Speaker 1: Welcome to Getting Rich Together. I’m your host, Shama Bunton. This show was born from my own journey. Coming out of a divorce, I reached out to 50 women to talk to them about money.

95% of them did not want to go there. That’s when I realized we need spaces where wealth isn’t hidden in silence but shared in possibilities. Here, you’ll meet women from all backgrounds, trailblazers, risk takers, visionaries, each expanding what wealth can look like. This is your place to be inspired to discover new pathways and to remember that we rise by building wealth together. Getting Rich Together is a wealth catalyst production.

At Wealth Catalyst, we bring together education, networks, and great opportunities for women to build wealth and change the world. Now, on to today’s show. I am fired up today to introduce a business legend. Melinda Emerson, you are known nationwide as the number one small business lady. You are the powerhouse behind Small Biz Chat, an incredible podcast, a bestselling book, become your own boss in 12 months. You help entrepreneurs launch, grow, thrive nationwide. This January, 2026, I was so excited to hear from you, tell me today, you’ll be putting together a conference that I believe every single woman needs to attend.

That is the next act CEO summit. I just think it’s so powerful that you are going to start to enable these women 45 and plus to help them create the next best step in their independence, their financial freedom, their legacy, and doing through ways that are not full of trials and tribulations, but in ways and practices that are in alignment to who they are and what they want to create. Thank you for being here today on Getting Rich Together.

Speaker 2: I am so happy to have my favorite subject is helping people make money with business. I am here for this conversation.

Speaker 1: You’re amazing Melinda. This show, it always starts off when, where we were when we were little girls. Obviously, we know you today as being this legendary powerhouse enabling, scaling, doing all the things, but when you were a little girl, let’s say somewhere around 10, 12 years old was young Melinda already running around trying to change the world. What was life like for her?

Speaker 2: You know, when I was about 12, 12, 13 was when I realized that I wanted to be a writer. It was when I realized that writing was in fact my magical power. I ended up going to college and majoring in journalism and I wasn’t sure what kind of journalism I wanted to be. So I studied all of it, radio, print, TV, I did it all. And when I got out of college, I got a job. I worked in broadcast television for five years.

I got my dream job and I was 23 years old. I did it. You know, it was like, I got a chance to check that box, but what I learned from that experience was you better be careful what you wish for because you might get it. I drink job in market for television and I hated it. I hated the people I worked with.

I hated the work, like the work. I felt like a trained chimp could have done my job. And I was like, this was what I prayed for. Yeah, I mean, this is like, oh, to work in market for television and get to network television. And I was like, this is terrible.

And nobody cares about local news with the weather. Like, this is like, why did I want to do, you know, it was like, why did I want to do this? And when I was 26 years old, I started my, I left my job in the middle of February sweeps. And I started my business in the basement of my house.

It was so long ago, I had a laptop, a fax machine and a dream. That was it. Wow. Set up shop in my basement. My kid brother was graduating from college that year and he got a job in Philadelphia too. So he became my tenant. So he took my back bedroom and paid half my mortgage while I built my business in the basement of my house. And that was 26 years ago.

Speaker 1: Wow. That’s incredible, Melinda. So when you were a little girl, before you got the entrepreneurial bug, let’s say somewhere in high school time period, were you someone who was like, I am so focused on being a writer.

I’m going to excel at my studies. Did you have a part time job? How sort of independent were you during that time?

And, you know, I feel like entrepreneurs are always somewhat rambunctious as, as young kids. So how did that sort of nano-fenced as you were starting to develop yourself as a young woman?

Speaker 2: So I didn’t have a job, but I was in junior achievement and I was the president of my junior achievement business. We went to the national conference and I was always about business. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but my mom was also a serial entrepreneur. She was a stay-in-home mom, but she had a million side hustles.

Copperware, my mom sold Meluca, my mom sold Copper. She did artistic impressions, black art. My mom even took classes at the local community college to learn how to reupholster furniture and started reupholstering people’s furniture. She was a master seamstress. So she always did like alterations and stuff.

My mom made every prom dress I ever wore. Like seriously, like she was this renaissance woman. Like she could fix anything she could do. The garbage disposal would break.

