match.com's secret to dating and business, try new things. you'll love this small business advice coming up next on "your business." ♪ i'll always love you small businesses revitalizing

the economy and american press open is here to help. that's why we support "your business" on msnbc. ♪ >> hi, everyone. welcome to "your business." the show that champions entrepreneurship, encourages customers to shop local and offers small business owners information and advice to help take their endeavors to the next level. landing a deal with a major corporation is something many entrepreneurs strive for. but when you do, it's time to celebrate. that is, until you realize you're dealing with large companies may not be all that it's cracked up to be. and that's why one entrepreneur decided to cut his ties.

♪ >> the best thing about it was that roller coaster ride was over. it was a good decision to avoid the big box stores. >> he knows a thing or two about working with big brands. >> the kohl's, walmarts, kmarts, jcpenneys of the world. >> some of them used to be customers. >> we can actually cut and sew garments. we embroidery garments, we die garments and screen print. >> fairfax virginia sun dog had contracts with the most recognizable names in retail for years. >> as we started moving into the 2000, tie dyes were popular. we started getting a lot of requests from the bigger brands. >> while those incredibly appealing and ego boosting orders would be a dream for many small business owners, over time, they were more of a frustration for kas and his

team. >> and we had little bit more consistent business. it would have been a lot easier. >> he wanted to make sure the deals worked. and so he had to make strategic decisions. cost was the biggest factor. >> we couldn't do the work they want is us to in the united states. mainly because of labor. and so rather than starting to turn that work away in 2003, we opened a satellite location which was in virginia. >> as a entrepreneur, he understood why companies took their production to other countries. >> the wages at that time were about $12 a day. and $12 a day was everything, all included. >> in his mind, the second factory was designed to get and keep business. >> we were looking at it as the business is going overseas anyway. it might as well be to somebody that we know, ie, us. >> once the guatemala facility was up and running, the orders

came in. having two locations gave cass and customers openings. >> you could always say we can do it. if you can stomach american labor, we can do it quicker up here in the u.s. if you've got time, we can do it overseas. >> costs may have been lower in central america, but having another production facility so far away turned into much more of a burden than a benefit. >> it took us about seven years to really get a foothold and to start everything working the direction we wanted it to work. and it was a tough seven years. >> his general manager, allison moser, says the operation felt scattered. >> one of the things i do up here is make sure all of our employees and all the different production lines are set. you know, everybody's got plenty of work to do. and down there, it was a very difficult thing to manage. >> it was a challenge to deal with new complications like customs and to not see products as they were coming off the line. there was a clear disconnect.

>> and in guatemala, it was numbers. you didn't get that hands on feeling can you have here. >> to make matters worse, the orders from big box stores were not consistent. >> it was always feast or famine. it was, you know, here's 50,000 units. >> and once the orders were filled, everyone had to sit and wait for the next one. >> you don't hear a peep for a few weeks and you've got a whole labor staff sitting around doing nothing. then all of a sudden, you know, it's boom, you get hit with another 50,000 units. >> the entire process was tough on sun dog's bottom line. >> you have to worry about making the books the next week. >> the money wasn't really rolling in. >> whether you start looking at returns, mark down money, buybacks, all of that profit that you sthi going to be there is not always there at the end of the day. >> cass eventually decided to give up the big contracts. but not without getting an unexpected push from mother nature first.

>> we got hit with a tropical depression. we suffered 42 inches of rain in 24 hours. that's 3 1/2 feet. >> while there was talk of rebuilding, the factory's destruction made it easier to walk away. it also gave cass a chance to take a step back and think about what he wanted to do next. >> it let me get back to core business as opposed to trying to chase, as i call it, chasing dollars. >> as a result, sun dog now has customers of every size. >> we have actually tried to focus in on middle sized retailers and smaller to small mom and pop t-shirt stores. and we're actually able to do better work, better design and quite frankly, they'll allow you to make some money. >> gone are the days of relying so much on large orders. but it doesn't mean they don't come in. they're just handled differently. >> those bigger orders tend to take a little more logistical support to make sure you have them in the right place in the right time. we're able to get them through

without pushing our smaller customers to the side. >> while cass won't close the door on all big deals, he believes sundog is headed in a better direction without them. >> we've got hundreds of customers. so if one of those customers decides they want to go a different direction or somewhere else, it's okay. whereas with the big box store, how do you replace a kohl's or a walmart it? was great to say and to brag that did you work with the big box stores. but when you look at the bottom line, the real bragging rights are what's in the bank account. >> with only a few more weeks to give gifts during the holidays, we have plenlty of great ideas for you to get for your staff and best clients. this year our stocking stuffers are made by socially conscious women business owners. here to tell us about these gift that's keep on giving is colleen debase, she is the director of digital media exchange.

