it is the number one concern of our small business viewers, getting customers. we're devoting the entire show today to that topic. we'll tell you how to find them, and how to keep them coming back. that's all coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy, and american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to present "your business" on msnbc.

hi there, everyone, i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business" where we give you tips and advice to help your small business grow. it is the number one concern we hear from small business owners around the country. they say, they can survive this economic climate, as long as customers keep spending. so today, we're going to focus on ways to entice customers, and gain their continuing loyalty. clearly, knowing your customers is key to any successful business. but just how well do you need to know them? well salon owner is closely studying his clients. he is learning about where they live, and how much they may be willing to spend in order to make sure that he can successfully expand his brand. >> there's just a lot more homework, not to make a mistake.

i don't have the time. i have to make the time for this. it's the difference of success and failure. >> reporter: anthony rossano knows his customers. he understands their needs, and he's doing his best to keep them coming. >> we're a community-based type business. so i need a lot of families. >> reporter: rossano's business, bernard's salon and spa in southern new jersey, is known for its high-end products. >> the ideal customer is someone that likes a luxury brand. if they're going to spend a lot of money for their services, they want to be guaranteed a result. >> reporter: making sure every cut, color and manicure is beyond just right means rossano puts in more than his share of overtime. >> my day starts at 5:30, and it ends sometime usually midnights seven days a week. >> reporter: those long hours have translated into an immensely popular brand with two locations and 200 employees. but maintaining those figures has presented a challenge, especially in light of the economy. >> in today's market, and

business, money is a commodity that you can't risk on losing. so mistakes have to be at a minimum. >> reporter: in order to avoid any potential pitfalls, rossano is doing plenty of homework, as he plans to expand his 20-year-old business. >> anthony's motto is once you go up, you've got to stay up. the only way you can change is actually to go down and that's not what he's looking to do. he's looking to top himself all the time. >> reporter: and that's why he's adding a new line, designed to appeal to a whole new batch of customers. he's calling it b-2. >> he does live, eat, drink, sleep the salon. so his passion is building his empire, and he's very intuitive. so his intuition, and just knowing what clients want, i would have to say, benefits us the most. >> reporter: the line promises the same quality of service at more affordable prices. but before he opens a single door, rossano wants to know as

much as possible about his potential clients. >> i have to study the demographics differently for expansion. i have to actually do it the old-fashioned way. i have to be in the area, presently, and looking for sites myself, and getting the feel of the area, studying what's important. are there schools around there. are there banks. are there, in some areas, community centers? >> and those aren't the only things he wants to know, either. >> we do look at the population of families. how many are in an average household. are people working in the area? >> rossano has spent hours talking with local real estate agents and developers. he even visits potential locations to see which businesses locals frequent the most. >> i actually sit in the parking lot. and i do that on usually every day of the week now. and i look at what would somebody be like? is it a busy center? we drive the area.

we look at a five-mile radius of the location that we have set to look for key, you know, key sites. >> reporter: once new space has been picked, rossano will fall back on his experiences at bernard's to start his marketing. he's known for making special offers that customers simply can't refuse. one of his most successful ideas came to life when he realized who wasn't coming to the salon. >> we're all about not just soliciting to the higher end client, we're looking to make it affordable for the younger client. >> reporter: and that's why students get 50% off their services on mondays. >> and for a long period of time, i didn't recognize that pricing sometimes holds back the desire to get that service done on a steady basis. >> reporter: the discount benefited the business in more ways than one. in fact, the offer had a ripple effect. >> due to what we were doing aggressively to attract

students, we found that the mothers really started liking our salon. so we see a lot of mother and daughters coming in on mondays. >> reporter: young people weren't the only ones on rossano's list, either. so were professionals with families. with that in mind, bernard's is open seven days a week, sometimes as late as midnight. >> there's a lot of people that travel from this area into the city. they don't get home until 8:00 at night. you know, they may go home and tuck their children in or have dinner and then they're here. >> a professional woman works during the day. so to leave and come to the salon between 9:00 and 5:00, when most salons are open, it was ridiculous, in our thinking, as a salon owner. >> reporter: while rossano credits luck for much of his success, for now he's taking control of his own destiny. he believes his passion and preparation will inevitably pay off in the end. >> when you understand supporting your brand, i think that you have a better opportunity to duplicate, or

even grow, your existing business a lot better because you understand what you have to do. >> one of the hardest things for a new small business to accomplish is distinguishing themselves from the competition. in order to do that, you have to make a good impression right from that very first meeting. that's what one aspiring entrepreneur with a school catering business did to steer customers away from bigger, more experienced competitors. ♪ food, glorious food >> kids lunch is grown-up business for belinda gee ambatista. >> we always have a daily soup. a full salad bar with fresh salad and raw veggies. >> the founder of the school lunch provider butterbeans, belinda and her team currently provide healthy, organ meals for more than 1,000 students at nine private schools around new york city. she started the company in 2008, with her co-founder felicia.

