her revenue went from $3 million to a tenth of that. what this small business owner learned to get back on track. plus, stylish business advice from stylist to the stars, sally hershberger. 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, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business." where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. all small businesses have their ups and downs. but for asa products ownny mele it has truly been a roller coaster ride. in her first three years of business she made millions of dollars in sales only to see them plummet. now her company is back on top with valuable insight into how to run her business and avoid past pitfalls. asa products the maker of the mobo cruiser wants their customers to have more than fun. they want their customers to be

wowed. >> from the package, to open the package, oh, nice. when they arrive, cool. when they call a customer, wow you guys are nice. so it's just like you want to have that wow factor that will have people remember who you are. and that's the brand. >> building the brand is now at the core of the company for founder and president melody hsieh. but it wasn't always that way. today business is sbooming but getting to this point has been anything but a smooth ride. three years after it launched asa products was pulling in more than $3 million a year. and then suddenly, the revenue plummeted. >> so i was like our business went down from $3 million. >> at the time asa products imported goods from taiwan and sold them in the u.s. everything from scooters to roller skates to yo-yos and the buyer's appetite was huge.

>> sell me the product! sell me the product! so for me, it's real easy. because people come to you because a product was hot. >> the reason why the business did so well so quickly, initially, from the beginning, was because of melody's charisma and she has an absolutely great personality. and she is an excellent sales person. >> because she was so good at sales, and it was working, melody paid no attention to the other parts of her business. and that lack of knowledge eventually caused the company's downfall. >> we didn't really have an academic understanding of how businesses work. and didn't have a very sophisticated business model. so, of course, we ran into lots of problems. >> the thinking at asa products in the beginning, as seth chavez explained it, was just give me something i can sell and we'll make some money. >> and then you go in a frenzy to try to sell all that stuff. and so, when the trend dies, at the end of the day, you have a lot of products in your

warehouse, that aren't really worth a whole lot. so, yes, there were inventory problems. >> since they had done very well research to understand their customers' needs, melody and her team were blindsided when demand slowed down. the company also ran into intellectual property problems, problems with their business processes, and a host of other issues. >> there we go, $3 million, easy come, now we talk about easy go, too. >> with sales at a tenth of their peak, many people would have thrown in the towel. but not melody. >> so i won't give up. i just don't give up. so i say you know what? it's time to go back. >> melody was accepted into the university of southern california's mba program. >> business school give me a tool to learn the language, understand the concept, and use the tool. >> tools like learning how to create marketing plans and project financials, and understand the marketplace. >> and i just realized oh, those

language, those terms, oh, so what is the target customer? so what is the perception of the product? and what is the branding? >> we started doing things that we had never done before, like trying to figure out who our customers were. trying to figure out who we were. >> melody started focusing her business school knowledge on tearing her company down to one product and reimagining the mobo cruiser. >> focus on active lifestyle, improve life of others. and then we providing innovation, style, and service. so whatever we do, we focus on that. now you're building the brand. now you're building the company. >> this is a completely different way of running asa products. >> the mistake i made is i based an item, my goal is whatever make money, i would do. >> but one she says will ensure her company is around for the

long haul. >> we want to have a clear vision and know where you're going, and of course, apply your vision to every element that you work with you every day. >> it's not always an easy decision. but sometimes it's a necessary one. every small business owner at one time or another is faced with the reality of having to raise prices for their product or service. in a down economy this decision is even more difficult. you clearly don't want to lose your customers but not every client is willing to pay more. so what do you do? marley majcher is the ceo of the party goddess, a full service event planning and catering company. she is here to tell us how to price for profit without jeopardizing your customer base. great to see you, marley. >> thanks for having me. >> number one, adjust your formula, your packages? >> sure. it's a better idea than just saying i was $60 an hour, now i'm $80. so instead, change how you price. so if you charge an hourly rate, why not say okay, here's a flat

