it's a make or break year for two brothers starting a bridal company. if they can't turn things around in the next few month, they have to shut their doors. we got our business team together because it's time for a "your business" makeover. >> small businesses are revitalizing the economy and 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 business grow. a few months ago we came across a small bridal design company right here in new york. it was an interesting company with what i thought were really fabulous designs, but something on the business side seemed to be missing. and we found out that the company was in trouble. that's why we decided to step in and give the owners a "your business" makeover. ♪ >> when brothers steve and gregory started their bridal depress company, fancy new york in 2008, they couldn't believe the initial reaction. at their very first trade show,

while they appeared sneaker, the bridal editors took notice. >> tall, elegant, woman walked right over to us. i love that you have sleeves and collars. tell me the story. >> that's when i knew there was something about this business that's going to work. >> fancy new york was doing something different. nowhere in the collection would you find the commonplace long strapless dress that is most brides were wearing. their look was vintage inspired, comfortable, primarily tea-length dresses. >> the mood of our brand was to have a nostalgic approach to dressing on your wedding day. >> the business was a dream come true for the two brothers. both laid off during the recession, steven handled the business end while gregory did the designing. but fancy new york turned out to be a roller coaster of highs and lows. highs including emotional thanks from happy brides and a feature in martha stewart wedding. the lows, pretty much everything else. >> i always have water at my

throat for the payments. constantly worried about who is the next person to call me up and say something is due or a check bounced. >> though their designs have struck a chord, their sales have not been robust enough to sustain the business or pay themselveses a salary. the brothers have given themselveses a six-month deadline to turn things around. if they can't, they'll have to shut down the business. >> gregory will lose his retirement fund. it's gone. i will be in debt for the next 30 years. >> i'm going to do everything in my power to make sure we don't get there. >> hi, i'm general. >> jen, i'm gregory. thank you for doing this so last minute. >> time for a "your business" makeover. in order to get a sense of the fancy experience, i went undercover as a bride. under the guys of doing a story about last-minute weddings, our cameras were there to capture

the appointment. >> i'm not getting married. and i'm not even engaged. i'm j.j. ramberg and work with "your business" on msnbc. and we are here to give your company a makeover. >> to begin the overall of fancy new york, we assembled a rescue team. ♪ >> we first brought in business practice mike makalowitz, who without them knowing it, has been pouring through their business for weeks. mike highlighted a few areas, first the operations. when the company started in 2008 stephen's wife got a job in turkey. when his family made the international mood, they decided to hand tell manufacturing there. >> i would have loved to open a shop where i could have hired two seamstresses and done all of the production here in new york. and it was just cost prohibitive. >> so it was problem-free, you made the dresses and no

problems. >> i wish. >> that's why you did it? >> when you have to ship anything anywhere in the world, you open yourself to a whole gamete of issues that can happen. >> and with the manufacturing happening overseas, stephen spent six months of the year in turkey while gregory works alone in new york. mean shipping, customs headaches and time differences, the distance is a real issue. >> i've seen a lot of businesses, i call it back feeling logic, and a lot of decisions in small businesses and big businesses are made upon these situations. then all the logic comes in why they makes sense to do it and all the arguments. often a decision backfills the logic because it was a mistake. >> mike then dove into their sales strategy. they currently work with 20 retailers across the country, but in addition to their own shop, which they man themselves in new york, only four stores are selling their dresses in significant numbers. >> what we need to do is look at what in your business is working. patterns of success you pursue. there's no latitude. every 90 days your business, you

need to sit down and say what's working and what's not working. whatever is not working, you have to as quickly as possible get rid of that. whatever is working, you have to as quickly as possible expand on it. >> mike got the meeting with a couple final thoughts. >> we have a lot of fixes coming your way. the good news is it is about doing less. less that you're currently doing and you have to have the courage to stop doing. we'll show you what to focus in on the few things and your business will turn, i promise. >> next we brought in branding expert denise, owner of s3 communications. while the brothers were out of town the week before, denise and i snuck in to hold a focus group. >> what do you think of the name fancy as it relates to these dresses? >> i didn't know it was a bridal. i didn't know it was related to brides. >> then when i went online, it was kind of hard for me to find it because there's so many things called fancy. >> what we learned about how brides perceived the fancy brand was eye opening. and she shared it with gregory

