resist anger. Get anger out of your system."
Speaker 18:
That means if you treat me bad I should treat you good.
IWDM:
No, you treat me bad. I give you justice but I'll do it like Bruce Lee. He never got angry. Yes. Okay. So, I think that covers what I wanted to bring you on the Shea Butter. Isn't that a nice smell?
Speaker 18:
They didn't touch that.
IWDM:
Oh, I love that smell. No, the civilized handled this. Yes. What I'll do is send you a sketch of the little simple system we're going to set up here. I can send it to you on paper and any carpenter will be able to do it for you. It doesn't have to be a licensed carpenter. Anybody that know how to put something together, they'll be able to do it for you. If you're that person, you can do it for yourself. Going to be very simple and easy to do.
Speaker 18:
What is the cost of that tank you got there. And have you approximated what it would cost?
IWDM:
Yes. What was the price of that? It was $2,000. How much? $2,000. About $2,000. It wasn't much over that was it? Right at $2,000.
Speaker 18:
Just for the tank.
IWDM:
Just for the boiler. Yeah. The melting pot. It's a melting pot and all of that. That's not expensive. See I used to weld. Stainless steel weld and all that. That stainless steel? Isn't that stainless steel ? Yes sir. Stainless steel, right? Yeah. That's not expensive. And it is a double boil effect. And the water comes in. You have to have, in addition to that, you have to have a water tank. Hot water tank. Just a small one for that. Very small. Just a small hot water tank. How many gallons? Brother Shakar, roughly? Well roughly, 75 gallons. Yeah, I think so. I think that'd be big enough. Plenty big enough. I think so. Yeah, because the water is coming through there and the water doesn't have to be that hot. You don't have to boil the water. The water shouldn't be boiling. Just like you have it hot for yourself to get in the bathtub that will melt the Shea Butter.
Speaker 18:
Yeah, my heater on my car when I turn the heat on that melts the Shea Butter.
IWDM:
Yes. It sure will. Cause if you ain't careful you carrying Shea Butter in your car and you got it too close to the heater, it will liquify.
Speaker 18:
Give us your formula.
IWDM:
This formula?
Speaker 18:
Put together. Put together. We want your formula.
IWDM:
Big Mac recipe.
Yeah. I'll wait until you become a ComTrust member.
Speaker 18:
We going, we going to have some clashes.
IWDM:
You can buy from each other. Ain't nothing wrong with distributors buying from each other.
Speaker 18:
So, is it going to be a set price for the market so nobody can corner the market?
IWDM:
It's going to be trust between brothers and sisters. We set a price. That's the price going to be law for us. And the old book, the Bible before the Qur'an. Before the Qur'an it says, "And the law shall be written on their hearts." And then the Qur'an came and says "And we revealed it and trusted it to his heart." From the heart of the Prophet Muhammad. And he's a believer. We are believers, we trust each other. And if we can't trust you, we going to cut your neck. Maybe not all but neck. We going to cut it.
Speaker 15:
So, is everybody going to get, are you going to have little testers for people?
IWDM:
I ain't going to do it. I got people raring to do it.
They freaks. They waiting for somebody to hurt. Right. See I'm normal. They ain't normal. No, you got to protect yourself. You got to protect your interest. You'll never be able to get up off the ground with the Irish and the others who have gotten up, come to this country and got up until you are willing to protect yourself, your interest with your life. With your life. And G-d is my witness, the F B I..... And they know. They don't have to tell nobody on me. They all know that I say these things in public. G-d is my witness. If I know the person that breaks the trust for us and actually hurt us seriously financially, I know not to ask you all to do it. I got one or two here that will do it. I know not to ask you. I'm 66 years old and I got this pretty well clear. The establishment is clear. I will go and kill you myself. It ain't nothing going to stop me from killing you but G-d. That's right. That's right. I do it myself and go to jail or whatever. That's how important this is.
Speaker 15:
That's right.
IWDM:
If it's successful, look what it's going to do for our community. If this business effort is successful, look what it's going to do for our community. And that's going to help our children, make them have a better future for generations to come. It's going to help our schools. As you say, it's going to help everything. You ain't willing to die for that? I'd die 10 times for that. They could wake me up again. I'd die again. I say "Hey, I'm going to kill another one." You got another one that disobeyed or broke the trust. Wake me up. Let me go kill another one. Say, "Well you going to be killed again." Thank you. Let's go. That's me. And I think you all know I don't lie.
