president obama elevates the sba to a cabinet level position. sba administrator tells us how that will help your small business. and a look at what's hot in devices to help small businesses from the consumer electronics show. that and more coming up next on "your business."

hi there, everyone. i'm jj ramberg. welcome to "your business," where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. there is big small business change in washington. president obama announced the immediate elevation of the small business administration chief to a cabinet level post, and he wants congress to give him the authority to consolidate six agencies and put them under one department. >> as long as folks are looking for work and small businesses are looking for customers, i'm going to keep doing everything i can with my current authority to help. >> karen mills heads up the sba and joins us now. administrator, first and foremost, congratulations are in order. >> thank you so much, jj. it's an incredible honor to serve in the president's cabinet. i think it's really a reflection of the importance that this administration and the president

have really put on small business from day one. >> can you tell me effectively what does this change? obviously, symbolically it definitely means something, but are there things you'll be able to accomplish now that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise? >> with this elevation and with the president's request to congress for the ability to reorganize, what we want to do is take the next step and really make it easier for small businesses to navigate all across the federal government. right now, we collaborate terrifically with many, many other agencies that do small business activities, but it should be as seamless and easy as possible for a small business. i'm sure your viewers would agree that they want to open one door and be able to navigate to the answers that they need right now because they're busy, and they don't have time to go to five different places. so that's what we're trying to accomplish. >> yeah, there's no doubt that people say they would like to sort of breakthrough some red

tape and make things easier. it's interesting because the news from the president got some mixed reaction. as far as elevating the sba and your post to the cabinet, across the board, positive reaction. the idea of consolidating the six agencies got more of a mixed reaction. some people saying if you put these agencies together, then small business may get lost in the mix of things. >> if you run a business, you know it's important to keep reorganizing and making sure that you are up to date. so we say, you know, we've got a 20th century government structure and a 21st century set of problems and small business activities that we want to promote, and we need to be able to do that in a more coordinated way. so as we look forward, i don't want anybody to think small business will get second shot. small business has really elevated. i think that's the message that the president's trying to send. >> so that merging will take

congressional approval. but your elevation has already happened. you're now part of the cabinet. tell me about your goals for 2012 for the sba. >> i encourage all of the small businesses out there to come to our website sba.gov and take a look and to find the kinds of things that we're doing, whether it's exports, whether it's help for manufacturing, whether it's some regional clusters. those are the things that we are focused on. manufacturing right now is really on a roll. we at the sba have a lot of experience in working on supply chains because we run the supply chain for the federal government in terms of small business, which is $100 billion. what we're trying to do now is look at lots of other manufacturers and see if we can bring jobs back to this country. we're working with big business to see if they would bring back to the u.s. part of their supply chain. rc

>> you know, administrator, i'd love to keep in touch with you about this because we just did a piece about this. it will come in a few years when it doesn't make sense for companies to manufacture overseas. it's becoming so expensive a lot of people are bringing it back. i'm interested to follow and see how you're helping small businesses do this. we'll keep in touch. again, congratulations. thanks so much for joining us on the show. >> thank you. businesses have to change with the times. it can be a tough lesson for entrepreneurs to learn, but the evolution of a company can ensure its survival. one family-run jewelry store is alive and well after almost 100 years in business thanks to the decision to scale down. >> i stocked normal jewelry from the time i was 14 years old. i'm so not interested in normal jewelry. >> reporter: barbara jo foreman says her customized jewelry store is her own creation.

>> i'll make you run of the mill. i can obtain run of the mill. i can get you almost anything you want, but you won't see it in our case. we're for the person what doesn't want the bracelet that somebody else has. >> reporter: her store was founded in 1913 by her grandfather. this cincinnati institution was run by her father and then her brother before foreman took over. >> it seemed to me that there were enough jewelers out there who did platinum, gold, ruby, sapphire, diamond. i was in the arts, and i wanted something a little different. >> reporter: foreman gave it a try with her mother's emotional and financial support. no one had expected the business to last after her brother's death. >> he had pretty much prepared the business to close after he died. he never guessed that i would run it. i wanted to stay in the business. i was given this wonderful gift at a terrible loss, but i just tried things. >> reporter: so what did foreman do?