and stephen. >> basically the name fancy ironically is too plain or generic or misleading for the really forward-thinking dress that is you have here. so we came one a few different name ideas. one was house of nato. and one was nato new york. the first one involved the script look. >> are you okay? >> wow. that's really great. >> so the second option is very funky, retro-inspired. and this has a very strong lettering that you -- the web could have a lot of fun with looking at the windows through your different dresses and things. very different. >> it is. it goes to a completely different direction. it's really bold and it's actually kind of fantastic. >> denise also strongly recommended getting the brothers set up on the visual pinboard

site pinterest. >> pinterest is extremely addictive. women love it. men are starting to love it. >> she offered to have someone on her team get them set up so brides could start pinning their unique dresses on their boards. the next person on our makeover team is a designer with her own successful line. it wasn't long ago that ayisha sayad was in the same spot as the brothers to prove that things can be made economically in new york. >> so here two dresses. this one is one of yours, a fancy dress knead turkey. >> and this one is made right here in new york about ten blocks from here. i see the face -- >> so what do you think? >> i would not be able to tell. >> can i also tell you something? this one is $46 less than what you were paying for that dress coming from turkey. >> $46 less? >> no shipping, no headache, no e-mail, nothing.

>> how many? >> what do you mean? >> you can get 10 made, 20 made, we'll work you. >> at the end of the day, gregory and stephen had a lot to consider. a new name to consider, and photos to get for pinterest. >> and the fourth thing, you have to have more face time. that means, stephen, it's time to move back. >> that's your homework. you need to think about all that. we'll meet again and i want to hear answers to all of these things. we have one more surprise tonight. in the meanwhile, go home, take a little rest and look your best for when we meet again. so did stephen and gregory listen to us? will they change the company name? and will stephen move to new york? to find out those answers as well as what we have in store for them, make sure you hang around for the second part of our makeover coming up. like it or not, facebook's new timeline format is almost here.

on march 30th the new platform will be rolled out across the super popular social media site. the changes to the overall look and feel of the site are significant and will impact how brands talk to customers and leverage content. so what does this mean for your small business facebook page? jason keith is the founder and ceo of social media education company social fresh and he's here to give us a primer on the changes and how to customize your page in advance of the launch. great to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> the last thing you want to do is go on to facebook on march 30th and see, what happened to my page? >> have no idea, like your website went down. >> exactly. this is great. everyone should know, it is not that hard to change, at least to do little changes. >> it is going to look different right away but there are easy steps to take to get you right where you need to be. >> okay. i've gone to look at the people who have changed their site and photos. i mean, there's the big photo across the top now. >> it's a big change. it's much more close to a real website now. and the biggest change that most people are going to notice right

away is the huge photo the full width of the page. some businesses may have trouble finding an image that large to look really nice. that's going to be the biggest branding element of the facebook page. >> what are you doing between now and march 30th to find something and don't have a designer to do it for you? >> if you don't have a designer, the biggest two tips is to use a smartphone with a nice camera. the photos from the phones are super high quality. take photos of customers and products and staff and try to find the personality of your business and use that as an image. another thing you can do is go to shutterstock.com or istockphoto. if you can spend money, $er 50 to $100, you can find high-quality image to use there. >> if you don't put something in right away, will it be blank? >> it will be blank. you can use photo that is exist on your page. most of them will be blurry, so toy around with it. log in a couple days before the switch happens and test it to find something that works. >> okay, great. and you can use photos