Speaker 15:
Yes, brother and sisters, that mean that we're going to have to maintain the principle of business among ourselves. And really as the Imam just made mention, really we are talking about our children’s children, children. It's backed up on this economical program. Because when we get retired and getting old and out of the way, we got our sons and our daughters and our grandsons maintaining our business to move forward. So that's how serious it is. That's how important it is. And that is what the Imam is trying to allude to us that we need to treat it that way. And I'm happy about some of the things today that the Imam expressed to us in terms of we can move on our own. We didn't think that it was locked up, controlled. Some big boss up top. You have the freedom to use your mind and your own intelligence to do some things. Maurice, you're going to design that for everybody? I need this back Maurice, you're going to do it for everybody? National? Maurice, did we agree on in this meeting that we would actually have that kind of logo nationally? Pretty much? Okay.
IWDM:
Yeah. Excuse me. That was Muhammad Ali, one of the twins and her husband and their family with the baby. So, they came in and I had to greet them there. They gave me some good news. They going to have a ceremony on Muhammad Ali's next birthday at the Palmer House in Chicago. So, I'm going to try to be there, do everything I can to be there. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to go there. So, okay, you can continue.
Speaker 19:
Okay. I just wanted to remind them about that logo that we wanted to try to do it with all the distributors around the country the same.
IWDM:
Alright, all great. Now let me tell you something about these two. I got about I think six formulas now. Six formulas about six. Now this is a regular Shea Butter. This is what I would suggest we sell as pure Shea Butter. A hundred percent Shea Butter. It's not a hundred percent. It's got scent in it and it's got a little something else in it, but it's only to increase, to improve the quality and make it last longer so it has longer shelf life. You can look at it. You can't tell. You looked at it, doesn't it look like a hundred percent right up there? And that's the old, that ain't even the new. Look what I did with the old. You know that how that's going to look. The next one's going to look like ice cream because this is the new. This is the new Shea Butter. See? But now this is different.
Speaker 19:
Got a nice smell to it.
IWDM:
No, no. Both have a nice smell. But this is different. Do you believe this can go in a tube and they squeeze it out on their hand? Yes. This one, the texture is soft enough to go into the tube.
Speaker 19:
And that's what the ladies were talking about.
IWDM:
This is what I made this one for. This is for the tube, but I didn't have any tube. I can't put it in a tube so I have to have it in a jar. But if I had this in a tube, you could squeeze this out on your hand. If you carry it in your purse, squeeze it out whenever you need it. So, this is already made for the tube. We got ours. ComTrust got Shea Butter for the tube.
Speaker 19:
It would be shared with us at a cost? You going to charge us?
IWDM:
It's business. Isn't that what you just said? Right? Isn't what you told that brother. It's business.
Speaker 19:
This the formula right now. You got to find out how much the cost going to be.
IWDM:
Look, look, if I was doing this for a company, I would charge the company for the formula. And since I am the company, I got a double price now. I got the formula price and the company price to pass on to you.
Speaker 19:
I mean you getting paid on the front end and the back end?
IWDM:
No, the right hand and the right hand. Yeah. I don't get caught up in that jargon of the business world. I keep my own language. Right hand and the right hand. Right hand and the right hand.
I got the language.
Yeah. Both costs was justified to pass on to a purchaser. And if I don't, I got declare loss with the IRS because I didn't get all my benefits right? Yes. Brother Shakar.
Would it be more efficient for us to have one operation? One of us got to spend $2,000, 26 of us do that? Would it be more efficient? Cost efficient and more effective for us? Maybe all distributors invested.
No, no, no, no. I have so much faith in this Shea Butter. This Shea Butter going to become so big, it's going to be too much for one of us to do. This going to become big. So, we need it regional. We need to have the operation regional. What is $2,000? You get out there and sell the Muslim journal and get that in time. Yeah, Muslim journal. All right.
Speaker 15:
That's only 6,000. You got six regions.
IWDM:
Yeah but it is on the region, not on the six. So, each region all they have to come up with is $2,000 plus the boiler money.
Speaker 15:
Right.
IWDM:
Little money. So, you'll buy a car for $14,000. You won't invest in a business for six or $7,000 that's going to bring you $200,000 maybe in a year.
Speaker 15:
The lifespan on the kettle itself.
IWDM:
Oh yeah. At this low temperature that should last like that. You'll be dead. Your son should operate it. Yeah, it's a low temperature. It ain't normally damaged. Be around a long time. Yeah, long, long time. Longer than you'll be alive or me. So, it'll be brand new. Whoever get it from me, it'll get it brand new. I saw another hand back there but I don't think it was the person that was talking. I don't see it. They must have changed their mind. Okay. Brother Imam.
