small business owners work together to revive a downtown filled with empty storefronts. we continue our series, main street usa here in bedford pennsylvania. we have that and a lot more coming up next on your business. we're proud to present your business on msnbc. >

. hi there everyone. i'm jj ramberg and welcome to your business. the show that gives you tips and advice to help your small business grow. in the past few months, we have taken you around the country to see what life is really like on main street usa. from galena, illinois, to brun damage, alabama. i've been chatting with small business owners to find out what's working for them and what's not. today, i want to talk about a group of entrepreneur who is didn't like what they saw on their main street. they came together with a vision. with some help from their downtown manager, bedford, pennsylvania, has turned itself around. >> today we're in bedford, pennsylvania. about halfway between pittsburgh and harrisburg, pennsylvania. this is a town that's been around since the mid 18th century. we're about two files off the

interstate. bedford has always been a great place to stop. but about a decade ago, main street was in trouble. as one generation of small business owners retired or left, nobody was coming in to take their places. the result was a lot of empty storefronts and that did nothing to bring in customers. so today we have a story of revival. a story of a group of business owners that came together with a vision to make main street once again a popular destination. >> may name is julie dull. i've been the manager for downtown bedford, incorporated. this is my sign. >> what is the main street manager's mission? >> we're here to revitalize downtown bedford. economically, socially. >> why was it created? >> i actually was one of the retail merchants in our downtown and we had some success fulmer chants but we kind of did our own thing. we felt disorganized as a town. >> what did main street look like a decade ago?

>> it wasn't unsafe. but i think we were to the point we knew we had to do something before it got worse. i'm elaine, i own a store. i've been in business 29 years. >> you were one of the real pioneers in the revival of this community. why? >> about 15 years ago we noticed a lot of the other shop owners were retiring and the next generation was not coming in to take over. >> hi. i'm gloria. i'm the owner of eleanor's shop and i've owned the business for nine months. >> you grew up here. you've seen downtown. what was it like when you were a kid and then ten years ago and then now? >> when i was a kid, everybody came to town on friday night. when i was in high school, it was much different. there were a lot of empty storefronts. ten years ago, there were some stores, but not near to the extent. not near the variety. >> was it hard in the beginning to get a lot of people on board in the revitalization here?

>> one. very first meetings we had, somebody brought a picture that a local elementary student drew of our downtown. it was a picture of walmart with a walmart parking lot. we just said we have to do something now. >> what turned this town from a place where people didn't really come to the little town that could? >> well, i think a lot had to do with getting a main street manager. somebody that their sole purpose was to make this downtown area thrive. >> the town needed a visionary. it needed a leader. people were okay to follow. >> i think we needed an organizer, which i love to organize. so that was fine with me. >> hi, my name is tammy wily. i've owned bedford candies for three years. >> what changed here? >> it's a combination of everything. a lot of the buildings have done a lot of work. you hear customers say how nice the town is and they enjoy

coming here because of that. >> how did you figure it out? we talked to a lot of people who want more businesses to come in. we don't know how to attract them. we started with the facade program. i'm michael and i own the bird's nest cafe. i've been in business for three years. >> how have you used the money? >> the front of the building was painted with a grant from that. my signs both on my windows and outside, that grant was available that they would pay half for the signs. so if you're going to spend $500 on a sign and it's only costing you $250, that helps a lot. >> hi, i'm rick a, i own the coffee company here. we've been here for seven years. when i purchased the building, it was an eyesore. we applied for a facade grant and it was a matching grant. >> would you have been able to do what you did if you didn't have that grant? >> probably we did a little more because we had the grant, yes. >> once the grants became

