From Corporate Refugee to Business Owner: Melinda Emerson on Buying a Business

Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guest: Melinda Emerson – SmallBizLady & Franchise Educator – This is Part 1 of a 2-Part Episode

Meg Schmitz 
Hello everyone and welcome to or welcome back to my podcast, the Free Agent, where the discussion is all about free agency and taking control over your financial future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, franchising and freedom.

From corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown to control over their destiny and became their own boss. So this conversation today I’m very excited about. Melinda Emerson and I were introduced a few weeks ago and I’m not going to do a whole say so about who you are because that’s going to come out in this episode. But we were introduced by another female force of nature, Virginia Musgraves, who’s just. What a. That was that. When I review every Friday, who did I talk to? She was the most amazing conversation I had that week. And when she said, oh, Meg, you have got to meet Melinda Emerson.

And so I jumped on that one right away and we had a wonderful first conversation. So, Melinda, welcome to my podcast the Free Agent. And let’s just kick this baby off. I would love for my audience to come to the realization of how you have become enamored with and it’s such a flag waving advocate of franchising. But go back in time about your own upbringing and your small business leanings and how you’ve become such a great expert.

Melinda:
Well, you know, I started as an entrepreneur because I got my dream job, like second job out of College. I got my dream job and I hated it. I hate it. It was like, you know, I learned you better be careful what you wish for because you just might get it right.

I mean, like, literally. I became a television producer, a top five market. And I didn’t know this, but I hated murders and fires. I hated men in handcuffs. Like, I was like, why am I doing this?

Like, nobody cares about local news but the weather. And so at age 26, I jumped out, started my own business in the basement of my house. Basically, when I got started, I had a laptop, a fax machine and a dream. That’s it. You know, I started a business, Quintessence Group, which is the company that I still have now, 26 years later.

And you know, it was hard because I knew I, I went to school for broadcast news. I didn’t even minor in business. So everything I learned about business, I learned the most expensive way possible. Yeah. And so after about, you know, seven, eight years of being in business, I, I used to get these calls that went a little something like this, girl, I want to be like you. I want to quit my job today. I want to be an entrepreneur.

And I was like, girl, you can’t quit your job. You love Prada. You can’t do that. You got, you know, $5,000 a month mortgage and two brand new cars outside. You can’t quit your job because you are unable to recoil your lifestyle in order to do it.

But more calls kept coming and I said, you know what, I’m just going to have to write, write a book or something because I need to get these people off of my phone, literally.

So I, I sat down to write the book I had never read. But prior to that, about five, six years into my business, I got pregnant with my son. And I ended up getting put on bed rest for six months. So I’m in my early 30s. I ended up with a high risk pregnancy. They thought my child had a heart condition. I mean, it was a mess.

And so, and back then WI Fi wasn’t in people’s houses. So I need you to get in your time machine with me and go back to the early 2000s and imagine I had offices in downtown Philadelphia. My husband had quit his full time job at GE and joined our business. We had, I think eight or nine employees and another 10, 12 freelancers that worked for us. I mean, we had, I had the largest female owned production company in Philadelphia.

Meg:
Nice.

Melinda:
And then I got pregnant. And then I got, and then, and then they were like, you gotta go home And I’m like, what? You know, And I was the number one rainmaker in my business, right? So imagine what happened.
I get sent home, and then all of a sudden there’s no rain because the rainmaker’s not there to shake the magic stick and make it rain. So it was a mess. I mean, the year that I had my son, and by the way, my son was born in December, so I was pregnant that whole year.

By the time my son got here, my business was almost. We were almost out of business. I mean, it was. It was really, really scary. And I was like, lord, what am I going to do?

The other problem was I was like the worst workaholic you ever met. Like, I literally. I would pull a 12, 14 hour day every day, and I was awful. I mean, you could call my office at 9 o’ clock at night and people would answer the phone like it was 3 o’ clock in the afternoon.

Not only was I a workaholic, I made everybody that worked for me be one too. I bought lunch and dinner every day. You know, you don’t have to leave. I got you. Right? I mean, it was sick.

You know, back then, my. My secret sauce was, we’re gonna outwork people. Yeah, Madness.

So anyway, I get sent home. I’m at home with a Palm 3 cell phone, I think, trying to run my life. It was a mess. And so I started writing down all the expensive lessons I had learned in my business.

And that eventually became, you know, two years later, I went back to those notes. Once I got things stable, my. My baby finally got here. I got him to his first birthday. And then God reminded me of those notes that I had.

And he put a divine calling on my life to become America’s number one small business expert. And then he moved every mountain out of my way to make it happen. Literally.