Mom would fix it. Like it was, it was like, he was the entrepreneur person that I saw. Now the interesting thing about her though was she was always a sucker for a sub story. She always gave away more product than she sold. I think she even sold Mary Kay too. But she never really made real money doing it. And that was the thing that I was lying.

Something wrong about that. But my dad was a career salesman. So my dad worked for craft foods for 30 years. And my dad was such a good salesman. I mean, he could sell ice to Eskimos.

He was amazing. And my dad always worked a part time job. So he worked for Sears in the electronics department. And literally we would go to the mall on Saturdays and watch him close people. It was like, it was like entertaining. He was so good at it.

It was like, he was smooth like butter. You know what I mean? So between my mom being the, you know, she would sell anything. She would get involved in anything. You know, and then my dad was the one who had the sales skill, right? Put the two of them together and I’m their highly observant journalist daughter. How to copious notes, man. I learned.

Speaker 1: Wow. So you really came from the lineage of learning like how to not just do one thing, but how to do different things and how to be creative and what sales looks like. And ultimately, this is true for every human. You are in the business of being in sales if you’re alive.

Speaker 2: And not only that, you’re selling yourself before you ever get to sell your product or service, right? So you have to show up looking like somebody, somebody’s supposed to even be talking to. Let alone, let alone, you know, what you’re selling, right? You have to be clear. You have to be confident. 90% of sales is confident. You don’t believe it.

Please don’t think anybody else will, right? And those are, those are fundamental skills that I learned from a young age. And I think for me, high school was like, I couldn’t wait for high school to be over. I was like, when do I get to be an adult?

I’m done with this, right? You know, and I ended up going to Virginia Tech undergrad. And that was a wonderful place to learn and grow and develop. And later on in my life, I got my MBA from Drexel as well. But yeah, I mean, I couldn’t wait to get to college. High school was a waste of my time as far as I was going to.

Speaker 1: Did your family ever talk about money around the dinner table? I mean, what’s so interesting around, you know, certainly your father having, like being in sales, I feel like this conversation around commission, right? And what that means. And, you know, and as a young person sort of seeing that world, knowing, knowing the importance or the value of that, was that ever a topic around the dinner table?

Speaker 2: It absolutely was. I can remember from 15, 16 years old, my father telling me, listen, credit is a privilege. No one owes you credit. So someone extends you credit, you protect it, you pay it back, you pay it back on time. As a matter of fact, pay it back early. He was always about helping us understand credit and how people who have credit, people who have savings have options.

I remember him saying that to us. My parents were voracious savers. When I went to college, when my brothers went to college, I have no loans. My parents paid cash to go to college and my two brothers.

That only happened because they saved. I was not rich. You know, my parents were middle class. They were educated. They had the white college jobs that they allow black people to have in the 70s and 80s, right?

So they were not rich. I mean, we didn’t go on vacations. We went down south to see family for the summer. That was our vacation. I didn’t see the inside of Disney World.

I think it’s a lot. I was like 17 years old. Yeah, but the point is that my parents had a vision for their children and they were very intentional about it. They gave us opportunities to travel. Like I went to Russia as a high school student, as a youth ambassador for the youth of the States. One of my brothers was very athletic and my parents invested in high-end camps and things for them to go to to get exposure and things like that. Studying languages and things.

They were very intentional. My mother didn’t leave the United States until I was grown. Like never went on a cruise. Now when my mother retired when she was 57, we went to Paris and London because I was like, Bob, we got to go. My parents let us travel.

Like I did a study abroad in London when I was in college and worked for ABC News. You know, so these were things my parents prioritized. Their children have an opportunity. Their children have an exposure.

But I’ll tell you a great story about me and my dad and money. I remember when I first got my job in Philadelphia working for the NBC station and that station was unionized. So I was making a lot of money. It was like I went from working where I barely could afford an apartment to like making almost like six figures at 23, 24 years old. Back then everybody was driving these little BMWs like these 321i BMWs and I went to the dealership and I was like, I want their redwood. So they let me drive it around the block and I was so excited and I was like, I’m going to get this car. And I remember I called my dad and

Speaker 3: I was like, dad, I’ve been out looking for a new car. I found this little red BMWs, the littlest one.