throughout the site as well, right? >> if facebook wants you to remember one thing about the change, use more photos. those the most reshared piece of content on facebook and twitter, across the web. people react quickly because they are easy to consume. a low-guilty factor, they pass them on quickly. facebook wants you to get more reaction and they want you to use more photos and they are showing them much more larger in a much more beautiful page with images all over the place and a bunch of text. >> it's fun for the brand because it allows you to tell your story and more through the photos. and now you have a place for your history. tell us about that. >> you mention telling your story. it's really exciting facebook is giving small businesses a place to tell their story very easily so they don't have to build a website themselves. so the timeline now has its name because it has date links on the side and you can add what they call a milestone. put a photo with it to stretch full width of the page. you can say we were founded on this date. ford has an example where they have the first model-t rolling off the line. important moments in your business's history.

old spice made up moments when they influenced the baby boom. have fun with it and really tell an interesting story to keep people on your page more. >> that's nice because we are all trying to tell our story. frankly for people who don't know it yet, this is a nice way to start thinking about it to try to start organizing yourself. okay, messages. not as many messages? >> messages is a new future they are rolling out available in the app that people should look at and it allows you to message fans just like instant message. it can potentially take complaints off the wall of top page and give you more control over what shows up on the page and take those complaints into private conversations, which is where they belong. >> got it. okay, for the admin section what's different? >> not everything shows up to on your facebook page anymore so you have more control. not all of your fan page messages and not all the fan messages will be on the wall. inner to manage that, there's the activity log. log in there, look there and edit things and delete them.

you can feature them and have all kinds of control. you can sort through stuff. it really makes a lot of sense at what is going to be a little complicated for people. log in your admin, go to the activity log and it will give you control of what shows up on your time line. >> this is great. thank you so much for this primer. everyone go to facebook right now and check this out. get ready for march 30th. thank you for much, jason. >> no problem. social media can be an easy and time consuming way to market your business. here are five popular web-based services to help you leverage the power of social media while keeping the time commitment in check courtesy of bizbest.com. one, get more marketing mileage out of blog comments using disqus. the comments platform lets users comment using their favorite social media networks. two, buffer is a great way to schedule your social media activity. you can add, post tweets to have this them automatically

distributed throughout the day. three, postling lets you schedule your posted in advance. it will pool all your comments into one place. four, mediafeedia is a free business tool to let you manage your pages, schedule content and track messages all from one dashboard. and number five, monitor what's being said about you online using sprout social. the site will also track your social media efforts. so did stephen and gregory take our makeover advice? stick around as we bring in one of the biggest names in fashion to propose how this bridal dress company can change its ways. 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. as we saw earlier in the show stephen and greg nato, the owners of bridal design company fancy new york need some help. when we left their offices that first day, we left them with a lot to think about. a new name, a new manufacturing strategy, new marketing ideas, but we also had one more big surprise for them. take a look. ♪ >> hi, you guys. >> hey. >> you both look great.

>> thank you, you do, too. >> thank you very much. so you guys talked about how you go a lot of events but you are always on the outside. tonight you are about to be on the inside. when gregory and stephen started their bridal business four years ago, they had few contacts inside the fashion industry to help guide them. we decided to change all of that by asking top designer nanette who manufactures all her clothing in new york city's garment district to be their mentor. stephen and gregory, i want to introduce you to lanette who is very involved in our garment district. >> nice to meet you. >> amazing. >> the next day gregory and stephen got down to brass tax starting the morning off with a tour of nanette's new york headquarters and sitting down for a one-on-one conversation. >> you have to get in touch with the warning sign that is go off. oh, you see something that looks like a potential mistake and you bury it in the back of your mind and it comes back.

you are like, oh, my god, i had that six sense about that. >> after getting much-needed encouragement and advice, they left with a rolodex of new exacts and optimistic about the future. >> you're going to do a great business manufacturing here in new york city. i know it. the facilities are here, you'll have more control. you'll be so happy and everyone will say the garment center whittling and ready and able to help you. >> oh, we are going to contact them next. >> good. >> thank you. >> the next stop was the much anticipated meeting with ayesha sayed and her manufacturing contact, king. >> i brought some buyers to meet you. >> hi, nice to meet you. >> nice the meet you, stephen. >> this is where the best selling linda dress was made in the garment district for $46 less than it was made at the factory in turkey. the brothers brought two more dresses for her to look at, evaluate and price for manufacturing in new york. >> we also do stuff like this. >> okay.