Speaker 15:
We came up on the jar and label and stuff like that. Will we be able to get that through CPC?
IWDM:
No, we don't want that. We don't want that. Anything we can do and have CPC freed from that, that's what we want to do. We need CPC to make purchases overseas and from factories directly from factories. But something small like labels, we can do it. But why not the distributors? 26 distributors. We can't buy labels for these jars?
Speaker 15:
We going handle it. We going handle it. It's taken care of.
IWDM:
Yeah, I don't see why we can't. All the distributors run the business, buy the labels, buy the jar, buy the labels.
Speaker 19:
We'll have something in 30 days.
IWDM:
I think we priced the jar already. Do you like this jar? I like it too. We got a jar looks very much like this jar. Four ounce jar looks very much like this one. It might be exactly and I think 13 cents a jar, the volume that we'd be getting. 13 cents a jar. The label you talk about maybe another five or 10 cents. So, 25 cents. That's the total cost outside the content, right? So, what's that? That's nothing. Yeah, you're looking at volume. That's what you should be looking at. You're looking at volume.
Speaker 19:
We should be able to find something in the regions.
IWDM:
And we don't know the price of the Shea Butter yet, but we are guessing that once this is all complete, we don't expect for the whole thing to be over $3. Everything. Shea Butter packaging, everything. To you. To the distributor. Over $3. And that's what we're expecting. It may go a little over but I'm hoping it'll come a little under, not over $3. See this is for $3 and we getting $10 for it retail. Right? That's a very good price.
Yeah. So, you could afford to sell this to a retailer for five or $6 and you make good money and the retailer makes real good money. If you tell them they're going to double their money. Oh they looking for about 30 cents, 35 cents on the dollar.
They looking like one for one third. That's what they looking for. You tell them you're going to double their money? You give us a dollar, you get $2. "Hey man, you got any more out there? Okay, come back next week. And that's what I would do. Don't try to stick them up and get as much as you can. "I can get $10, I can get $9 from this guy." No I don't do that. He got a lot overhead. You don't have that overhead. He got to sit on that stuff. It has to sit on the shelf until somebody buy it. You don't have to do all that. So, sell it to the retailer at the best advantage you can give them and you take a small amount so you have volume. Count your money later, let him count his right now and yours will get bigger than his.
If it serves the purpose, that's good as long as it serves the purpose. Durable. Long as it serves the purpose. Cause you don't need a lot of heat. See that's what you got to keep in mind. You don't need high heat. So, if you take a boiler like that, a big pot. It can be iron still doesn't matter. A big pot. And you set it up on about the full four by fours and build you a log fire, a stick fire up under it and keep the fire down. Don't have it too high, it's going to melt that butter. I don't care how you do it, just keep it clean and then pour it out of that big pot through the filters, filter it and you're in business. So, you don't have to do this. This is the way we doing it.
Those brothers, all they wanted, like we used to do with teenagers, work after school. As soon as we got enough money to buy the cookies or whatever we were after, the job was over, all finished. Some brothers the same way in business. He looking at about $15 he need today. He sell enough Shea Butter about to get that $15. That's all. So, you don't need to do nothing but sit you a pot on your stove, put on a low fire. Melt your butter, get you a straining cloth and pour it through there. You got your business right on your stove. And by the time you get your food done, your business will be finished. But please don't say you with us.
That's our responsibility. Is to agree. And once we agree, we don't change that until we meet again and discuss it and come up with a different decision. Everything. Everything got to be uniform. Yes sir. And right now it's $10. 9.95. Like $10 retail. Yeah. Now sometimes it is wise to get rid of old inventory. Now I don't know if we're going to get stuck with any, but if we get stuck with something and we decide well, this stuff we don't want it to lose its shelf life and we need to get rid of this and they want to have sale to drop the prices, then that should be agreed on by whoever get in that situation first should bring it to the rest of our attention. And then we agree on the discount price.
You can have inventory sales, I like that. Inventory sales. And plus you get credit for that loss with the IRS. Don't forget that. This is important. If that price is $9.95 and we agree on selling it for $8.95. You tell the IRS you suffered a $1 loss on each jar because that's what you did. That's a loss. So, you bought it and you bought it to expect this amount of money to come from it. If you ain't getting that amount of money, whatever money under that is a loss and you can talk to your bookkeeper if you ain't your own bookkeeper and they'll tell you. No, no, no. The IRS will tell you, let me see your books. And if you don't have a calendar showing that you did that over a period of months selling it at that price, they know what to do for you. Is it penalty and interest? Penalties and interest? That's right. Penalties and interest, not just interest. Penalties and interest.