available, more people were interested in opening businesses in downtown. >> then i started working on streetscape projects. >> i'm brian spec, the founder of bad boys bistro. i've been here for four years. >> have you seen the community chains since you've been here. >> prior to some of the stuff getting done here, it was friday nights, one or two cars. now the streets are full. >> what did the sidewalks look like before they were repaired? >> terrible. >> like they were uneven? >> uneven, cracks, in disarray. >> i was literally in the visitors bureau one day and said where is downtown bedford? oh, boy, this is not good. we've gotten over $1.3 million that we've put back into our downtown and we redid sidewalks, put in pedestrian light, welcome banners, signage. >> fixing the sidewalk is great but can it really change everything? do those little things really change everything? >> they do. everything that happens in a small community like this definitely helps business in every way. >> we do a lot of marketing and

promotion of bedford. we started a bedford app which i'm really proud of. >> running a small business is hard. people have families. there's so much to do. how do you get them to then take time to help the community, too? >> it's just what we do. is that a good answer? it's just what people here do. >> you know that saying, if you build it they will come. wins realized that, i think i want to be part of downtown bedford. >> if you think we should visit main street in your town, please write us and tell us why. the e-mail address is your business@msnbc.com. as of this week, title two of the jobs act goes into effect making it possible for start-ups to start the process of raising funds through equity-based funding. here to talk about that is sherwood northeast, the owner of an advisory firm for groups looking to get into the crowd

funding space. alfred edmond is the media -- he's an entrepreneur himself with his brand much bow ties. slaf a ruin inis the co-founder of one of the largest crowd funding programs. great to see you guys. >> thanks for having us. >> sherwood, we've been talking about this since you started lobbying for this in washington. give us an update. what does this mean? >> i think this is the biggest change to the securities laws in eight decades. so we haven't been able to use general solicitation to reach out to investors since the law was crafted. but now for the first time we're going to be able to use the mechanisms like the internet to go out there and go to credited investors and say i have a great idea, help me fund this and grow a business. >> put this into layman's terms. i, jj, have a great idea for a new pen company. i can put it online and say to everyone out there, whoever comes to my site, hey, come give me money for my pen?

>> you can put it out there to anyone but the thing is, you can only take money from accredited investors. >> how do i know who is accredited? >> that's the thing. you have to verify. before it was self-certification. investors would say yes i meet the criteria, which is $200,000 of income or a liquid net worth of $1 million. now the burden of proof falls on the shoulders of the entrepreneur and they have to verify and certify and make sure that the investors are accredited. >> okay. but that will change? >> that will change -- >> as far as having only being able to go to accredited investors? >> only with title two. in the future. >> in the future in title 3, you can do funding for both. >> indy go go is one of the names in crowd funding. one of the biggest. is this something that you guys will move into. right now it's a donation-based program. i can put my pen out there and

say give me money, i'll give you a pen. >> it's not just donations, it's that or perk-based. really anybody can start a campaign on indigo go. this is totally moving in the right direction. when we came up with the idea in 2006 and launched the industry in 2008, our dream was to go into equity crowd funding along with the perks and other things. but then we found out about the regulations that we're talking about from the 30s and said we can't go there yet. in our wildest dreams, we thought it might change in 20 years and maybe we'll be able to have support equity crowd funding and look within four years, there was the jobs acts being signed by president obama. >> i have to imagine, which way it's based, a lot of the tips will be the same. a lot of the things people have done to have successful crowd funding campaigns will work for equity crowd funding as well. >> that's a really interesting point. a lot of people are saying, wow, equity crowd funding is coming

out soon especially in title 2 and 3 at some point in the near future. they're saying this is a new world. to the point, we're building a lot of the practices we've learned in the last four years. when we're talking with the s.e.c. and the regulators, they're asking about best practices and how to learn from that to have the best possible evolution of the industry. >> you talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. is this interesting as a way to raise money? >> one of the things we're telling people at black enterprise is that it's very important for entrepreneurs to pay attention to the regulatory developments as this thing evolves. you already have existing players like indie go go that are paying attention, people are poised to jump in. we did a piece on pro hatch.com. there's bolster.com. these are other different types much crowd funding entities designed to take advantage of this idea of getting equity to small business owners. you really have to pay attention to the regulatory developments

