If small black businesses are going to be successful in the 1990s and beyond, they must unite, share information and work directly with manufacturers, a speaker said this week.

And business owners must travel widely, especially to places like China and South Africa where they can take advantage of cheaper labour costs.

Eve's Cycle Shop owner Mr. Robert Trew shared these ideas with a large audience during the inaugural Bermuda Business Organisation meeting held at the Leopard's Club on Thursday night.

Mr. Trew, who has been a businessman for more than 30 years, said that small black businesses could never hope to survive if they bought their merchandise second or third hand.

Instead, Mr. Trew advised the audience -- made up of business owners in such diverse fields as construction, clothing and grocery stores -- to go directly to the manufacturer.

Once there, he said business persons should ask for credit and endeavour to sell those goods before the period was up.

"That's what Front Street does,'' Mr. Trew said. "All they do is pay the duty on the goods and then sell them.'' Mr. Trew also encouraged small business people to travel widely especially to the newer markets around the world.

"Go to the fairs,'' he advised. "Go to China, it's a new market. Take a delegation. There is one coming up in Beijing soon.

"Don't worry about anyone else stealing your ideas because (separately) none of you have enough money to do anything anyway.

"It's good to be black these days,'' he continued. "Those overseas manufacturers don't care what colour you are. All they worry about is money.'' True Reflections co-owner Ms Valerie Young said that "keeping the business in the family'' was the secret of their success to date.

"Our philosophy has always been to keep it in the family,'' she explained.

"We use family members to work in the store and help us out with bookkeeping and retail.

"I have no business degrees, I am a school teacher who uses the knowledge that is in my family.'' Ms Young said Bermuda's small businesses needed to unite but before any kind of fruitful networking could begin locally, there needed to be trust built between black entrepreneurs.

"We have to learn how to trust each other,'' she added. "We need to share containers and start thinking bigger than importing a couple of boxes by air or by sea. We need to work together to get that container full.'' Mr. Vance Swan of Swan Brothers welding and steel erectors, said that small business people should invest time and training into their workers.

"We trained our own men and they can work anywhere in the world,'' he said.

"I worked with all my staff. If they failed a test I stayed with them.'' But Mr. Swan said there was another side to training and investing in one's staff. He said that other businesses would court them away.

In his own case, he said that competitor was the Government. Still, Mr. Swan said that black businesses could ill-afford to be selfish.

"Don't bury your skills,'' he said. "Give them to one of our brothers and sisters. Help one another to build. Join hands and make a small business a big business. Make it something to be recognised.

"Blend your skills and train (workers). Never give up on training because with it you can overcome a lot on your own.'' Senator Terry Lister, who gave the keynote speech to the gathering, said black companies needed to be vigilant and honest about the quality of the products they sold.

"We can't expect to consistently take the people's money and give them lesser quality product in return.'' Mr. Lister said that while the training of staff, networking and patronising black-owned businesses was important, companies had to be realistic about what they could do when they accepted projects.

"We must be realistic about our abilities,'' he said. "Let's not pretend we can do something when in fact we can't (because) all we end up doing is ruining our reputation.''