fee, or charge as a percentage of what you're coordinating. let's say if you're an event planner. but by mixing it up then the customer isn't comparing apples to apple so it's not as easy to say oh, wow her prices went up 50%. you just changed your model and by getting more efficient, of course you're making more money. >> if you do that, let's say you have $60. do you still need to offer something that is $60 or not? >> i don't think necessarily. i think as long as you communicate ahead of time what you're doing with your customers and how you're structuring it, you're fine. >> okay. so stricter parameters. what do you mean? >> what happens is, if you do change your pricing, and obviously, if it's hourly, it's easy, you're on the clock, tic t toc. but if you're not and you do charge a flat fee or a percentage you have to be very clear about what that includes and what it doesn't include. because otherwise, you end up having to do all these extra things that aren't part of the project. for an event planner, let's say i hire you as a wedding planner and the next thing i know you've got this flat fee and i'm the

bride thinking okay you're going to come with me to find my dress, you're going to do this, you're going to be at every fitting. no, you're thinking you're just coordinating the day-of. so you've got to be super clear about what it includes. but use it as a marketing ploy to get more business by saying what it doesn't include. so you can say, but i can do this, this and this. that kind of thing. >> and basically put those other things a la carte. >> correct. and the customer is like oh, wow i didn't even know she did those things. but it's much clearer from the get-go. >> that's your other point, be clear. >> you have to be clear and you can't just come to somebody in the middle of the project, and say oh, by the way, i decided to raise my price. that doesn't work. you can do it ahead of time and use it to your advantage as a marketing strategy. you can say listen because of the economy or this or that i'm changing my pricing structure. however, create some sense of urgency, if you book me by "x" date you're a great customer, i will grandfather in those old rates, that kind of thing. and especially if you do it at a time when you might be slow. it could be a great time.

if you're slow in july or august, november or something, send out that marketing piece and you can use it to get a little bump in business. >> i think that grandfather in the old rates is really helpful. because you feel like now you've done something special for me. >> absolutely. and then i feel valued as a customer. and let's face it that goes to the next point which is you have to provide really great customer service. you can't change your pricing, or raise your pricing, and then say, oh, yeah, i'm going to have lackluster performance. no. you really need to be on your game. so make sure that your staff is ready to go. all the systems are go before you decide to raise those prices. >> and people are going to object. >> people are going to object. but it's really posh to have a script and a plan ahead of time of what those objections are going to be. so many times i see small business owners and the first time they answer an objection to a customer is in front of their best customers. forget it. figure out your top three to five objections that most of us get and then kind of write a script and role-play with somebody who is critical ahead of time. so that that person can say

okay, you don't sound convincing at all. or you look so nervous or you're not making eye contact. practice answering those objections so that you really come across. like you know what you're doing and they're justified. and people feed off of that confidence. >> also good relationship with your customers and you say, look, the economy is bad out there. and many times that might be enough if they care about you? >> absolutely. >> other times it's what you talked about in the first one, change your package so you're offering them a little bit more that doesn't cost you anything. >> correct. i always say offer something that is very valuable to them, high value to them, low cost to you. each of us have certain things we can throw in that the customer will feel thrilled about that don't cost us anything. >> marley, thank you so much. this is all great advise. >> thanks for having me. >> you get to the end of the day and wonder where the time went? here now are five ways to keep distractions from damaging your productivity, courtesy of entrepreneur.com. one, make and post a list. put it where you will see it

every time you look up so that you can't ignore it. two, stand up when someone comes into the office. this can help visitors from lingering unnecessarily. most people get tired of standing, and then leave when their business with you is done. three, limit outside attention grabbers. check e-mail, facebook and take calls at set times so that you can stay focused at the work at hand. four, clear your desk. if you're ready to dive into a large project, get rid of any distractions. and number five, take small bites. don't wait for large blocks of time to get started on projects or you may never get to them. you can accomplish more than you think with an extra 15 to 20 minutes a day. in the age of the web, smartphones and social networks, every action a business takes can be exposed and critiques in realtime. that is why now more than ever, honesty is of the utmost importance. don peppers is the founder of peppers and rogers group. he's also the co-author of the