between them they have an mba and a nutrition background but no commercial cooking experience. so how did this small, new company beat out more established players when it came to drumming up business? >> our competition is everybody from a small mom and pop catering company to the biggest of the food companies out there that serve not only schools but hospitals, and, you know, health care facilities. >> reporter: first, they looked the part. belinda says their personal experience had a lot to do with getting the first contract. >> there was a parent committee formed at this particular school who was asked to participate in the selection of who the food vendor would be. and we were up against a big guy. and so when it came down to making a decision, the fact that we weren't young, healthy ourselves, and had small children that we wanted to see grow from eating healthy food was really a favor for us. >> reporter: second, prospects were drown in by belinda's sales pitch. michael devine is the chief

financial officer at one of the butterbean schools. >> she was enthusiastic as could be, and it was contagious. and we said, let's see what we can do here. >> reporter: a lot of people are passionate and a lot of people are committed. >> mm-hmm. >> reporter: a lot of people have business ideas. what is it that you think made this one successful, made you go in to some place and have them respond by saying, okay, i want to work with you? >> it's execution. we've grown in a measured -- at a measured pace. so we didn't grow beyond our capabilities where we would fall flat on our face. >> reporter: the company's measured growth has allowed the entire butterbeans team to really understand their current and potential customers. or rather, the three types of customers it serves. because butterbeans has to please the administration, the parents, and, of course, the students. >> they like the pasta. but the meetballs, i think if you had a vote the meatballs would definitely win. >> reporter: dr. judith honor is the principal at another but per beans school. since the very first meeting when she was considering working

with butterbeans, dr. honor was impressed with belinda's availability. >> she obviously spends 24 hours a day with either a cell phone or a computer or some sort of communication device, because it doesn't really matter what time, when i e-mail her, i get a response. >> reporter: butterbeans a-plus customer service is what won over the administrators. their product demonstrations got the parents excited. >> they did a bakeoff between us and their company, and we won it. which was really great. >> reporter: before butterbeans came along, her daughter was eating rice for lunch almost every day. >> now she has to try something else. and this is a good thing about it. i think she really has to -- she's more exposed to different things and she wants to try it. >> reporter: as for the students, well, that's measured in the number of people coming for seconds. >> a little more yogurt. >> granola? >> reporter: belinda says the company's not grown without mistakes, but how butterbeans

has dealt with those mistakes has made all the difference. >> when we make a mistake, we own it. we come to the client and we say, listen, you know what, this is our fault, and this is how we're going to correct it. >> reporter: focusing on making sure they provide the best service possible for their current customers is paying off. now, far from the days when belinda was knocking on doors trying to get a meeting, butterbeans gets most of their new business from referrals. >> our brand is strong enough to where we do get calls on a regular basis of inquiry. which is great. >> reporter: and every once in awhile, belinda has the chance to just walk through a lunch room and take a step back to reflect on what she's done. >> you know, it's a combination of happiness, of surrealism. it's just like, wow, we created this, and our team made this possible. ♪ >> so, what else can a small business owner do to get customers, and then keep them coming back?

we have two of our favorite entrepreneurs to answer that question. carol roth is a business strategist. you can find her at carolroth.com. she's also author of the book "the entrepreneur equation." and divya gugnani is the see of send the trend, a website dedicated to fashion accessories and author of the book "sexy women eat, secrets eating what you want and still looking fabulous." you know what i loved about this piece and talking to them, i'm always interested in these people who start up like, how did you get them to work with you? >> it's like, if you really believe in what you're creating, they believed in creating healthy meals for children, it was obvious, just by looking at her face, that she's, you know, 100% vested in this, that passion when you're going to clients and you're trying to win business is obvious. it's like, you know, are they going to put 100% effort behind it as opposed to a large food service company, where you're one client out of a million. you know, what's the customer service going to be like? ultimately if you have a great product, excellent customer service, that passion, and

you're just determined to win the business, you win it. >> you've got a product that's going to blow away the competition, let them have it for free. any business can do this. my dad was an electrician. and he would go to businesses, and say, you know what, i know you're worried about hiring me, so why don't you let me work a day, and if you don't like what i do, i will work for free. you don't have to pay me anything, and then it takes the risk out of the equation. and then he blows them away. does a great job. great customer service. and then they say, okay, you know, this works for us. >> you know what, i like that better than discounting your service. say, okay, i will do it for less money than somebody else. >> it's a loss-making proposition for you. competition is very thick. and you know, eroding away your margins at the outset is not the way to play the strategy. >> one tool you can use to get your business story to more customers is creating your own online video. here now are five ways to have that video reach potential customers from ink.com.