The first publisher I ever talked to. I didn’t have an agent. I didn’t have a book proposal. I did not know what those things were. I had four chapters in the table of contents and a media kit about myself.

And I sent it to them and they bought my book and they were like, all right, this book is due September 1, 2008. I was so excited. I kind of wound down my other business thinking, I’m about to become a professional speaker. I’m about to, you know, become America’s number one small business expert.

Well, no, because my book was due September 1, 2008, and the market crash was it September 14, 2008. So my publisher called me up and said, listen, thank you so much for being a first time author that actually turned your book in on time.

But listen, we don’t think anyone’s thinking about entrepreneurship right now, so we’re going to bump your book by 18 months. That book is not going to come out now until March of 2010.

Eighteen months. I was like, holy macaroni, Batman. What are we going to do?

I mean, literally, I was like, what? What? You know, and you know, the market had crashed, my husband had gone back into corporate, he had lost his job. You know, I didn’t have $10,000 to buy my book back from these people, so I had to wait.

And one of my friends in Take the Leap Association, she was like, listen, if I were you, I would start publicizing that book like it was coming out anyway. As a matter of fact, I would check into this new social media thing people are starting to talk about. They’re saying it’s going to be the next big thing in business.

And I was like, really? And she was like, yes, girl.

So I hired a publicist at the time who knew as much as anybody knew about social media, which was like, about this much. You got to realize in 2008, Twitter was one year old. I mean, like, these things.

Meg:
Yeah, you were at the forefront.

Melinda:
So I was like, you know, I remember talking to the woman, her name was Kathy Larkin. And I said, you know, I don’t know what we’re gonna do. And she was like, oh, I know what we’re gonna do.

And I was like, oh, well, what are we gonna do? And she’s like, we’re gonna build your author platform. And I was like, what? You know what?

And she said, look, I know that she said, well, we’re going to go in on Twitter and build your brand. And I remember asking her, well, what is twitter? Like, at that point, never even. I hadn’t even seen it. Like, I literally didn’t know what it was.

So the day came for me to finally get my own Twitter account. So I’m in front of my computer on the phone. She’s in front of her computer on the phone. I go to twitter.com and I put in Melinda Emerson.

And I got this notice back. This name is already taken. And I was like, come on. Like, are you kidding me?

First of all, my name, I’ve met six other Melindas older than me. Like, in my life, my name is not common. And for there to be another Melinda Emerson was like, come on.

Meg:
Yeah, who’s hip with it. Attaching immediately. Early adopter.

Melinda:
And so I wasn’t like, okay, I didn’t want to be Melinda underscore Emerson. I didn’t want to be Melinda Emerson one. All that seemed like, no, lame-o. I was like, I’m not doing that.

She said, okay, fine, fine, fine. Let’s come up with a nickname for you. And I was like, a nickname? You mean like, like Mendy or Melly Mel or something?

And she said, no, fool, you’re not a rapper. I’m not going to give you a name like that. She said, we have to come up with a name and tell people who you are and what you do.

And I said, okay, well, like what? And so she threw a couple of them out. And I was like, nah, nah.

And then finally she said, well, how about Small Biz Lady? I was like, oh, I could be her, right? It was like, kind of feminine sounding. And I was like, all right.

And that was the day I became Small Business Lady.

And what we now know is that was the best branding thing that ever happened to me. And that was 17 years ago. And my son is now 19, driving himself. He’s in college, he’s going great.

But, yeah, so I became the Small Business Lady because I could not get my name on Twitter. But. But the brilliance of it is, is I’m the only Small Business Lady, right? And so it immediately separated me from everyone else. I eventually developed the mission to end small business failure.

And that is what I have been about all of my career since I transitioned. And for years and years and years and years, I’ve been like, start a business, start a business, start a business. And you know where I’m at now? I’m like, nah, buy a business, buy a business.

Do not try to operationalize an original idea. You. You ain’t got the time or the money, especially if you’re over 40 years old. Success leaves clues. You need to buy someone else’s healthy business or you need to invest in a franchise system.

And there’s over 4,000 in the US that you can choose from every. Everything you could imagine. Most people think franchising is food, like restaurants. And I’m like, that’s not. That’s only a third of the industry.

There’s so many other things. And the more that I have gotten exposed to it and how I even found out about the franchise world really was because I started getting invited to be a speaker at franchise conferences.

Like when people would bring all their franchisees to an event, and the first organization to ever hire me was ReMax. And they flew me out to Vegas and I spoke at their conference and that was when I was like, oh wow.

