welcome to main street u.s.a. we're in illinois, a town that had to reinvent itself many times. we're talking to small business owners about what they had to do to keep their community and their business thriving. that's coming up next on "your business." >> small businesses are

revitalizing the economy and american express open is here to help. that's why we're proud to present "your business" on msnbc. hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg, and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to giving you tips and advice to help your small business grow. when we think about main street, we think about the heart of a community, a place where small business is usually the focal point and where you expect something special like great customer service or a terrific cup of coffee or to be greeted by your first name. so how is main street america doing in the economic ups and downs this country has been facing? we decided to travel the country to find out. our first stop, galena, illinois. welcome to main street u.s.a. a series we're doing about companies on main streets across america.

today, we're in galena, illinois. this is a community that is rich in history and beautiful 19th century architecture. it's a town that's had to reinvent itself many times from a lead/ore boom town to a farm company in the 1900s, today it's a tourist destination. it's been through a lot of ups and downs. if you had come here about 25 years ago, there were lots of vacancies and there was a bar pretty much on every corner. so what did the people do here? what did the small business owners do here to revive this community? we spent some time finding out. >> carl johnson. carl johnson's gallery. it was coming apart at the seams a little. they wanted to do redo the town with urban renewal and it was a

monumental fight over whether it should pass or not. and after that was over, they established a preservation ordinance. >> started the studio 21 spa and salon years ago. now she's here at 310 north main street. i decided to go in and get my hair done and hear about her story. politicians and the government talk a lot about small business and helping small businesses. do you feel like there is -- you're laughing. why are you laughing? >> nothing. it's interesting. >> why do you say interesting? do you feel like anyone out there is looking out for you and helping you? >> they don't see people like me, i think, even existing. and we're the ones keeping people working, you know. i'm not even classified in their eyes as a small business. you get frustrated. >> what do you get frustrated with? >> because you feel like there's

no one trying to help you grow to employ more people, you know, things like that. you want to be able to get your employees a place where they can work and raise their families, you know. not everybody wants to have to move away and, you know, to find a better job. >> jack colter, five businesses, 25 years on main street. last couple of years has been challenging, to tell you the truth. we've gone through some ups and downs in galena, like the town itself, i think, over the last 100 years, galena has a good way of reinventing itself. we're hoping this year we'll turn that corner a little bit. as things might be getting better east and west coast, that's a sign for us that hopefully help is on the way. >> steve white, rendezvous coffee and tea. three years on main street. business is always spotty.

it's a seasonal tourist town. so during the summer and fall, we do very, very well. during the winter it gets very slow and spring kind of all dind depe depends on whether it's raining or not. >> deb malone, fever river outfitters. we get more responsibspontaneit did in the past. >> david lewis, great american popcorn company. fourth evolution of my business. you're always trying to maneuver yourself into what you perceive to be and most often is a better traffic and better footprint for whatever business you're in. >> ms. kitty, the grape escape, seven years on main street.

>> do you feel responsibility as a business owner here for the community in a way that you wouldn't if maybe you opened your bar in chicago? >> very possibly. when people talk politics and how they feel about things, i always say i'm a is social capitalist because i want the freedom to run any business i want, but i need to take care of the community that allows my business to thrive. >> the concept here wasn't to make a lot of money. it's a lifestyle thing. i love what i'm doing. i love the interaction with people and things like that. i make enough money to live on. i'm happy. i have the lifestyle i always wante wanted. >> chef vivo, 19 years on main street. >> you started with one card table, selling one or two products. >> that's right. >> now you have two stores next to each other with a restaurant down the street. >> that's right. >> how have you been able to

grow? >> basically the real key point to hard growth is the quality and integrity of our product and maintaining really strict standards. and people like it. you know. it's a consumable item. people keep coming back year after year. now with the internet, if they can't make it to gale inform a, we ship it to them. >> you have these sample jars but never label what kind of popcorn it is. >> right. >> why? it seems it could be confusing. >> i like doing it that way i like the interaction of immediately greeting somebody, offering them our products and i would rather have that interaction of me explaining what it is than just them doing it on their own. >> do you feel like you may have more repeat sales because of the friendliness that comes with having to ask, what kind of popcorn is this? and then you having to tell me? >> absolutely. there's a lot of value to it and it's a cornerstone of our day-to-day operations since day one. good chunk of people coming here are coming from the city, big box stores. they don't get that level of

customer service very often anymore. i would like to bring that back a little bit. >> the weekend is just starting. we see the tourists starting to come in. as everyone told us, this is their busy time. no one has time to talk to us anymore. we're heading home. next month, we'll visit main street in the sleepy southern town of brumbridge, alabama. your business@msnbc.com. e-mail us if you think we should visit your town. here are five ways to use hyper local press to your advantage, courtesy of inc.com. one, take advantage of your roots. when pitching to the press make sure to mention your background. if you have a connection to what's going on locally, the local press is more likely to cover your story. two, promote on social networks.