Speaker 2: And my father said to me something I will never forget. He said, listen, if you buy a luxury car that you do not have a garage to pull it into, do me a favor and don’t stop at my house. He’s like, you want an apartment and you’re talking about buying at that time was like a $55,000 car, which was like a lot back then. And he was like, how dare you? What have I taught you? You know what? Instead of buying that car, why the hell?

Because my father shamed me. I like, he was like, what are you about to do? What? Fuck you gratuitous materialism? Is that what I taught you? I became a homeowner. Hey, homeowner. That’s what I did.

Speaker 1: That is so impressive. It’s also really incredible the relationship that you guys had, right? Where like, he could tell you things like that and you really listened.

Speaker 2: Oh, my dad was my man, 50 grand. He was my number one fan. He was also my first mentor. My father was so intentional about how we dressed and making sure that I had professional clothes and teaching my brothers that men wear overcoats and making sure how to shine their shoes to make sure when we stepped out, we looked always appropriate. It was extremely important to him that we never be denied opportunities because of lack of exposure. And so he, unfortunately, my father died at 55.

My father died 23 years ago, but he didn’t leave any cripples here. He made sure we knew what to do. He made sure we knew how to accumulate assets and manage money and build credit strategically. And he believed in me so strongly. He told me all the time that I could do anything and I believed him. And I didn’t realize till I got to college that other people didn’t grow up like that. Like, I didn’t know.

Speaker 1: Dad, that’s right. And when you decided then listening to your father and being so close to him and then now having a mortgage and then deciding to start your own company, what did dad have to say about this? What happened at home?

Speaker 2: So when I told my dad that I was going to leave my dream job and start a business, he was like, you sure about this? He grew up in that era of you get a good job, you keep that job for 30 years, you retire, you get a pension. He was like, you sure?

He never spoke against it. He was just like, what is your plan? And I was like that. And I researched it for a year before I did it. I didn’t just get mad at work one day and roll out.

Like that wasn’t when I did. I built a plan. And the plan that I created for myself, I actually wrote in my book Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months. So I taught people that look, I ate my own dog food. Let me tell you what I did. And then I developed a system to help people transition from having a job to starting a business. But he was afraid for me at first, right? He was like, all right, anything ever happens. Your mom, there, I always hear free.

You kind of think, but I love that. Unfortunately, I did not need him. I didn’t have to go back to Pittsburgh and live while they’re couch, but all worked out for me. But he was concerned because he didn’t know a lot of successful entrepreneurs. So he was a little bit like, okay, and then I told him, Rodney’s going to move in with me. And this, I’m going to take care of this.

And I’m not going to mess up my credit. So it was like, we had a whole conversation. He said, well, if anybody, any of my children can make a million dollars, it is you.

Speaker 1: It’s the goal. Do it. It’s funny because I feel like today, I’m just thinking about like the young people today at this age buying a house or starting a company, starting like a really starting doing a plan, not just put an idea out there.

Speaker 2: It was online, right? I’m going to make a business like, you brand a business, you market a product. That’s what we teach. So you know, so yeah.

Speaker 1: I think that’s just so, it’s such an interesting, interesting contrast. So talk to me a little bit about the going from this high paying job that you hated and obviously walk you away from these principles of security and having these financial commitments and then deciding to sort of go into entrepreneurship. What was it like for you emotionally and talk to me a little bit about the getting started phase and how you manage your money? Because obviously like this is a terrifying moment when you start to go, oh, this is how I have to pay for things.

And you know, obviously it takes time and you have to build and be methodical. And so what was it like for you? And how did you get through those early days and manage your own personal finances?

Speaker 2: Well, the first thing that I did actually before I even quit my job was I took out a home equity loan and paid off every bill I had. So I even my car, like I was like, I got myself down to bare bones monthly bills. I took my lunch to work. I taught myself. And the other thing I did was I saved 30% of every paycheck I got for a year. I prepared to do it. And again, my brother had moved in with me. So he was helping you to pay, you know what I mean? So, so I also was like, okay, my mortgage is this, how can I get half of that?

Ah, my brother, right? He lived with me through buying the house and everything. So that was one thing that I did. But paying off all of my bills was like credit cards, got rid of them. The car note, I didn’t have that much more to go on my car, but I went on and paid it off. So I just could get myself down. The other thing I did was I paid off my credit cards because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to borrow money right away. And so I was like, let me have that excess capacity available.

