there is a new generation and so how does a small business owner manage today's teenager? and turning your online business mobile. we will show you how to do that next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy and american express open is here to help. that is why we are proud the 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 the business grow. teenagers are the lowest paid and the most inexperienced of the staff, but your business may rely on them, because their attitude and how they treat customers may make or break your business and so we went to a concession park owner on advice of how to get the most from your teenaged workers. ♪ summer is means fun >> back in my day, i had been on work on time, and been in uniform. >> 56-year-old ken whiting sounds old school to you, that is because he is. >> and if i didn't, i would have been fired back in my day. >> i remember as a young kid having that automatic respect for a super visor. >> and jeff whiting is old

school, too, his 35-year-old neph nephew. >> i would work hard to exceed and meet their expectations, and today, you don't see that. >> they are third and fourth generation partners at whitings foods which has been running food concessions at this famous california seaside amusement park since 1953. >> i am a tremendous advocate that today's teens are as able as ever, but they are far less prepared and the employers are far less to deal with the group as well. >> he says that this is not limited to santa cruz. based on the teen consulting business called "waves for success" they see a trend stretching from the california beaches to the jersey shore. >> how would you go the make a sale? >> i will leave you alone all of the rest of the time. >> danny is on my case and i am like, bro, i don't usually keep a job in the summer. i am not trying to do this.

i am trying to live my life. >> that attitude seems to be more common than not. >> and employers like jeff and ken say that the difference of attitude is a big problem for small businesses like theirs which depend on part time teenaged workers. >> i ta a >> they determine whether one of the guests make a purchase, spend more or come back again. they impact that. they impact the bottom line. >> and the whitings are not alone. >> how are sales? >> good. a lot of taffy. >> a lot of taffy. and how about the apple sales? >> good. we need to make extra tomorrow. >> and good. and down the boardwalk, joe morini says the same thing. >> as any parent knows, they are teenagers and they come with the whole set of teenage issues. >> manage through eyes of today's teens rather than through the eyings of when they were a teenager. ♪ teenage dream >> it is a challenge that both ken and jeff have met by making changes in their own management team style.

>> realize what used to work in the past isn't working anymore. so what is it that i need to do to make it work. and it can be done. takes a different mindset. >> in other words, the first hurdle is to recognize that the teens are not the only ones with attitude. >> i see it all of the time where the old guys like us just are totally frustrated with the performance of today's teens, and so instead of trying to figure it out, they yell. they scream. i think that if i scream a little louder or threaten more, it worked for me, and by golly, it is going to work for this young person. >> if you want to have a high tirnover and stressed out crew, you don't have to do anything. you can live with that. that is your prerogative. >> if you want to gain more from the people who affect your business and affect your performance as an employer or as a manager, then you need to make sure that you are guarded in the attitu attitude. >> the next thing, the whiting

scrapped all of the written handouts and put the training material online. >> you have to make sure that, one, you are using all of the digital things, that you are texting information. that your schedules are on the internet and online and you have a facebook page and employee website that is open 24/7. >> we have to change the way that we package information, and how we deliver it. >> they may not be reading the materials that you read at work, but guess what, at 2:00 in the morning, they may access your youtube videos and read your manuals that you don't think they will read at work. >> that is when the whitings moved the sked yulging online as well, and the teens loved it and it cut the management costs in half. >> i used to have one of the full-time managers in the summer two full days to do the next week's schedule and now less than a day. >> it puts the responsible of the schedule in the employee's hands and if they cannot make it to work, they can shift it on the trade board. >> and when he found out about

it, joe adopted it for the candy shop. >> no more questioning of i didn't get the message and you got the e-mail and the text, and it is on the phone and i get a feedback of when they looked at it, so i know they have looked a it. >> to our surprise we have put zero management hours of how to train the staff how to use it. we are speaking their language. >> and another sign of the times came when the employees didn't care about the extensive end of the summer thank you party. >> we cancelled that program in the entirely and moved the budget into instant gratification program. >> what we learned is that teenaged employers don't look past friday night, so telling them to stick around for two to three months down the road to get rewarded does not work. >> it relies on catching people doing something work. it depends on a scratchout card when they see somebody going to extra mile. >> in is a scratcher and scratch