Speaker 18:
Of course, Brother Imam. Maintaining that price. If y'all ain't clear with that, in terms of the 9.95, for that Shea Butter, if you're going to sell the operation in that region, that means you have to market your Shea Butter in that price range. Is that correct? Right. Okay, simply because you set up in that region, Imam got it in this region you got a different price.
IWDM:
No, it should be the same price. Even if you sold it in England, it should be the same price. You sell it in Timbuktu, it should be the same price.
Speaker 18:
A lot of people might say, I manufacture my own, I'm going to do what I want to do.
IWDM:
Well they won't be belong to us.
Speaker 18:
That's right.
IWDM:
I see what you're saying.
Speaker 18:
Just want to make that clear.
IWDM:
He got his own melting pot, huh?
Speaker 19:
So, are the members of CPC going to have access to your income tax accountant to assist in helping us file our taxes correctly?
IWDM:
Anytime you want. If you're a member, if you're an investor, you are entitled to it. The law, you're entitled to it. If you want to see a tax return or anything, you're entitled to it.
Speaker 18:
I mean like for instance, since they're members and distributors and stuff, you might know how they can save money. You might be saving money because you are more knowledgeable in certain aspects of business, in the economical industrial type of sales and stuff. Can they come to you or come to somebody in particular and say, okay, you're mathematically sound in this area with numbers and stuff like that. What can we do? What can we do together to make our company a better company?
IWDM:
Excellent, excellent. And that's what we all about. We already set up for that.
Speaker 18:
We already set up for that.
IWDM:
Yeah, that's excellent. That's an excellent question and we set up for it already. The distributors, we are available to each other to share information, advice, expertise, whatever. We are available to each other and we do want to know, can you benefit from our member here who's a tax accountant, can you benefit from a member here who's a school trained professional, small business manager or accountant? Can you benefit from it? We want to share the resources with each other. Free of cost. This is nothing but information. We ain't going to come in there and do your books now, but free information. It should be free for all of us. I know from me you get it free. Get everything I got free except this formula. I worked too hard. I prayed before even going into work. Before I even went to work. I prayed and then I went to work.
And now I got it. Looks like Ice Cream coming out.
I'm working on something else too.
If I'm successful, you'll going to really like this.
So, it would be reasonable to say that CPC is willing to represent the distributors to the best of its ability like a paid attorney?
Imam WD Mohammed (02:38:52):
Not CPC. The distributor board.
Imam WD Mohammed (02:39:03):
Certainly. A paid attorney.
Imam WD Mohammed (02:39:06):
Certainly, certainly, certainly. We got attorney among us. We all use that attorney if we agree on it.
Speaker 19:
Brother Imam, the answer to this question is this. We have been giving out information for the last three years in terms of consulting people among us to have expertise that have been educated. And most of the brothers and sisters have been well educated to a great degree by having these business conferences, business associations, accountants on hand, attorneys on hand. I mean it was a wealth of knowledge and information. Brothers and sisters have been given to us. We should be well ahead and sharp.
IWDM:
The conferences, etc.
Speaker 19:
Actually, we are ahead. It was your own fault. Not because of what we had to offer, what the Imam had to offer during the CPC conference. So you should be ready in your area to do business if you're not ready in your area because of your own lazy mind, not applying yourself to be in position to do business and what's going to end up happening once things start rolling, if you ain't set up in your area and ready to do business, you're going to be left out where the next state going to be making all kinds of money. You're going to be wondering what's happened, what's taking place. You may not be the person to handle that business.
IWDM:
That's true.
Speaker 19:
You should let somebody else have it.
IWDM:
That's true. And that goes for all of us. I may not be the person that carries it all the way through. Who knows? Going to do the best we can.
Yeah, because we sure coming into your state. If there ain't no distributors there.
Speaker 19:
We got one and we set up. And we ready to roll.
IWDM:
I wasn't talking about your state. I said anybody's state.
Speaker 18:
So, whoever can do the job best, let them do their job.
IWDM:
Right. That's intelligent. And then let the others benefit from that person.
Speaker 18:
Then you benefit from what they can do better.
IWDM:
Right? Exactly. Exactly. So that's it?
Audience:
Imam. I think we covered all that. Everything,
IWDM:
Yeah. So don't forget to take a look at this boiler before you leave. Those who are interested in doing their own processing in your area. Hold it one moment.
Imam WD Mohammed (02:41:27):
I have a question. As far as the distributors getting the name of the investors who want products, phone numbers and names.