choose the right place to host your content. use a third party site like youtube to maximize total video views. pick a good title and description. these include your most important key words. stay as user friendly as possible. supply transcriptions. attaching a text transcript to your video is a great tool to let search engines get a better read of your video content. keep it short. don't let your videos run more than three minutes. if you have 30 minutes of content that you can't cut down. make it into a series of smaller videos. and finally, spread the word. post the video link on facebook and twitter, and e-mail the link out to your mailing list. allow, and encourage, commenting on your video, and ask employees and friends to help get the word out, too. when we come back, more ways to engender loyalty from your customers, as rieva lesonsky gives us tips on expanding your fan base. and rewarding customers with

discounts and other perks can keep them coming back and spending more. shazi: seven years ago, i had this idea. to make baby food the way moms would. happybaby strives to make the best organic baby food. in a business like ours, personal connections are so important. we use our american express open gold card to further those connections. last year we took dozens of trips using membership rewards points to meet with farmers that grow our sweet potatoes and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business.

most small businesses recognize that they need to add social media tactics to their marketing strategies. and that one of the primary selling points of social media is the concept of engaging potential customers. so what are some of the things you should be doing to energize your fan base on a personal level? here to provide some helpful tips is receive haieva lesonsky. great to see you. >> great to be here. >> there's so much talk about this, you're not just selling to people anymore, you are really creating a community and a conversation with them. and you say one of the things which i think is so smart, highlight one of your fans. >> i think that that, if you want to be a community where you're not just talking at people, but rather making sure that people realize it's a community, is pick out one of the fans and find out, are they having like some commemorative time in their business, is it their 25th wedding anniversary, depending what kind of business you have, or maybe they've just hit a milestone. you know, second sale of some big product.

whatever it is, pick them out, highlight them on your facebook page, your twitter page, just introduce people to them and then people, oh, i could be the next one highlighted. and they're going to -- >> i think, also, then people will retweet that. >> yes, exactly. >> or make it their status update. >> that's how you build the community. >> next one, offer discounts and promotions. >> this is really key. i mean, if you want a fan in your business, and nobody wants to pay full price, right? so if you want them to like your facebook page, they're not going to like you just because they like you. you have to offer them some kind of incentive. so it could be a discount. it could be a promotion. it could be a free ebook. it doesn't have to actually be prices off something. and you can put together an ebook, again, depending on what your business is fairly cheaply. so just sort of give them an incentive to become your fan and they're going to tell other people. >> it's no different than having a contest to get people to give you their e-mail. now you're just getting their like instead, which is kind of like an e-mail. crowd source an idea from your fans. that's smart, you get everyone

engaged. >> right. so you get them actually invested in your business. what it does, it says to that customer, or potential customer, they care about what i think. and any time somebody thinks that you care about what they think, they are automatically more invested in helping you succeed. and so i think it makes them part of your business. they're going to help you. >> another idea is to just get sort of a virtual advisory board of customers i think is helpful. okay, do good. >> well, you know this more than anybody else. americans, they really want to help businesses that are being socially responsible. that are socially conscious. so don't just say it, actually do it. and then let people know that you're doing it. because some research has shown that people who just claim that they're a do-gooder, nobody buys it anymore. all of a sudden everybody came out of the woodwork and said oh, yeah, we do this. be very visible in what you're doing. participate in town events, city events, charity events, school events. something that the community can look at you and know that you really care and that you're

actually pitting your money -- >> i think it's so important. it has to be part of the fabric of who you are and not something you just paste on. thanks so much rieva. >> thanks, j.j. >> because of the volatility of the economy, many small business owners have had to come up with creative ways to ensure their survival. the owners of one pennsylvania dry cleaner turned to their customers, offering them deals that they simply can't refuse. ♪ >> you got to know your customer base. you got to know what they're wanting. >> rewarding customers is something we've always done and we believe in. >> this is what the customers need and want. so we've got to adjust with them. >> brothers john and dan lacarte think they know how model cleaners, their charleroi based dry cleaning business is going to survive the recession. the president and general manager of the company say it's all about enticing their customers. >> it has been a difficult environment, it really has. you know, people were wanting the discounts. they want a deal on their dry

