Littie Brown has been the president and co-owner of a printing studio, SpeedPro Marietta, for 11 years.

Brown’s number one goal during that time is to provide customers with exceptional service. Her motto is simple yet powerful: “If you can imagine it, we can print it.” 

Brown, who is very active in her community, says she knows what it takes to succeed and outlast the challenges she has faced as a Black woman in business and wants to share her story so she can inspire others, especially young women, to start their own businesses.  

From Corporate to Entrepreneur

Brown said she didn’t have any intentions of opening a business 11 years ago. She worked in corporate America for 35 years prior to opening a SpeedPro franchise. She spent 26 years with Xerox Corporation, then a couple of years each with Dunn & Bradstreet, and then with W.W. Grainger, Inc. 

When Brown left, she was looking for something new.

“I received a call from a franchise consultant saying I really ought to think about owning my own business. With being in executive management, they thought I would be perfect owning a franchise,” she said. 

Her current business partner, Karen Brown (no relation) became best friends after meeting at church when Littie moved to Georgia in 2005. 

“I was showing her all the information about the franchise because she’s always wanted to own a business, and I told her, ‘Here’s an opportunity you might want to look at,’” Littie said. “One day, we started talking about what it looks like to own a business.”

Littie said she and Karen have “very opposite skill sets,” where her background is in sales and sales management, and Karen is more operational in architecture and project management. 

Karen added that their friendship blends well.

“It’s interesting because you think we would get tired of each other because we see each other a lot,” Karen joked. “We go to…