Should I need it? The other thing I did was there was a business incubator in Philadelphia that I utilized. And through them, I was actually able within a year, I think I was able to get a $25,000 loan from a CDFI. And I used that for some initial expenses for my business as well. But mostly I grew my business with clients. I got work. That’s how I grew my business. And I used my personal credit cards until I didn’t need to until I was able to establish business credit and all that good stuff.

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Now back to the show. Well, it’s so interesting because I feel like once you start this route of entrepreneurship, it’s always like, and then the rest is history. Because once you’re down the path, it’s like, you know, on a certain point, I feel like many of us become unemployable because we know too much. Yeah.

Speaker 2: I mean, but there’s a lot of hard things that happen as entrepreneurs. You know, like, I lived through 0809, which was rough business. I was married by then. My husband was working a full-time job and then got laid off.

And then all of our expenses was coming out of my business. Like, that was hard. The pandemic was hard. So the thing about it is, is that you have to be able to ride the wave. You have to be able to take a hit. You have to be able to pivot and reinvent without your ego being so involved in it. The difference between failure and failing. And I think sometimes we take it on as failure, like the person as opposed to, well, that idea didn’t work. Okay.

Next. You know what I mean? Like, you can’t have too much pride in this thing.

Because the one thing entrepreneurs will do is humble you. And I believe it is a spiritual journey as much as it’s anything else. Because one is the loneliest number. When you are alone with your thoughts and your ideas, and you got to bet on yourself, that’s hard. Because everything else around you tells you that’s not what you’re seeing. supposed to be doing? Well, that still have jobs, don’t understand you.

Speaker 1: What was that like for you when you started off being so young and entering into this world of entrepreneurship? Did you find other peers that were your age that were sort of also building at the time? How did you start to look at like, whether it was mentorship or peer groups, you mentioned things like, yeah, I was figuring out how to capitalize this business very early on. So how did you sort of look at resource planning and the eyes and ears sort of around you?

Speaker 2: I think one of the benefits to being a really young entrepreneur is that you know you don’t know stuff, right? I think it’s harder when you’re a 20 year season corporate person and now you’re starting this business and you’ve got this ego you carry with you and you think you know a bunch of stuff. Fortunately for me, because I was 26, I knew I didn’t know stuff.

Like I knew I knew how to make my widget, but I knew I didn’t know how to run a business. And so what I did was I turned myself into the ultimate student of entrepreneurship. I enrolled in courses. I went to workshops. I took leadership training. I took sales training. Like I was like, I was willing to talk to and learn from anyone.

And I think that was my secret sauce. Like I was willing to ask anybody for help. I was willing to call anybody and have an informational interview or whatever, be like, hey, how did you work this business? And I created an advisory board from myself of people that wanted me to win and those people gave me amazing advice.

And I also was willing to put myself out there. There used to be something in Philadelphia called the Minority Business Plan Competition. And every year they picked five winners and each winner got $20,000 in free office space for a year and a business incubator. And the first year I applied, I didn’t win. So I went to the judges and asked for a review for them to tell me why I didn’t win. What was wrong with my business plan? They told me I fixed it.

And the next year I won. You know, so I think part of it is about being that Mustang Sally of a person to be like, no, tell me what was wrong. Help me fix it. Help me understand why I didn’t seem like the right horse to bet on. Tell me. And they did. Wow. And then I know how to follow instructions.

Right? So I think part of it is you have to be willing to put yourself out there. Like right now we’re in the age of AI. And AI is changing everything and how everything works. You better learn it. You can’t sit back and be fearful of it. You gotta say, okay, how do I need to upskill and reskill myself or my business model so that I’m not a taxi driver when Uber starts?

You know, I don’t wanna be that person. So I think I always looked at entrepreneurship from the lens of a lifelong learner. And even 20 years into my business was when I went to business school. I didn’t go to business school when I was young. I went to business school when I was much older. I think I was one of the oldest people in my class. But it worked out. Really.

