This week we welcome our very special guest Ms. Melinda Emerson a.k.a. The SmallBizLady. Melinda’s story is an amazing journey from landing her dream job at an early age in television, to gaining a global audience through her creation of Quintessence Multimedia, speaking and blogging. She is also the bestselling author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months; A Month-by-Month Guide to a Business That Works.

Melinda is a widely sought after speaker that champions small businesses everywhere. She also writes a column for the New York Times. She writes for The Huffington Post and other as well. Melinda has built a powerful presence in social media, and has a vast following on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Melinda is a powerful entrepreneur, and yet is warm and approachable. She also is a loving mother, and is extremely genuine. Her goal is to prevent small businesses from failing. Each week she hosts a Twitter talk show that features entrepreneurs from all over the world to discuss small business.

Episode Highlights:

How Melinda got her start as a television producer
At Age 26 she decided to become an entrepreneur
How her focus is to end small business failure
The 5 reasons small businesses fail
How she was inspired by Oprah Winfrey to start Quintessence Multimedia in 1999
How her business fell into trouble in 2005 during her pregnancy and how she almost lost everything
How she realized how much peaking and teaching other entrepreneurs
How she took a risk by joining the National Speakers Association
How she developed the Emerson Planning System to go from employee to entrepreneur
Her Aha moment occurred during her lowest moment she had a vision to become America’s Number One Small Business Expert
How the stock market crashed right before the publication of her book and bumped until March of 2010
How she turned the publication setback into the opportunity build a following via social media
How she came up with the Twitter name SmallBizLady
How she developed her Twitter talk show
How small business people should use Twitter effectively
How Melinda was able to get national exposure with big media thanks to her blog
Melinda reaches three million people every week
How she a task list with no more than 5 tasks to be accomplished
She has a personal assistant that helps her stay organized
Her favorite productivity tool is Dropbox and Evernote
Her advice to entrepreneurs: You either win or learn in business but you never lose