IWDM:
The name of the investors that want products. They should come directly to you, but if we know of them, know of some investor that wants to buy products and we know they're in the area of your distributorship, we will tell them. But we will also contact you too. We'll do both. We'll inform them of you and we'll also contact you.
Speaker 18:
Are going to have the Grace Line name on the Shea Butter?
IWDM:
See that's the two we talking about. See? And look like it can hold about two and a half ounces maybe. Yes, yes, yes. Grace Line going to go on everything. Grace Line going to go on our twin towers when we put them up in one of these great cities. That'll work. Do a little. Yeah, but look, that's right inside.
No bulging. Nope. That's alright there. Something a little bit flatter than that. Take that one out. Yeah, that's more my size. I'm going to need all this. There's enough to last me. Go to hajj and come back. Oh, I got it. Okay. Hey, that's all right. That's all right. That's nice. Sisters might like that too.
You want to pass it around? Do you make containers for ounces?
Speaker 18:
Do I make them?
IWDM:
Yeah.
Speaker 3 :
Well, I was going say that's nice if someone among us is manufacturing these containers, we don't have to go outside of ourselves to supply distributors with those containers. We have another one that make labels. We don't have to go outside ourselves, to get the labels.
Speaker 18:
Well that's how we are to try to work together with what we got to share with everybody.
IWDM:
Yeah. Now the question she's asking is a good one. It is a good question. Sometimes it's cheaper to just get the container and put the labels on ourself. Especially if we want to make jobs. See you've got some teenagers you want to give jobs to. Then we set up a little simple operation for them to slap the labels on. Now maybe we not getting any more benefits financially. Maybe if we had to company to do it for us, we break even. But we got a chance to give these youngsters jobs.
Speaker 18:
But for this container here you screw it?
IWDM:
Yes.
Speaker 18:
That's a very easy container to fill. The tube container you need a special machine.
IWDM:
That's right. I know that's right. That's right. I know.
Speaker 9:
That one you can fill very easy with Shea Butter.
IWDM:
The one you screwed. That's right.
Speaker 9:
That's a little more expensive container.
IWDM:
Yeah, I know. Yeah. Right now we can't use containers that we ourselves can't fill. We're not ready to give that kind of money or to invest that kind of money into machinery to do it for us. So we going to have to use containers that we can fill.
Speaker 9:
Maybe they could use a straw method on some of those containers you've got to fill them. Yeah. Well there's two different types of containers we can fill ourselves. Not that long.
IWDM:
Yeah. Yes. That opening is very small.
Speaker 9:
Yeah, but they have a special machine I think that can do it.
IWDM:
They squirt it in, right? Squirt. I see.
Speaker 9:
It's not as expensive as the one you saw.
IWDM:
Hand machine. Right. I can get that. That'll work. That'll work. But what about a different one? That's true okay, but for me that would be one of the designs that we would want. You don't want to be bulging here carrying it, but now you need one, like a tube that you say it costs to put together. Or you need a plastic tube or bottle that you can squeeze. Plastic soft enough to squeeze and make it and it comes out.
Speaker 9:
This one. They coming?
IWDM:
Yeah. You squeeze this. Yeah, that's it. Now this is a nice size here.
Speaker 9:
Oh yeah,
IWDM:
This is a nice size. Oh yeah, this will work. That'll really work.
Speaker 9:
It's comfortable in your hand.
IWDM:
It'll work. This will really work. That's a big opening. I can do that in the kitchen. I can fill mine up in the kitchen. It won't take me long either. And with that little manual machine you're talking about, this will be fast. Yeah, we can work with this one. Can you get me this one? So, I'll tell you how many to order for ComTrust before you leave here, InshaAllah. Can you show that around? Anybody think they'd be interested in the same one? I'm not going to let the money go out for the next five or 10 days until we can get that discount. See how many we're going to have coming in with us. You going to be in to? Alright, got another one, got another distributor. There's two distributors you got.
All who don't know Brother Ghani. A lot of you know him. I've been knowing him. How many years brother Ghani? I've been knowing you 27 years I guess. That's right. I was in Oakland. We lived in, I lived in the city where he lived in Oakland. I can vouch for him.
Brother Ghani:
Right.
IWDM:
I vouch for him. You can trust him and he's a businessman, but you can trust him.
Speaker 18:
I got a question. I was wondering, is it possible that you can develop a formula that you can use this Shea Butter so it will go hand in hand with soap. So, when you wash your hands, you can only get them clean, but you can get them moisturized at the same time.
IWDM:
That can be done.
Speaker 2:
That can be done.
IWDM:
In fact, somebody have done that. A brother has a Shea Butter soap. You know that? You got it. Okay. All right. Here. He got it.
