Watch a million women make a million dollars each

Nell Merlino discovered only 3% of women-owned companies ever earn $1 million in revenue. Nell had been running a program "Take Your Daughters to Work Day", when she knew something much bigger needed to be done. Her big idea, start a grass roots movement that will get a million women to the $1 million mark before she quits. Quits is an interesting term for Nell. After my interview with her, I get the feeling that the undertaker will retire long before we stop hearing the ghost of Nell inspiring young women business owners beyond the grave. You get the sense that the movement she has started will never die.

You absolutely must go out to:

http://makemineamillion.org

The foundation site that started it all:

http://countmein.org

If you have a ton of drive, a big idea and short on cash, Nell has a solution for you. Her series of workshops across the country get the coaching experience and money to the women who really deserve to break the $1 million dollar mark. I will be watching as this franchise continues to grow. Stay tuned for a big Fall announcement, we got the scoop in our interview with Nell what she has cooking for 2009.

Listen in:

Milk, Eggs and Video games.

When everyone was screaming slow down, nobody noticed the video game industry was at the day spa having a rub. April saw a 47% year over year increase to 1.23 Billion for the industry with year to date numbers looking to be a blow out 2008!

“People say that if consumers are down to their last $50, the last three things they’ll buy are milk, eggs and video games.” – Colin Sebastian, industry analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

I caught up with Jim Belanger the President of Gamer Doc to find out why the industry just keeps sucking in money. During our interview he brought up so many great points it made me wonder if I should open a store. The market still has gigantic pools of demand untapped as consul and software developers take the market more main stream and bring multi generational players into the mix. I know from first hand, I would never dream I would be hanging out with my boys going into war with them from the comfort of our own couch. It is cool to hang out with Dad, that is priceless.

OK before they cue the music and I go MasterCard commercial on you, please listen to the Franchise Whale interview with Jim. Get your disclosures and buckle up. If you saw his idea for the franchise retail game store of the future like I did, you might agree that a theme park for gamers looks more fun than slumming in coach and doing weekends for your Boss. It may be time to break out and have some fun.

Listen in 8 minutes:

Go See them:
http://gamerdoc.com/

Harrison Ford's sour stomach makes sweet music.

I noticed that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opened at Cannes over the weekend.The thing I noticed was the film did not get booed. The fickle French actually tolerated a low art, high action film. I wrote a blog last year about the commonalities between accidents, business and film making. One of my favorite scenes was caused because Harrison was very sick, too sick to do the scene. Here is a reprint, hope you find some inspiration when you have a bad day in the trenches.

Franchising and Hollywood have at least one thing in common; sometimes the best scenes are created by accident. As a kid I remember watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was the first “Big Film” for me. Jaws was fresh on my mind every time I jumped into our pool the summer of seventy five, but Raiders was the first film that made me feel movie making had changed forever, it was just a giant film to me, absolute monster. The one scene that made such a huge impression on me was actually very simple. Amidst the special effects and rich location shots, the one very low budget scene where Indy calmly shoots the worked up swordsman was unforgettable to me. You may be surprised to know that scene was an accident, more about that in a moment.

Starbucks is also an accident of sorts. In 1971 the company was founded by a passionate trio who extolled the virtues of fine coffee making. A decade later they had four modest stores in Seattle. One early morning in 1981, Howard Schultz, the VP of an east coast houseware company noticed that a special Swedish drip coffee maker they imported was being sold by those four small Seattle stores in greater quantities than Macy’s moved in all fifty states! A plane ride later and a few restless nights, he was convinced that the market was ready for gourmet coffee on a grand scale. Who knew that tracking coffee maker sales could lead to a net worth of over 1 billion dollars! What if he did not get on that plane, what if he switched companies without investigating Starbucks, was it all an accident? Back to Harrison Ford.

Raiders was a Paramount film, directed by Steven Spielberg. The “Swordsman” scene was going on day two as told by Michael Eisner, who heard the story first hand from Spielberg. I heard the story from a friend who was at a motivational conference where he heard Eisner discussing how small things can lead to great things, still with me? My friend told me that Eisner was having a very difficult time discussing the stomach problems of Harrison Ford to his motivational groupies who had paid to hear him speak. As Eisner retold the story, on the final day of the swordsman shoot, Harrison had a major stomach problem and he was very busy running to the washroom between takes. The scene called for Harrison to get into a very elaborate fight scene with the swordsman. Short on time and very short on enthusiasm from his star Harrison Ford, Spielberg says to the prop man, “Give Harrison a gun and just shoot the guy”. Cut, print next! Franchisor tip* Make the most of your accidents, some of your big breakouts can happen when your plan takes an unexpected turn. Great moviemakers and Franchisors go with what they have to work with. If you are short on time and over budget, try the unexpected and move on.