so you can best position yourselves to work with the right people and accomplish your goals. >> how do i pay attention to this? where do i go? >> there's an education series. success with crowd funding is one. also a book, crowd funding investing for dummies. it's a dummy gield. you studied and learn what you need to do. there's no statutory requirement for disclosures, per se. so you would think that it's logical that you've got a business plan, an offing memorandum. that's the stuff investors need to make an informed decision. it's best practices. that's the stuff we talk about in our series to help train entrepreneur toss raise money from the crowd. >> do you have a sense of a timeline? you have to go to accredited investors right now. the next step, when will that happen? >> we had a chance to meet with the chair in june. all the questions were answered that the s.e.c. was looking for.

the draft rules are sitting on their plate to be brought to the attention of everyone else. it's a matter of time. i think we're on the cusp of the rules coming out. i believe that the s.e.c. wants to see how it plays out with the accredited investors first and then come out with proposed rules for title 3 and unaccredited investors. >> let's step back one second. if you go into he cequity crowd funding, i suspect your answer would be different. is there something that's worked well on indie-go go. >> some advice? you need a good pitch, be pro ak tich and find an audience that cares. some of the data we see is having a good video as part of your campaign, you'll raise 114% more money than if you don't have a video. campaigns will hit your target on day 46 of a campaign. we know that e-mail is one of your number one tools, twitter number two. facebook is number two, twitter number three. things like this are

interesting. we have a series of data showing you how to optimize your raise on indie-go go. >> it's so great to talk about this. it's really exciting. congratulations to you sherwood. i know you've been working hard on this. >> you can stick around for a little longer. customer service can make or break your company. think of zappos, it was built on exceptional customer service. i called in with an issue. the agent on the other end of the phone was so incredibly helpful that i told my friends about it. how well do you think your staff is connecting with your clients? here are five tips how to improve employee and customer communication kus courtesy of yfs magazine. use practical examples, give your employees realistic scenarios and the best ways to deal with them. two, train employees with a three-step model. start with a talking script you use when calling and communicating with customers,

train with mock situations and implement a shadow program where new hires are bud i had with more experienced employees. >> three, let employees develop personal connections. host community events where you can introduce staff to your customers and they can bond with clients. four, consider hiring a commune kap indications coach. a coach with work with your staff and also walk them through the different communications styles and thousand respohow to each i five, train employees on customer profiles. your staff will get a better understanding of how to provide good service if they have a good sense of who your customers are. stick around. we have more to help you achieve your entrepreneurial excellence. we'll go to pennsylvania where a booming shoe company is thriving after the long time owner sold the business to his employees. today's elevator picture hopes he's barking up the right tree with his unique line of coffee tables.

building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. the timing, the actions, the reactions. everything has to synch up. my expenses are no different. receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. i'm john kaplan, and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. sharing ownership of your company with employees is a great way to reward them when times are good and not be

beholden to an increased salary when they're not. >> tracy davidson from wcau from philadelphia tells us about employee-owned businesses. >> it was really an easy decision for us. >> he just sold his babe i his baby being the footwear company that he and his wife started 21 years ago. they sold the company to their employees. >> it is about the community and it is about how can we share the wealth that we create to build a community that is built on health, built on sustainability and built on opportunity for people to grow. >> it's 100% employee-owned company through a type of plan growing in popularity call an esop. employee stock ownership. >> the number of 100% owned esops have grown significantly. >> employees own shares in the

company whchlt there's profit, everyone shares. pretty motivating. >> the guys were running around in the warehouse. people don't have that motivation off the bat. once they realize that they have such april stake in the company, how well the company performs matters for them, it just gives you that extra boost of excitement to do your job and do it well. >> ken baker, ceo of new age industries, which makes plastic and rubber tubing is proud to tell that you his company has been an esop with 30% ownership since 2006. >> what it is, is a way for shared capitalism is what i call it. shared capitalism is when you have the company, management and workers all working together sharing in the wealth of the organization or the enterprise. >> want numbers? the average value of an employee's share account which is their share of the company at new age. more than $64,000. and -- >> esop companies don't lay off

