optimism is down, hiring is up, and health care costs have small businesses in a quandary. a woman entrepreneur who owns a cleaning service stays profitable and efficient by tracking everything. and never leave yourself expo exposed. good advice for small business owners from papyrus ceo dominique schurman. it's time to make money coming up next on "your business."

hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business." we're back this week ready to help you grow your company. for those of you trying to do that, some mixed news this week. the national federation of independent business reported that small business owners optimism for the economy was down in march. the nfib optimism index down 1.3 points to 89.5. it was the first time confidence dropped since november of last year. the nfib also says that while actual hiring by small businesses has increased slightly, long-term hiring plans have come to a virtual halt.

adding to concerns is the health care issue. the obama administration announced last week that they were delaying until 2015 parts of a program intended to help small business owners provide affordable health care. and some owners are even saying that they'll pay the federal penalty for not providing health care saying that would be less expensive for them. the vice president of media and communications at the nfib and the chief executive of the small business majority, great to see both of you guys. >> thanks, j.j. good to be here. good to see you, john. >> good to see you, jean. >> we have a lot to cover. i'm going to go point by point what i talked about in the introduction. optimism, jean, why is optimism down? >> a lot of factors go into our survey, j.j. what we keep seeing over and over, though there was an uptick for a few months, we see a level of uncertainty, are the same that we've said for a while now and a lot does have to do with gridlock in washington, d.c. and when something does happen it tends to be not positive for small business so there's this

real uncertainty that makes a business owner say, you know what, i'm just going to hold here, be conservative, be cautious. i'm not going to hire and we'll see what happens next. >> john, oftentimes you do polls and they are opposite. are you seeing the same as jean right now or no? >> we're seeing kaubs optimism. by no means are we out of the woods yet but we've seen pretty steadily for the last year an increase in confidence. we did a poll last november in which we found that small businesses were hiring more, were looking forward to the future. i think we've seen a steady growth in the jobs numbers over the last 12 months. >> let's talk about the health care exchanges and the delay in launching them until 2015. the last time you were here, john, you and i talked about how you are working with some organizations to try and get the health care exchanges so they really work for small business. is it a big problem for small business that they're being delayed a year or is it just, okay, business as usual for one more year? >> well, a really important part

of the health care law is the establishment of the transparent marketplaces in every state where small business owners can go and sign up for insurance and their employees can go buy insurance. this has to exist in every state. only 17 states have actually set them up. 33 states for whatever reason have chosen not to set them up, so the federal government is going to have to run those exchanges. in those exchanges are marketplaces, the feature that allows small business employees to choose from multiple plans that is a proposed rule from hhs that will delay that. it's only in the 33 states that the federal government -- the federal government is runninging the exchange. we are disappointed by this. however, it's not the total doom and gloom that has been reported. the exchanges will still open on time. there are many other features of the law that will still be available to small businesses so while we hope hhs does not make this rule final, in fact, there are so many other positive features and we'll still need to

work to get this feature impleme implemented in 2015. >> and so, jean, when you were talking before, you said small businesses are having trouble with uncertainty so this draws out the uncertainty for one more year, yes? >> exactly. classic example, there's one disappointment after another, it seems. the more that small business owners learn about the health care law, what will happen, what won't happen, a lot is unknown and then we do get some certainty which is, you know, this thing that may have helped is delayed. and it's a little bit insult to injury at this point. >> when we talk about uncertainty, there have been a bunch of articles and interviews with small business owners who said i'm not even going to buy the health care for my employees. i'm going to pay the penalty instead. the penalty, a couple thousand dollars is a lot cheaper right now. as i understand it, john, nobody really knows how much anything is going to cost right now. that's a lot of conjecture. >> i think to tray to project what's going 0 to happen, we certainly see no evidence in our network of people who will pay