Speaker 4:
He already got my idea.
IWDM:
Yeah, they got a Shea Butter soap.
Speaker 5:
Two different. No, not like that.
IWDM:
No. They got one in a tube too.
Speaker 18:
They got one in a tube?
IWDM:
Yes. They got one in a tube. Yes. They got a liquid soap with Shea Butter. This is nice. We got this.
Speaker 13:
If we don't sell them the raw material, they can't get it right. They can't make it right.
IWDM:
They can get the raw material from somebody else. Yeah. All these people don't belong to us. Now they're not members of CPC or investors. They're not the investors. They're making different products. We can't stop that. That's why they say they advertise that product in our magazine. We want to help them. They going along and that's fine. And we don't have any problem with that.
Speaker 18:
Then we'll advertise ours in their magazine.
IWDM:
Competition is good. Yeah, no problem. And if they carry a product that we can buy at the right price, it's a good product. It will make our product sell more. If you carry that product too. The more you carry, the more impressive it is.
Speaker 18:
They got the hand soap now, but they don't have the hair stuff.
IWDM:
That's what this is. I got, man, that's skin and hair. I got,
Speaker 18:
I
IWDM:
Can't tell you what's in there. It'd be much better for that hair than what you use.
Speaker 18:
It's the Shea Butter. That's what I use.
IWDM:
I got something with Vitamin E in there. Mine going really work with that hair.
Speaker 10:
My hair been growing too since I've been using it. I don't know what's going on.
IWDM:
You don't want to let it grow too much.
Speaker 18:
Maybe my hair been growing because I've been listening to you.
IWDM:
Don't want to let it grow too much. Like you wear your features.
Speaker 18:
Really?
IWDM:
Yeah, your features. Right. Just like you got it there. You make it pile up there, you won't look right.
Speaker 18:
It looks nice and I appreciate the advice.
IWDM:
I didn't know your hair was thin. It looks real nice. It becomes you. You don't want it stick. I can't imagine you with a big afro or something. Okay, so we going to go with that tube that I gave you and we got a jar already. We got the four ounce jar. So, we don't need that. We got a jar, good big company right in this area and the price about 13 cents a jar. So, we can get in with you.
Speaker 4:
To get a jar.
IWDM:
If you've got the same jar, if you could beat that price. No, I don't think so. I don't think so either. We got a real good price.
Speaker 18:
Have they put that Shea Butter on the market for cooking? Is it on the market for cooking in the United States?
IWDM:
No. I don't think it'll go. I don't think it'll go.
Speaker 18:
Is it high in cholesterol?
IWDM:
No. Even if it's not, it can be studied now, but I don't think it will. See, I don't. It'll go for It has to be tested for everything. You got to go through lab tests and then pass the Food and Drug Administration and everything. Yeah. And believe me, if they knew it was good, it'd be on the market already. It would've been on the market.
Speaker 2:
You make your own Shea Butter. I said you make your own Shea Butter. You don't need it for anything.
IWDM:
Yeah, I need all the Shea Butter. It works perfectly. Close it back up. Now this is a good one. But if I demonstrate mine, you demonstrate yours. I got your customer. Mine got more body. There's more body to mine. More substance. More substance.
Speaker 10:
Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, let's pass. Anybody got any business cards? Let's pass them out.
IWDM:
Yeah, because yeah, if we like this container, the squeeze container he got and for me it's good if you all like it, the more of us buy from that company, the better price you're going to get. And where's the other one? You had another one? Not this one. This is not the one that I want. Yeah, that's the one. This is the one I like.
Speaker 18:
Yeah, that's this is the one I see. Small, nice grip and easy.
Speaker 4:
It's got that Avon look too.
IWDM:
And attractive for the sisters. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Attractive for the sisters. See that's a nice one. As long as we a small operation we could put on there whatever the price is to refill, we knock off half the price of that. Say if the price is 20 cents for that container. We say return it undamaged for refill. Refill it at 10% off. At ten percent off.
Speaker 3:
15 cents.
IWDM:
See if it costs 20 cents. We'll refill it.
Speaker 18:
For 10 cents.
IWDM:
10 cents. That's 10% off, 50% off, 50% off.
Speaker 18:
Tencent.
IWDM:
Or 50% off. Yeah. And that way we could sell it back to them cheaper to distributors.
Speaker 18:
We be doing good business.
IWDM:
If you tell your customers, don't throw away your containers. If you want refills, you turn your containers, back into us undamaged with the top on nice, we refill it and give you 10 cent off.
Speaker 18:
Same thing that Coca-Cola do with the pop bottles.