cleaning. dry cleaning is a luxury a emin your budget. >> after sales dropped 8.5% at the beginning of 2009, the8.5% 2009, the brothers took a closer look at the data collected from the 24 locations in western pennsylvania and ohio. >> we went to our information and asked what was going on. >> they tracked the amount of customers visits, and what they found is that some clients had changed their habits. >> we kind of noticed the customers were just holding on to their garr manies a little longer, instead of wearing the pants once, now wearing them two or three times. >> those are the same customers that changed the behavior the most. >> they were waiting about every 32 days, and now they are

waiting about 38 days. >> and interesting enough they were spending the same amount of money on each stop, just less frequently. >> they decided to put more effort into a customer rewards program that the company saw five years ago. >> we saw a 20% increase in the store sales by putting a recognition program, and we think it starts with recognizing the customers on their birthday and on their anniversaries of when they did business with us. >> they focused on the clients that only broke from their routine. >> it was about 20% of our customers. >> they offered a new deal on valentine's day, and they put it to the test. >> we offered a dollar off if they brought in so many pieces of dry-cleaning, and the other

location it was a percentage off, and in the end, more customers redeemed a prernlg off. >> the response rate was double at the store where we had the percentage off than the store with the dollars off. >> sales were up about 10%, but despite the success, they decided to take their chances in april. the results? >> april, we were off about 10%. >> to try and recoup losses, another coupon hit for mother's day in may. >> i think the key is it's not a mass market offer, and it's

using our database to identify those customers, in particular that had been in recently that we get to bounce back quicker. >> in the meantime, they are looking at sales numbers while staying focussed on looking at numbers and taking risks. >> if i see the 30% not working, i may go 20% if it's going good. >> adjust is what model cleaners will do as they try to figure out how to potentially reward their clients next. >> our best customers represent the best solution to getting through the difficult times. it's time to answer some of your business questions, and carol and dyvia are here with us. the first question is with cece.

post cards are expensive, so it's hard to make it cost-effective. >> no post cards. if it's a fashion label and you are trying to drive people to a physici physical store, you want to have promotions that are redeemable in the store. you can use lots of onlinelet us, things like search words for sem, and do facebook ads, and if you are trying to build an online business, you can use social media, twitter, facebook -- >> you just think don't spend the money on -- >> post cards, more people e-mail, and the direct response rates. >> it's easy to do a test with this. >> yes.

and question the strategy. direct marketing and high end fashion in a sense go together with me like filet and jelly. it's just a weird fit. if you don't know these people and you are reaching out, they will be like why are you reaching out to me? so i think it's important if you are going for a direct strategy, it will be better to go with somebody that you know rather than a brand-new high end consumer. >> let's move on to the next one. this is a question about marketing your company online. >> mainly since the company is new, i would like to know how to make the company go viral? >> wouldn't we all like to know. >> there is a secret formula.

it's called the ease formula. puppies, kiddies and babies. i am just kidding. it's an outcome and not a strategy. something goes viral when you make something with a connection, it could be emotional or something that is funny, and if your company can service your customers in a blowaway fashion so they cannot help but go tell their friends, because do it in a positive way because it's easier to go viral from a negative affect than by positive. >> you have done it? >> yeah, my first business didn't go viral, and the second business had some aspects of viral, and my third one is a viral business.

you can be shared through lots of social media hooks. so you come online and see a necklace or ring, and you are able to share that product via e-mail or twitter or facebook, and if you share it and somebody buys something, you get a prize. you can send a message through our e-mail or site. >> thank you guys so much. it's great advice. if any of you out there have a question for you are experts, go to the website, openforum.com/yourbusiness. if you would rather, can you e-mail us your questions and comments, the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. looking to bring in new customers by keeping your

marketi marketing strategy fresh? well, you can market your products and services smarter and better, and using online seminars and articles tells you which of the newest marketing tools are worthwhile and how to use them. can you talk with other small business owners about what is working and what is not for them. membership is free, but for a yearly free, pro membership gives you additional articles and studies. click on our website to learn more about today's show. you will find all of today's segments, plus web exclusive content with more content to help your business grow. don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we love getting your feedback. also follow us on twitter. next week, an allergy free fog

for their business. >> and then we said, well, what do you use it for? well, we're a haunted house. every haunted house uses fog, and it was well, yeah, we didn't know that. >> when the air cleared, these intrapreneurs discovered new uses from haunted houses to night clubs. sam: i'm sam chernin. owner of sammy's fish box. i opened the first sammy's back in 1966. my employees are like family. and, i want people that work for me to feel that they're sharing in my success. we purchase as much as we can on the american express open gold card. so we can accumulate as many points as possible. i pass on these points to my employees to go on trips with their families. when my employees are happy, my customers are happy.