Every business has a story. I suppose that is one of the reasons we started Franchise Interviews. I believe Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said, if you could pull the roofs off of all the homes in a neighboorhood what interesting stories you would find. This has been our experience with Franchise Interviews. Its amazing and inspiring how ordinary people achieved extraordinary success through franchising.

Franchise Interviews started off as a newsletter in the year 2004. We simply placed this banner for a free newsletter on several franchise websites and started to build subscribers. Once we got our list of subscribers to a respectable number, we were ready for our first franchise newsletter!

I was familiar and interested in talking to a franchise opportunity from Australia called Kwik Kerb. I got the opportunity to interview the founder of Kwik Kerb Gordon Buckland as well as two of their most successful franchisees. They were a husband and wife duo called the Horton’s.  

It’s exciting to see how far Franchise Interviews has come since that first newsletter. Today we have thousands of readers and listeners to our radio show from all over the world!

People are hungry for good vital content (Keyes, 2009).  The reason we started Franchise Interviews is to give aspiring entrepreneurs an up close and behind the scenes look at franchising.  There were too many franchise websites throwing information at aspiring entrepreneurs. Our mission has been from the beginning was to educate, inform and inspire.

 
 

ENTER THE WORLD OF INTERNET RADIO
As someone who is auditory by nature, I thought it would be great to have a radio show that aspiring entrepreneurs can listen to on franchising. I was fascinated by the concept of Internet radio. There were no geographical boundaries and listeners could hear the show 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the audio archives.
 
We launched our first radio show on WorldTalkRadio in November of 2006 with the founders of P.B. Loco (Click PB Loco to hear that first show). We did the show for almost a whole year. Unfortunately the company was acquired by a competitor and we felt we needed a more comfortable place to call home. That place was BlogTalkRadio!

To date, we have recorded over 152 shows.  There are now thousands of subscribers and listeners to Franchise Interviews.  We have interviewed some of the biggest names in franchising as well as introducing some exciting new concepts in franchising.  Last year we celebrated our 100th show on BlogTalkRadio.com.
 
We joined the Blog Talk Radio family in December of 2007. There are so many things we loved about Blog Talk Radio. BlogTalkRadio.com was created by Alan Levy and Bob Charish in August 2006 and features a variety of topics on business, sales, politics, leadership, education, travel and more. BlogTalkRadio.com has featured some of the biggest name guests in the world.BlogTalkRadio.com is the largest Internet radio talk station that currently has an audience of over 650,000 unique visitors each month and over 3.5 million page views on a monthly basis.  
 

Marty McDermott is the President and owner of Franchise Interviews. Marty is also a Marketing Professor at Kaplan University and faculty advisor to the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization for the Kaplan University Chapter.  Marty has been recognized by organizations such as the Who's Who Among American Teachers for his exceptional teaching style and recently received the Outstanding Faculty  Award at Kaplan University, which is considered one of the highest honors at the school.  Click here to watch the ceremony.
 
Marty has a BS in Marketing, an MBA in International Business and a Post-MBA in Entrepreneurial Studies from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Marty is also pursuing a Doctorate Degree in Business Administration from Argosy University.  He is considered an expert in entrepreneurship and franchising. Marty resides in Williams Township, PA.  You can learn more about Martin McDermott by clicking here.
 
 
Don Johnson is the President of Diamond Financial Services of New Jersey and owner of Franchise Interviews. Diamond Financial Services specializes in SBA lending for small and medium-sized businesses. Don is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University and is considered an expert in franchising. Don resides in Colts Neck, NJ. Learn more about Don Johnson by clicking here.