small business reality check. as congress fights, what exactly is the impact of the affordable health care act and taxes on main street entrepreneurs. an an interior designer faces disaster putting big clients over smaller ones. it's time to make money 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, afternoon. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business" where we give you tips on how to make your business grow. a couple weeks ago the supreme court upheld the affordable health care act but that has not ended the debate surrounding the law and whether it is good or bad for small business. those in favor of it say health care costs will go down and more small businesses will have the ability to provide health insurance for their employees. those on the other side, those against the law, say actually costs are going to go up and this is going to be a big burden on small businesses already struggling with so many other

issues. at the same time, the debate over extending the bush tax cuts rages on. the obama administration proposes extending the cuts only for those making under $250,000 a year. which includes the vast majority. 97% they say of small business owners. republicans say not extending the tax cuts to everyone will hamper small business and slow job growth. so what is the truth? today we are going to dig into the details to find out how these policies affect you with the small business reality check. john errands myers, the founder and ceo of small business majority and national business small advocacy group, and jean carr, the vice president of media communications. great see you both. >> good to be here. >> great to be here. >> this was one of the party that is brought suit against the affordable health care act. explain to me as a small business owner how this is going to add versely affect me.

>> well, it is really what you said earlier, the cost issue. and that was a big concern of ours from the very beginning when the bill was being debated. and unfortunately we did sue on the individual mandate. we don't think that our members should be forced to purchase a product that they may not want or need. but overall -- >> i want to stop you for one second because most small businesses are under 50 people. most small businesses over 25 people already provide health insurance policy. so let's take away the part that suddenly i am a small business will be forced to buy health care because, for the most part, i'm not going to. and if most already do anyway decide that it will be required, so let's just say i have a business. i'm 25 people. how is this going to add versely effect me? >> you're right. if you don't have more than 15 employees you don't have to provide it for them. however, the cost is really high right now and it's only going to get higher. there's going to be a tax that hits the types of plans that small businesses purchase, the

types of insurance plans. that's a tax that won't go on the backs of bigger businesses, only small business. the regulations are going to be pretty burdensome and a small business owner, they don't have an h.r. department to say, hey, figure this out for me. which a big business has, of course. they need to figure it out themselves or maybe they need to hire someone to figure out all the rules and requirements. >> john, so we know right now you're under 50 people and won't be required to do anything, do you agree that costs are going to go up? for me who is providing health care right now, am i suddenly going to have to spend more? >> there's really nothing in this bill n this law that's going to raise your cost. unfortunately, we need to get beyond the politics of this with way too much heat rather than light shone on this law. when you dig in you see there are a number of very important cost containment provisions for small business and a lot of increased opportunity. ranging from opportunities that are available now to get tax

credits, to have a greater scrutiny of the insurance companies and require that they pay 80% of what they take in to actual medical care. and in the future when the law is fully implemented in 2014 we'll have the opportunity to have exchanges in all 50 states, which are really marketplaces where, for the first time small businesses will be able to close the cost gap with big business by having economies at scale, lower administrative costs and greater negotiating power to go by a wider range of products. >> jean, right now small businesses are paying much more for health care than large businesses. you think that discrepancy is going to get great her? >> i do. something we have not talked about yet is the mandatory minimum benefits, that's a regulatory piece coming out of health and human services. we are very concerned about that because the government will say every insurance policy must have a minute mum level of benefits. this is like telling people that you can't buy a corolla anymore,

you have to buy a cadillac. we don't know how high it's going to go, but we are very concerned small business owners, the self-employed who may want a basic bare bones inexpensive health care plan won't be able to purchase that anymore. they have to buy something more expensive than what they want or need. >> john, you're shaking your head there. you don't agree with this. >> well, in fact, there's going to be a wide range of choices of plans on the exchanges. and the minimum coverage that jean refers to, that's actual what the department of health and services has done is given the states wide latitude to set the standards and in fact the standards will be pegged to the cost, to benefits in existing policies right now. so while there may be a few outliar plan that is don't provide the preventive care necessary to bring costs down or don't cover the basic services, in fact, the standards are going to be pegged to exactly what is in most plans today. and there's going to be up to the states to determine what's right for their states.