Speaker 1: So you mentioned briefly these downturns, right? And sort of thinking about the resiliency of that. But the converse of that is like, when shit’s going really well, and all of a sudden you’re like, oh my God, I did that. Now things are starting to materially change for you. And there happens to be these different steps in life. What were some of the early moments of success where you were like, oh my gosh, this is like happening. And now things are shifting. What did some of those shifts start to look like?

Speaker 2: Well, you know, I define success much differently now than I did then. So let me start with that. I think there was a time, like there was a number right, you had to get to that number. But for me, when I got to that number, and I actually was like, you know what? I can actually buy anything.

There’s not enough shoes and purses or candles and home goods that I can’t buy, you know? But here’s what I realized. I got to my number and I wasn’t happy. I got to my number and I had to look at myself. And I was like, so is counting money the only way you’re gonna decide whether or not you’re successful or not?

Speaker 1: When did that happen for you? Was it early in your business career or was it later in life?

Speaker 2: I got to that point, like 39, 40. And it was interesting because I had just gotten divorced and I was like about to turn 40. There’s all these things going on. And I had plenty of money and I was probably one of the saddest times I ever had.

And I was like, OK, well, we need more than that. And that was when I realized that success wasn’t about money. It was about impact. It was about influence. It was about how can I serve others in a way that serves me and them? That was when I made that shift.

There was so much abundance that came to me. Oh, man. But I think that you have to do the work on yourself. You have to figure out what’s really wrong. And sometimes you can’t figure that out by yourself.

Sometimes you need professionals, you need therapists, you need women’s retreats, you need good friends that you actually tell the truth to and not the ones that you pretend. Oh, I’m good. I’m great. No, real friends. I didn’t realize that I needed better friends. There was this like kind of superficial ring of people I had around me. And I had to elevate myself and I had to think about what was really important. It was like a two year transition for me to be like, OK, I evaluated every relationship I had. And then I had to evaluate my relationship with money and what I thought about that and how I used to evaluate people by what I thought they had in their pocket. And that was not a way to live.

That was not a way to live at all. And I’ve always been a generous person. I’ve always donated to charities and I’ve been a member of a church for 25 years. It wasn’t about I wasn’t a giving or generous person, but it was a mindset shift.

Speaker 1: You know, I felt sort of through my divorce, transformation, transition, the pillar of what happens on the other side is a possibility for all people, but it’s not promised to all.

And there is this deep inner work of coming home to oneself and forgiveness of self and really looking at yourself in the mirror. And when I did that around money for myself, I realized that, yeah, I was generous on paper. I bought myself nice things. I gave to other people, but I wasn’t spiritually generous. I wasn’t like kind and compassionate to myself generous. It was like I was depriving myself of so much spiritual and emotional abundance of self and to look at that in the face of what generosity means on paper to the rest of the world.

It’s a really incredible change. And you can wish for everyone to have that experience, but it is not guaranteed for everybody to be able to walk through that fire. I used to think that as we got older, we got wiser. And then I realized only if you choose

Speaker 2: that part right there, you have to choose wisdom, choose enlightenment. You have to choose to be different and to grow. You have to be intentional about growth. It’s easy to rest on your success. It’s easy to rest on your laurels. It’s easy to Google yourself and get excited about that stuff.

You be Googling like, let me say something. Doesn’t matter. We’re not happy if you don’t look at that girl in the mirror and be like, you’re that girl. Like if you can’t do that, what are you doing?

Speaker 1: I want to just double click a bit on your married, your mother, you know, being a business owner and and going through a divorce is not easy. Being a business owner and then realizing what does this mean for my new family dynamic and all of those things. How did you navigate and what was that like for you to be a business owner and go through such changes in your personal life at that time?

Speaker 2: Oh, it was brutal. Anytime you get divorced and there are children involved, it’s like open heart surgery with no anesthesia. I mean, it’s brutal. And then the lingering resentment in spite that comes from it. I’ve been divorced now 13 years. I’m still not cool with my ex. We’re cordial when we need to be, but we really don’t mess with each other. And we don’t work well together even now. And he’s married to somebody else and we still don’t get on. And that’s something that grieves me, but I can’t be the only person trying to fix it.

So I decided that I’m just going to let the Lord deal with that. I had to reinvent myself in every way. And I had to learn to be OK with my own company.

