In 1997, Shannon Wilburn and Daven Tackett practically found cash in their closets when the local mothers turned garage-sale-ready items into a thriving consignment business dubbed Just Between Friends.

The duo’s first sale — the one in Wilburn’s living room — featured all of 17 consignors.

Today, the still-growing Tulsa- based JBF has 61 franchises in 16 states.

Each of those franchises has biannual sales featuring everything from gently loved children’s and maternity clothing, to toys, baby equipment and furniture.

Last year alone, JBF, which Wilburn and Tackett run out of their homes, netted $4.5 million.

Until recently, the pair had basked only in local media coverage. But then JBF’s marketing team contacted employees of CNBC’s “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch,” which boasts it “is your road map to the American Dream.” Message received.

On Tuesday — at 9 p.m., on cable channel 49 — Deutsch will feature two Okie women who followed their own map to the American Dream and ended up in New York for an episode titled “Hidden Millions.”

Wilburn got word of the good news first.

“I was like, ‘No way!’ ” she recalled of the Wednesday telephone
call with a member of her marketing team.

Wilburn, who doesn’t have cable television because her children watch enough TV as it is, immediately called Tackett to ask, “Do you know that show called ‘The Big Idea?’ ”

Of course Tackett watched the show, she said, but little did she know she’d soon be on the show herself.

“No way!” Tackett recalled saying while in the car with her husband.

Yes way, Tacketts.

Still, Tackett didn’t want to get too excited.

“I’m a realist,” she said, “So I thought, ‘I’ll just wait until they really give us the pitch and make sure it’s a for-sure deal.’ ”

Turns out it was, so Thursday morning, Tackett headed to her hairstylist, who heard the news and said, “Oh, you have to get a facial.”

After all, this is the same show that featured The Donald’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, not long ago.

Actually, a giddy Wilburn recalled the moment she heard the show’s staff will handle the duo’s hair and makeup.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this is so cool,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Who else gets to do this: Stay home with their kids and run a company out of their home and get to be on national television?’ ”

Before the pair, along with their two-person marketing team, leave for New York on Sunday, Tackett wanted to streamline JBF’s franchise application process.

“I just don’t know what a show like this can do for a business,” she said. “I’m assuming from other businesses I’ve seen on (the show), it really gives them a third-party endorsement and really gives them a lot of credibility so they can take that experience and say, ‘You know what?

Somebody else besides us now says we’re a company that you can look up to, or you can invest in or you can at least check out, because this is a good idea.’