>> we changed everything. >> reporter: foreman's daughter, liz, who works in the family business, says the timing was right for her mother to introduce rings, pendants, necklaces, and bracelets that people might not find anywhere else. >> when you think of a brand, no matter what industry, it's always evolving and always changing. this is a great example of a business that has really evolved. >> reporter: to make the turn, foreman followed her heart. she didn't want to follow what she calls the industry standard. >> i didn't feel like going into millions and millions and billions of dollars and being on that level. i didn't want to do it. >> reporter: what she did want to do was create a scaled down, yet more personal operation. >> we do a lot of custom work. we repair. we restring pearls. we change people's jewelry so that it's wearable, and we sell them jewelry. >> reporter: foreman knew the way they had done business

needed to evolve. >> i wanted to be more personally involved. >> reporter: and that, she did. quickly. >> i wanted to hire people who knew what they were doing or i could train them to do what they were doing, that they should do for me, then they would just go do it. >> reporter: and foreman knew how to warm up her space to better suit her personality and welcome her clients. >> she has done everything from make the walls purple and the floor, the carpeting purple, to having her adorable little dog here. she knows how to sort of create a total environment. >> reporter: something else you'll notice is it's on the second floor. while the decision to move up has deterred foot traffic, customers actively seek out the business now. >> everyone wants to talk to bj. when the store was much larger downtown, you know, you could pop in and pop out quickly. you could still do that, but most people don't really want to do that when they come here now. they want to sit down. they want to talk.

they want to see what's happening. >> reporter: the space is smaller than the former locations, but employee sarah says the setting is more inviting and customers spend more time looking. >> this is a business about relationships. it's not just about, you know, jewelry. >> reporter: with the move to the second floor, they adapted a more web-centric marketing strategy, blog posts, facebook updates, and an e-newsletter. >> customers that came here decades ago are still coming. the new customers really, they're coming back because of the things they see on facebook. things we used to do like postcards and letters are less frequent. >> reporter: word of mouth marketing has been important as well. they have a reputation for service like no other. >> it's individualized attention, period. >> reporter: foreman even cut her hours and started taking

appointments. she's only open four days a week. >> the big money, the worthwhile projects, were custom work. that was by appointment. even if it's a repair, sometimes a repair is a custom job. >> reporter: foreman says she has no plans to grow any further, even when taking into account their success. she's scaled down for now, and she's liking it. >> i just wanted to be small and be nimble. i think you have to find your own niche. the big boys are so big, and they have such deep pockets. how can you butt heads with them? who wants to even? we talk a lot about growth on this show, but sometimes contracting and reconfiguring is the better business plan. let's turn to this week's board of directors. january groover is a serial

entrepreneur. great to see both of you guys. what struck me about this piece is it had to have been a scary moment to go from being a more typical jewelry store to following her vision a little bit more. so it seems fine now. she talks about she's an artist. that moment of someone's going to come in here and want something and i'm not going to have it has to be scary. >> it is scary, but i sense she found freedom in it. this is a trend with a lot of entrepreneu entrepreneurs. all of this immense overhead we created, people are starting to realize if you have less overhead and simplify things, you can have more revenue coming into your pocket. that's what she's going with this business model. allowing supply and demand to create her demand. he made her time a supply and demand issue, so she created scarcecy to people want to seek her out more as well as her product. using the viral marketing

through the social media platforms, she's also creating supply and demand. people know there are maybe only one or two pieces like that. they see their friend likes it. >> to your point, it looks like she's having fun. as you know, i grew up in a family business. i love when a new generation puts their own spin on it. it's got this great reputation, this great history. here she is coming in and modernizing it. when i saw this, i thought of gary vanderchuck from the wine library who took a business and revolutionized it in part through the web and social media. you see in the brick and mortar location and online she's creating this experience, which is so important for entrepreneurs. you're not going to win on price. it's about that experience. it's about that customer service. if you look at piece, i think it was her daughter talked about the walls are purple. if you look at website, the sides of the website are also purple. she's translating the brick and mortar experience to the web. that's what i see entrepreneurs doing. >> and moving it upstairs. that is a gutsy move as far as

i'm concerned. now she's getting rid of foot traffic. >> we were talking about a company in the green room which crossed my radar. same situation. they have a great experience. it's like a gentleman's club. it's on the fourth floor. there is that exclusivity. people want to feel like they're being embraced by the business. they're sort of on the inside. why would you want to go to cay jewelers when you can go to a place like that? each year in early january, technology enthusiasts from all over the world shift their focus to las vegas for the annual consumer electronics show. for small business owners, it's the perfect place to shop for the latest tools and gadgets that can offer your company a serious technology boost. lance is the editor in chief at mashable.com. he's here with star products to show us. hi there, lance. >> hi. how's it going? >> this is my favorite thing to do with you every year. show me what they have.