the penalty, we see no evidence on the polling. i think we just need to get this rolling, there are a lot of moving pieces. we think that the department of health and human services has done a good job in getting most of this implemented. we are disappointed by the one rule we talked about. now it's just time to come together and move forward and we can make tweaks to this once it's up and running, once we see how it's actually working. >> we can talk for hours. there's so much going on right now in washington and as both of you said, still a the lot of uncertainty, so i hope to see you back here some time soon so we can continue this conversation. for now thanks so much. >> thanks, j.j. always a pleasure. >> thanks, j.j. how much do you really know about your entrepreneurs it's the facts and figures that help guide the day-to-day decisions we're making about our companies. one business owner we met is detail oriented is an understatement. she has made it her mission to improve customer service and make her operation more efficient by tracking everything.

>> i wanted to offer something to my clients and to my employees that isn't out there for everyone. this helps us to exceed their expectations and know exactly what it is they want and need. >> she wants to know as much about her company as possible. >> i'm a fanatic of details. >> in fact, the owner of king solutions tracks everything she can. >> part of my interest with the software and my obsession, i think, is to provide a better service for my client. >> the software she is talking about is for customer relationship management program. >> before it was just, you know, a mop and a broom and that's the best it got. >> now her business is an ongoing, on line conversation with her customers, a far cry from the paper pushing she did to get the company off its feet.

>> four or five years of there has to be something better. >> now she can't imagine her building maintenance company doing business any other way. >> i honestly believe that this is one of the best systems that we've ever used. it allows me to have a true gauge on our performance and what we're doing. are we doing it right? where can we improve? how are we improving? >> it's the system's interactive features that allows them to exceed expectations when floors need to be mopped or windows need to be cleaned. all the work done is tracked. >> the client wants to receive the knowledge of it's not just being cleaned. this is how we're cleaning it. and that's very important. it gives them the power to be able to get exactly what they're paying for. >> it may sound like a daunting task to gather and go through all of that information, but yanet says it makes sense to know what services your customers want, how they want it done, and what they think of the

work once it's finished. >> they'll e-mail us, emaim our manager, and copy the employees in that build iing. and so it allows us to have a quicker response time and customize it to what the client needs. >> customers are not only invited but encouraged to take pictures and upload them to the crm system so that the staff can know how crews are doing or if the clients have special requests. >> my client can take a picture and say this is the area that i need. i would like this painted. i would like this moved for tonight. you did great on this particular e item. >> when the staff goes to work sites to conduct inspections, results are entered instantaneously via tablets and smart phones. >> before it was just such a painful and agonizing process for my company and our managers. it's easier for us to track exa exactly what we're doing in each building. >> the system also tracks supplies that need to be purchased and what cleaning products are being used. >> if they're trying to be

certified, green leaf certified, they can show the inspector exactly what chemicals are being used for each particular area and it also helps them to let us know and inform us, hey, this is working. this is not working. i really think there's a scent here i want to change. >> these two people are two of yanet's clients. they say before the crm, getting requests through was tough. >> lisa would call me, i would call her back, she would call me, i would call her again. tag, you're it. >> i don't have much time during the day. so for me it's very important, my time is precious. >> they believe the crm is efficient, convenient, and allows kss to react faster. >> it was saving me time. it was saving me money. it was letting me -- allowing me to do other things rather than just picking up the phone. >> it's as simple as going through my computer, my tablet, even my cell phone and i just plug in the information i need and they receive the information and they respond very fast. >> yanet says having so much information about her business

is both a blessing and a curse. >> like everything, nothing is absolutely perfect. it lets you see what you want to see and what you don't want to see. there are disappointing moments where you see there's deficiencies within your performance and training. >> a system may not be worth the expense for some entrepreneurs but the program has forced yanet to know her operation better than anyone. >> having that face-to-face reality check on this is where your company is performing has allowed us to excel and to be honest about our process and work with integrity. >> if you're wondering about hu human contact, that isn't being replaced. >> i still get phone calls. i get phone calls about inspections, i get phone calls about let's go to lunch. >> yanet will never stop talking to her clients. >> we're just enhancing the process how we perform our services and why would you choose someone just tracking by paper and pen or, you know, just a quick phone call. there's no way to keep it accountable so this helps us