people as readily as nonesop companies. they actually create jobs faster than non-esop companies. >> back at dance owe, peter and his wife are happy to share the wealth. >> the pleasure and the value you get out of this is to be part of the community not just to have a lot of monday any your bank account. >> it's time to answer some of your business questions. alfred and slava are with us. the first one is the timing for a new hire. >> struggling with the concept of when to hire a new employee. you hear the right time is when you can no longer move forward without that employee. on the other hand, we know that talented team is the biggest and strongest growth engine. when is the right time? >> slava you built your company from three people to 75. how do you make those decisions? >> i mean, my suggestion is to keep the company as small as

possible and as lean as possible as long as possible. in small groups is where you're the most productive. that said, if you find someone who can fit across the board, i would try to grab that athlete. >> what kind of person to hire. >> you want to ask yourself questions. one, are you losing sales because somebody is missing in some spot or are you missing the opportunity to grow sales because somebody is missing in some spot? so if you tie whatever do you with either lost sales or an opportunity to gain sales that you're missing, i think it makes it easier to decide when to add bodies and what kind of brains and talent to add. >> simplify it. an entrepreneur wants to know about getting funding by building relationships. >> my real question is how to leverage key strategic partnerships in a particular industry in order to find the right investor. >> it's a good question. that's exactly what you have to

do. >> yeah. well, when you say leverage, my question is always how much time are you spending talking to and listening to the partners? i know people who have so-called strategic relationships. when is the last time you talked with them, hung out with them, well, we traded e-mails. if you spend time, they'll tell you who they talked to, the investors they have, the right types of investing for that kind of industry and that kind of company. and whenever i hear a question like that and people say they have a strategic partnership, how much are you listening to your partner. because they will tell you the answers if you're spending your time around them. >> also, maybe start talking about this before you need the money, right? >> absolutely. >> instead of thinking about how can i get a partner to help build my business, i'd be thinking about how can i build my business to get the right partner. because it's one of those things where the partner doesn't just want to come to you and you want to be careful if they want to

keep meeting, meeting and nothing positive comes out of it. they need to prove to you they want to join you. i would focus on building the business. >> you prove to them they want to join you, they will repay you by introducing to you people. >> absolutely. they're going to see it from their perspective that it's worth a partnership to participate with you. as opposed no joining you -- >> the next one. this is a question about tax breaks for your small business. >> i have a team of five full-time employees and expenses accrue as we all know. there's always that lovely thing called taxes. where are tax breaks for small business owners? where is that information? >> it's a good question. because it's complicated. we hear a lot, right? whenever they talk about job growth and tax breaks. how can you figure out if they apply to you? >> go to irs.gov and search business deductions.

they got a great, like menu of things ranging from whether your deductions for being a home-based business, the deductions for hiring certain types of employees. it gives you a panoramic -- >> i have to say when you go to irs.gov and figure it out. i get nervous. >> search business deductions. if you go to the site and wander, that's a rabbit hole. if you search business deductio deductions, di it so i know it works. you'll get a specific page that list deductions. >> because there are a number of deductions, april couple of years ago with the affordable care act there was a number of deductions people didn't take because they didn't know about it. >> they keep changing. they expire. it's the kind of thing that you or somebody in your organization needs to check on every six months or so anyway. >> i imagine you're going to say go to your accountant. >> that's probably right. i don't know if you need to take my advice. i like to check out the kaufman

foundation. they have trends and they're keeping the content fresh. besides that, if anybody has good ideas, i would like to hear them too. >> thanks so much you guys for answering the questions and two really great resources to answer that last one. appreciate all of your advice. if any of you have a question for our experts like the ones we just answered, go to our website, the address is open forum.com/your business. once you get there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. open forum.com/your business. or if it's easier for you. send us an e-mail. the address is your business@msnbc.com. alfred and slava had really helpful advice. now let's get great ideas from small business owners like you. >> my previous life before founding this company, i was a corporate attorney and we were trained to lock our snefs our office and work on problems around the clock.