great to see you. >> thank you. >> i love this segment. we did it last year and got great ideas. so let's start. question get through them all. the first one? >> so, yes this comes from a woman named victoria lyndon of victoria, texas. she was in hawaii. she was inspired after she had a cup of joe that was delicious. it is a smooth coffee. it is not like starbucks. she decided to create this company. and when you buy the coffee, the proceeds go to support clean water causes. more than a billion people around the world don't have access to clean water. we really love this. >> you can give it to a whole office. >> exactly. >> and we love the holiday packaging. it is a perfect gift. >> okay, scarfs are beautiful. >> we love these. we thought those to be really good if you have hipster employees. so this comes from a woman inspired after a trip to cambodia to start her company. and her company is called crama

wheel. when you buy a scarf, you support a cambodian seamstress and you provide a school uniform to a child. >> it means so much more. especially when the gifts give back to something else. now these are beautiful boxes. >> these were one of the more unusual submissions. these are boxai. this is a box within a box within a box. and there's all the pictures of bees. the couple take the pictures and create the boxes. it is to pay attention to the dwindling bee population. >> so there is a note inside. >> when you open them all, you get a little message at the end. it says thanks for all you do to make life so sweet. you can customize this. we were thinking if you're a business owner and want to give these, you could do anything like if you have a new service that you're going to be doing in

the new year, you could announce it. it may be a clever way to let your customers know. >> these are bracelets here? >> these come from a mother-daughter duo in kentucky. i'm actually wearing one of them. >> what is the name of the company? >> horse feathers. and it's chelsea farmer and her mom tammy. and they have a very ecofriendly studio. this is refurbish metal they use. proceeds go to supporting causes like the arbor day foundation which replaces trees in areas where there is wildfires and things like. that and we also like these for staff or for customers. you can customize them. can you put people's names on them. these are for men, by the way. you can put your office he could order nantz on it or some sort of -- something that makes it more meaningful. >> totally. >> okay. these bags. >> yes. >> they're like makeup bags. >> or toiletry bags. i think these are good for

business travel. these are activist bags. they come from katie rock. >> what is the name of the company? >> activist. all the bags and products support girls sports around the world. they support girls running programs in ethiopia. >> this is great for trouble the dog. >> so sweet. >> he is very soft and fluffy. and he comes from sheila duncan of marble head, massachusetts, who had a lot of cancer loss it's her family. she was inspired to create him because he brings joy and happiness to whoever has him. her company will donate trouble the dog to children's hospitals. >> about it way, sometimes it's nice to give your clients, not them gifts, but gifts for their kids. >> that's what we were thinking why this would be a good gift for staff or clients. anyone with a family. even if you don't have a family, it's a nice dog to have. >> need a little comfort.

and then this chocolate, last but never least. >> this is delicious. yeah, rescue chocolate. it is made by sarah gross of brooklyn, new york. and she is a big animal lover. she has a pet pitbull. she wanted to create this to raise awareness. it is called peanut butter pitbull. they can good pets. and we were impressed by this 100% of the proceeds go to animal rights organizations. so very good cause. there. >> thank you for all these ideas, again. not only does it make you feel good to give it. it makes them feel good to receive it. you get to create a dialogue, right? you're telling a story that may get your clients or employers attention more than if you just gave them a fruit basket. >> maybe it's something you want to incorporate into your own business, too. having a special cause or mission. >> thank you so much, colleen. >> of course. after selling spark notes to barnes & noble and shutting down the popular music sharing site e-donkey, serial entrepreneur and his partner started okcupid

in 2003. it is one of the most popular dating sites in america. in 2011, match inc bought the company. we sat down with sam in dallas to talk about everything from the importance of knowing what you want to why you should try new things. ♪ i'm looking for a new love baby a new love ♪ ♪ yeah, yeah, yeah >> a lot of people are very protective of their ideas. they don't want to share ideas with anyone. they're afraid they'll be stolen. ideas ultimately are cheap. it's the execution that matters. i could have told you i'm doing a dating site. a lot of people do dating sites. it took the particular execution of my partners and toy make it happen. ♪ what you want