>> right now the big question, for me, are costs going to go up or down? and it's -- i have not been able to figure out because i hear arguments on both sides of what's going to happen. i could talk about this for an hour, but i need to change right now to extending the bush tax cuts. john, you've been waiting patiently over there, tell me a little bit about your feelings about extending them only for those people who earn $250,000 or less. what effect does this have on small business? >> well, 97% of all small business owners have personal income tax of under $250,000 for a family. so we applaud the apparent bipartisan desire to extend those tax credits for those making under $250,000, which is going to cover, as i said, 97% of small businesses. so the question is, in a situation where we have a deficit and dollars are scarce,

what is the best deployment of the resources we have. and we have to be having targeted with the tax cuts. and quite frankly, not only do only 3% of small businesses fall in the category of the so-called bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but in fact many studies have shown that the spending done by 250,000 has way less effect on the economy than the spending of the vast majority of people making under that. and what we really need is more dollars in the economy so that are circulating so people can buy the products and services of small businesses. we would be much better off using this sort of tax cuts that might be available to us to do targeted attack cuts such as those of the president recently proposed and are being debated in the senate right now. >> jean, i want to give you a chance, you feel very differently about this. that actually there will be an adverse effect on the small business. that 3% is quite meaningful. >> this is a debate about job

creation. and if you look at the businesses that are affected in the upper bracket levels. they are job creators. they produce more of the jobs than the rest of the small business community. so it's very impactful when it comes to jobs. again, i think i said it before, anything in the current economic environment that discourages job creation is just a bad idea. it also sends a terrible message. small business owners pay taxes at the individual rate and a lot of people don't understand that. so whenever there's a debate about individual rates and making them higher, the small business community, that makes them very nervous because today it's 250,000 but what is it going to be next year when it hits your business? that's your business investment money. it is not just your income that goes into your pocket. it is what you use to hire people, to plan, to buy new equipment, et cetera. so there are a lot of threats and a lot of them are frankly psychological and that optimism or lack thereof that we know is so important to the economy. >> all right. john, jean, thank you so much for coming on and shedding some

light onto incredibly complicated issues. really appreciate it. >> thanks, j.j. landing large clients for your business is a very big deal. they are exciting and good for your bottom line and they can help you get other large products, but are these big gigs always the right thing to turn down smaller customers? one entrepreneur says the answer to that is a resounding no. ♪ >> i have to tell you, it was my biggest milk mistake. ly never make that mistake again. and i haven't. i was ashamed with myself, i have to be honest with you. >> this interior designer does not sugar coat anything when it comes to talking about how she used to run her business. >> i used to tell myself, this is one of the stupidest things you have done. >> there was a time when pamela bayers interior was booming. >> i was huge. i could have said in two years i was gold. >> back then pamela who splits

her time between hudson, ohio, and the new york city area had some very large clients. >> i would say on the east coast four and here one. and the one here was the biggest. it was like we were having a party every day at work because everybody was happy. i mean, donuts flowed. we were so contented with it. when i tell you everybody showed up early, everybody would stay late. >> because she had these corporate customer who is were lining up and willing to pay up, pamela started telling some of her smaller clients she was no longer available. >> i had to take a step back and reassess my jobs. my jobs were large, taking a lot of time. i didn't think i was going to be able to take the smaller jobs and do the correct job for my client. >> gospel singer ernie hass and his wife tried to work with pamela at the time, but she turned them down. >> when she came, she was like, oh, you need help but i don't have time. i have so many things going on. i knew right away she was out of our league. she was doing all these other

