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tv   Your Business  MSNBC  December 1, 2013 4:30am-5:01am PST

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hello, 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 businesses usually the focal point and 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 country to find out. our first stop, galina, illinois.ena, illinois. welcome to main street, usa, a series we're doing about companies on main streets across america. today we near galena, illinois, a community rich in history and
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beautiful 19th century architecture. but it's a town that has had to reinvent itself many times, from a lead or boom town in the 1800s to a farm community in the 1900s, today it's a tourist destination. but it's been through a lot of ups and downs. if you'd 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 provide this community? we spent some time finding out. >> carl johnson, carl johnson, 40 years on main street. we moved to galena in 1970. architecturally, it was coming apart at the seams a little. they wanted to redo the town with urban renewal. it was a monumental fight over whether it should pass or not.
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and after that was over, they established a preservation board. >> he started the studio 1 spa and salon 25 years ago. first she started the other end of main street, then moved a few doors up the road and now is at 310. i decided to 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 -- you're laughing. why are you laughing? >> nothing. it's interesting. >> why do you say interest 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 tear 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,
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things like that. you want to be able to give 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 coulter, five businesses, 25 years on main street. last couple years it's been challenging, to tell you the truth. you know, we've got throughthrough some ups and downs in galena, like the town itself i think over the last hundred years galena has a good way of reinvicinienting itself. we're hoping this year we turn that corn err little bit so as things might be getting better east and west coast, that's a sign for p us that hopefully help is on the way. >> steve white, renld view coffee and tea, three years on main street. business is always spotty. it's a seasonal tourist town so, during the summer and the fall we do very, very well.
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during the winter, it gets very, very slow. and spring is kind of -- all depends on whether it's raining or not. >> deb malone, beaver river outfitters, ten years on main street. people are holding on to their money longer. they're not making reservations as far in advanced a they used to. we get more walk-in business and spontaneity than we did in the past. >> david lewis, great american popcorn company, 19 years on main street. my current store front is the fourth evolution of my business. but 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. >> miss kitty, the grape escape, seven years on main street. >> do you feel a responsibility as a business owner here for the
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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 that i'm a 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, the interaction with all the people and things like that. i make enough money to live on, i'm happy, i have the lifestyle i've always wanted. >> galena canning company, 19 years on main street. >> you started with one card table selling one or two products. >> that's it. >> now you have two scores across the street from each other and a restaurant down the street. >> that's correct. >> how have you been able to grow? >> i think the key point to our growth is the quality and
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integrity of our product and maintaining really strict standards. and people like it. you know, and as a consumable item, people come back year after year and now with the internet, if they can't make it to galena, we ship it to them. >> here you go. >> you have sample jar but never label what kind of popcorn it is. >> right. >> why? >> that could be confusing. >> i like the interaction of immediately greeting somebody and then offering them our products and i would rather have that interaction 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 from having to ask, what kind of porp cosh is this and then you having to tell me? >> absolutely. it's a part of it. a good chunk of people are from the city and don't get that level of customer service very often anymore and i'd like to bring that back a little bit.
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>> the weekend's just starting and we see the tourist starting to come in. as everyone told us, this is their busy time so, 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 brundidge, alabama. if you think we should visit main street in your town, just write ut and tell us why. sometimes the most effective marketing is best done right outside your front door. here are five ways you can use hyper local press to your advantage courtesy of inc. dotcom. 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. and as a result, much greater
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value. three, media's always looking for local experts. reach out to your news station, magazine, or station, to offer your insight and expertise. four, give back. hosting a flilen tlopic event 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 month promote it as well. >> one of the draws to shopping main street is you are supporting your local community. there's also a strong consumer movement to buy american. that's why many small business owner who is had been producing products overseas are finding ways to bring that manufacturing back to the u.s. challenge has been how to find the right factory. >> i, being from north carolina, loved the idea of trying to do
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something local. so we decided to come back home. it may have take an few years but rachel weekes can proudly say that her entire line of high. end collegiate apparel is now made in the usa. >> we do everything from fitted t-shirts to tailored hoodies, yoga pants, a cute lounge set that's women's underwear and tank to tops, a varsity cardigan, which was one of the first real fashion items we introduced to the college market. but the founder of schoolhouse admits that fulfilling her in addition bring production stateside hasn't been easy. >> a lot of the factories that are here are not what they were 20 years ago pap lot of the technology that's here is in some ways behind the technology that i encountered in sri lanka. >> that's where schoolhouse used to manufacture all its clothing at a living wage garment factory. in the end, the distance proved to be too much, and that's why weekes and her chief operations officer, susan williams, decided
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to find and partner with local factories. >> i was part of a generation ta 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. >> weekes, who has schools like duke, yale, the university of nebraska and the university of cincinnati among her clients says she's done plen i of legwork. >> finding a big factory partner is extraordinarily difficult. it was a lot of getting in the car and getting on the phone. we'd been travel 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. so with schoolhouse we are