card which i use for instant gratification and when i have them do something right, i give them a scratch card. >> and boom, a variety of cards. >> you have $20, and people work for the star cards. i mean, this kid jasper got like $300 from star cards last summer. >> if you listen closely, the difference of the generations is more about style than substance. >> it is critical that we get to know them and understand them as individuals and what motivates them. >> easy not the right word. they are fun. fun to be around and excitement and energy there that you don't get with other employees. >> it is a challenge, and what is life without a challenge? >> there was plenty of great advice in that story of how to manage and communicate with the teenagers and the most important tip is to use technology. so let's get more ideas from the two social mavens. rita is the ceo of a group that

specializes in covering small business and en tre prtrepreneu. and also joining us is barry. and i started with every generation thinks that the teenagers are not working as hard as they were, and is this real? >> i think that part of the problem is that people do go into it going, oh, they are teens, they won't work hard, and as many good things they have like the instant gratification payoff they kept saying if we catch them doing something right which means there is an assumption they are not going to be doing something right all along and that is part of the problem. if you go in respectfully expecting better and not expecting the bad, you are going to get better performance out of them from to get-go. >> that is a great point not only for teens, but everyone. expect the best from someone, and they will work up to it.

>> exactly. >> it is respect. >> and regardless of the generations generations, but the golden rule for hiring and keeping great people is the same, when their goals match the company's goal, people stay. one great thing about whiting foods is to build a community so that the job can be fun and you can make moneyt ta same time. >> and the whole idea of putting it online, and the scheduling system, and forget about it being for teenager, because it is just smart, right. >> for everybody. there was a mcdonald's in sweden or somewhere that i read or heard a couple of years that did that, and it changed even that mcdonald's their whole productivity increased enormously, because people could go to take responsible for showing up. >> and it is accountable that i know you read the e-mail and i know you know you were supposed to come in here. >> and this is the good and the bad news, through electronics we can track everything.

>> they have the star card, but there are fun things that you could do through social media, also, to reward people and talk about them or mention them or call them out, right? >> one of the things that is underused no matter how old the employee is praise and reward and whether it is the star card or hey, you know, the airlines do that, they hand out the certificates to frequent flyer packages and say, give this to a flight attendant if they go above and beyond and i'm assuming that the person turns it in and gets something for it. >> it is important because of the consumer-orient ed jobs thee are so much criticism and customer complaints and reward them and stop what they are doing, it will go a long way. and what are you saying? >> training is really key. particularly with the teenaged workers and a lot of the managers complain that the teenagers are not doing their job, and turns out they were not trained properly in the first place. so look at your own system, and take responsibility for how you set it up. >> fun piece as we head into summer. >> thank you.

when it comes to the future of your company, i hope you are at least thinking about mobile even if you are not there yet. jason spiro is the head of strategy at google and he is leading the company's efforts to help businesses increase their mobile online presence. jason, great to see you. >> nice to be here, j.j. >> for people who do not understand what it means to go mobile with the company or the website, explain to them what is the difference of making a mobile website and developing an app. >> well, i think that some of it is about what the user is looking for, right. the user is trying to have an experience on the phone which could be about finding a store or a last-minute need, and usually reaching for the phone. increasingly we will have the devices in the pockets to have connective ti which has changed the consumer experience and from that, they reach for that, and if you expect them to find you through an app, you have to train them to find you through an app, and most often type in

the url of the website or do a search. when they find you in those ways, you have to be prepared for it. >> how expensive for you if i have a website that clearly looks terrible on somebody's phone and if i want to adapt that so it looks okay on the mobile device or phone, how expensive is that? >> it is both inexpensive and quite easy, but what you have to do is to think about what the consumer wants on the phone. what you can't do and the most common mistake is someone who takes a desktop site and then tries to nip tuck it and squeeze it down into the phone version. it is not about the desktop experience, but building for the mobile consumer who is trying to find you or solve a specific problem, but from the cost standpoint, it is not expensive at all. >> and take some examples, an auto motive luxury limousine service, and we have the website and then the mobile site, and what did they do correctly for the mobile site. >> well, in context, we are in

the middle of a prom gram to help a bunch of small businesses think about the experience they want to offer the users on a mobile phone. so in the example of the limousine company, they had a broad range of things that someone may want to do on the desktop considering options, and when you reason the phone, you are most likely looking for the car and the best way is to find a quick way for them to engage which is to maybe quick hookup to call or hook up with a driver, and it is a different experience for a user who is standing on the corner looking for a car or waiting for a car. >> i see that with the dog nanny, the new york dog nanny and call us and visit us and then services and policies and reviews, and it is a shrunken down version of someone on the go. >> yes, and shrunken down and tuned for a user that is not in the office or at home on the couch, but for someone who is out in the community trying to