stay accountable to what we're selling and doing. >> of course the customer relationship management tool doesn't work unless your clients work with you. so yanet says be ready to keep your customers engaged. >> you have to be committed to educating your client. it's not just about our job being more efficient and making it quicker and smoother for us or just adding another client to the belt. it's really educating the client. i think there's such a power in knowled knowledge. when dominique schurman's parents began importing fine art greeting cards from europe in 1950 they never dreamed their daughter would take the family r stationery business with modest beginnings so far. under schurman's direction papyrus now has more than 450 retail stores in the united states and canada including the carlton cards, american greetings, and nikki dee brands. she shares her thoughts about running the family business,

differentiating yourself and building a new brand. ♪ >> i looked at the product line and thought, how can we truly differentiate papyrus, separate ourselves from everything else in the market? and that's the time we decided to sell a raffle of our cards to line all of our independence to add the papyrus hummingbird seal, to take all of the printing off 0 the back of the card. if you go to a supermarket and you look at a greeting card, the back is full of bar codes, it's very unattractive. so we decided to remove all of that from the card itself so that as it's sashed as an heirloom in a way the beauty of the card is preserved from front to back. ♪ a family affair >> it's a very challenging time for family, i think, because all

of the egos and the emotions and kind of the tensions of the parent/child relationship come into play when you're transitioning in key positions and trying to move a company for the next generation. i think everyone really has to be willing to do the hard work and have these tough conversations about who has what role and how is the business actually going to transition. ♪ you'd better watch out >> i have a tendency in my younger days to never think about the down side. i was always thinking about it's going to work and it's going to be great. i tried to grow too quickly, and the company got very overextended. yeah, we have to take some risk, but there's going to be a payoff. i learned along the way that can be dangerous. and if you don't think about what could go wrong and prepare for what if it doesn't work out, you can leave yourself very exposed.

now as i look towards the future and i think about the business, i'm always trying to weigh the pros and the cons and always trying to make sure i have a safety net for whatever decisions we make. ♪ why do you build me up >> our cards represent about 30% of our sales, so as a company has evolved and the business has evolved, our gift business has grown and the nicadee brand has allowed me do create really something new and different that's also helping the company grow into new areas, new categories and accessories in fashion into papyrus has really worked because we have that customer that's interested in that beautiful product, so she can buy the fabulous gift, the fabulous card, the wrapping, all of the trimmings that go with it. it's a nice balance between investing in the core of what we do and also continuing to push forward.

e ♪ how much is too much information to share on social media? when we come back, our panel weighs in with their thoughts. and our elevator pitcher hopes to swing our panel over to her side of the links with her line of women's golf shoes. we've all had those moments. when you lost the thing you can't believe you lost. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home... as an american express cardmember you can expect some help. but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership.

it's time now to answer some of your business questions. phil towne is an investment adviser, a pentrepreneur, and a "new york times" best-selling author of the book "pay back time." you can find him at paybacktime.com. and victoria is the founder of ladies who launch a new media company that provides advice, encouragement and exposure to women entrepreneurs. great to see both of you guys. and you are in the midst of lawn pg another business as well. >> yes. >> exciting. >> she's a star. >> and you're writing another book. we'll be having more feedback. moving on to the first question, this is about the amount of information you share with your customers. >> we all know that social media is very important to connect with the customers today.