things. so when she left i told my wife, she won't be calling back. >> even though pamela was saying no, she was not leaving these potential clients high and dry. she did introduce them to other people. >> i would find other interior designers. and i would try to hook them up with them, make sure they were feeling at least that they weren't left in the dark. >> the decision to focus on larger jobs ended up coming back to haunt pamela. after refusing so many small customers, her plan to think big went bust. >> within a six-month period we were dead in the water. >> some of the large jobs pamela was banking on were cut back or just cut altogether. >> that was terrifying. i have to be honest with you. i was really terrified. it takes your breath away. it really does. and you think of every horrible situation that can happen. >> a change needed to happen and happened fast. pamela decided it was time to redesign her business plan. instead of just thinking big, she knew she need toddy verse fi by thinking big and small.

>> i think probably within 24 hours i started calling my other clients, the smaller clients. ill really hopped off my pedestal and reassessed and decided to make amends to those people. >> there were a series of phone calls and face-to-face meetings, pamela repaired the damage. >> i went back to the clients and humbly apologized to them. i felt like i had to make amends in a larger fashion. i always make a phone call. i say, i'd like to just talk to you. and the nice part was they were open to it. i always brought them flowers or a card. and i always handwrite notes. >> pamela made it clear she wanted back in her customers' lives despite the fact she had said no not that long before. >> i hoped i did not hurt their feelings because it is very personal. i'm in their home. >> ernie haase remembers the day he and his wife got a call. >> it was a little more than three months she got in touch with us and carved out time and was able to make it happen. she was honest and said she had

bigger clients and things didn't work out. >> ernie said pamela's honesty made it easy for them to decide to work together. he knew any decision was strictly business. >> i understood it completely when she said that and didn't take it personal one bit. she gave -- i think the thing that struck me was she came on this job and treated it as if it was one of her major corporate jobs. >> gary would agree. he says pamela won him over with her topnotch customer service. >> the projects we were giving her generally were rather small ones. pamela was always very accessible to us. she wasn't here all the time but she kept her commitments when she needed to be here or we needed her for a project. >> part of pamela's mission is to make sure that every customer knows they are just as valuable as the next. >> i want to take everyone client's job and make it so important because each client really wants to feel like number one. it really doesn't matter to me if it is small or large. >> pamela says she and her teams

only lost a week's worth of work, but the experience taught her the value of smaller clients. >> i thought i was almost wasting my time a little bit on the smaller ones and upon reflection i realized that was really not the case. i think they are your bread and butter. they are your steppingstone. >> it also reinforced for her the importance of being open and hon west her customers and taking responsibility for your actions. >> learn by your mistakes, apologize when you make a mistake, make amends, don't point the finger. making that one mistake, that's all you have sometimes. and if you don't make amends and don't do it the right way, you don't have work. a big account or a big client can sustain a small business but what happens when they go away? let's turn to this week's board of directors to talk about this. colleen debaise is at entrepreneur.com and paul is from business number five. i feel like every time you hear

that there's a new business, but we have been on five for a while. this piece is interesting because in some ways it contradicts what we talk about on the show, which is like every client isn't the same and actually should treat people differently, but what she found is she got rid of some of the small clients and put the big clients on a pedestal and suddenly it ruined her business almost. how do you deal with this? >> i think what happened here is the big clients came in quickly but not enough of them to sustain the business. so you don't want to put all your eggs in one base debt. you need to diversify. don't forget about the bread and butter smaller ones. >> also, the smaller ones, don't forget the small client today could be tomorrow's blockbuster success. when i think about, say like an instaygram, what if you were the company that turned instagram down when they were only 10, 20 employees then. a year later they are worth a billion dollars. >> right. but it is hard, if you have this

much, a finite amount of time to spend and you have these big clients who are now huge coming at you, how do you is a to yourself, work on that, ache take a little time and court this person who has a small apartment. >> so it is tempting because everyone wants the big client. that's where all the big money is going to be, but it looks like she was looking at top line revenue as where she's going to make the decision if it's a good client or not. so a small client may be a good client but they may not have the amount of revenue. she may be making more money on the smaller clients. but i think a good indicator would be who is referring business to her. if you've got a client referring business in, that's a great client you want to keep. >> and i think, too, i'm of the opinion that pricing plan can be different for a smaller client than a large client. i just -- i understand she's a business owner who wants to be a perfectionist and give them all the time and attention, but you can only give the time and attention they deserve for what they are paying.