book "extreme trust: honesty as a competitive advantage." it would be nice, right, if we didn't have to call it a competitive advantage. but you say honesty, because we should all be honest. >> it's the best policy. >> that's not the case. this is a really interesting book. and you talk about a lot of companies that are being honest when they don't necessarily have to. they wouldn't be lying if they weren't honest. >> right. >> but they kind of go beyond. >> they go -- they protect the interest of a customer. and the reason it works today, is because we're now in the age of transparency. from twitter to facebook, linkedin and e-mail and youtube. if something can be known, everybody can know it. and so you can't hide the secret anymore. >> exactly. and the thing is, one bad review, one person on twitter who has a lot of power and says something bad about your company, whether it is true or not frankly it gets up there. >> a lot of businesses have made their money basically by having better information than their customers. that's not happening. >> okay let's talk about some of these examples.

jackielawson.com. >> they're an e-greeting card company. so you can sign up and you can get greeting cards and send them out for mothers days and birthdays and so forth. you subscribe to it on an annual fee. most companies that have these credit card subscriptions, you get to the end of the period, and they just automatically renew you. you sign up for automatic renewal and they automatically renew you and hope you don't notice. jacquilawson will send you an e-mail first. in a month we're going to renew your subscription. are you okay? >> why would they do that? it's definitely a nice thing to do. but presumably they lose some customers. >> it's costly. but what they gain is reputation, and they gain credibility, and they earn the trust of customers who are going to refer other customers to them. >> okay. let's move on to another one. that was a small company. now jetblue. >> the other day i'm an a

jetblue flight, it was very late, five hours, we got off the plane at kennedy and they handed out a letter. this is sorry, under our customer bill of rights we're going to give you a refund. the amount depends whether you paid with points or cash, if you paid cash you get a full refund. it explained everything. and you don't have to do anything to claim the refund, we're going to automatically place the refund in your flight bank so you can use it for your future travel. i can't tell you the number of times i've had some kind of refund from an airline and they say, well, you know, go on our website, click here, click there, use your ticket number, put in the date of travel, you know, wave a ticket over your head. >> again, this is going to cost jetblue a lot more money than if they made it a little bit harder but this is all about customer service, right? >> exactly. it's about being pro-active in protecting the customer's interest. it's not untrustworthy just to give you the refund, and have you go get it yourself. but it's pro-actively

trustworthy. it's what we call trustable. it's a form of extreme trust to pro-actively protect your interest. to make it easy for you so that you automatically are going to get this. >> you talk about a home builder who warns you when your warranty is up. a home builder is going to make a lot more money if they fix something on thursday instead of monday when the warranty is up. >> but 30 days before your home warranty is up, and the home builder sends you an e-mail or contacts you and says, hey, 30 days, why don't i send somebody over and take a look and see if we need to fix anything while it's still on our nickel? how cool is that? >> and what they get in return, again referrals. >> yeah. this particular home builder we mention in our book gets a lot more referrals. like 40% of his new business comes from referrals. a typical home builder, 15%, 20%. >> there's a lot for us to learn, all small business owners from your book, from these examples. thank you for sharing them with us. when we come back, how the popular website ask.com uses improvisation as a team building tool. and stylist to the stars, sally

hershberger tells us how to make the cut in business in this week's learning from the pros. 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. known for her trend-setting hair styles, her rebellious

sensability and those $800 haircuts, sally hershberger is undoubtedly one of the most sought after hair stylists in the world. from first ladies to hollywood's leading ladies, her scissor savviness has kept hershberger in high demand for decades. today this visionary doubled her a-list roster of clients while overseeing bicoastal sal ons and two hair care lines. we caught up with her to get her insight on taking your brand to the next level and how carving out me time can actually benefit your business in this "learning from the pros." ♪ i'll turn my camera on >> obviously, you're born with your eye, you know, or whatever but i think the key is doing what your gift is. i think it's important to just know what you're good at, and then you're usually going to love that because you're good at it. and picking things that you might not necessarily make money