Top 50 Franchise Blogs 2008

A little bit of self congratulation-fluctuation never hurt. You may have seen Evan on the tube or his website espousing the latest motivational tools and inspirational biographies about corporate titans. With 250,000+ visitors per month to his site and a mean salsa competitor on the hardwood, we may have a lot to learn.

We knew his moves were golden when we noticed Franchise Whale was featured in his,

“Top 50 franchise blogs of 2008.”

Evan, our story “How to buy a franchise with your IRA without interest or penalties”, is not even the pick of the litter! Our own hot air aside, this is a very nice collection of franchise blogs. We reviewed the list of the top 50 franchise blogs and it is very click worthy. Any entrepreneur, franchising CEO or small business titan that would like to learn something fresh about franchising, you need to bookmark this.

Publish your songs on iTunes with a click of a mouse.

I had a great chat with Jeff Price, the CEO of Tunecore. It was out of desperation for a client that drove me to find Jeff and the ultimate music distribution solution. To me it was absolute insanity to charge music artists a percentage of their royalties just for distributing their content.

It seemed the market has not caught up with reality. Distributing the content should be a low fixed fee per song for storage and distribution to the online stores. Marketing and selling an artist’s songs should be a separate fee as a percentage of sales.

Jeff, a record producer of 20+ years also saw the label/artist fee relationship had not evolved as quickly as the digital delivery model had. In short, fees were too high for the new reality in the music industry. Over 400,000 songs delivered for Tunecore clients to date, I see a very bright future for this clean digital music franchise.

How does it work?

TuneCore has arrangements with leading digital music retailers that let us place your music in their online stores and subscription services. You get 100% of the money that your music earns from digital distribution and you keep 100% of the rights to your music.

What’s it cost?

TuneCore charges $0.99 per track, $0.99 per store per album, and $19.98 per album per year storage and maintenance. If you want demographic sales reports, it’s a couple bucks extra. That is it. No hidden fees and no hooks. I love this concept and will actually be using the service myself for a project we are doing. Please check out www.tunecore.com and listen to the audio interview.

16 minute audio (Yes It is that good!)

How to make money selling fast healthy food.

Fast healthy food! We found it and you can hear their story as Matt Phipps the CEO fills you in from the big idea to franchising in some very cool locations. The idea was so big a BMW dealer insisted on bringing the Blendz brand inside of their dealership. The 800 sqft store was a hit! In a market full of choices but short on taste and nutrition, this fast food franchise has tapped into a massive hidden market I believe.

Filling demand is easier and cheaper than creating demand. With a CEO willing to look horizontally to tap existing pools of clients built by other brands, I think this franchise concept is as tasty as the soup menu.

• Azteca Chicken & Rice
• Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle
• Chicken Tortilla
• Creamy Chicken & Dumpling
• Italian-Style Wedding (w/Meatballs)
• Italian Minestrone Tortellini
• Italian Vegetarian Noodle
• Minestrone w/Chicken & Beef
• Garden Vegetable Medley
• Wild Mushroom & Barley
• Heart of Artichoke Bisque
• Tomato Bisque
• Vegetarian Chili w/Beans
• Pacific Northwest Clam Chowder

I had their Portobello Panini with grilled onions and tomato bisque, tops! Check out www.blendz.com and give Matt a call to see if his franchising recipe is right for you.
10 Minute Interview:

300 pages in three minutes!

I am crazy for reading. I love it, I will have 3-4 books going at the same time typically all dog-eared with my notes in the columns and handmade indexes in the back. I was talking to a friend last week and he told me, “Not everyone loves to read, some people are like me and love to learn through the ears, not the eyes.”

This is so true, my wife has the nasal capacity of a bloodhound and it prompted me to write the article, “Honey, you smell like a Wendy’s jalapeno burger!” It illustrates how to market through different senses often overlooked.

We are testing a new forum called “300 pages in three minutes!” We will summarize a great business book in audio format highlighting the main points and lessons learned. You will vote with your mouse if this is a complete waste of time or a new addition to the Franchise Whale line up. The first installment (I hope of many to come), is titled “Richard Branson,losing my virginity” I loved this book. It highlights a dyslexic, awkward kid, terrified of public speaking that goes on the change the world and become a billionaire. Airline franchise, space travel, records, retail, boardroom coups…today he has 200 business units with 50,000 employees all started from a basement with a 8 dollar gift from his Mother for writing paper.

Enjoy!