Bob & Melinda Blanchard are my all-time favorite serial entrepreneurs! From the first moment I spotted A Trip to the Beach, they were my beau ideal business model, following their dreams no matter how whacky they might seem to the conventional world.
The name was already familiar. I adored their Blanchard & Blanchard salad dressings & ice cream toppings. True entrepreneurs - they sold their food business, as they'd previously sold their kitchenware company, and moved with their young son to... Anguilla. To start a restaurant. Riiiiiiiggghhhtttt...
Suffice it to say, it was a smash! Typical reviews include...
There are not enough words to describe how much we love Blanchards.
First off, the staff is always very friendly and most attentive. We have
been coming to Anguilla for many years and this has quickly become our
favorite lunch spot. They have quite a selection to choose from which
makes it nice you can eat several days in a row and try new dishes each
time. We really like the bowls, they are quite filling and very
reasonably priced. The picnic table area is always tidy and you can tell
the staff enjoys their work as well as their customers. A pleasant
experience each time, never disappointed and they take time to get to
know their customers. Most appreciated and highly recommended! Would
give them more that a five if possible! Thank you for never disappointing.
Not that they ever lost their New England roots. While Melinda hails from NYC, Bob is a 7th generation Vermonter. That's where they moved after getting married (met at college, where both majored in psych). Vermont's where they got their first taste of success - always with food-related businesses, it seems. It's where, with their son, they recently built a home - without previous experience - from the ground up (wisely leaving the plumbing & electrical to experts). They split their time between the Green Mountain State & the lush blue waters around Anquilla, long their favorite Caribbean island.
Bob & Melinda don't just live success, they preach it. My copy of their 2008 book, Changing Your Course ~ The 5-Step Guide to Getting the Life You Want, is filled with thumbed down pages, scribbles & underlines & notes in the margins, littered with dozens of bright pink sticky notes.
One thing that sets them apart from most of us humans is that they know when they are dissatisfied with something, then expect to turn things around.
As young marrieds, they realized working in social services agencies wasn't feeding either of them in the way they needed. It offered meaningful work and steady pay checks, but no nourishment.
Those crazy kids - and their 18-month son - started on the first of their many business adventures, funneling a not-too-small but not really-all-that-big an inheritance into a kitchen supply story. And the rest is food history!
First, their kitchenware store. Success! Then, Blanchard & Blanchard. Super yummy success! Then their island restaurant. Delicious success!
Just as they first succeeded in doing what they dreamed - both getting social service agency jobs right out of college - then made a major shift when that dream turned out to offer less than they both craved, so they also left the kitchenware business when they started to get antsy for a new business challenge, then left the specialty food business (I can personally attest to their wow success) when their response to the unsavory aspects of working with super market chains clued them in it was time for another change. And a move. South. Way far south. Anguilla.
Mega thanks to Molly Nece for a shout out to one of her mentors, Ken Blanchard. That got me thinking about Bob & Melinda & the impact they had on me the moment I started reading their story. Had just finished Molly's book, so decided to take a bit of a break & reread Changing Your Course. Brilliant! It's probably been at least three years since I last gave it a serious read.
Interesting, reading something that moved me back when, but with more experience in what I want to be doing, where I want to be going. With a better appreciation of MY dream & determination to make it so.
Will come back to Ken & Melinda, as I share glimpses & glimmers of my own special dream in their writing. As I move past simply dreaming to DREAM.
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