In M3 1000 competition, female business owners brushing up their fast pitch

Victoria Andreacchio spends each day in her Norristown bake shop, creating confectionary bliss for others. Her personal existence, meanwhile, is a batch of worries.

Is she going to get enough orders? Is she going to have to borrow money from a relative "to keep the lights on"? Is the pink on her logo too garish? Is she out of her mind to think V's Cupcakery, open just four weeks, can be pulling in $10 million in annual revenue within five years?

In Philadelphia's Mount Airy section, where Bell's Professional Services has its headquarters, co-owner Angela Jenkins has her own sleep-depriving concerns.

Can the cleaning company once owned by her late uncle, Doug Bell, and currently consisting of one van, one part-time office administrator, and 11/2 cleaning crews truly compete with better-known chains whose trucks seem omnipresent? Is Bell's, which Jenkins owns with her cousin, also named Doug Bell, charging too much? Too little? Can $200,000 in annual sales grow, especially in such an uninspiring economy?

Theirs are the tortures and challenges facing many small-business owners. But as women, Andreacchio and Jenkins have something else in common: They are part of an entrepreneurial breed sought for a competition coming to Philadelphia for the first time next month.

Make Mine a Million $ Business, or M3 1000 for short, is a national initiative to help 1,000 female business owners reach $1 million in annual revenue in 18 to 36 months.

Since its launch in 2005 by the nonprofit Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, M3 1000 has had 30 competitions throughout the United States. Of 261 total award winners, 28 percent are now at $1 million or more in revenue, said Count Me In founder Nell Merlino, a Trenton native and the creative force behind another major movement to inspire more career-oriented women - Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

Nationally, Merlino said, only 2.6 percent of female-owned businesses have reached the $1 million revenue milestone.

"We've upped the chances quite substantially," she said during an interview from her office in New York.

The Philadelphia event, set for Sept. 25 and 26 at the Doubletree Hotel on South Broad Street, will accommodate up to 200 competitors. The registration fee is $49 per person.

Each participant must make a two-minute pitch about her business to a panel of judges, who will select 75 "pitch winners" at the end of the competition Sept. 26.

Each of those winners will get a $1,000 gift card from cosponsor American Express Open, plus professional business coaching and a chance to win even more in a second round. That phase, which ends Oct. 31, requires pitch winners to submit their business financials and take part in telephone interviews.

From the second round, up to 50 business owners will be selected to receive additional development prizes, including access to financing, educational seminars, and public relations.

"All of it is designed to do the things we know help businesses grow," Merlino said of the competition's rationale.

To qualify, a business must have annual revenue of $85,000 to $700,000, be at least 50 percent owned by a woman, and have been in business at least 12 months.

Why more female-owned businesses have not reached $1 million in annual revenue has to do with a common deficiency, Merlino said: "The vision is too small."

That's understandable, she added, given that 84 percent of women who start businesses work without employees: "It's very difficult to grow a business without help."

And without the ability to effectively explain what the business is about. That's why no products may be shown during the pitch portion of the competition.

"The day revolves around . . . really being able to express your value and the value of your product or service in the marketplace," Merlino said.

Christie Nightingale, 47, founder of Premier Match, a high-end matchmaking service, won an M3 1000 contest in New York in 2006.

At the time, Premier Match had offices in Philadelphia and New York, about 5,000 clients, and nearly $600,000 in annual revenue. The mentoring and coaching she won, Nightingale said, "gave me the nerve to be more courageous in branching out."

Now, Premier Match also serves Washington, has 10,000 clients, and reached $1 million in sales last year.

"When we branch out and meet other women going through the same challenges, there's something very therapeutic about that," Nightingale said in extolling the M3 1000 experience.

Jenkins, of Bell's Professional Services, said she could attest to that comfort-in-numbers experience after attending M3 1000 "pitch parties" over the summer.

As a member of the steering committee for the coming competition, Jenkins, 44, of Chestnut Hill, cannot participate. But that experience alone has already focused her on what needs to be done to grow her 40-year-plus family business to $1 million in revenue within three years, she said.

"This competition is all about taking yourself from . . . where you just boil water to 212 degrees [to] where you push a locomotive," Jenkins said.

Mention temperature and Andreacchio thinks of her fall lineup of cupcake flavors, including bourbon sweet potato, caramel apple, and merlot. And the special-order cakes and cookies that V's also offers.

She plans to pitch the M3 1000 judges hard on why her business plan to open a site in Wilmington a year from now, followed by two more, on the Main Line and in Garnet Valley, is a winner.

The 45-year-old mother of four acknowledged she needs help with financing such an expansion, and with keeping the books. She has no problem when it comes to self-confidence, though:

"My product is so good, I will not fail."

For more information on the Make Mine a Million $ Business competition, go to http://is.gd/ftbfGaEndText