Gutsy community activist and author Nell Merlino doesn’t wait around holding her breath. If she wants something to change, she takes her creativity and energy and makes change happen.
Describing herself as either outspoken or bossy (depending on your perspective), but adamantly an agent of change, she is a person who has a plan: to inspire women to start or grow their businesses to $1 million revenue annually.
Denver business runs on small businesses like Merlino prizes. More than 97 percent of all firms in Colorado are considered small – representing more than 550,000 businesses statewide, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Nationwide, there are more than 25 million small firms in America today, creating 100 percent of all new net jobs, generating 50 percent of the private, non-farm gross domestic product and generating more than 57 percent of all sales in the country.
*Small firms anchor Denver*
“Small businesses represent the heart of any community. They always hire locally, pay the taxes that support neighborhoods and provide support to nonprofit organizations,” said Greg Lopez, Colorado SBA district director. He was quoted honoring Colorado Small Business Week winners in April. “Support for our small firms is the fastest way this nation is going to beat the current economic downturn,” he said.
With unemployment rates at record highs, small-business-created jobs are more meaningful than ever. There are about 10.5 million women-owned businesses in the United States. If each of those women hired one worker – full time, part time, a contractor or someone to help in the home – it would put 10.5 million people to work and billions of dollars back into the workforce, suggested Merlino.
She is the founder and president of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence (countmein.org), a national nonprofit providing education, support and resources for women entrepreneurs who want to grow their small businesses into million-dollar enterprises.
To do that, Count Me In has created Make Mine a Million $ Business (M3), a program to inspire businesswomen to build sustainable companies, create jobs, as well as innovative services and products.
The point is to change the numbers: Fewer than 3 percent of women-owned businesses break the million-dollar threshold in annual revenues, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Thus far, 60,000 women have joined the Count Me In online community.
“Make Mine a Million $ Business provides women entrepreneurs with business education and tools, as well as vital networking and support from a community of like-minded women who are coming together to grow,” said Merlino, who lives in Manhattan. “Our community of Make Mine a Million $ Business awardees employs 200,000 people across the country in communities small and large, through businesses of every shape and size. They are the economic stimulus package this country needs.”
M3, in sponsorship with American Express Open, is designed to inspire women to grow their business. It offers annual awards to women who are selected based on their ability to grow their business to $1 million in two years. They are awarded money, some access small-business loans, marketing, mentoring and technology assistance.
“Building a million-dollar business is an extraordinary achievement in its own right. And, it is even more impressive when you can accomplish it during the worst economy in two generations,” said Merlino in a press release announcing the organization’s latest award winners and issuing the challenge to women to help boost the nation’s economy.
“These 27 gutsy and determined women seize opportunity when others see only challenges,” she said.
Among the winners is Barbara Spohn-Lillo, AS, CCA, Ocularist, CF-m, owner of Prosthetic Illusions in Lakewood. Her business is anaplastology and it focuses on custom artificial eyes, facial prosthetics, partial digits, and custom and non-custom breast prostheses.
With the economy as it is, she wouldn’t have dreamed of expanding. But, with the guidance of the M3 group, she has made connections, found marketing opportunities. “For me, this experience has been a crash course in business,” Spohn-Lillo said.
The movement works much like joining a race for a favorite charity. Women can join the M3 Race by logging onto MakeMineAMillion.org or by calling (212) 245-1245. Registration fees are $100. “The program is a wonderful resource to help women get to the ‘next level,’ ” added Spohn-Lillo, “and the people that work for the M3 Race are very accessible. Nell has no hidden agenda – she is the heart of this organization, and she truly wants to help women succeed.”
*MBA in a book?*
Merlino explains her manifesto in her new book, Stepping Out of Line . . . Lessons for Women Who Want it Their Way in Life, in Love, and at Work.
She urges women not to sit back and hold their breath, instead to . . . step out of line, stop waiting and re-make their life to fit their wildest visions.
_Marywyn Germaine is in the Creative Services Department at the Denver Newspaper Agency._