navigate the physical world and trying to find somebody who is trying to take care of the dog for the weekend because something came up. >> so you talked about it easy and how do we get started? >> well, google is trying to help. you need to understand the options of building a site and understand what your customer wants from you on the go. once you have made those decisions and analyze what you have offered them, then it is a matter to find someone to build that site for you and that a place where google can help and we have a gomo where we are helping the people get that first experience in mobile to build the site and take care of the hoesting for a year. you asked about cost and that is free. >> so this is something that nobody should ignore and incredibly more important for people using the ipads and the phones and less people are doing things on the typical come pewter on the desk. >> right now in society we are in a middle of a change of consumer behavior. the iphones have given rise to

ubiquitous interpersonal connectivity which means we are walking around using these in the community and that means if you are a plumber or whatever, people are on the mobile phone. >> and you want it to come up on the search and the sem, and you want somebody to look you up on the phone and look you up first, and they cannot figure it out because they are on ttoon the p. thank you jason spiro. >> is it harder for women to get funding for small businesses than men? and also, how the write an attention-grabbing police. and also, the elevator pitch. ♪ glamorous glamorous you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen....

for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. >> i want to add a little sparkle to the beauty regimen, and this week's elevator pitch says it don't mean a thing if it ain't got the bling. >> this is the bling collection from the house of simone and we are the first line of cosmetics

to join our mascara and and mirror that make them convenient for applying makeup in dark places or on the go. we hit the market three weeks ago and already $100,000 in sales and preorders. our cosmetics are made in america and conduct no animal testing. we hold two pending patents and five trademarks we can be found at the bling collection.com. and cosmetics are a $20 billion industry and even in a down economy women still buy makeup. we are currently seeking a $250,000 investment for 15% stake. we will use this money to further the product line and purchase more inventory and at the end trade shows. now you can go to buy regular lip gloss or lipstick, but remember, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling. >> nice ending. very good job. and you would not know it, but i love a little bling myself. >> great.

>> what did you think, reiva, did she put everything in the pitch that you needed? >> yes, you did, but the one question is the retail price point. can women afford the do this? if you are doing this by hand, it must be pricey. >> well, comparable to mac and dior. >> barry? >> is what is the sustainable advantage and it is a $20 billion industry, and someone big could come along and try to squish you like a bug. >> well, we want a multilevel marketing program which will make us a multilevel business. >> and would you take another business? >> yes, the girls in the makeup room went crazy when they saw it, and makeup and kwvs aqvc an hsn don't try the squish her, but buyer her. >> it is accessoraccessorize,

accessorize, and accessorize. >> that is what you do? >> yes. >> if you want to have your chance at getting investors interested, you just need to send us an e-mail. include a short summary of what your company does and how much you trying to raise and what you intend to do with the money. you never know, somebody out there watching the show may be interested in helping you. the ipad is quickly growing in popularity with small businesses on the go. check out the five issues that affect the ipad. >> one is the, sena keyboard carrying case. it has a carrying case and folding kickstand. and two, the ipad camera kit. don't be limited to the photos on the ipad, because this kit

can import photos on to the ipad using the digital cameras and usb card. three, the apple digital av adapter. this video adapters connects with hd tvs and the hdmi compatible video walkthroughs with the team a breeze. and four, ihome idms executive workstati workstation. this is speakers and two usb ports for charging. and five, the kensington power pack battery case which adds five hours of extra juice to the ipad. it is time now to answer some of the questions and we are joined by the panel again. the first question is access to capital. >> i have heard from several women business owners that it's much more difficult for them to

have access to capital than it is for their male counterparts. is there any truth to that? >> what do you think, reiva, as a female business owner? >> yes. and what is sad is that a friend of mine, amy mowman started a company back in 1987 called springboard enterprises, and 1997, because they looked around and said, you know what, women are not getting funding to start these tech businesses, and at the height of the bubble, and you know, everybody is getting funded and women had the great ideas and they were not getting fu funded and here we are in 2012 and it is essentially the same, the same issue, and part of the problem is that who is doing the funding. it is like 11% of these seeds are women, and 13% are angels. there is not enough women in the game to help the women get fundin funding. >> that said, i know of a lot of female en tre fre neurs who have gotten money from prestigious capital venture firms. >> well, women contribute $3