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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, schoolhouse was there. >> at least 120 doors to narrow it down to five. it's been a real hunt. >> as a small business owner weekes learned that face to face meetings were a must. >> one of 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, weekes and williams get a sense pretty quickly as to whether or not a relationship will work. >> when you walk into a factory that has been doing the same boxed 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. you have to have a desire to
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something different. >> meeting with owners was just the first step. >> i'm looking at equipment, at speed, the detail work, the pride the team takes with their work. i talked to some of 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 a final decision. >> the old saying of the secretary knows it all in anl office building, it's true in a factory the operator knows it all. >> school house makes it clear 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 we bring things to but they also bring things to the table. that's one of reasons mitt's nits works well for us. >> there was an eagerness there, a willingness and a fire to want to take on something new. >> they came to us and said we
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had a line of garments we would like for you guys to look at producing any or all of that that you can and more importantly we want to provide you with a consistent line. we sewed up a couple prototypes and were able to come up with a ballpark cost that fell in line with what schoolhouse needed. >> bennett was glad to hear about school house's long-term commitment to his company. that's part of the reason why the factory updated its equipment and adapted it work flow. it's a partnership that will continue to evolve as long as it's a good fit for both sides. >> eventually that will transition over to where we're going to do a full package for them, which i think is a perk for them. they want us to be able to handle the manufacturing entirely. >> as school pz house grows, inevitably weekes and williams will have to find additional factories. >> you always need to have a few factories in kind of your bag of tricks because you want to make sure that you even out their production, but it also metes
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the needs of your production. >> not every factory visit results in a partnership, but weekes is committed to products made in the usa. she wants local manufacturers to know they'll be knocking and they should be ready and tlog listen. we're looking for creativity and partnership and flexibility and that's all it takes, a sort of new generation of leadership that see what is we're trying to do, wants to be a part of it, and is willing to make changes and dust off old machinery 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. it lets you award points for customer purposes that eventually add up to a free item or store credit. customers just need to enter their phone number or scan the qr code on the receipt. the surveillance provides analytics so you can better measure your marketing performance and see who your
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most loyal customers are. when we return, back to my alma mater, stanford business school, to get advice on what women need to know about negotiating. and the winner of the smart pitch challenge heads to our elevator and tries to impress our panel with his line of custom smartphone cases. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does.
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you're saying they actually need to be nice so they don't. >> let's be more precise. >> okay. >> what you need to be and what's the most effective for women is to have a communal orientation in their discussions. so let's frame the negotiation as how can i help you solve your problems? >> but a man could go in there and just say this is what i'm
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looki looking for. >> and i'm great and you should give it to me because i'm great. >> if a woman did that? >> too demanding. not nice. >> you almost prepare the same way -- >> same information. you need to understand what your reservation price is, what your alternatives are, your aspirations. you need to get your proposal, 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 can anybody push back against someone who's 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. >> well, there's less. less backlash. >> less. >> i think what's really interesting is that's really not hard to do because part of what we've learned, women have learned by being in the society, is how to accommodate. and so let's use that, use that
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accommodation, communal orientation, not giving in, but reframing our asks. >> and someone might hear this conversation and think, oh, thi well, women have to ajust to be a certain way but actually not, it's powerful, right? you have a piece of information that could actually make you better at negotiating, just like any other people? >> certainly. >> today's elevator picture also studied business, this year's win over the group college annual smart pitch challenge for his line of custom smartphone cases. let's find out what serial entrepreneur and columnist, norm brodsky and ella steinberg, daily worth, finance company for women, think about this pitch. >> hi, my name is dwight peters, i am eat founder of crowd cases. wary tech accessory brand with a
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social mission. we help non-profits fund raise and build awareness by designing and selling custom smartphone cases that represents their cause. these cases are sold on our site andself $7 from every case sold is donated to the non-profit of the week to fund their social mission. our goal is to inspire generosity and intentional giving by fusion the multibillion dollar smartphone accessory mark wet the multibillion dollar cause market and market. what makes it unique is how we come up with the designs we build a community of graphic designers using talents that change the world. every week, we partner up with a non-profit organization and issue a design challenge to our community of graphic designers. after seven days of submission, a winning design is selected and turned into a limited edition case. plus the winning designer received 500 bucks wasn't to change the world. we are seeking $100,000 for a 20% investment in our company. join the crowd, crowd cases.org. >> okay. well, i see why you won the pitch contest. that was amazing, congratulations. >> thank you.
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thank you. >> see what our panel thinks. norm, you have been to many of these. how did he do? >> got in a lot of information in a really short period of time that's really great. and social entrepreneurism is where it's really at. and i'm very critical of these things, but i will tell you what you raise the first 90,000, you can come to me for the last ten. >> sounds like a plan. >> all right, amanda? >> i have been tracking and building socially responsible businesses for more than ten years and commend what you're doing and think it's incredibly valuable. >> c congratulations. thank you. i want to make sure that the social responsibility isn't the leading selling point for the cases. people want to buy a high-quality product and do good in the world. i would recommend that you add to your elevator pitch a reason why these cases are amazing, maybe it's an aspect of the design that and the social responsibility is a piece of it but not necessarily the lead selling item. >> all right. well, thanks, you guys would you take another meeting, the moment of truth? norm, we got your answer? >> yes. >> would you take another meeting with the check for $10,000? >> right. >> amanda?