>> the brothers then rushed back to their office to meet jamie hamel, a social media expert from denise's s3 agency. he gave them pointers on how to use pinterest to spread their unique brand through the power of picture. >> i'm going to show you pinterest, the new hot network. network alone is bigger than youtube, which is amazing. >> the last stop was meeting with me one last time to talk through their homework assignment and get some answers to the big picture question the team asked them earlier in the week. first, the name. denise suggested they change from fancy new york to nato new york or house of nato. >> we decided not to change the name. we feel very strongly that girls don't shop by brand name, our name would have been relevant to put into the logo itself. however, it's not to say that we

shouldn't tweak the name, so it will be changing from fancy new york to fancy bridal. >> though the name didn't change much, everything else did. >> so we broke it down to who are the best selling stores. and out of the 22 stores, there are five of them that do the best work, that do the best business, that we pay no attention to. and they are going to be our focus. >> and manufacturing, how did it go? >> amazing. really, really amazing. so the sample we saw the other day, we brought two additional samples to the manufacturer, and immediately right off the bat she's like, hmm, that's funny, why are they doing it this way in if they stitch it underneath it will roll better. so i was always looking for someone to impart a little bit of their knowledge. and we are so excited about working here and just being able to run up and go pop in and say, hey, how is it going? >> and the big question about stephen moving back to the u.s.

from turkey? >> we are making some plans. that october date that i have been talking about as our cutoff point will probably be the date i move back. >> when they new factory, new strategy, and new contacts suddenly the october deadline didn't feel as overwhelming as before you guys, good luck on everything that you're doing and i'm going to be back here in october. october you're going to still be around. >> yes, we are, indeed. gregory and stephen have a lot to do over the next few months and we are going to check back with them in october to see how things are going. in the meantime, mike is here with us now. we should also mention that he's the author of the upcoming book "the pumpkin plan." and colleen is here from entrepreneur.com. mike, thank you for all your help with that. >> you're welcome.

a little bit of fraud came out of my mouth when i saw myself wear a dress. i had not done that since college. >> i'm so glad you're not wearing it today. thank you. >> you looked great. >> the bill lowow pad of disgustingness. >> now when you go into a company like this, the problems are not that big. they are big in terms that they need to be changed and will make big changes for your business, but having you come in and denise and ayesha, they were clear from the outsider's perspective it was clear you need to do this. so i think the lesson in part is, entrepreneurs need to take a step back and see, as you said, what's working? what's not working? really analyze it. >> almost take a scientific approach. i think that's what you're saying. these challenges are not insurmountable, and if you break it down and come up with a analytical way of dealing with them, that can work. >> there's a great analogy out there, if you take off in an airplane from california to new york and you are off by one

degree, you are ending up in canada. the longer you continue off course, even small, you get far from your destination. they do need to make small corrections to get back there, but they need to make them sooner rather than later. >> the one we were harping on is four out of 20 retailers were working for them. yet they were spending all this time on the other retailers. so it's hard but you just got to cut the customers out. >> you do. can i plug my book? i'm even asking you, i'm going to. in "the pumpkin plan" i talk about a pumpkin vine. if you want to grow a pumpkin, it's the rotting diseased pumpkins you have to get rid of to allow the nutrients to go to the big pumpkin. get rid of the diseased venue. >> before you do, ask them why things are not working out. sort of when you have unhappy customers, sometimes they are a great source of information. find out what they are not liking so that can help fix the problem. >> and contacts were so important here. they were manufacturing in turkey in part because one of them moved there but they couldn't do it. they couldn't find a way to do

