The following interview is with Cynthia Sweeley, President of Menu Master, Inc. Cynthia launched a successful home-based business 13 years ago as a single parent with a poverty level income. Despite many obstacles and difficulties, she built this ground level business into one of the most successful menu and placemat companies in the United States.
Cynthia’s story offers tremendous perspective. I highly encourage readers to read on to learn more about her entrepreneurial spirit and unyielding faith toward success. You can also check out her website and learn more about her company and her opportunity at www.menumaster1.com.
What is Menu Master?
Simply, America’s leading menu and placemat advertising agencies. It is important for people to understand that we are in the advertising industry and not just producing menus and/or placemats for restaurants. We provide a very affordable market avenue for businesses to gain the exposure they need in a very competitive world.
What makes Menu Master different than other menu-type businesses?
Quality. We have set a product standard in our layout and design that enables us to maintain the visual difference. People appreciate this aspect the most.
Cynthia, you started Menu Master as a single parent with very limited resources. Can you explain how you were able to launch such an enterprise with these challenges?
Three things enabled me to launch Menu Master despite the handicaps against me: First - We all know and love stories of people who have suffered great trials and overcame them. The secret ingredient in most of these cases was a relentless determination towards a dream. In my case this was also true. I often sat up at midnight looking out at the stars and talking with God about my dreams for the business. I believe that it was during those midnight meetings with God that I developed a mountain-moving faith. Somehow I began to truly believe that God was going to supernaturally help me in the business. This faith then fueled my determination until it became indestructible.
Secondly, the business education I received from Penn State University gave me the know-how that I desperately needed during those first critical 5 years. For example, I worked 60 hour weeks for the first 3 years and poured 80% of my earnings back into the business to purchase a copier, fax machine, computer, etc. Without my Business education degree my natural inclination would have been to simply enjoy spending the money.
Finally, I fell in love with the way Menu Master is set up in my very first week when I netted $1,000 after living at poverty level for 7 years. That combined with the fact that I had virtually no overhead and was working from home with my children made it the ‘perfect dream job’ for me right from day one.
Did you have moments of doubt or ever feel like quitting? If so, what kept you going?
Yes, I had many, many moments of doubt and often thought about quitting. Back in those first 3 years I was severely depressed as a result of a divorce and single-motherhood. As most people know it is it is difficult to be sociable when you’re depressed much less to try to make cold calls in sales.
Often when I would pick up the phone to offer our advertising, business-owners would be extremely rude and offensive. Or I would spend an entire morning of four solid hours of phone calling with no results whatsoever. Because I owned a home I was responsible for a mortgage payment and the property taxes that went with it.
The pressure I felt each time I picked up the phone to call a business was overwhelming. Naturally on the bad weeks where I couldn’t make a sale to save my life, it would cross my mind to go apply for a ‘real job’. But because of the awesomeness of Menu Master’s work-at-home set-up and the immediate money-in-hand, I couldn’t throw it away for a job I would probably hated anyway.
What were some of your biggest hurdles over the years and how did you get past them?
My first biggest hurdle in my first year was to figure out how to design the menus, since I was not a graphic artist. I sat up until 3AM typing out menus on Word Perfect and then cut and pasted the business cards to the hard copy with a hot wax gun! Then I took the printed out, pasted-together copy to a commercial printer to print. Frequently business cards would have copy slanting downhill or missing pieces of their ad altogether, but miraculously, not one of these folks ever got angry with me. In fact they renewed their ads over and again - another example of God helping me in the business.
Another hurdle came in my 2nd year when I began hiring Independent Contractors to sell in areas I could no longer handle. I discovered several of them stealing hundreds of dollars from the poor advertisers by telling them, “We only take cash” . This forced me to hire an attorney to protect the advertisers and Menu Master.
