{"id":5244,"date":"2021-02-10T16:16:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T22:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/?p=5244"},"modified":"2021-08-18T09:16:40","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T14:16:40","slug":"people-over-profits-alum-isaac-collins-values-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/2021\/02\/10\/people-over-profits-alum-isaac-collins-values-community\/","title":{"rendered":"People Over Profits: Alum Isaac Collins values community"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Isaac

Isaac Collins Sr. and Sonja Collins enjoy the football game with their son, Isaac \u201811, and Isaac\u2019s wife, Rachel.<\/p><\/div>\n

Isaac Collins \u201911 says that since at least high school, he has wanted to run his own business. But also from an early age, he knew that business wasn\u2019t just about making money. He describes himself as a \u201ccommunity entrepreneur,\u201d owning and operating businesses but also connecting people in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, we didn\u2019t have a lot of money, and things weren\u2019t handed to us,\u201d Collins said. \u201cHowever, one thing that was given to me freely was love. I have two very amazing parents; there was no shortage of love in our household. We also saw a slew of people who helped us out of our circumstance that we were in, so that was celebrated in my family. Helping other people was celebrated, instead of making money or getting over on the other guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins, the owner of three Yogurtini frozen yogurt shops and a nonprofit organization in the Kansas City area, says that sense of community and helping others is fundamental to everything he does.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents told me, if you\u2019re going to do something, it needs to be something that\u2019s going to help someone else. So that\u2019s my philosophy,\u201d he said. \u201cI bring that to how I run my businesses \u2013 choosing people over profits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IsaacIt was also that sense of community that led him to participate in the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. To Collins, Black Lives Matter isn\u2019t a political movement. It\u2019s larger than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe in a just society that holds equality and justice to a high standard,\u201d he said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t radical stuff that I\u2019m talking about; I\u2019m just saying \u2018all opportunities for all people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins said he\u2019s engaged in bringing awareness through protests, marches and contacting government officials. He\u2019s also been working to get people registered to vote \u2013 \u201cmarginalized communities aren\u2019t being heard because they aren\u2019t voting.\u201d He says one of the most rewarding things he\u2019s been involved in has been working with three partners to lead a monthly diversity and inclusion seminar on Zoom.<\/p>\n

While some business owners might be reluctant to speak out for fear of alienating potential customers by rocking the boat, Collins said it was important to him to raise awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a black man, I am still looked at like I am black first, before I am a business owner,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you aren\u2019t black, you may not understand or see that, but that\u2019s my experience. If I am not in my business, I get treated very differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which is not to say that his status as a business owner doesn\u2019t have its advantages. Collins says his voice is heard when others may not be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fighting for people who don\u2019t have a voice to fight for themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd luckily, I\u2019ve had success where I\u2019m at a lot of these tables, and when I speak, people listen to me. That\u2019s been an amazing thing, to be able to be heard in this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Isaac

Isaac was awarded a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store in 2012.<\/p><\/div>\n

That success was not overnight. After completing his football career and graduating from the Craig School of Business in December 2011, Isaac moved almost immediately into the entrepreneur phase of his life. He was offered a $40,000 a year salary out of college, but chose instead to run the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store in St. Joseph. At the same time, he was enrolled in the Applied Entrepreneurship class that gave him the chance to own his own store. In 2012, he was awarded a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store in Williamsburg, Iowa.<\/p>\n

Collins said he faltered out of the gate, but ultimately succeeded simply because he stuck with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t fail until you quit, so I just kept learning, learning, learning,\u201d he said, reading books and leaning on mentors like Steve Craig, the benefactor who helped create the applied entrepreneurship program. \u201cIt took a couple of years before I would call myself a decent entrepreneur, and now eight-and- a-half years later I think that I\u2019m great. And not great as in, hey, I\u2019m making a ton of money, but great in the sense that I am an entrepreneur of character and integrity and perseverance because of those hard times I faced in year one.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Isaac Collins \u201911 says that since at least high school, he has wanted to run his own business. But also from an early age, he knew that business wasn\u2019t just about making money. He describes himself as a \u201ccommunity entrepreneur,\u201d owning and operating businesses but also connecting people in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,25,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5249,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5244\/revisions\/5249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}