IAM2122 – Entrepreneur and Inventor Focuses on Movie Deal for her Screenplay

In this episode, we have Ginny Scales-Medeiros, an entrepreneur with multiple patents/trademarks. Ginny's product widely sold in World Class spa resorts and on QVC, made appearances on NBC, CBS, FOX News and written about in many national magazines.

Ginny’s first novel. “What Is Normal?” made the top 40 most inspirational list in Gladys Magazine. She has been on radio and TV, talking about her book, most recently on ABC’s morning show, “Believe in Yourself.” Currently, Ginny’s focus is on landing a movie deal for the screenplay, “WIN”, based on her novel, “What Is Normal?” an edgy, feature-length drama, based on her life.

The conversation highlights her perspective on being an independent entrepreneur and the freedom it brings to do things her way.

Website: Ginny Scales-Medeiros

Website: What Is Normal

Wikipedia: Ginny Scales-Medeiros

LinkedIn: Ginny Scales Medeiros

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Transcription:

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Ginny Scales Medeiros Teaser 00:00

I decided to write a book based on my story because my story has motivated people along the line as people have said to me, you didn't finish high school, you don't have a college degree. How did you get QVC to put your product on there?

Intro 00:20

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview. If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:45

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ginny Scales Medeiros of whatisnormal.tv. Ginny, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 00:56

Thank you Gresham. I'm excited.

Gresham Harkless 00:58

No problem. Excited too. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Ginny so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Ginny is an entrepreneur with multiple patents and trademarks. Ginny's product, Wiley sold in world-class spa results and on QVC, made appearances on NBC, CBS, Fox News, and written about in many national magazines.

Ginny's first novel, What is Normal, made the top 40 most inspirational lists in Glad's magazine. She's been on radio and TV talking about her book, most recently on ABC morning news, Believe in Yourself. Currently, Ginny's focus is on landing a movie deal for the screenplay when, based on her novel What is Normal, an edgy feature-length drama based on her life. Ginny, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Ginny Scales Medeiros 01:48

I am.

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Gresham Harkless 01:49

Awesome, awesome, awesome. The first question I had, Ginny, is if you can introduce yourself a little bit more and tell us about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 01:57

I was on my own at 15 and I already knew that my God-given talent, and we all have one, but I knew that mine was selling because I had a knack for taking the abandoned kittens that were left in the field next to where I lived way out in the middle of nowhere and finding homes for them. And then I also was knocking on doors and selling greeting cards. I actually had more spending money than my parents.

And when I was 19, I was out on my own. When I was 19, I got in the auto industry and I sold the car my first day, sold the car every day for a month, salesperson of the year, 6 years in a row. And I purchased my first house when I was 23, my second house when I was 27 on my own in California. And this is without finishing school. This is all based on my selling ability, good old fashioned selling.

So I remember one day being out on the car lot and thinking to myself, wow, if I could think of and create my own product to sell, that would be the ultimate. And this is where the idea for perfecting sunless tanning applications came into my mind, Blacklight Sunless Tanning. And then I did the research, I got a couple patents and I trademarked the name flawless sunless tanning.

I started knocking on doors and got it on the shelves of world-class spa resorts like the Canyon Ranch, the MGM Grand, and also all the noble house, hotel, and spa resorts offered my product. And now what I've done is written a book about it. Because I think I have my life story as a good message. Being 15 on my own, no education, but believing in myself, I have succeeded.

Gresham Harkless 03:49

I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear a little bit more about what you're doing with What is Normal TV, hear a little bit more about your book and also if you want to touch on your product and anything else additional.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 03:58

So what I'm doing is I decided to write a book based on my story because my story has motivated people along the line as people have said to me, you didn't finish high school, you don't have a college degree. How did you get QVC to put your product on there? People have to fill out applications, send their product in. I said, I don't follow any of the rules. I made cold calls. I love cold calls. I love cold calls.