>> lonovo actually delivered a ton of products. this is the lonovo yogo. it's a 13-inch laptop. full size, full power. it's .67 inches thick. it's about 3.1 pounds. right now, by the way, it's running windows 8. don't tell anyone. so a little preview there. it is a touch screen, by the way. here's the really cool thing. it's calling a yoga because i can, one, do that. that's need. that's cool. i can flip it around. i can do a presentation. i can also do this. flip it completely down. it's a tablet. oh, no. i'm touching the keyboard. doesn't matter. it's been disabled. they patented this technology on the hinge. >> all right. let's move to the next one. >> biggest problem you have if you are like me and you're on the show floor and running around and you're on the person to all day long.

you run out of power. >> you're searching for some place where there's a plug in. >> exactly. this is from energy. it's called the pocket cell. it's $20. you charge it up, and it will charge any of your android, ios devices, and a number of other devic devices. it's fast charging. we had this phone plugged in for ten minutes maybe and it's half charged. >> that's great. $20. >> i've been charging things and i've not charged this up again. okay. toshiba excite. what is this? world's thinnest tablet. i want to get the specks right. it's 1.2 pounds. that's light. that's lighter than the ipad. it's .3 inches thick. that's .04 thinner than the ipad. you know what's very important to understand? i just said it's thinnest and lightest, but i have to show you something. it has ports. it has ports here. it has an sd card slot.

the ipad has, well, no real ports except for audio. this is an android tablet. it is going to run the stock android interface. what they have not told us yet is whether or not it's going to ship with ice cream stand -- sandwich. it should be coming out sometime later this year. >> okay. and finally. >> this is a windows phone. this is from nokia. this is the nokia lumia 800. this is the little brother to the nokia lumia 900, which was showed up at ces. exactly the same phone except this one has a 3.7-inch screen. >> so why would i use this? >> first of all, look at that screen. gorgeous. it's got a lens on the back. it has an interface.

you know, there are a lot of android phones out there. if you look at the interface, it's somewhat similar to the iphone. windows phone platform is totally different. it has these hubs and tiles. your whole world is right here. i have to say what nokia's done, nokia is microsoft's big partner now on windows phones. they're starting to deliver these really sexy hand sets into the u.s. markets. >> it's primarily a different interface that i'm looking at and do i like that better. >> right, and these are 4-g phones. they're super fast. they're powerful, super easy to use phones. you have to ask yourself, is this a better way of presenting my information? >> right, right. okay. >> i think it is. >> all right. well, lance, thank you so much. love having you bring all this stuff here. it's very fun. we'll get you back in a little bit to show us more stuff. >> pleasure. when we come back, we've got more digital do-it-yourself

tips. we'll talk about how you can grow your customer base on the web. and grep neurosurgeon are making a bundle by creating apps. 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. vo: earn points for the things you're already buying. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business.

the market for apps has exploded. design studios large and small are looking to cash in on the craze and make their app the next big thing. many of the companies developing them are true small businesses. working out of their home offices and even their parents' houses. >> you no longer need a studio of 2 or 300 people. >> you have a wife and a husband team. you have brother teams. friend and a friend. >> reporter: these entrepreneurs are referring to the gold rush that is the mobile application, or app industry. programmers are downloading apple and google android software development kits, designing apps, and releasing them by the thousands, hoping to grab the attention of smart phone users. this is office heros, a social gaming app where people create

quirky office faces and share them with friends. it's the creation of high school buddies turned business partners. after working on a few simple test apps, they decided to go at it full time. they quit their jobs and set up shop in will's parents' house. >> the inception of the idea to the actual time in the store, i think, was about seven to eight months. >> every day has been a learning experience. >> reporter: they decided to use a premium business model, meaning office heros is free to download, but special office items such as new tiles have to be paid for with a virtual currency called paper clips. the apple store handles the billing and charges developers a 30% fee on all sales. the android market has the same policy. to their amazement, office heroses was featured on the front page of the app store shortly after it was released. it was downloaded more than 500,000 times in just a few weeks. investors looking to get

connected with a hot new social gaming company came calling. >> it was like the moment when we looked at each other like, are we getting in over our heads? >> reporter: they know a thing or two about successful apps. he's the co-creator of doodle jump, one of the most popular apps of all time. it's become something of a pop culture phenomenon that's been mentioned on prime time tv. thousands of youtube video. >> i'm like shaking because i'm so nervous. >> reporter: and even made an appearance at a lady gaga concert. a massive success, for sure. but doodle jump started out modestly. >> early on, we realized there is some potential to it. not necessarily to sell 7 million copiecopies, but to maks a full-time job that you can do and enjoy and earn a decent living. >> reporter: after three months of development, he submitted