IWDM:
Right.
Speaker 2:
Bring it back and give you 5 cents. And you're helping the environment.
IWDM:
Helping the environment, right.
Speaker 18:
That's right.
IWDM:
Yeah. See we small. You can do what you want to do. Almost.
Speaker 18:
Do we qualify for getting a small business loan through the government?
IWDM:
I don't see why not? Sure you can get a business loan.
Speaker 18:
You're probably going to get some products.
IWDM:
I can get a small business loan from my brother, my friend. When I go to the government, it's going to be a big business loan. It's going to be one that my grandson going to have to order.
Speaker 18:
That's right. Get all you can get.
IWDM:
There are a lot of things that we can do with the government and it is very, very advisable to do it. Just like this housing. I believe we should have a not-for-profit housing project. So, we get benefits from the government and then even if you don't have that, you still can get benefits, but you get much bigger benefits if you're not-for-profit, have a Church or a Mosque project development company and also have Grace Line Development Company with the distributors for-profit and not-for-profit. Get both advantages.
Speaker 18:
Not a project. Like the government gave us a project for us, not-for-profit housing. But we can live for what it costs to live instead of live for what it costs to destructively control our families and children. But we get our own projects together.
IWDM:
The government's changing that though. They realize that they made a mistake. They're changing now in Chicago, they're taking down all those projects. High rise projects. They're coming down.
Speaker 12:
One of my partners, Kenny Gamble. They just awarded him a 93 million dollar contract.
IWDM:
93 million.
Speaker 12:
93 million
IWDM:
Kenny Gamble. Tell him to tell you what I told him when I was in Philadelphia. That's serious. That's serious, what I told him. If he didn't share it with you, tell him to share it. Yeah. I was so impressed with what he had done there, man. Oh man. But what we talking about , he already got it. Got a lot of houses gone up already. Got a neighborhood that really controlled by the people of the neighborhood through Kenny Gamble and his partner. And a mosque where the adhan can be heard. The neighbors can hear the adhan. He already got it. Kenny Gamble, he's a Muslim now. Kenny Gamble's a Muslim. And he is very, very excited about us doing the project there. So, you talk to him, let him tell you about it. Yeah. We intend to do that project. Right. You want to put it right in the middle of his project so that the neighbors, those neighbors are all around us. That little community already done. We just have to go in there and contribute to it. That's all. And a school. Yes. Yes. I know. I went through, yes, I toured the classroom. Beautiful quality, clean, beautiful quality facility and quality management. High quality management. Be very proud of it.
Speaker 20:
This has been a real informative session.
I don't know whether he's pulling my leg or not. He told me that, he said "I became a Muslim as result of your teaching. Tell him, Ooh, we got a big fish.
We going to have the du'a.
IWDM:
All right. Yes. Now don't forget to go buy the boiler, I mean the melting pot.
We going to send each distributor full description of everything. More description than what the factory gave us because the factory didn't give us enough for US customs. US Customs required more description. So, we going to give you full description of threads, everything. What the fabric is, what the fabric is, what threads and everything. So, you'll have full description. If you want to sell to a wholesaler or somebody that purchased some retail that purchased and knows his business, he might ask you those questions. So, you are going to have full description and you're going to have the full cost. You're going to have the cost from the Damascus factory to us, including shipping from Damascus. This time we did it by plane. When we order next time, we shouldn't have to crunch. We should give more time.
You don't have to rush. It'll be by ship. It cost less. So, by plane it was higher. But the KLM airline, it wasn't too, I think it was worth it. Well worth it to have to speed the products here. You'll have that cost, insurance. Every penny of costs. You'll have it in the description that we give you in the statement we give you. And you'll have the CPC 40% per dollar to add. And here, we had costs here too. I said customs? We had customs costs, brokers costs. We had to pay a broker. Now we can be our own broker. But those guys are experienced and they don't charge that much. The broker's fee is nothing but $50, $150 might've been $50. It is a small broker's fee.
What else? All truck rentals to bring it from the location here. And that's about it. The facility might charge us a little something for storage, but what's that going to be? Pennies. We talking about big money. All the cost that I can think of from here. I doubt if it'll be a penny on a dollar. Now the cost from overseas is going to affect it a little bit, but not that much. $80,000 purchase. You know what the broker and the lady who worked with us, Asian said. Chinese lady working with us, married to one of our brothers. Big business lady trades with her country and other countries for a real big company. She ain't asked nobody for nothing. She didn't even ask us for any money. But we paid her. We paid her for her cost, which was little, nothing. That's a blessing from Allah to have these people.