And then I, then they, I, they used me for another one. They have a secondary brand called Moto Mortgage. I did theirs and that and I started learning and learning.

I was like, oh. I was like this is awesome. Like these people are small business owners. They just bought franchises.

And I was just like. That’s what made me realize that my services, like what I specialize in teaching people was super relevant to the franchise industry. Because prior to that I didn’t know, like I was thinking about it.

Meg:
Yeah, I didn’t know that REMAX was your first entree. What a great organization to get your feet wet with the world of franchising.

And yeah, looking around the room that size and realizing well, there are that many small business owners who are, as I call them, frantrepreneurs.

Melinda:
Right.

Meg:
And, and yeah, putting an end to poverty is one thing and accessibility to water, that’s another thing.

But let’s face it, in the United States we have that stuff. What we don’t necessarily have is just as you found way back when, access to people who can help us not trip and fall over the same rocks that are out there and have been for everybody else.

Melinda:
Right, right. That was the whole reason. The whole reason why I wrote my book “Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months”. Which I’m very proud to say is still in print after 15 years with Simon and Schuster.

We’ve sold a hundred thousand copies worldwide. The reason why is because it shortened people’s learning curve by years. Like I took all my hard learned lessons and put them in a book and said girl, read this.

Like, I don’t want, you know, it’s hard to be an entrepreneur. Most people don’t make it past five years. And so rather than risk your complete financial future on perhaps a half baked business idea, why not invest in something that’s already proven, that already makes money and you can improve upon it.

You can buy two or three of them, sell them, do something else. I mean it like trying to get a six figure job versus trying to buy a business that generates millions is like why would you ever work for somebody else again?

Meg:
And you’re taking my day to day script. And that’s exactly the whole point right now is people.

Well, and the interesting thing that you and I discussed is buying a business right now in the United States is hard to buy a viable going concern through a business broker because so many people give up or they don’t have accurate financials.

They give up on the operations being excellent, or they don’t have their financials clearly documented, or it’s a combination of both. So buying a going concern through a business broker right now is extremely hard.

And private equity money is out there gobbling up anything.

Melinda:
That’s worth anything.

Meg:
And they’re shooting the prices way out of the market for average Joe Bear.

Melinda:
Yeah.

Meg:
And so, yeah, trying. Did you as a kid dream of owning your own business or because you went to college and you got your dream job? Second job. When did this start to culminate?

Melinda:
I wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was a sophomore in college. Okay. But I didn’t do anything about it other than have that thought. I mean, like, really crazy is I named my business all the way back then.

Like, I named my business Quintessence when I was in college. Like, I knew one day I was going to start my own company and I was going to name it Quintessence because quintessence means perfection.

And I was like, yeah, like. And it sounded kind of feminine and it was like a unique word. Now, thinking about it now, would I name my business something hard to say and spell again? Probably not.

But at the time, you know, the 20 year old mind says, oh, this will be great.

But I was inspired to become an entrepreneur, believe it or not, by Oprah Winfrey, because she was the first journalist I ever saw start a business.

Meg:
Oh, sure. 

Melinda:
And so I was like, oh, wait a minute. The Harpo Studios. Okay. You know, like, trying to just understanding that she took her talent and turned it into a business. And it was like a light bulb went off in my head in the summer of 1992. And I said, yeah, okay, all right, I see you.

And then I started just studying it and reading about it. Now, I never walked in the business school the whole four years I was in college. And I’m not really sure why I did that, but to me, marketing and communications are, you know, two sides of the same coin.

Basically, you can do the same thing you do in marketing and communications. You don’t have the regression formulas right, but everything else, it’s about messaging, it’s about target market.

But my point is, is that I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I was influenced to think about entrepreneurship, though, because of my mom.

My mom was a serial entrepreneur, but she was a serial multilevel marketing entrepreneur. So she sold Tupperware, she sold copper she framed art.

I mean, she, Avon, you name it, she did it. And she never made any money. Like, she was always a sucker for a sob story.

And I was like, I’m interested in entrepreneurship, but not like that. Yeah. Not like that.

Meg:
So she, she was your predecessor and she made mistakes that you didn’t want to make. And then you became an entrepreneur and found yourself making mistakes. Who was your, who were your go to’s at that point?

Who helped you to crash and burn and get that car pulled out of the bridge?

Melinda:
You know what, it was really, it was really mentors and stuff. Because back when I became an entrepreneur, I mean, I started my business in 1999, there just wasn’t anybody in mainstream media talking about entrepreneurship.