if you share your coverage, your local press will have a much greater reach. as a result, much greater value. three, media is always looking for local experts. reach out to your news station, magazine or newspaper to offer your insight and expertise. four, give back. hosting a philanthropic event, creating an ongoing charity initiative is a great way to attract reporters to cover your story. and, five, get the press involved. partner with the press on a niche event. not only are they more likely to show up but they'll probably promote it as well. one of the draws to shopping on main street is the idea that you are supporting your local community, shopping local. there's also a strong consumer movement to buy american. that's why many small business owners who had been producing their products overseas are now finding ways to bring that manufacturing back here to the u.s. the challenge has been how to find the right factory.

>> i, being from north carolina, love the idea of trying to do something local. so we decided to come back home. >> it may have take n a few yeas but rachel weeks can proudly say that her entire line of high-end collegiate apparel is now made in the u.s.a. >> we do everything from fitted t-shirts to tailored hoodies, yoga pants, cute lounge set that's women's underwear and tank tops, varsity cardigan, one of the real first fashion items we introduced to the college market. >> school house, she admits bringing her production stateside hasn't been ease. >> i a lot of factories that are here are not what they were 20 years ago. a lot of the technology that's here is in some ways behind the technology that i encountered in sri lanka. >> where schoolhouse used to manufacture its clothing. in the end, the distance proved

to be too much. that's why weeks and her chief operations officer susan williams decide to find and partner with local factories. >> part of a generation that took it away from this country and didn't know what that would do really to our economy. and here i am now, 20 years later, having an opportunity to bring it back. >> weeks, who counts schools like duke, yale, university of nebraska and the university of cincinnati among her 100 clients says she's done plenty of leg work. >> finding a good factory partner is extraordinarily difficult. it was a lot of getting in the car and getting on the phone. we've been traveling across the state of north carolina uncovering these cut and sew facilities and meeting with fabric vendors and finding cardboard box manufacturers who are still here. >> since so many north carolina textile factories shut down, the search was intense. >> reviving an industry that was booming 20 years ago and it really took a nap.

with school house, we are taking them out of the rip van winkle stage of the nap and bringing them back to life. >> if there was a door to knock on, school house was there. >> at least 120 doors, to narrow it down to five. it's been a real hunt. >> as a small business owner, weeks learned that face to face meetings were a must. >> one of the first things we look for when we're talking not only to management but to actual employees of factories are people with an open mind, and people with passion and drive. >> once factory owners see school house's designs, weeks and williams get a sense pretty quickly whether or not a relationship will work. >> when you walk into a factory that has been doing the same box t-shirts for the past 20 years and the management has, you know, no interest in doing anything else, you know that's not a fit for school house. >> our goods are full of craftsmanship. they're very detailed. they're not just a basic t-shirt. so you have to have a desire to

do something different. >> meeting with factory owners and managers was only the first step. williams is all about getting a feel for the place. >> equipment, i'm looking at speed. i'm looking at the detail work, the pride the team takes within their work. i talk to some of the operators to see what they like about working in that particular factory. >> those operators are key to the equation. their insight plays a crucial role in the final decision. >> the old saying of the secretary knows it all in an office building, in a factory it's true that the operator knows it all. >> school house makes it clear that they expect more than just production out of a factory. they want a partnership. >> the best kind of factory to come to is a factory that not only we bring things to, with you they also bring things to the table. that's why mitt's knits works. >> there was an eagerness,

willingness and a fire to want to take on something new. >> they came to us and said we have a line of garments we would like for you guys to look at producing any or all of those that you can. and more important ly, we want o provide you with a consistent line. we sewed up a couple of prototypes and were able to come up with a ballpark cost that fell in line with what school house needed. >> glad to hear about school house's long-term commitment to this country. that's part of the reason why the factory updated its equipment and adapted its work flow. it's a partnership that will continue to evolve as long as it's a good fit for both sides. >> eventually that it will transition over to where we're going to do a full package for them, which is a perk for them. they want us to be able to handle the manufacturing entirely. >> as school house grows, inevitably, weeks and williams will have to find additional factories. >> you always have to have a few

factories in your bag of tricks. you want to make sure you even out their production but it also meets the needs of your production. >> not every factory visit results in a partnership but week weeks is committed to making products in the u.s.a. she wants facilities to know she'll be knocking and they want them to be willing to listen. >> that's all it takes in this new generation of leadership that sees what we're trying to do, wants to be part of it and is willing to dust off old machinery and make changes and make it happen. looking to boost customer loyalty with a modern-day version of a traditional punch card? check out our website of the week. spendgo.com allows you to earn points for customer purchases that eventually lead up to a free item or store credit. enter your phone number or scan the code on your receipt with the spendgo app.