i would like to know how much information we should give to the customer before we feel like our business is being compromised? >> i'm going to start with you, phil, because when facebook and twitter -- >> that's because i'm smarter. >> well, we'll see. we'll see about that. suddenly you were following everyone around with a video camera, and so you really launched into social media. i want to know, at what point are you giving too much information? >> this is kind of about trade secrets a little bit, like how far are we going to go and spill our beans. and what we think about is to try to get our best stuff out there in front of people. so i think you don't have to worry. that's what i'm saying here is that if you try to protect yourself too much, then you are not going to get the credibility to get traction that you need online. you have to put your best stuff out there and then have good stuff to back it up. i think you just go for it. i don't think you worry about it. >> how do you do it? >> i would agree with phil exactly. you can never really give too much away, and if you think you

are, you may want to go back and re-evaluate the value of the service you're offering 0. also i would say remember the 80/20 rule. 80% comes from -- 80% comes from 20% of the people that you are reaching. so you really just want to engage in a dialogue and engage in a relationship with your audience and your customer base because that's what's ultimately going to create the sales. >> and what's interesting, too, you'll know when it's too much. you see what gets traction and what doesn't. you'll know what direction you should turn in. okay. let's move on to the next question about distribution. >> as a young company we go out and sell on our own, but our bandwidth is only so wide and so it's important to have a distribution point who can do the sales for us. for a luxury market, where would we find that distribution point? >> this is a bit of a teaser because i've been interested in this question about sales and selling and distribution so we'll do a whole story on it i

will film in a couple of weeks. what should she do? >> i would really look at the online points of distribution and instead of focusing on the traditional way of selling your product, really look at sites like fab.com and looking at doing these kind of pop-up sales or these sales that happen periodically around your luxury goods. i would focus on exposure and worry less about one single point of distribution. >> go there, get a booth, represent yourself. if you have good products, they will jump all over it. >> moving on, it's about small business learning about large ones. >> what kind of metrics that can apply to my business? >> phil, you're up. >> here is the metrics, return on equity is the critical thing you should use. you should use it as well. your earnings divided by what you have in the business.

return investor capital, add in what you have in the business, add in your debt. those are the two major things they use. we strongly recommend you follow four -- we call them the big four numbers, the growth rate for earnings, the growth rate for sales. the growth rate for cash flow and for equity. all four of them you try to keep them growing at the same rate. that's why they are able to run businesses for a long time. >> victoria, you work with so many and i have been shocked how many companies i go ton't view and people have no idea about their cash flow. >> if i'm going to scale back and narrow it down to two things, you have to look at growth. who 0 how are your sales growing? are they growing quickly? the way they look is different. if your can company is not growing quickly you need to re-examine your marketing and maybe even the product itself. you want to look at operational costs.

>> that is as much business jargon as i did. >> you said it really fast. >> thank you, guys, very much. really helpful advice from both of you, jargon and not jargon. if you have a question for our panel, go to our website. once you get there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. openforum.com/yourbusiness. our send us an yourbusiness@msnbc.com. now, i asked you guys before the show started one quick thing you could do this to save money in your business, and you know what i got from both of you? let me think about it. >> you were too specific. >> i was specific.

for the top five, we're talking about how small savings can make a big difference to the bottom line. so here now are five creative -- i was trying to make it seven -- five creative tactics for doing more with less courtesy of entrepreneur.com. one, team up with other small businesses. work with local companies to share resources and place bigger orders to get discounts. two, evaluate your shipping. have a shipping broker review your invoices and try to renegotiate your rates. you may find there are ways to get those costs down. three, save on your internet service. ask your telephone company about any business plans. they may have a better deal for you. four, instead of paying for job listings, tap your alumni network and the alumni networks of your employees. and five, if you're looking for new equipment, whether that be desks or computers, ask around to see if there are any companies near you going out of