If I can make a sale from a cold call, that's like the ultimate to me. And so I just got on the phone to QVC, started making phone calls, got a warm body on the phone, gave my elevator pitch, which I actually created an elevator pitch for a contest at StartUpNation.com and won and got a spot on a radio show. And I didn't realize at that time how important that elevator pitch was going to be. But when you are in a position where you run into somebody and they're a contact for you to have your pitch down to 1 minute. That's what I had perfected.

So when I got on the phone with QVC and I got a warm body on the phone, I pitched my product and just me by myself making a cold call, they set up a face-to-face meeting for me to present my product to them. I did buy myself and I got my product on QVC and I was able to sell it on QVC myself.

Gresham Harkless 05:26

I love that story and I love how you've been able to definitely get your name out there and build that and do the cold calls. And I wanted to ask you, and you might have already touched on this for what I call your secret sauce, which your differentiator or what sets you apart. So do you have an example of a secret sauce you can give for us?

Ginny Scales Medeiros 05:41

My secret sauce is I truly to the core of my being believe there's always, always a way. And that's the beauty of my novel, What is Normal. You can see in my story as this starting out as a little girl that lives in a trailer out in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York that's later turned into a chicken coop with her teenage high school dropout parents on my own at 15, I started proving over and over to myself that there's always a way. So my secret sauce is do not be afraid to break the rules.

When I got my literary agent and my publishing contract, I did not follow those rules that said, you need to send a query letter and it needs to be double spaced and all that stuff because then I would have been just one person in a line that looked like every other person in that line. I did not follow any of the rules and see my philosophy is this Gresham, I don't care if somebody speaks to me because they want to get rid of me or because they want to take care of whatever it is I'm asking for.

Either way, I make that contact and then it's up to me to sell them. So if I'm annoying, not annoying, but if I'm not in line and I'm like not following the rules and I stand out and they need to talk to me to tell me this isn't how you do it you got to do it this way I've got somebody to speak to and now I can sell them.

Gresham Harkless 07:24

There you go, yeah a lot of times I always remind myself of the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Sometimes you have to be that and when you are being unique to yourself and you're being quote unquote, I'm using air quotes, normal, so to speak, then you have an opportunity when you're not doing that, I should say you have the opportunity to break through the noise.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 07:41

Yes. The squeaky wheel gets grease. So it doesn't matter why they decide they need to speak to me. If they need to speak to me to tell me, hey, you have to follow the rules, that's okay. I got a chance to speak to them. And pretty much that's what it was with the book. And I ended up with a literary agent and a publishing contract before I was done with that book.

Gresham Harkless 08:00

Nice.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 08:01

I'm on my second edition now and as my focus is getting the funding for the film, I pitched it, which I love, at the Napa Valley Film Festival and made the finals. And I was told that this is a story that audiences love. So we've got a whole business plan, just like if you're gonna start a business, we have a director, producer, cinematographer, we have all the staff. You can't ethically start going to talent to get them attached until you have funding because you can imagine if you're going to Shirley MacLaine or Sally Fields with a script and you want them to read it and then the funding never comes through, they would just be reading scripts every day because there's a million filmmakers out there that want to make a movie.

So you got to have the funding in place and that's what we're doing right now. And that's like if I was going to start a company, here's the, the principles, this is their experience and why it's going to be successful. Our producer has done 13 or 14 movies and has never lost money ever on any of them. They've all been a little bit smaller than what we're doing. They've all been a million dollar movies or less. This film is going to be $2 million. But we have in our directors, an award-winning director, he's had a script picked up by Warner Brothers. We have some real talent in our crew that are ready to go.

And we also have the business plan and the script in front of investors. Cause the script has, you know, it starts back in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, but it ends up with the electric car industry because I'm also a pioneer in the electric auto industry. I gave up gas, my gas automobile in 2007 and I'm in a documentary called What is the Electric Car? I'm also a co-author on what is the electric car. So this script is really kindly and the right person is gonna see it's an inspirational message. It's edgy, but it's also something that is important for the everyday people to see how practical really driving electric cars are.