you can better manage your marketing performance and see who your most loyal customers are. when we return, i go back to my alma mater, to get advice on what women need to know about negotiating. >> the winner of group college's smart pitch challenge heads to our elevator and tries to impress our panel with his line of smart phone cases. is like hammering. riding against the wind. uphill. every day. we make money on saddles and tubes. but not on bikes. my margins are thinner than these tires. anything that gives me some breathing room makes a difference. membership helps make the most of your cashflow. i'm nelson gutierrez of strictly bicycles and my money works as hard as i do. this is what membership is.

this is what membership does. i recent spent some time at stanford business school for my 15th year reunion. i caught up with professor maggie neil, who teaches negotiation. we chatted about some of the things you should be thinking about when you head into negotiati negotiation, but then the conversation turned to how women need to approach this differently than men. that's something i hadn't really considered before. >> you know, gender is a real challenge. we don't get to choose our gender, right? it's male or female. the fact that the playing field is not level. women face a different challenge in negotiation than men do. part of that is a backlash. so, using exactly the same words that come out of the mouth of a woman or come out of the mouth of a man in terms of negotiation and you'll see a very different response on the part of the

counterpart. >> that's interesting. i may go into the presentation being completely prepared. i know what i want. i know what you want. i've come up with is something fair. here i am, presenting it to you. the way i present it -- >> is crucial. absolutely crucial. one of the things is that the backlash women get when they initiate negotiations, they're being perceived as too demanding, as not nice. and so that's where the backlash s the question now is how can i present my proposal to you in a way that i don't get this pushback? >> it's interesting, right? i might think, okay, if i'm too nice going into this, they might tromp all over me. you're saying i actually need to be nice so i don't? >> let's be more precise. >> okay. >> what you need to be, and what's most effective for women is to have a communicaal overnightation. so let's frame it as how can i

help you solve your problems? >> but a man can go in there and say this is what i'm looking for? >> i'm great. and this is why you should give it to me. because i'm great. >> but if a woman did that? >> too demanding. not nice. same information. you need to understand what your reservation price is, what your alternatives are, your aspirations are. get your proposal. you need to understand the other side. but when you present your case, you're doing it from the frame of, let me help you solve your problems. and, seriously, how could anybody pushback against someone who is helping them solve their problems? >> it's so fascinating. you could be asking for the same exact thing but because you're a woman, you have to ask it a little bit of a different way so that there's no backlash against you? >> or there's less. less backlash. what's really interesting is that that's not really hard to do. part of what we've learned,

women have learned by being in this society is how to accommodate. use that accommodation not to give in but reframing our ask. >> someone might and think, well, women have to adjust to be a certain way. but it's powerful. you have a piece of information that can make you better at negotiating, just like any other piece of information. >> and it can get you more of what you want. in the end, that's what we're looking for, how can i get more of what i want in these interactions. >> good to know. thank you. >> certainly. today's elevator pitch also studied business, this year's winner of annual smart pitch challenge for his life of custom smartphone cases. let's find what entrepreneur and amanda steinberg, founder of daily worth, a finance media company for women, think about this pitch. >> hi, my name is dwight peters, i'm the founder of crowd cases. we are a tech accessory brand

with a social mission. we help nonprofits fund raise and build awareness by finding and smelling smartphone cases that represent their cause. they are sold on our site. $7 from every case sold is donated to the nonprofit of the week to help fund their social mission. our goal is to inspire generosity and intentional giving by fusing multibillion smartphone accessory market with the multibillion cause market. what's unique is how we come up with the design. we use their talents to change the world. every week we partner up with a nonprofit organization and we issue a design challenge to our community of graphic designers. after seven days of submission a winning design is selected and turned into a winning edition and the winner designer wins 500 buck. we're seeking $100,000 for a 20% investment in our company. join the crowd.

cro crowdcases.org. >> i see why you won the pitch. that was amazing. >> how did he do? >> he got in a lot of information in a short period of time. that's great. social entrepreneurism is where it's really at. i'm very critical of these things but i'll tell you what, you raise the first $90,000 and you can come to me for the last ten. >> sound like a plan. >> amanda? >> i've been tracking and building socially responsible businesses for ten years. i commend what you're doing. congratulations. >> thank you. >> i want to make sure the social responsibility isn't the leading selling point for the cases. for a lot of people they want a high quality product and they want it to do good in the world. i would recommend you add to your pitch a reason why these cases are amazing. maybe an aspect of the design. the social responsibility is a piece of it but not necessarily the lead selling item. >> thanks, you guys. would you take another meeting? the moment of truth. norm? >> yes. >> we got your answer, with a

check of $10,000. >> amanda? >> absolutely. >> thank you so much. and if any of you out there have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, all have you to do is end us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. include a short summary of what your company does, how much money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. you never know. somebody watching the show may be interested in helping you. it's time now to answer some of your business questions. norm and amanda are with us once again. the first one is about getting larger companies to think your business is attractive. >> what is the best way to make my business attractive so that i can put it out for sale for larger businesses? what are some of the things i need to do that larger businesses are looking for when they look to buy a smaller firm? >> amanda, one thing i like is she's thinking, what is her exit.