business and looking to liquida liquidate. it's spring. the weather is getting nicer. and it's time for golfers to stop puttering around the house and take that putter out on the course. today's elevator pitcher loved to play but had a problem finding comfortable footwear. so, like any good entrepreneur, she came up with her own line of golf shoes. >> hi. >> hi. >> i'm annie, founder of equip for play. there are more than 5.1 million women golfers in the u.s. just like me who are tired of having to choose between comfort and style when it comes to their golf shoes. and women who don't golf are suffering bunions, blister, and pain all in the name of style. why? i'm a product designer with over 20 years of manufacturing experience, and i've made a shoe that's so comfortable you'll forget you have it on. the fitted heel and generous instep make this a great golf shoe, a great everything shoe. and our unique comfort traction sole makes this two beautiful shoes in one, perfect for

course, perfect for street, and we're the only ones who have a glove to match. we've sold over 2,000 pairs of shoes and gloves at equipforplay.com. and because we design for golf and fashion, we have multiple distribution channels open to us to scale this business. we're asking for $1.5 million in funding with a five year roi of 2 1/2 to 3 times. we'll spend the money on inventory, expanding distribution, and continuing to build our brand. >> all right, annie. you know what, i'm just going to interject with what i love. you said a little about your experience, what you've sold so far, what you're looking for. so to me you did a great job. phil is tough so we're going to start with phil and see how he felt about it. >> you're climbing into a tough area, right? this is nike territory. this is some big companies out there playing in this game. but there have been a couple small companies that got in. right? they've done it with really great products. maybe you've got something really good. i would say probably you want to think a little bit more about nailing down what are the key things that are your competitive

advantage. i would get after that. not really sure the golf glove thing is going to sell me, on, oh, we have to have a meeting because nobody is going to have a golf glove with their shoe, okay? you got to come hard with where are we going to get a durable competitive advantage? you're starting pretty good but i'd hang in there tight. >> victoria, how did she do? >> you did a great job. if i were a golfer, i would want to wear these shoes. i love the idea you're merging fashion with it and you have the matching glove. the one thing i would want you to focus on a little bit, too, is how are you going to scale this business? again, the competition is tough like phil said. and what are the growth opportunities? and how big can this get? how can you step outside of the golf niche and make it even bigger? you talked about the street shoe and i think that's great. i'd like to be in one of those right now to be honest. also, what's your team and how are you going to develop your team? >> that's key, because if you have somebody who's a big name in golf and you walk in and say

she's wearing these shoes, now we're talking. >> you have great experience. you're a product designer and come at it from genuine experience and passion so, that go ghost a long way. >> thank you, guys. good luck with everything. thank you for being our model. i love when we turn the elevator into a different area. you're in our high heels, i'm in this. >> the cowboy look. >> have to scale those up for you. >> thanks for everything today. appreciate it. thank you. good luck with everything. and if any of you right now are sitting at home wishing you were here pitching one of our panels, well, here's your chance. send us a an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. we want to know what your company does, how much you're trying to raise and what you're going to do with those funds. we look forward to reading your pitches and seeing some of you here on the elevator. earlier in the program we

profiled a business owner who tracks all customer interactions to help her improve her service. our website of the week can help you do the same. user voice provides customer communications management tools. they range from a support ticket system to streamline the way you receive, answer, and keep track of customer emails and requests to a feedback forum where you can get direct input from your clients. in addition, the site helps you put together a directory of frequently asked questions so customers can easily search for answers right on your site. thanks for joining me today. and if you're looking for more information on the topics we covered, you can find it on our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you can follow us on twitter. @msnbc your biz. and of course we are on facebook, too. next week, in an era of disposable everything, the son of a cobbler finds it hard to find a decent pair of shoes. >> that's kind of when the idea

was sparked of how could we make the shoe or boots in america, make them out of the best components really in the world, hand craft them the old-fashioned way, and offer them at a price that's attainable. >> how one entrepreneur is revitalizing the craft of shoe making and stoking the artisan movement by making a classic american footwear that's designed to last. till then, remember, we make your business our business. we've all had those moments. when you lost the thing you can't believe you lost. when what you just bought, just broke. or when you have a little trouble a long way from home...