>> it's important to be clear about what you want out of your business before you start it. some people want a business that's going to pay their salary for the rest of their lives. some people want a business they want to sell for millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. those are different kinds of business that's require different people on your team, capital, they require different sources. we wanted to build a business that we're going to live on forever and spark notes has. but we were real is tick that these were likely be companies that we to sell to other businesses. i think it's hard to be visionary when you're looking -- when you're at the bottom of the valley and you have a big hill to climb. you have to have a long term vision. you have to go back to grurndmental beliefs and not be swayed by the short term myopia

and what you believe the world to be true. we knew the internet wasn't going away. we knew spark notes was going to be a thing that people were going to use for years. and in that moment in time, it didn't have value. but we knew in our hearts that we had built something valuable. we knew the internet was going to be something big. and so we put those things together. spark notes is something you want to own. not sell. something you want to be buying, not selling. ♪ would you let me love you long time ♪ ♪ boy i'll let you love me, love me long time ♪ >> be articulate about a long term vision for the business. tch didn't have a ceo for two years. it was a diverse, distributed business before. each person was running their own business. there wasn't someone pulling it all together daily, talking to everyone, sharing best practices and really just articulating a clear vision for the future in business. people get excited about that. people get excited when they understand there is a vision that we're all, you know, all going in the same direction to

pursue. ♪ every phase is a challenge with how did you get known? how do you get people to use your product? it's difficult in a category like dating where you have the matches and the harmonies of the world spending hundreds of billions a year on marketing and you're just a little guy with no marketing budget. one thing that small companies have to their advantage is they take more risk. they can operate without a lot of the constraints that big companies have because they're more risk averse. think about the things your competitors, the companies you're trying to disrupt could never do and that often will be, you know, sort of blue sky space for you to just work in. no one else is going to do that. no one is operating in that space. ♪ i'm looking for a new love baby ♪ ♪ a new love, yeah, yeah, yeah >> when we come back, we answer your questions about running your small business including

one on how to combat online shopping cart abandonment. and customers spent more than $abillion with small businesses on small business saturday. we'll talk about why it was so successful and how to keep that shop local movement going through the holidays. 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.

it's time now to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help. les mccue enis the president and seo of predictable success and author of the book "the sinner gist: how to lead your team to predictable success." angela joe kim is the author of "savor the success." great to see both of you guys. let's get to the first question. fwz cyber sales. >> as a small business selling online, what would be the most effective method to combat shopping cart abandonment? >> i love this questionment i work ford a company called cooking.com in 1998. we thought about that most. you see people find stuff, get it in the shopping cart and never come back. you deal with online sales. >> all the time.

>> what do do you? >> we have an auto responder that goes out after two days, five days and then ten days. and after five days, we send out an incentive for them to come back and actually purchase the product. i would say two out of ten customers it will convert. the other thing that i experienced -- >> so for this is people you have their e-mail address? >> exactly. and they've gone through the entire process. if they go through the entire process, i've been on the receiving end. i put something expensive into the shopping cart, i'll get a call from a sales rep. i find that very infective. >> i guess for people where you don't have their e-mail address or they haven't gone through the registration process, it's a lot about keeping your site simple. >> simple and also having other compelling options that will, frankly, get their e-mail address. so if they're on the site and they've gone so far as putting something in the cart, they have a vested interest. so have something up there if you're a service company, if you're selling products an opportunity to get a coupon for something. and for the future. that means you get their e-mail

address. you pump them into infusion and some piece of software like that. and when you've done that, once they come back on your site, presuming they use cookies, you're able to track the point at which they drop off and then go fix that page. if you have one page where people are falling out a lot. maybe the order form is too complicated. can you simplify it. get their e-mail address if you don't already visit. >> okay. great ideas. let's move to the next one. this is from an vent plan better marketing his brand. >> how can our company better promote itself to those associations, meeting planners and large corporations coming into the region? and is it social media? >> that's good. he has a target market. how does he reach them? >> you'll due respect to bob, i'm not making this a personal step about him, is it social media just needs to go away. no, it's not social media. it is a hygiene factor. it will be great tore bob to make sure he has whatever linked in, facebook, other social media sites that he has them well

looked after. but it's not going to revolutionize his business. if he's doing trade shows, go down stream go, to the hotels, the economic development units, the people asking people who put trade shows on into the area and make relationships with them. start down stream. social media is way upstream. you lose business if you're not there. but it's just a hygiene factor. >> getting into the hotels, et cetera, do you co-market with them or how do you get them to pay attention to you? >> networking and relationships to his point are so important and happy clients are the ones that talk. when you build a viable business, there is nothing more popular -- more effective than your happy clients. i think the networking and co-marketing with hotels and as a consumer who recently did a trade show, you know, i will go on the website. if can you advertise on the website, i was looking for, you know, an event planner and someone that can do a trade show services. so that's a great place to get

the word out as well. >> les and angela, thank you. so great to see you, as always. iffive in you out there have a question for our experts, you just have to go to our website. at dress is openforum.com/yourbusiness. when you get there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel or if you'd rather, you can e-mail us your questions and comments to this address. the holiday season comes at us faster than expected every year. so make sure your business is ready for the busiest sales quarter by keeping the five tips in mind courtesy of yfs magazine. >> one, make a good impression. potential customers may be coming across your brand for the very first time. so make sure your store windows and website are in order. two. don't forget visual merchandising. give gift items or services better positioning both online and off line. three, upsell and cross-sell.