in, if you're clever you'll find a way how to make money. i've been offered to do salons in many department stores, you know, be all over the place. you know, do i want to dilute my brand? they're like oh, my god, you charge this? i'm like, think about it. women want to look beautiful. men want to look beautiful. and you can buy a bag for $800 and be fine about it. you can set it down over there. this hair you're wearing 24/7. it's on you wherever you go. it's your best accessory. i was changing the way women wore their hair. i wanted hair to look just effortlessly sexy, have movement, without seeing product in their hair. you need something to give it guts. so i started really playing with products. i mean, i'm very creative in that way. and then i realized 50% of great hair is product use. so is common sense for me to come up with a product line.

do not worry, do what you think is right. because your instincts are what take you to great places. if you listen to other people, what do they know? you know. like you should listen to yourself. it's fun to get advice, at the end of the day you're always going to do what you want to do. i'm not a workaholic at all. i'm just far from it. but can you surround yourself with creative people, smart people? so it allows you to enjoy the life, because this is it. it's not a dress rehearsal. you need to be able to enjoy life, and also bring more to your work, when you like look around you, and have fun. >> social media is a great marketing tool but once you start you sort of have to keep beating the beat. you need to keep coming up with

good content that keeps people engaged and you need to do it in a way that's fun for you so it doesn't become a chore. here with ways to organize your social media messages tory johnson. she is the ceo of women for hire, a company that creates recruiting events to connect professional women with leading employers and she is also author of the new book "spark new book and hustle launch and grow your small business now." thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> i went through this book and i loved this chapter, we do social media all the time, but this makes it easy. >> for me, figuring out every morning what am i going to put on facebook every day became such a chore and then i realize that a week can go by and i'm going to be present and make facebook work for me, i have to do it. >> we put together sort of a calendar and ways to think about what to put out on social media. monday, you say, review. >> so, for example, if you

create sort of a plan for yourself where every monday you review something, you saw a movie over the weekend, a book that you're reading, an article that you read, talk about something you're doing and ask other people if they've seen that movie and what they thought about that tv show and it gets the conversation going. >> don't come to monday and think what am i going to say you're pinpointing, what am i going to review. okay, tuesday, review. >> it could be your motivational mondays, put themes to mondays, whatever it is. this is one specific idea that i think works. reveal. i love revealing something personal about you. if people know you and like you and trust you, they're going to want to do business with you. very recently in the last couple days it was my 18th anniversary and it got 700 likes a record for me. hello, why don't you people talk about my work that way. but revealing something personal that is happening. something with your family, your kids, you know, i work with my

husband so that makes sense it's something i'm talking about. it has relevance to what kind of business you're in, but revealing something a little personal can't be a bad thing. >> reveal, report. >> right now i'm involved in this tour. all about meeting and small business and the majority of my followers don't come to my business. i'll share pictures and lots of what's happening behind the scenes so that everybody can participate. everybody feels like they're there. reporting on what you've got going on is a great way to share great information. >> and then promote. >> promote something that you are involved in and you mention i have a book so, of course, i'm telling people on facebook, buy my book. i'll share different excerpts and the message is not, buy the book, but i'm sharing tidbits

from buying the book. >> what are some of the other things? >> i think you can celebrate victories. so, for example, maybe it's something of your own, maybe you have some media attention and you want to share that, you're really proud of it. maybe it's a victory one of your clients or customers achieved a new product introduction or asking for feedback. for example, you have a cupcake business and you want to ask if you can design a fantasy cupcake, what would it be and people love being involved in something like that. people love sharing exclusive offers and a lot of businesses where every single day seven days a week or one day a week they share some kind of exclusive deal or exclusive coupon and that's an incentive for people to be engaged with their facebook page at work. >> it's not so overt so you're not saying, it's monday, it's review day. a way for you to organize the messages you put out.