Another hurdle came about around year 5 when I was told that Menu Master had become the largest menu and placemat advertising company in the state of Pennsylvania. We had over 100 restaurants for whom we produced the free menus and placemats and had trouble keeping up with the phenomenal growth. Restaurant owners would often call me angry that they didn’t have their menus or placemats right away. I solved this problem by hiring my first in-house, salaried employee, an office manager. Most recently we experienced another hurdle when 3 franchisees from Southern states were found to be stealing the business and using my materials to go out on their own. However because I have learned from past mistakes we were able to enforce the legally-binding franchise agreement through the court systems and stop them.
Were there any particular challenges you had working from home?
Menu Master grew so exponentially fast that I moved my office four times in my first year in an attempt to find larger space in my home for the business. Finally I hired a handyman to convert my much-loved outdoor deck into an enclosed office space, a sacrifice I simply had to make. On bad sales weeks I found it extra tempting to give up and give in to the never ending depression that plagued me as a single mother. In those days I enjoyed watching the talk show, “Jenny Jones” at 4PM. To avoid not working at all, I told myself that I was not allowed to watch Jenny Jones that afternoon unless I made at least 3 sales in the morning. This little challenge worked for me very well. Otherwise working from home was as absolutely wonderful as other entrepreneurs will say that it is; there is nothing like it!
When did you feel you had finally made it?
I felt like I had finally made it when I no longer did the sales of the business ads myself because the income generated by my team of Independent Contracting sales force was strong enough to make a healthy income. The feeling was absolutely exhilirating because I was now free to handle the management of the company.
As a successful work-at-home entrepreneur can you offer 3 “Do’s” and 3 “Don’ts” in starting a business from home?
- Do treat your at-home job as a ‘regular’ job by actually ‘clocking-in’ at the beginning of the day and ‘clocking-out’ at the end. Otherwise you’ll discover you’re only working 15 hours weekly.
- Do put most of your earnings back into your business for at least the first 2 years. It takes money to make money.
- Do meet your customers in person and be as personable as possible with them. Think “Mayberry & Andy Griffith”!
- Don’t let the angry comments that you are sure to come across effect you badly. For every customer that hates you, you will have 100 who love you.
- Don’t grow faster than you can handle. Hire people to help you as you grow or the quality of your work will suffer, producing a domino effect with the rest of your entire business.
- Don’t ever forget why you love working for yourself when it comes time to pay the IRS!
What is your opinion about writing a business plan as opposed to just getting out there and doing it?
To me just getting out there and doing any business is like exploring outer space on the spur of the moment. The concern is that you will become very lost and never find your way home (to success). I bought a business plan when I started Menu Master and although it was vague, it gave me a starting point and an ending point. Again, I credit Penn State University with creating a goal-setting mentality within me. I set 6 month, 2 year, and 10 year goals. Most importantly, by setting goals and writing out a business plan on how you will achieve them you will better be able to visualize your success and thereby achieve it.
What inner qualities did you need most in the first 5 years of building Menu Master?
Faith in my dream that creating a successful company was not impossible and the fierce determination - almost an angry ‘failure is NOT an option’ attitude. I felt I had suffered enough in life and that my children deserved this dream. Also I would praise myself for each little success along the way. For example, each new restaurant I signed up I would tell everyone about it for my own pat-on-the-back and then calculate how many restaurants I needed to sign up to generate $50,000/yearly. It was all about motivation.
Is there anything else you would like readers to know about your journey?
In it’s 13th year Menu Master has become the largest menu-advertising company in the entire nation. Despite negative people that you will come across in every business, we are doing something very, very right to be experiencing this success. Along those lines I would lend a gentle warning to readers that I discovered along my journey, something they may not already know. The more successful I became, the more people tried to steal from me, threaten me with lawsuits and generally abuse me in any way possible. This did not happen in my early days because I posed no threat to anyone. I tend to be street-wise and suspicious anyway, and yet it still absolutely shocked me to find the lengths to which people will go to steal you blind and have no conscience about it whatsoever. If you own a business, you are automatically ‘rich’ in many peoples’ minds and therefore to be envied. This makes you a target to be used if you are not watching for it.
By Lisa Di Clemente for the Business Opportunities Weblog.
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