She told us and the broker say "You all could have between a million and a million and a half dollars in value here for 80,000." I can't believe it and I don't believe it, but I'll let you know what it is later. But that makes me think it's going to be much better than I thought it was. Now that's what I'm thinking, that we going to have more gain here than I thought we were going to have. Because 80 is not even a hundred thousand. You talking about ten hundred thousand. Yeah. So that's 10 times. 10 times plus. 10 times. And you don't get that, only off of some cosmetic jewelry and liquor bootleg.
That's right. I don't know nothing to bring that kind of profit. Yes sir. And you can't expect that all the time. I hope it lasts long as possible. Let's get it while there. But let's see. I can't believe that. I think they exaggerated it. We'll see. But one thing for sure, you'll know what I know. You'll have original documents, copies. Not what we print like somebody did for me here recently. They typed it up. I said no, you typing up something. Where's the document? What's going to support this that you type up? So, somebody doing business and they type up something for you and you are the one that they supposed to report to. What have you got in that typed report? You don't have a thing. You should throw it in the trash.
Speaker 15:
Monkey trash.
IWDM:
So, I didn't throw it in the trash, but what do you got in the report that they typed up? Nothing. So, I told them, I said, we are still waiting for the report. Invoice. Copies of invoices. Copies of bank statements. We have to see what you were looking at, what you were writing this up.
Speaker 15:
Want to look in the same pot. That's what we try to give.
IWDM:
We got to stop taking each other for fools.
Speaker 2:
True indeed.
IWDM:
That's a shame. We disrespect each other. We disrespect each other. No Muslim should take another Muslim for a fool. No intelligent person should take another person for a fool. You shouldn't do that. I'm speaking to all of us because all of us, some of us may have some of that stuff in us. Don't do that. Respect the intelligence of people. I start to send that crazy freak that want to hurt somebody to her.
You don't want to stand for G-d. Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah. And the law requires the label to identify the manufacturer made in Syria has to stay on it. The model number. Yes sir.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. No need to change them I don't think. Wouldn't be. Would that be any benefit in changing?
IWDM:
No, I'm just saying we could rely on that to be ordered. Yes. Oh yeah, definitely. Yes sir. Okay. I need to share something with the distributors. I need to share something with you. Distributors. You know the bundle socks that the street sales person sell on the street? Yes. Those bundle socks. Yes. Cotton socks. White. White cotton socks. I looked at some when I was in Atlanta. Brother Hamam, as we know he was selling them, showed them to me and they looked like they top quality. What I looked at was top quality, thick top quality. For children and adults and the price looked real good. I don't think we could buy them overseas. Once we take customs and take and look at all the other risks, I don't think we can get a better deal by buying them overseas. So, we, ComTrust made a purchase. I thought he would get here. But the weekend, Imam Pasha just explained it to me. He had the weekend so they couldn't get the trucks loaded. We made a big purchase of 10,000. 10,000 dozens.
Our distributorship. I wouldn't spend your money without your permission. No, no. I want you to discipline your tongue. We purchased 10,000 dozen and the price was so good. So, I said well, find out how much it'll cost if we bought anywhere from five to 10,000. So, the price is very good. So, we got 10,000 dozen. 10,000. And we are getting ready to work through this young man who's a natural born salesman and I hope that he'll be able to recruit about 500 youngsters on the street.
We can compete with the Koreans, whoever supplies the youngsters, we ready to compete. So that's available to you all too. Available to all the distributors. If you all like it, I'll share the information with you. I'll send you copies of the price from the factory. I'll send you a copy of it. Of what I get, my invoice. I'll send you copies of the invoice. The distributors will get copies of the invoice and you'll see what you can make. If you like it, just let us know. And Brother Hamam is not charging us anything except expenses. We had to pay his expenses to go to North Carolina? No, Alabama. And he's going to New York too for watches. The watches. He said he got them. He's been selling watches for a long time. He's selling watches himself and he said he think he can get the best price for us that will put us in a situation to supply the street vendors, the street persons with the same price they getting it. Or most likely going to be better than the price they paying. Oh, it'd be better than the price you're paying for. Much better than that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Much better than that. You going to be jumping for joy. I told you. Yes sir.
Speaker 22:
We're going to be moving up. Huh?
IWDM:
Who all in the picture? Yes. Distributorship.
Speaker 3:
Got a factory there.
Speaker 4:
One more please. More. Yeah.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Make sure you got your upper part of the body. All in focus.
Okay.
Speaker 4:
As Salaam Alaikum.
Speaker 22:
We definitely will.