>> you wouldn't use these labels publicly in any way but a great way to create a content grid whether you look at it for the week or for the month and you start plugging in little things so you're never at a loss of direction and you're never at a loss and you want to leave a little room for spontaneity in the news. you don't have to feel wedded to only this, but just as you plan a show and you looks weeks ahead at what's going on, similarly, you can do the same with social media. >> you can find your calendar, for a month. >> lots of variety. >> great. this was fantastic advice. thanks, tory. >> thank you. fostering a creative environment where people are not stuck doing and thinking the same old, same old is something we should really all be thinking about. how do you do it? our next guest came up with a really fun way.

>> doug leads is the ceo of ask.com and he started the unorthodox practice of having improv workshops at his company. they have caused a culture shift that inspired new ideas. great to see you. >> great to see you, too. >> when i heard that my heart fell to the bottom of my stomach. improv just petrifies me. >> it's not scary at all, not once you do it. in concept a lot of people at the company were nervous at first, but once they got going it becomes really easy and that's what it is all about. being silly and being free and not scary once you get going. >> before we talk about how you get people to do it, how does this help having people get up and do improv? how does it help your business goals? >> so much business is about planning and folks and we hear that over and over again getting a quarterly plan and execution and it wipes out a really important skill which is responding and creating in the moment, listening to what's

going on around you and building on it. that's sort of a lost art and we found sarnly at our company with all the focus that we had become really good at, what we became bad at was getting a new ceset ideas. >> once you did improv, how did you change things, people started thinking out of the box. >> i guess it's thinking out of the box. we start a meeting and we'll have a spatula sitting in the middle of the room. okay, give me ideas of what the spatula could be used for other than flipping food. we'll drop it on the ground and we'll say it's a gravity task or it's for an eye test and you build to these things and you start listening and responding and then we get great ideas that we wouldn't otherwise get. >> you do this with a spatula, which has nothing to do with your business, and then those same skills happen when you say, okay, what should our facebook

campaign be? >> there is a sort of a culture that i'm only going to say something when i have it exactly right. i'm only going to raise my hand when i know it's bulletproof. a modern version of being attacked in a forest by a cheetah. that was the big threat to your survival in evolutionary times. so, people don't say anything and what we got to at ask, everything starts out stupid, so, there are no stupid ideas and then we can build on them. >> so, i'm watching the segment and i think, that's fantastic, i want to start it, how do i as a small business owner say, okay, we're going to start doing improv, guys, what do i do? >> we have a bigger company and we brought someone in to help us get started. you can search ask.com to find out how to get started. make time for it. don't say just read something on it and we'll come back and talk about it.

set aside time and bring everybody in to it. whether they're the receptionist or head of the business, they can all add to ideas and build on them. >> for someone like me who is shy about acting and i think, oh, i can't get up there and do some kind of improv, what do do? >> you're sitting in the same meeting room you're sitting in otherwise. sitting in the same office and everyone is participating. no audience. you're not in front of everybody. everybody is doing it and that is what makes it really safe. the key about this is it's safe. >> it's easy for everyone to blurt out something about a spatula versus me standing on a stage. well, doug, i think this is such a great idea. really interesting and really creative and i appreciate you coming on the show and sharing it with us. >> thanks for having me, it's been great. every small business owner needs to find out what their cu customers think at one point or another. if you're looking for a more interactive way to do that, look at our website of the week.

popsurvey.com creates online surveys to help you get feedback for your business. questions are asked one at a time and customized to fit your needs. the surveys also look just as good on mobile devices as they do on a computer screen. to learn more about today's show, just click on our website, it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segment. you can also follow us on twitter @ msnbc.biz. until next time, 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.