so i would say maybe a more bare bones pricing package for a smaller client. >> it's all about sitting down and thinking about where is your money going to go or where is your money coming from and what are your contingency plans, if then what? i think it is a great piece. thank you so much, guys. >> you're welcome. when you're traveling, a slew of unexpected issues can pop up along the way. so here are five tips to make your next business trip less stressful courtesy of entrepreneur.com. one, leave early. give yourself more time than you think is necessary to get to your destination. you can use the bonus time to work on something else but you won't be stressed if you run into a problem en route. two, make sure to have all of your travel information on your smart phone. do not underestimate the value of having easy access to confirmation numbers and your itinerary. three, invest in an airline membership program. you can earn access to the club area so that waiting for your

flight will be more comfortable and you'll get special perks the more you fly. four, carry cash. you may get to a place that doesn't take credit. so keep some money on hand for any unexpected expenses like dab fares or lunch. and five, plan your meal times. from your airport to the destination city to the journey home, arrange where and what you eat before you leave your house. still ahead, how does a business consultant convince clients she should be paid for her advice? and an elevator pitch with strings attached. he looks for business partners to duet with. 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. traveling musicians are always lugging their instruments around causing back aches and smas problems. well, today's elevator pitcher came one a unique idea for guitarists who are on the road. ♪ >> hi, i'm jeff cohen, founder

and ceo of voyage guitar. this is mark, a professional by that'ser. he's playing a voyager guitar, the first high quality guitar that folds in half and fits in a backpack. i started this company four years ago and several patents have issued. i have raised $3 million, we sold 3,000 guitars for more than $1.5 million, but here's the exciting part. there's 2.6 million guitars sold every single year. now if we can penetrate just 3% of that market, that will give us 75,000 guitars with a $350 average wholesale price generating a $26 million business. that's a real business. now, why i'm here is i need another $3 million to build out large scale manufacturing to meet local demand and support our sales and marketing issues. my visitors can expect a 20% return and you can get more information at voyager.com. >> you are an experienced

elevator pitcher. nice job. and fantastic. i was not expecting that. i was like, am i in a cafe or something? beautiful playing. now to you, colleen, how do you think he did? >> i think that's great and love how it folds up. i was just on a camping trip with my whole extended family. several of my nephews brought guitars along, this would have been perfect with the pack that it comes in. i think it is a great concept. >> did you get everything in the pitch? >> yes. i would have liked to have heard, i don't know if you have any notable musicians or big name guitarists who are actually using this, but if you do i would have loved to have heard that. >> i agree. definitely if you can get someone to endorse it or someone's name behind it. but the idea of a folding guitar, my first initial reaction was, that must have been patented a hundred years ago, but the fact you have patented pending lends credibility to the design. i think it is awesome. >> another meeting? >> yeah, for sure. >> i would definitely take another meeting. >> fantastic. thank you so much. good luck with everything. thank you so much for the

musical part of this elevator pitch, our first so far. and thank you, guys, for all your advice. and if any of you out there have a product or service and want feedback from the elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, just send us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. in the e-mail, include a short um summary of your company, how much money you are trying to raise and what you intend to do with the money. you never know, somebody out there might be interested in helping you. it's time now to answer some of your business questions. colleen and paul are with us once again. here's a question about working as a consultant and getting paid. >> how do you prevent peopling taking advantage and from you giving away your time and your knowledge without the awkwardness of asking them, you have to pay me for this information and this time. >> yeah, a lot of consultants have this issue, right? because it might be a friend or friend of a friend who is asking for quick advice, but it is your