the holiday season draws more customers which means more opportunities for addons and complimentary merchandise offers. train your sales team to know the ins and outs of everything your company provides. four, have adequate holiday staff. you do not want your customers to get stuck in a long wait. and five, use social media. engage holiday shoppers on facebook and twitter with sales promotions and entertaining content. get those unfinished data entry jbz and small projects done and out of the way. for basic tasks, you just don't have the time to do yourself, check out our website of the week. taskrabbit.com is an online marketplace that lets users outsource jobs. just post a description of the task and how much you're willing to pay someone to do it. prescreened candidates sign up to complete it for you. it was music to the ears of small business owners as cash

registers were ringing loudly on this year's small business saturday. the national federation of independent business reports customers spent close to $5.7 billion shopping local this past post thanks giving saturday. that's a testament to how the brand of small business saturday now in its fourth year has taken hold with consumers. susan sobbit is the president of american express open which created and champions the concept of small business saturday and the shop small movement. great to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> so this clearly hits a nerve with people. it's grown so much in the past four years, why do you think it resonates so much? >> well, we started small business saturday when we were just coming out of the depths of the recession. and our customers were telling us, we need more traffic. and now that really has taken hold. it really hit a nerve. consumers everywhere really value their neighborhood

retailers and small shops. and they really want to do -- they want to take their own action so they can help. and it has just ballooned. i have to say we never thought it would be this big. we certainly hoped it would. we're thrilled. >> can you give me an example of a small business where this really changed things for them during the holidays? >> oh, absolutely. i mean there are thousands of stories i have to say. and we will tell a lot of these stories as well. we want other businesses to learn from those who have really leveraged this program for their success. but businesses have been having their best days in their history. we just had a business told us this morning they had the best day on small business saturday this year since they opened in # 2004. we had folks tell us increases in sales, they doubled, they tripled. the traffic has doubled that's come through their doors on the day. thousands of events all over the country in regards to neighborhoods coming together.

we've had parades. we have had street performers. we have had punch cards for consumers to go through their stores. >> we've been doing this year is going around main streets in america and everybody cares about the small businesses in their neighborhood. i think they need to be reminded sometimes. i go to the local toy store much it's not always the most convenient for me to go there. but i think what would happen if that toy store wasn't here anymore? it's worth it for me to take the extra walk outside instead of buying something online. >> yes. there's a couple things, first of all, 52 cents of every dollar that you spend in your community stays in your community. >> and that's something small businesses need to market more. don't they? >> absolutely. >> and most small businesses are hiring employees from their local communities as well. and they are also the folks would are supporting through their taxes and through their own contributions, they're supporting the local infrastructure of your community. and the biggest point that i always love is a strong downtown

community means higher housing prices for that particular town or community or neighborhood. and so a strong downtown center really enhances lifestyle and enhances wealth and enhances employment. >> okay. so i'm going to leave you with this question. knowing all of this and knowing the excitement that generated around small business saturday and the support, what can small businesses do to keep this going until next saturday after thanks giving? >> absolutely. look, the small business saturday is really just meant to be a focus of activity in order to spur awareness among consumers, how important small businesses are to them. it's an opportunity for small businesses to ride the wave that we have created through small business saturday. and that's really what they should continue to do. now consumers have awareness. they're reminded, keep reminding them. keep telling your customers, hey, shop local. it's really important. the other thing that they should

be doing is finding strength in numbers. what we have found is when neighborhoods come together and in a dozen or two dozen businesses come together and create some sort of event, it increases traffic. everybody needs more customers walking through their doors. so increasing traffic is such a vital element to in continuing the shop small movement. ? we found that exact same thing on the successful main streets across the country. susan, thanks so much for coming on, giving us a recap. congratulations again. >> thank you. continue to shop small. thanks so much for joining us today. if you missed anything from the show, just go to our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. once you get there, you'll find all of today's segments plus web exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. and please don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. next week, the owners of a landscaping company came up with

a holiday solution to what had been an annual dilemma. >> it's very difficult to become a stronger company. you are shutting down from the beginning of december to the beginning of march. it is the number one best inv t investment we made for our company. xbr we'll tell you how this company went from nine months of work to operating all year long by investing in a seasonal franchise. until then, i'm j.j. ramburg. 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.

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. this is david duherst. he is most famous for two things. one, famous for losing what everybody thought was going to be a gift of a u.s. senate seat to him. he lost the republican primary for that seat last year to a guy named ted cruz. everybody thought that he was going to get that seat, but he lost it and that's why we have ted cruz now. the other thing he's famous for is using the fact that he is the lieutenant governor of the state of texas to try to spring one of his relatives out of jail when she got arrested for shoplifting