the best lessons i've learned and best feedback has been to set aside whatever concerns you might have about the feedback you'll get and just be out there and talk to people about the way they want to use their product. >> it's basically keeping that monthly cash burn super, super low until revenue is coming in and you're so overwhelmed that you have to start hiring people to help you. we usually make this mistake where we anticipate that the product or service is going to sell, we start hiring, we start spending money on marketing, but then it doesn't actually work. now we have to cut costs, fire people. it's a classic sieg will and a big mistake we make all the time as entrepreneurs. if you feel like you don't have an easy to use invoice management system yet, check out our website over the week. simple invoices is a free web-based sis thaem streamlines all of your invoicing needs. customize the wording, features and payment methods of your

invoices to what works for your business. you can set up recurring statements and choose from multiple exporting capabilities like excel, pdf. this picture created a company that capitalizes on the beauty of nature without hurting the environment. >> how is it going, chad dorsey? >> hi there. tree unique, we believe in thinking differently. at the same time, creating one of a kind tables. we take pride and pleasure in creating something that was made from mother nature into a beautiful piece of furniture. you know, these pieces aren't something you see every day. they make for great conversation pieces in your or business. we get customers from different art festivals, several stores in downtown baltimore and through word-of-mouth.

actually, right now i can't make them fast enough. the demand is too high. i would like to be able to meet demand but i can't because of funding. we're seeking $100,000 to fortify the company and, therefore, with the money 30 to 40% of it goss marketing and promotions, the rest to operating costs and supplies. the investor would get back their investment plus interest and also i'd like to add the fact that we don't cut down trees to create our product. but we go to lumber yards and cut from already cut-down trees. >> i was waiting for that part. >> you did a great job. this is beautiful. thank you so much for coming on and pitching this. >> i appreciate it. >> we know the furniture is beautiful. >> did he get everything in there. >> it's a timely idea. i like it a lot. maybe focus more on the price point. i understand what that would be. if you want to have a lot more inventory, where will you store that, do about logistics.

>> i would like to know more the price point and the markup. what is your base cost and how high is the markup when it gets to retail. i can get an idea how much money you're making per unit. i want to know how much of the money is going to be used in terms of expanding your production capacity. i know you taukt talked about marketing. your biggest challenge is higher volumes as you get greater demand. >> i like that you showed the demand. i wish i could make them faster. people want them. thank you so much. good luck with everything. thank you for bringing in the table and showing us your beautiful work. thank you guys for your advice on this. if any of you have a product or service, you want feedback on your chances of getting interested investors, all you have to do is send an e-mail. the address is your business@msnbc.com. please include a short summary of what your company does, how much monday incompetent 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.

thanks so much for joining me today. if you missed anything, you can catch it on the web. just go to open forum.com/your business. you'll find all of today's segments there. plus web exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. you can follow us on twitter. it's@msnbc your biz. >> until next time, i'm jj ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. has it's ups and downs. seasonal... doesn't begin to describe it. my cashflow can literally change with the weather. anything that gives me some breathing room makes a big difference. the plum card from american express gives your business flexibility. get 1.5% discount for paying early, or up to 60 days to pay without interest,

or both each month. i'm nelson gutierrez and i'm a member of the smarter money. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. >> thanks for joining us this hour. i should say not just happy friday, but happy crazy your government is shutting down and turning out the lights friday. the new just broke during chris' show that the u.n. security counsel has approved a resolution to relieve syria of its chemical weapons under a plan that will inspect them, secure them and destroy them. russia and china were among the countries voting unanimously for this resolution tonight on syria's chemical weapons. this is a previously unimaginable diplomatic resolution that had been seen as an intractable problem.