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>> absolutely. >> all right. well, good luck on everything. thank you so much. and if any of you out there have a product or a service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, all you have to do send us an e-mail, the address is your business at msnbc.com n that e-mail, please include a short summary of what your company does, what you intend to do with the money. you never know, somebody out there 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 that your business is attractive. >> what is the best wear 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 do that larger businesses are looking for when they look to buy a smaller firm? >> amanda, one thing that i like she is speaking about is what is her exit, not necessarily it is going to be tomorrow but helps
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her plan her business some what can she do? >> the first thing is just to make sure her brand is very separate from her personally. the second thing this is the advice they've gotten over and over again is make sure you're building a solid business that's going to last for a long time, ultimately, what people want is a healthy, growing, profitable business the most important thing doug is really focus on building a business that works. >> norm, you've sold businesses, very profitably. what did do you? >> the first thing you have to do, when you start a business you should build it like your going to sell it, like do you so or not if do you that you use best practices. the second thing and what i did i went to the biggest guy in the industry and said, someday you're going to buy my business. tell me what you pay the most for. and they came in and actually did a study for us, for nothing. and some of the things were 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
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culture within that business, besides everything else e >> 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 will consider me? you are doing the same thing for selling your business? >> you would be surprised how accommodating other businesses can be. eventually, their life blood is buying companies like yours. >> let's move on to the next one. it's about a question about 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 really gonna change the way that things are going in this country? >> norm, i want to hear what you think. >> well, crowd funding is terrific. it is the only place you can get donation and don't give away rewards, but it's going to evolve. and what people don't understand, maybe they look at kick starter and see lots of completions, only about 30 or 35% of all deals are completed. so you have to really do some research and make it so you can have a chance of competing but
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it's going to evolve into actual raising and giving away stock and things later on. so just keep touch. >> but even so, even when equity, crowd funding becomes legal and should some time maybe this year or perhaps next, even when that becomes legal, you will still have to get to those people and that then depends on your own networks unless you have some fabulous idea that has somehow caught on and become viral. >> yes, but there's some really incredible changes that are happening as a result of the jobs act that is going to make it a lot easier to find those people. for example, right now, if you're raising equity investing, you can only go to acredited investors, which means they have to be very high net worth individuals and there aren't a lot of those people and they are really hard to get to one of the amazing things happening in the evolution of crowd funding, while there are still going to be limitations on the amount of your net worth that you can invest to make sure the investors are being protected, there's going to be a much, much wider pool of people that you can go to >> but yet you still have to do something to get -- you're going to be one of millions of people
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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 top. >> a great idea. no question. >> the answer to the question is it's here to stay and it's only gonna get bigger. >> finally, it's a question about franchising your brand. >> what is the best is taupe start to franchise your company, 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 that's scalable, and something that's gonna benefit from economies of scale? i think if you are going to start franchising a company, you want to think of that as separate from your core so that you can license it and raise capital as a separate entity so it doesn't impact the core business of what you're doing. >> is there a sort of checklist you should ask yourself, norm? >> we are in the midst of building a restaurant chain now and whether we are going to franchise it or not is utmost on our minds, so, what has to be is you have to prove concept. that means you have to prove it
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can be duplicated time and time again and you have to have a cookie cutter model so all your man use and whatever else you do have to be transferable to someone that buys the business. >> did he a piece last week, about a company, before they are going to franchise you in the u.s., they opened other ones overseas, they said that is a great way to test if your man use and everything else work before testing it here where you basically only have one shop. >> the same thing with our restaurant business, told us we needed seven units opened and two had to be outside of new york city to prove the concept. >> prove you could do it? >> exactly. >> so great to sigh, norm, great to have you here, again, amanda, hope you come back. thanks so much for everything today. and we appreciate all you watching the show today as well. if would you like to learn more about anything on today's show, all you have to do is click on our website. it is open for ruffle.com/your business. you will find all of today's segments plus web-exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on
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twitter. it's at msnbc your biz and please do not forget become a fan of the show on facebook. next time, e-commerce site warby parker is take their success offline. >> if we can have retail be a form of enter taint, if we can build community through this store, then we think we are going to sell 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 jj ram berg. and remember, we make your business our business. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.
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there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. the balance of power between heckler and president. at the start of this first sunday in december, vet first day in december, in fact, we are mulling over the question of when things begin and how they will end. president obama redoubling his efforts this week to keep immigration reform alive, what's the path forward? is there a path soared in with the clock ticking down on the u.s. war in afghanistan, president hamid karzai has been refusing to sign the security deal that would keep some american troop notice region. could he be sending a message to the

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