billion to the economy, but four times as long to get a business loan and 22 times as long to get capital. and there was a study that women-owned businesses will contribute 35% to all of the new jobs in the country, and that is a huge issue if it is not resolved. >> and it keeps them down. and everybody talking about the male businesses, and there is revenues making revenues over $1 million more than the women, and there are, but it is a chicken and an egg, and if nobody gives you money to expand, then it is much harder, and it is harder to invest the sales to scale up and grow. >> this is a reason for the women to participate in organizations out there who help you network with the funders and angels or bcs. >> yes, and national women business owners. >> and check them out, because they are out there. >> and this is the employees

question. >> what can a small business do to attract and retain talented employees and then once they are part of the team, what can we do to really inspire and develop them? >> this is a great question, because people often go to small businesses, because they want to work for small businesses, because of the things that they can off, and what are some ideas? >> well, the principle is easy, but the practice is hard. you have to love the employees. surveys show that what people decide do they want to stay with a business they ask one question, does my boss care about me? do you love your employees and do you stop as we said before, catch them doing something right or there to put in the grind and do the work? people don't stay under those conditions. >> well, it is about the teenaged story, and it spans all generations. i call it the three ps. it is praise that we talked about and perks and the personal touch. they work for a small business so they can get that personal

touch. and they are expecting some kind of flexibility so if that is part of the personal touch allowing people to watch their kid play little league or go to a school play and that kind of othing and about the praise that we talked about and about the perks. you can not match a big business on salary. don't try. and what can you offer the employees to make them want to stay with you and a lot of that today for both men and women is time flexibility. >> this is a good point, reiva, because you have to let the employees disengage and too many times we are carrying the cubicle in the pocket. give them time for the little league games and the people will burn out, and you have to give them time to recharge. >> in a big business, you may be pigeon holed into the jobs, and hopefully, you will have time to go to other functions. >> and invite input. you want to know what they think. >> and this is from richard, i created an iphone and ipad app

for keeping track of purchases and spending, and i have been writing and sending press releases, but finding an outlet willing to publish my press rele relea releases has been a challenge. do you have advice to increase the chances of having one of my releases to be taken seriously? >> well, i can't tell you how they are one, generic, or adding a personal touch, and they are mail merge. if you send anything to me, send it not in the mail, but the e-mail and hit me with why this is new and exciting or try to do somethi something, and it is for an app, you have to go, go to where people are. go to a show or a business summit, and go where you will find people who are writing about it, and social media. i think that i'm sort of looking at twit ear lot more people who are doing interesting things and i have found people to write through twitter an linkedin.

>> this is great, because people are looking for the app and click through and install the app right then and use it and then talk about it. press release and generic ones are a waste of time. >> okay. >> and finally a question that asks, how do we reach social ly conscious investors? >> this is a great question, and you are really into this field, so i didn't know the answer so i asked amy millman of springboard enterprises and she said more than people think. i have to look at the notes db.com, and investmentcircle.net, and the ginn.org who are all looking to ib vest in socially conscious companies and there is is a convention at the end of the month in san francisco about impacting socially responsible businesses. >> the president just signed a

jump start your business act, and allows businesses to go directly to the public for funding and so this is going to be a boost for them, because they have focused on the various niches and sustainability is one of them. >> and yes, crowd funding will be a big part of this, because it is something that everybody can grab on to it. >> and consumers have long said they would buy the socially responsible product over the one that wasn't, so we will see if they precommit to buying it. >> and look, find other companies in your space who are not competitive and find out who invested in them. >> great. >> thank you, guys, and fantastic advice. and if you have a question for tex perts, you know what to do. go to the website. openforum.com/your business. once you get there hit the ask the panel link or you can e-mail the question cans and comments

to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. looking for a simple way to schedule face time with the customers, look at trade -- timetrade.com. nt if your employee's google calendar to spend more time on closing sales and less on scheduling. to learn more about the show today, click on the website, it is openfor um.com/your business. and you can also follow us on twitter and facebook. we love to get your feedback. next one, one of new york's top restaurants shares the secrets on treating customers right.

>> i really don't believe that most of what we do is so unique to restaurants. so whether you are a consultant or a retail store or a plumber, you should be able to treat your customers in a certain way. >> the staff says it pays off big time for them, and the same strategy can work for you, too, even if you are not in the restaurant business. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and remember that we make your business our business. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again.