business to give advice. so how do you do it without being awkward? >> well, this is where i think it just falls on you as the business owner to become comfortable with the sales process. that's difficult for people. i would advise, i kind of guessed from her and how she asked that question she's not comfortable with this yet, so i would suggest to her to sort of develop this kind of procedure or policy of how she always handles these conversations with people. and yes, sure, have the initial conversation but once they really start to ask for more information, she should say, let's set up a meeting and talk about this. i can tell you what i can do for you and tell you what my rates are and then she should use that as her normal way of handling it. >> i would love to answer this question, but i need to be retained first. seriously, this is how you should set the expectation early that you are a professional and will get paid for services. don't give away free advice. set it up from the initial conversation that you're going to have to pay for the service. >> i like the idea, too, of saying why don't you come into my office and set up a time to

talk about this. it frames it as this is a professional conversation. i'm still happy to help you. >> it is not just a casual discussion, it is a professional conversation. >> you want to have a casual conversation. you don't always want the hard sales pitch. you want to get to know a person and make them trust you. >> this is an e-mail from yan who writes, people are so used to using google, the phone book and other traditional forms of advertising. my company sells ads on the back of fortune cookie strips. how can i get individuals to trust that non-traditional advertising strategy? seems to me like he's got to go to the right people first. >> the thing i don't like about this question is how does he get people to trust his system? if you're asking that question, you've got to go back and look at your system and see why you think internally you have to ask that question. >> if he's trying to sign on clients and trying to get them to trust the strategy, the best thing you can have is testimonials from previous clients who say, wow, this is

great to help me get more customers. if he doesn't have the clients yet, suggest trying to sign on some people by offering a discounted rate and once he signs people on they love it and it's working for them, then he can sign on more clients and start to adjust his rate. >> last question from brian. he writes, i have been asking customers to post resees reviews on yelp and other similar pages. i have about eight reviews on yelp but several are filtered. why do they filter reviews? they try to filter those they think are spam. >> this is frustrating for business owners because not just yelp and google, just when you think you understand them they go and change them. so for this, i think what yelp does, they are public about, this it is based on how trustworthy the reviewer is and how established the reviewer is. if people are just writing reviews for the first time, it may not show up. >> that's their secret sauce.

they don't want you to know how they filter their reviews, but they do filter them. they are trying to eliminate people just hounding a company or you get your friends together to write positive reviews. they are trying to get real quality reviews. >> the thing for him is try to get more reviews from people used to reviewing a lot of sites. >> and for him not to forget just focusing on customer service rather than getting frustrated about the online review sites. if you focus on, what's the expression, if you build it they will come. if you offer great service and great products, the good reviews will come. >> and the best review is the unsolicited review. >> absolutely. thank you so much for everything today. i appreciate all your advice. and the serenade we got earlier on the show. >> terrific. >> that was a first for us. thanks, guys. 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. once you get there, hit the ask the show link and you can submit a question for our panel. again, the website is openforum.com/yourbusiness. or if you'd rather just e-mail us your question and comments, we like to hear those, too. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. if you are looking to get information from users through your small business website, then check out the website of the week. gravityforms.com helps you build and publish words that you can add to your site. order forms, contact sheets and notification e-mails are easy to build using the built-in tools provided and you can customize everything to meet your needs. to learn more about today's show, click on our website, openforum.com very yourbusiness. your find all of today's segments plus web-exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. and follow us on

twitter, @msnbcyourbirks biz. and next week, the neighborhood truth behind the newest trend in fitness. >> anyone who believes that paul fitness club-type thing is behind the eight ball. it is a fitness phenomena right now. >> we are watching them share resources and lobbying to get poll dancing in the olympics. 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.