not necessarily it's tomorrow but it helps her plan her business. what can she do? >> first thing is to make sure her brand is separate from her personally. the second thing, this is the advice i've gotten over and over again, make sure you're building a solid business that's going to last for a long time. ultimately people want a healthy, growing, profitable business. the most important thing is building a business that works. >> norm, you've sold businesses, very profitably. what did do you? >> the first thing you have to do is when you start a business, you should build it like you're going to sell it, whether you do it or not. if you do that, you use best practices. what i did is i went to the biggest guy in the industry and said, some day you're going to buy my business. tell me what you'd pay the most for? they came in and did a study for us for nothing. and some of the things making sure our contracts were right. making sure we had the right management team. so, there's a lot of things you can do and a lot of research for nothing you can do. the most important part is

having a great culture within that business besides everything else. >> right. interesting. i like that idea of going in and asking them. i thought of that for job interviews before. i want this job, what do i have to do so you'll consider me. you're doing the same thing for selling your business. >> you'll be surprised how accommodating businesses can be. >> let's move on to another on, out access to capital. >> what's the opinion on the show about crowd funding? do you think it's a flash in the pan? do you think it's going to change the way things are going in this country? >> well, crowd funding is terrific. it's the only place you can get donations and only give away rewards. it's going to evolve. people don't understand, maybe they look at kick starter and see completions. only 30% of all deals are completed. you have to do research and make sure you have a chance of

competing. it's going to evolve into actual raising and giving away stock and things later on. keep touch. >> even when equity krout funding becomes legal and it should some time maybe this year or perhaps next, even when that becomes legal, you still have to get to those people. that then depends on your own networks unless you have a fabulous idea that has somehow caught on and somehow become viral. >> but there's incredible changes happening as a rule of the jobs act that will make it easier to find those people. right now if you're raising equity investing you can only go to accredited investors dh means they have to be high net worth individuals and aren't a lot of those people and hard to get to. one of the most amazing things happening in evolution of crowd funding, while there's limitations to make sure investors are protected, there will be a much, much wider pool of people you can go to. >> but yet you still have to do something to get -- you'll be

one of millions of people trying to get to that money, like on kick starter, but it's possible. you just have to do something exciting to kind of bubble up to the -- >> you have to have a great idea, no question. >> the answer to the question is here to say and only going to get bigger. >> finally, a question about franchising your brand. >> what's the best step to start to franchise your company as a service company? >> i think the first step is to say, is this even what i want to do, right? >> definitely. and is it something scaleable. if you start franchising a company, you want to think of that as separate from your core business so you can license it and raise capital as a separate enty so it doesn't impact the core business of what you're doing. >> is this a chis list of thicks you should ask yourself? >> we're in the midst of franchising a restaurant. you have to prove concept.

you have to prove it can be duplicated time and time again. have you to have a cookie cutter model so all your manuals and whatever else you do have to be transferable to somebody who buys the business. >> we did a piece actually last week about a company before they're going to franchise here in the u.s. they actually open other ones overseas because they said that is a great way to test if your manuals and everything else work before you test it here where you only have one shot. >> the same thing with our restaurant business. they told us we needed seven units open and two had to be outside of new york city to prove the concept. overseas, exactly. >> so great to see you, norm. great to have you here, amanda. thanks for everything today. we appreciate all you watching the show today as well. if you'd like to learn more about anything on today's show, all you have to do is click on our website. it is openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segment, web-exclusive content with more information to help your business grow and follow us

on twitter @msnbcyourbiz. next time, e-commerce is taking their success offline. >> if we can have retail be a form of entertainment, build community through this store we think we'll see more and more glasses. >> how opening brick and mortar locations is helping them expand their optical brand and get new customers. till then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker every day. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm working every day. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm saving all my pay. ♪ small businesses get up earlier and stay later. and to help all that hard work pay off,

membership brings out millions of us on small business saturday and every day to make shopping small huge. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. actually it's republicans who could pay the real price on the voting rights act. when it comes to riling up a conservative audience, one slab of red meat is especially possible, court dashing. those activists judges, activists courts, out there thumbing their noses at people undermining the constitution with their unchecked liberalism which is what makes what the five member conservative majority of the supreme court did this week so ironic. the way the court invalidated