I think, because when did Gerber write the E-Myth? I think, like in 2003, I think was the first time I thought or heard something about. 

Meg:
That’s the E-Myth Revisited. Yeah, so he wrote the original one.

Melinda:
So I got involved with Take the Leap. My son was born in 1990. I was on bed rest just as you were. Same amount of time.

Anyway, he was born in 1990. I got involved with Take the Leap in 1993. Okay. And we, it was required reading somewhere in there. Not, not to begin, but somewhere.

But I didn’t, I didn’t find out about Gerber until I was in business three or four years. And then, and even then it was like his book. I mean, it was, it wasn’t the machine that it eventually became.

But my point is, is that there was no one like, like, for me, I ended up benefiting from being in, you know, going to business incubators and listening to, you know, experts there. I took classes on leadership and entrepreneurship.

Prudential back in the day had a Prudential young entrepreneurs training program that I did. There was a business plan competition every year in Philadelphia. The second year I was in business, I won.

I won $20,000 in free office space and a business incubator for a year. So there were things that I did individually to educate myself, but there was no one that was out here saying, listen, if you want to hit it big as a business owner, come, come under me.

You know, Gene Chatzky and Suze Orman were talking about 401ks on TV. Like there was, you know, and that was part of my impetus was, you know, somebody else needs to get out here telling people howhowhow hard this is, but also giving people a framework and a roadmap to do it.

And, you know, my media background was very helpful to me because I worked for five years as a television producer before I started my business. And then once I started my business, eventually I realized that creating content was a way to, in fact, promote that business, demonstrate expertise, and draw clients to me.

And so it was almost like my professional journalism training and then my work experience as a television producer really positioned me incredibly well to be a content creator, specifically in the niche of small business.

And I really became a pioneer in it because I certainly was one of the first people on Twitter to have a big small business brand. And I got to the point, you know, my brand right now reaches about a million small business owners every week online with my content and content portals.

And, you know, between my podcast, my blog, my newsletter, you know, and all the other content that we produce, we reach a lot of people. And certainly the books always draw people to us too.

So for me, I built a brand. And then I had corporations call me and say, we would like to work with you because we want to benefit from the trust relationship you’ve built with your brand, your audience.

Meg:
So when you were on bed rest and you’re watching your business unraveling because you’re the rainmaker and you couldn’t be there, I completely understand that.

It’s a great thing to lie there every day and nurture that belly and watch it get bigger and blow out your air mattress because you’re heavier, which is what I did.

But for you, how did you cope with that? Because you had a dichotomy in your brain. You had to take care of the baby. You had to take care of yourself, but your other baby then was floundering.

Melinda:
You know what it was. It was awful. I have to be honest, because the other piece of this is that my marriage was crumbling too, right? Marriage was in trouble. And then I found out. I was praying, you know, that it was like when I was thinking about leaving. Next thing I know, I’m pregnant.

So it’s like, okay, you know, and so I had to hang in there and see if it was going to get better. It didn’t. By the time my son was four, we ended up separating and divorcing.

But, I mean, I had a whole. I was like 33 years old, and I had what they call a Mariah Carey meltdown. You know what I mean? Like, I was a mess, and I was unhappy everywhere, and I had this baby.

I had to take care of, my business was on life support. So was my marriage, you know, and I. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have a plan B or C.

Like, I was just like. I literally had to be like, lord, I don’t know what to do next.

Meg:
Yeah.

Melinda:
And I went and had lunch with my pastor, and he like, Melinda, have you been praying about this? And you know how somebody asks you a rhetorical question that they already kind of know the answer to?

And I was like, well, see, what happened was I was so low, I couldn’t even pray. That’s how bad it was.

And he said, well, listen, do me a favor. Try that. And I was like, okay. And I did what he said and I came home.

And every day after that, I prayed over my business and asked God for guidance. And it took about two and a half months. And I had a vision and a dream, but I didn’t understand it.

So I was like, what?

And then I had it again. It was like a week later, I had it again. That’s God for you.

Melinda:
And then finally, the third time, it wasn’t a dream. He woke me up in the middle of the night, three o’ clock in the morning, and had me come downstairs and cut on the TV and watch a channel that I never watch.

And that was when I finally was like, oh, this is what you try to tell me? You know, and it’s so funny, because when I talk to people who’ve been called to ministry, they talk about the three dream like that, the three signals that he gives when he’s trying to talk to people.

And so apparently I was right in. In line with that. And then I finally figured out what he was calling me to do.

And it was to be America’s number one small business expert. But at the time, my business and my life was a hot mess. And so I kept thinking to myself, you talking to me? Like, you know, like, I was like. Like me, you know?