Gresham Harkless 10:27

Awesome. Now that makes perfect sense. And I think everybody's definitely probably looking forward to it because everything else you've done has been like a home run. So definitely looking forward to seeing when that comes out. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 10:46

So, and I got to tell you, I thought a lot about this because I read these questions before the interview. And really, honestly, the most important resource to me is Google search. I can ask absolutely anything. That is, there's nothing that has become more of a tool in my world than that. I use it every day.

Gresham Harkless 11:11

Blackwash, yeah, I use it just as much. So I definitely think that's a great CEO hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, or if you can go into the time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Ginny Scales Medeiros 11:23

I would tell myself, plant a seed in the garden of your dream every day. Meaning, even if you're working that 9 to 5, which Gresham, I've never worked a 9 to 5 in my entire life ever. But if you are working that 9 to 5 and you have a dream, plant a seed in the garden of your dream every single day. And that means make the phone call. Reach out to somebody that can get you to the next level.

If it's somebody trying to write a book and they reach out to me, which I have them so often, or how do you get a patent, how do you do a trademark, you know all kinds of stuff like that. I will give somebody my time that has given me some of their time. I just don't have the time to answer everybody. So if somebody's taken some time to look at what I've gotten, who I am, I will definitely give them the same back. But plant a seed in the garden of your dream every day. That's my nugget.

Gresham Harkless 12:21

I love that.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 12:22

And pretty soon flowers start growing.

Gresham Harkless 12:24

Yeah, before you even know it. That's very, very true. And now I wanted to ask you for my favorite question, which is the definition for what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So I wanted to ask you what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ginny Scales Medeiros 12:38

And again, and I had talked to you about this originally. I'm not technically, I'm not a CEO, but I'm an indie independent. So I have the freedom of not following the man-made rules that have been set up around me, because in my world, I wouldn't be successful if I followed someone else's rules. And there's that old saying, if you're not working on your own dreams, somebody will hire you to be working on theirs. And that's everybody. If you go into work for somebody, you're working on their dream.

So my definition of being my own CEO or my an entrepreneur or the freedom of I get to say, yes, I can meet you at this time or decide that I'm not going to do anything for 2 weeks or I, you know, I don't work in 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, my life is project to project. I have the freedom of doing things my way. And we've seen a lot of leaders do that. A lot of leaders that do it their way. And they're successful doing it. And people on the outside look at him and go, wow, he goes to work in jeans and a t-shirt, or he brings his dog to work, or he got a contract by doing XYZ, which is totally not what they think they needed to do. Cause a lot of us are programmed by our education.

Gresham Harkless 14:05

Ginny, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak to see if there's anything additional that you want to let our readers and our listeners know and also how best people can get a hold of you, find out about your novel and your movie deal and everything that you're doing.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 14:20

Great. My name is Ginny with a G, G-I-N-N-Y, Scales like the music scales, not the fish scales I was called in school, and Medeiros. ginnyscalesmedeiros.com is my main website, but also whatisnormal.tv, like television, is the book's website. And if you just Google Ginny, whatisnormal, Ginny Scales Medeiros, you can see my Wikipedia. You can easily contact me if you're interested in looking at our script, looking at our business plan, which is very unique, cutting edge. We have a very unique way for our investors to be pretty darn sure that this is gonna be a win-win. And actually the name of the script is WIN, which is the acronym for What Is Normal and very fitting for the film. So ginnyscalesmedeiros.com or whatisnormal.tv. And I wish everyone the best of luck out there.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

Thank you. And I appreciate you and telling your story and all the awesome things that you're doing and going at the beat of your own drum, so to speak. And we'll make sure to have those links in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you. But again, I appreciate you and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ginny Scales Medeiros 15:39

Thank you, Gresham.

Outro 15:41

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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