I had to learn to be OK with my son going over to their house and me being by myself in my house. And I had to learn to be OK with that. And that was hard because I was sad. I was sad. I was mad. I was all kinds of things. And the place where I love to hide was in my work. Oh, I’m unhappy about my life. Well, let’s work a 12 hour day because I get joy from that.

I get acknowledgement and all kinds of everybody loves the small biz lady. So let me just do more of that and pretend like my life isn’t busted over here. I did therapy for a year and a half. I prayed a lot. I went to retreats and did a lot of girlfriend’s trips. And those things renewed my soul. Laughing with my good girlfriends or just inviting them all over and cooking up some food. That brings me joy.

Like you have no idea. Every year on New Year’s Day, I have a New Year’s Day potluck diva brunch, and I’ve been doing it now for almost 20 years. And the same friends, we invite some new ones, but literally I invite everyone over to my house. I cook turkey chili and something else that’s a surprise. Either I make baked macaroni cheese or like this past year, I did crab and shrimp, a to pay for everybody. And they were like, oh, my gosh, and I do cornbread or something else.

I don’t know. And everybody brings something. And the people that can’t cook, they have to bring the liquor or the dessert. Everybody else, they make their stuff and bring it. So we get fried chicken and collard greens and amazing red velvet cupcakes. I mean, just crazy stuff people bring. I mean, it’s so much food. My neighbors and everybody live for the day.

I have that party because I’m just giving out food to everybody. My point is, is that I had to do things that nourished my soul. I had to be around people who I didn’t have to be the small business lady for, you know what I’m saying? And that brought me back, brought me back and just doing the work and just praying. I mean, I used to pray every night for the Lord to heal my heart and give me a forgiving spirit, pray that every single night. That’s beautiful.

Speaker 1: The words to describe the energy that you emanate are nothing short of joyful and spirited and cleanness. It’s so clear to me. You’ve already left a tremendous legacy to people as it relates to not just how they think about their own lives and enabling people, but when they get a chance to see and hear you, there’s a spirit of generosity that comes out. But you’re also still really young. And so you have a legacy, but there’s still much more shit to do. So, OK, so Melinda, you’re like 95, right?

Like a lot of years and you’re already quite prolific. So what are you feeling into right now? And like, what is what’s pulling you forward? You have this ability to almost create, be to have anything which gives you this like great space to be like, spirit. What’s next? So what are you calling in?

Speaker 2: The biggest thing that I have been affected by is there’s a lot of people in my network and women that I know of who have been downsized. There’s this whole thing of women. Forty five plus have been like pushed out of the workforce or all these people that work for the federal government laid off all of a sudden. And those women are applying for jobs. They’re talking to headhunters. They’re applying for jobs they don’t even want because they feel like they have to. Some of them are divorced. Some of them are heads of households. And I wanted to give them another option because, yeah, I’m the queen of teaching people how to start a business, but I don’t want to teach people how to start businesses anymore.

You know what I want to teach people? How to buy a business, how to buy a franchise, how to. There’s so much inventory out here because there’s so many baby boomers that are trying to hang it up and move to Florida or wherever their grandkids are or whatever. There’s lots of businesses that are available right now.

And I want to take that group of women, this 45 to 60 group of women. They’re too young to retire. They still probably got kids. They need revenue coming in. I want to show them how to get into business the fast way, right?

Like when you go to Disney, they give you the fast pass. OK, I want to teach folks how to women, how to buy businesses. And I’ve created an event called the Next Act CEO Summit. It’s going to take place January 22nd, 23rd and 24th.

It’s a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And I am going to bring in an A team of experts, franchise consultants, M &A lawyers, accountants. I’m going to bring the money people. I’m going to show people they don’t need two million dollars to buy a business. It doesn’t cost that, but you have to have credit. You do have to have some money that you can put down.

But guess what’s cool? Banks loan money to existing businesses that have revenue. So it’s not hiding in your house trying to operationalize some kind of consulting business or sell t-shirts online. It is not that I want you to get in business. I want to show you how to do real deals. I want to introduce you to women who did it, who bought businesses and scaled them and sold them.

And now they’re doing something else. I’m going to show you guys how this is the path to generational wealth for yourself and your family, and you’re going to be the boss. You’re going to be the CEO.