it cost efficiently in new york city. when we introduced them to people, suddenly we found it is cost efficient and gets riz rid of all the headaches. and that was just about meeting people and networking. incredibly important. >> sometimes i think business owners have their head down in the business that they don't step out and do the networking that they should be doing and are not thinking the big picture. they are just so focused on getting through the day. this is a great example of how once you step out you can just see it more clearly, you know? >> they're making a mistake i see every business owner make when it is not working, they try to fix it. there's a reason, get rid of it, find a new course. >> i want to throw one thing out to the audience, which is the name. we had denise come in and try to suggest a new name and try to suggest a new logo and these guys decide to go from nancy new york to fancy bridal. the suggestion from denise was nato new york or house of nato.

i would like you to weigh in and tweet us or go to our facebook page and let us know what you think. i know you had opinions on this. >> i think it's a terrible name. i can't say it any other way. and for the same reason that is the focus group mentioned, one, if you go to search online, all sorts of fancy listings i'm sure will come up, probably none of them are the bridal salon. and it doesn't say anything about these dresses. fancy is not a word i would use to describe them. maybe nostalgic or vintage or jackie o. >> you think the name is okay. >> i think it is okay -- >> that's a lie. >> it's true. they are guys so they don't see what the consumer sees. i'm the king of bad names. toilet paper entrepreneur is the worst name you can ever come up with, but it's memorable. so i think their job now is if they love that name and believe it in, they have to tell the story to their community. >> right, make it mean something then. >> own it. if you're going to keep it, own

it. >> this was so much fun to do and we will again, as i said, check in with them in october. i can't wait to see it. time now to answer some of your business questions. mike and colleen are with us once again. the first one is an e-mail from robin who writes, i have a you unique business idea that i would like to collaborate with existing businesses who might be interested in becoming a supplier or a wholesaler. how would you go about choosing the vendors to participate? i guess one of the things she has to do is get people interested in whatever her idea is. >> she mentions unique business idea, so i wonder if she's tested it out for any business owner or potential business owner, i would recommend really, before you spend a lot of time, energy and money jumping into this, test out this unique business idea. it may not be something that flies. you may think it's great but have a focus group, see if it's going to work before you invest a lot in this. >> then when she does try to find these partners, how does

she found a them? >> you have to start small. if you go to big vendors and say i want to collaborate with you and want to help, they will say, who are you? but the smaller companies are willing to take a risk. the smaller vendors looking to take a risk, propose my idea and be willing to change it from collaboration to more of a traditional vendor relationship. >> i think she wants to work request existing businesses and that's a great idea to partner up with an existing business that already has the relationships with the vendors and suppliers, partner up, get your own track record and then once you have that maybe those vendors and buyers will work with you. >> great advice, thank you, guys, for everything today. and if any of you out there have a question for our experts, all you have to do is go to our website. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. there hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. again, the website is openforum.com/yourbusiness. or if you'd rather, e-mail us your questions or comments to

yourbusiness@msnbc.com. do you have a new idea or initiative that needs vetting but you don't have the time to wait weeks or months for answers? then check out our website of the week. gutcheckit.com gets you directly in touch with your target market through online chats. after specifying the kind of consumer you're looking for, gutcheck connects you with qualified people for one-on-one chatroom interviews. if you want feed back on a new logo, go to gutcheck's chat engine. each 30-minute interview will cost you $40. to learn more about today's show, click on our website. openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments plus web-exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter, @msnbcyourbiz. and don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we love to get your feedback. next week, you may think there's

no room for the small business entrepreneur in the world of cable television, but you'd be wrong. >> i can't own a great big company, all right, but i have the same entrepreneurial spirit. i known it, i control it. >> meet one of the hundreds of small business owners who own and operate small-scale cable tv systems. and hear how they found a way to survive in the world of the giant corporations. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. and remember, 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...