And he was like, yes, you. He was like. And what I realized in that experience was sometimes he doesn’t call the qualified. Sometimes he qualifies the called.

And so I had to roll with that, because at the time when I started calling myself America’s number one small business expert, it was not true. Yes, it was not true.

But it was a claim that I had. It was. I was putting it out into the world so that eventually all of the things I was going through, all the trainings I was doing, all the readings, I was doing, all the webinars I was attending, all the it.

The next thing you know, I was her. Literally, by two, two and a half years, I was and still am America’s number one small business expert.

But. But I. But I had to be focused. I mean, you talk about working on something every day for two years, not making a dime doing it. But I had to be obedient to the call.

And when you are obedient to the call, he will move mountains out of your way. I’m a living testimony of it.

So for me, it was like, I didn’t understand it. I was like, I don’t know what was going on. I mean, I had two women that came and worked for me and helped me build my whole brand and my website.

I didn’t have any money to pay them. And they were like, look, God sent us to you to help you. Very specifically. They were like, don’t worry about it. We got you.

I mean, and literally those women are still in my life today as friends now. But I tell you, that’s what happened. That’s how I got.

I mean, I know that’s a much longer story than you probably needed, but that’s what had happened.

Meg:
Excuse me. It’s phenomenally insightful for my audience to hear this same message, not from me, but from you, because we weren’t born to it. We worked hard to get it.

And I love it when people say, oh, my gosh, Meg, just hearing your story, I want to be you.

Okay, well, take your gloves off because we’re going to get busy and you’re going to get dirty, and it ain’t going to be pretty. Right?

Melinda:
Right. Absentee entrepreneurship is a misnomer. You got to work your way out of a job.

You can’t come in day one, talk about somebody else is going to run your business. That’s. That’s a way to let people steal from you because you don’t really know what’s going on unless it’s a business partner.

Well, even there, that can get you into a whole lot of business partners are different. But. But you just hire a spouse, run the whole thing. You really kind of not paying attention is a great way for things to go awry quickly.

Meg:
Yes.

And so, yes. And I’ve lived that. And I was going to say spouses, but you had one, and so did I, that were not good business partners.

And then my husband now and I have invested in a number of businesses, and we’re both just have an allergy about partners. Hey, no, I don’t. I’m not breathing that air, and I’m not bringing it in.

And it’s a fallacy for people who think, well, I don’t have the skill set, so if I get a business partner now, there are two of us. But if you’re both unknowing and uneducated, then now you got double trouble.

Melinda:
So 100%. I mean, especially if you’re not different. Different skill sets.

Like, I have a CFO who is my business partner, you know, and. And what we do is we are different, right? I’m the marketing lady, so I write all the stuff, and she makes sure the numbers are right, and she watches all the, you know, accountants and all those people.

So I needed somebody to do that, and I was willing to give her a piece of my business to do it. Now I’m still, obviously, I’m still the CEO and majority shareholder in the business, but I gave her a piece of the business.

But I also think you got to date people before, you know, you don’t marry a guy today. You meet him in the bar, right? You gotta date him. You gotta see him in several seasons before you decide to attach your life to him.

And there’s someone in particular I’m thinking about who, with whom I am working right now. And he’s gonna listen to this episode right away, and he’ll know who I’m talking about.

Meg:
He’s bringing in a highly qualified person to help him launch a franchise concept. And we don’t know which one yet, but.

And so we were talking about compensation packages and acknowledgment, recognition of the contribution this man is going to be making. And so.

And he was asking me, Meg, how. How do I properly compensate him? Do I bring him in as a partner right off the get go?

So your words, Melinda, are exactly what my people need to hear. It’s put it in the back of your brain.

But if you give up consent and control, if you give up control, you’re giving up consent to somebody else who maybe is not as smart as you think or hope they are.

Melinda:
Well, and I think we have to get out of this thing, because when I first started my business, I had a business partner, you know, that I ended up just, you know, within the second year of the business, buying out.

And, you know, because she had a family, she had kids, she had a lot more stuff going on. I was like a 26 year old, let’s go, let’s go.

And she was kind of like, you know, would give me some time every now and again, but it was just not.

But I added her as my business partner because I thought I needed her. I didn’t, but I thought I did.

So you gotta be, you gotta be real discriminate, you gotta date, you gotta have clearly defined roles.

And you really have to have a partnership legal agreement that defines not just how the business is going to run, but how the business is going to dissolve.

And all those things are extremely important when you’re dealing with partners or bringing people into your business.