You have skills that are transferable that you ain’t even thought about. And I’m going to show you there are four thousand franchise concepts in the United States, four thousand millions of businesses that are going to transfer hands and.

Speaker 1: What kinds of franchises? So tell me, like, OK, what are some of the things that, like, we don’t spill some of the secret sauce here? Because I think of franchises. I think we talked about like the McDonald’s and like some of those.

Speaker 2: Food franchises only make up one third of the type of franchises that are out there. There is a franchise for everything, honey. Look at pet care, elder care, B &I networking groups, the stretch, make up tan and booze. Just it’s endless. This is just a just do turf for people’s lawns that live places where they can’t go grads. I’m telling you, there’s so many service based franchise. Wow. Food based franchise, professional services, the main one.

Taxes, fantastic sand, hair cutter. There’s all of these concepts out here. What I want you guys to realize is one in eight employees in America works for a franchise.

That’s how many are hiding in plain sight right in front of you. The Jew don’t realize that’s a franchise. And listen, when you’re buying a franchise that already exists, you can get a deal, right? Because the franchisee, the franchise or want somebody new to work that territory to build that business up, right?

So there’s so many opportunities and I want to put the right experts in front of them. I don’t want anyone to feel fear. I want them to get excited.

They are at the apex where they are going to invest a little bit of money, borrow the rest and be a boss, become a next act CEO. That’s what I want you to do in your on-court career. Let’s go. So I am so excited. I want you guys to head over to the next act CEO summit.com for details.

But listen, if you can’t remember that, all you got to do is Google Small Pistole. You’ll find out everything that we’ve got going on and we’re going to be promoting it now till like the day before the conference.

Speaker 1: Oh, well, Linda, I’m so thrilled that you’re putting something like this together. I think that it’s this is the moment, right? This is the moment where we help women realize that it doesn’t have to be as hard as it used to be to do things and that these silos and these closed doors, we get to open them and we get to invite and bring everyone to the table to create the lives of their dreams and it is possible.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. Don’t be out here begging. Nobody else for a job, sis. Let me show you how to buy a business.

Speaker 1: I love that, Melida. So my favorite last questions. My first is, you know, we talk a lot about money and values a lot in this conversation and alignment and how we sort of rechanged our relationship to things. But certainly money is still fun and we can still do great fun things with it. I would love to know what is your most favoriteest recent thing or things or experience that you have spent money on? What has been making you happy with your money?

Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, I love to do luxury travel with my money. That’s what I like to do. When I get ready to spend my money, I spend it on business class Singapore air going somewhere. I mean, yeah, business class Emirates going somewhere.

That’s what I do with my money. And so the last great trip I did actually was to Cambodia, which was absolutely amazing. I got a chance to go to Penang Pen. I went to see Anchor Wat, which is the largest Hindu temple in the world, one of the seven wonders of the world. I went at sunrise and saw the sunrise over top of it. I mean, it was an amazing, amazing trip. And so that is the last super fabulous thing I do.

Speaker 1: Well, Melinda, you are super fabulous. And I am so grateful to have had you here on getting rich together. Obviously, everyone is now going to be rushing to sign up for your conference to figure out how to buy a business and get into the game. Is there anything else that you are calling in right now that the audience can support you with? We always want to champion the fierce women who are on the show. What else can we do for you?

Speaker 2: Well, listen, if you know anybody that’s thinking about entrepreneurship at all, please send them over to Small Biz Lady University. I’ve got lots of courses and resources. And, you know, I wrote a little book called Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months. So if you want to know how to get ready to start that business, what you need to do, even if you’re going to buy one or if you’re going to start one, it is the quintessential book for that. It’s been in print for over 15 years with Simon and Schuster.

We’re in our third edition, 100,000 copies. So look, I wrote this book a long time ago, but everything in it is still true. So check it out. Check it out. Give it to somebody as a gift. If you know they’re thinking about entrepreneurship, help them start with a plan, no leaping and then looking. That’s not what we’re doing.

Speaker 1: Melida, you’re a rock star. I am so grateful to have you here today on Getting Rich Together. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Getting Rich Together. My hope is that you leave every episode feeling more inspired, more powerful and more connected. Until next time, remember you have everything it takes to create wealth on your term.