Christy Ford is the co-founder of The Scout Guide. She started her career as a photographer and later moved to Charlottesville, opening a Georgian antique and home store with her mother. As the business grew, Christy realized there was a lack of successful advertising opportunities for local small businesses. She was driven to find a […]
The SmallBizChat Podcast: Hit It & Quit It with Sarah Durham, Joel Libava, & Brandi Mitchell
Sarah Durham is an entrepreneur and creative consultant passionate about helping entrepreneurs. She founded Big Duck in 1994 to help nonprofits increase their visibility, raise money, and communicate more effectively. Now, she serves on its board of directors after selling the business to her employees in 2021. Sarah now provides coaching to entrepreneurs, nonprofit […]
The SmallBizChat Podcast: How to Choose A Winning Franchise with Joel Libava
Joel Libava is The Franchise King® and a franchise veteran with 20+ years of experience. He is the author of two books on buying and researching franchises. In addition, he is a franchise owner advisor, working one-on-one with people who want to explore franchise ownership in the safest way possible. He also owns and operates […]
The SmallBizChat Podcast: How to Get Started in the World of Franchising with Rebecca Monet
Rebecca Monet is CEO and chief scientist of Zorakle Profiles and co-host of The Franchise Woman podcast Where Passion & Purpose Collide. Rebecca has been in the franchise consulting and psychometric assessment business since 1993. Known for her uncanny ability to draw performance correlations, she is fascinated with neurology, neuroeconomics, and human performance as it […]
5 Unique Ways to Grow a Happy and Motivated Franchise Team
We all want to become someone that inspires and is worthy of a tight-knit, supportive franchise team. But how is it done? What approaches can you take to ensure your staff are happy and always striving for the best? Here are five useful tips for creating a positive franchise environment that gets the most from […]
Could Franchising Be For You?
Franchising is a great opportunity to take a proven business model that has produced financial success and run it as your own business. While there are many wildly inaccurate statistics about success rates for franchises all over the internet, in general “a franchise is a lower risk proposition than investing in a pure start-up,” according […]
Could a Franchise Be the Right Model for Your Business?
I’m Melinda Emerson and each week as the Small Biz Lady (AKA @SmallBizLady on Twitter), I conduct interviews with small business experts on my weekly Twitter talk show #SmallBizChat. This is excerpted from my interview with Mary Tomzack (AKA @FranchiseHelp on Twitter), Mary is author of “Tips & Traps When Buying a Franchise,” and one […]