doodle jump to apple for approval. it was released shortly after. he decided to charge 99 cents per download. >> looking at the app store economy over that period of time, over the first couple of months, what you've with seen is people competing for the top selling spot, which is decided by the number of units sold. the lower the price you have, the higher on the list you get. >> reporter: they built in unique elements at the time, such a as a global leader board. in time, doodle jump was also featured by apple and down loads increased rapidly. both games are highly successful, but far from being finished products. >> imagine if you had a website that had a content static for a year. no one would come back. this is the same thing with the apps and games. if you keep adding new content, they'll come back to it. are you looking for ways to

integrate an ipad at your workplace? here are five apps that will help your small business run smoother courtesy of "entrepreneur" magazine. number five, service max. the free app allows field service technicians to access everything from customer and root information to product manuals on the go. four, documents to go provides word, excel, and powerpoint document editing capabilities on your ipad. you can move docs from other accounts. number three, use penultimate to write with a stylus. two, nomadesk let's you back up all your small business's data needs. you can also shred files. number one, zigzag board is a white board in your hand. use the ipad to visually share your ideas in a meeting or presentation. it's time now to answer some of your business questions. jen and rod are with us once again.

the first one is an e-mail from erica. she writes, in today's market, we all go to the internet to find customers. with so much competition on the web, what are some things you would recommend to grow my online customer base? it's a general question, but i think a great one. how do you get to people? >> it is. i find that the facebook ads are really effective, done right, with the right wording, and it's cost effective. people would spend so much money on the google ads. that still is effective in the searches, but i like the facebook ads to create that online traffic too because it's influencing from your friends. it's influencing from your colleagues and peers. so people trust that more. >> and you can really target on facebook. >> very specific targeting. that, as well as constantly giving out education, that will never go away. constantly educating consumers in the area of expertise, whatever your business is. giving information away that constantly would drive them back to continue to get more information from you that makes them want to sign up for your

newsletter so you can continue a relationship building process with them. >> yeah, i think you're right. facebook absolutely has been a game changer. as a small business, you can come in for not a lot of money and target so closely. the thing i always tell companies too, it depends what industry the questioner was in, but you want to go where your customers are going. if you are a jewelry company, you know, you may get more bang for your buck either advertising or targeting a jewelry blog that's your style of jewelry. you want to go where your potential customers are reading and spending time on the web. i think as we talked about, once they get to your site, you want to create that experience for them and sort of replicate if you don't have a brick and mortar location. >> to rod's point, that's something really important. people underestimate trade publications and how powerful it is. >> everyone thinks they want on the front page of the "new york times" but might be better off with a blog. >> let's move on to the next one. >> what are innovative ways to market to tech-savvy folks?

>> i would say the same thing. go where they're reading. you have to drill down to your industry, your niche. hopefully you know your customers well. target those online publications they're going after. you may get much more bang for your buck with a blog that has a small audience. >> blogs are perfect. >> there's also nowing a d ingi regators. there's a site called clout. these sites will allow you to go and figure out who the influencers are in that space. you can talk to them via twitter, facebook, linkedin, and build a relationship with them. if they're communicating with you, it's raising your eyeballs to the brand because they are an influencer. using these tools can really hone in on to those tech-savvy people. >> this is a place where content comes in. >> i was just going to say that. >> give people something to talk about.

it will get passed on. >> more and more you see sites, as someone who's in the content game, you see more and more businesses of all kinds creating content that's not really making a hard sell on the products. it's just giving people a reason to check out your site and stick around and maybe buy a product. it's also great for your fco. the more content, the more people you have linking to you. >> someone gave me an example the other day of you're selling baby clothes. you have a whole bunch of new baby clothes. do you put on twitter, we have new baby clothes, or five ways to get stains out of your baby clothes? >> exactly. always lead in with the education component. >> it's a big mistake. you can't blast people with promotion. >> great. thank you so much, you guys. if any of you out there have a question for our experts, just go to our website. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. there, hit the ask the show link. again, go to

openforum.com/yourbusiness. or you can sends us an e-mail. yourbusiness@msnbc.com. do you want to encourage social networking within your company? then check out our website of the week. yammer.com is a social network that's private and secure. employees can collaborate in teams, see what other colleagues are working on, and get feedback all in one place. a company e-mail address is all that's needed to use this site for free. their mobile app also allows your employees to continue the collaboration efforts on the go. to learn more about today's show, just click on our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments, plus web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. and don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we love getting your feedback. or you can follow us on twitter. it's @msnbcyourbusiness.

next week, the look and feel of a high-end paper invitation in the digital realm. >> with a little bit of creativity and work you could create a company on the web that would really affect people's lives. >> find out how paperless posts attracted high end users from prince charles to the white house. until then, i'm jj ramberg and remember, we make your business our business. 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