they're called preppers. people who are ready for any type of disaster. natural or man made. how entrepreneurs are marketing to them. and she had a great business plan for a new shoe company until someone ripped off the idea. protecting yourself. coming up next on "your business." >> announcer: 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. welcome to your business, the show dedicated to giving you tips and advice to help your small business grow. business psychologists will tell you that consumer purchases are generally based not on pragmatism but on emotion. that's why a growing number of entrepreneurs are marketing to a phenomenon of our times. those who fear the unknown and want to be prepared in the event of a disaster or domesticter rich. we found one business that practices what they preach.

>> so important for people to prepare and to protect their families from what's coming. and for me, it's not if, it's when. >> i'm proud to be a prepper. i think most people are preppers. >> while they proudly call themselves survivalists or preppers, darren and dave, the owner and manager of california-based off the grid survival supply store also call themselves entrepreneurs. >> we carry the products that you may need in an emergency to take care of your family. >> that's one million volts, okay? now, volts won't kill you. all right? but what's going to happen is every muscle in your body when you get hit by this is going to do this and then you will go over. >> if you have to start with empty plastic bottles, get the ball rolling. know that you have a supply of water that you can go to. again, three days without water and you are dead. here's the question.

how much water do you have saved up? you think you're good. >> we usually keep like three cases of gallon waters. which is probably like 12 gallons at the most. >> that's terrible, guys. that's terrible. okay? >> fear is an immediate motivat motivator. it's there for marketing for good and for good. >> adam walter is a professor of marketing at the nyu stearns school of business. he says entrepreneurs like darren and dave use fear in a very direct way to market their products. >> what i would like you to do is make your plan and work your plan. >> one of the keys is if people are feeling fearful, you give them a tool or tools to deal with that fear. you give them a sense of control. >> i equate it back to insurance. our demographic is people who want to be comfortable and survive if there's an emergency. >> they actually manage the fear, overcome it. even though the chance of something bad happening is more, we want to know it's something

we don't have to worry about. >> fear is a strange emotion because it's beneficial, but it's also very destructive at the same time. >> like many preppers, dave, the store manager, lives on a compound at this remote location. he keeps his family and emergency supplies secured behind this steel fence. >> let's say it's a terrorist attack or major earthquake or crash of the dollar, when that takes place, i highly suggest somebody has -- you have weapons to protect you and your family. those people that come to take, they're not going to be asking nicely. >> when that moment of crisis arrives, dave feels he's going to be well-prepared. he's got a solar heated stove, water supplies, independent energy sources, a defensive lookout tower and a pantry stocked to the ceiling with food, medicine and weapons. darren told us one of his most important marketing lessons came from listening to one of his customers, a prepper who came in

right after the store opened. he was stationed at a nearby military base and a small comment made a big impression on darren. he goes, cool store. i wouldn't buy anything here. i said why is that? he said because this is all survival kits. where is the mini survival wallet with the file if i need to file to get out of a handcuff if i'm being kidnapped or where is the mres, where's the knives. >> right away darren expanded his selection and sales took off. his customers didn't need to be lured into the store. when they arrived, many walked past the front counter to get advice from other customers in the back. one was a dedicated prepper who knew a lot about the gear and the politics. that was dave. >> what i would say to them is, you know what, please get your head out of the ground, open your eyes, look at what's going on around you. >> dave came to me and said, hey, i just want to hang out in

your store. i want to talk to other people and i want to share ideas and learn what they're doing. >> that's when darren decided to hire dave to man the front counter. >> my only complaint dave is, he's so good at talking, sometimes he's not selling. but the great thing is, most people don't make their major purchase on their first visit. they want to go home and study it and make sure they get the right thing. >> if you're a prepper or a survivalist and you're interested in selling to other preppers and survivalists, at that point they're concerned about the situation at hand. they're already engaged. >> adam says, industries that market products to answer people's fears, whether it's health fitness insurance or something else walk a very fine line. >> overwhelming people with fear, knowing that fear -- what do you find at that sweet spot,

that moderate level of fear and give them a sense of control so they can mitigate their fear. >> if something happens, god forbid, i would want to be prepared for that. this company is clearly tapping into people's emotions. what can we learn that they did. two great guests to give us insight. marketing expert and change agent, the head of the hayesly group and larry wing et calls himself the pit bull of personal development. he's a best selling author and his latest book is called grow a pair. how to take back your life, business and sanity. larry, nice name. that is a memorable name for a marketer. great to see both of you guys. >> it's always great to be here. >> yeah. >> what i was thinking as i was watching this, a bunch of things about why they're successful. one of them was something that

was told to me this weekend. tell, don't sell. they walk the walk. they've got the expert to talk to the customers. the customer who was an expert. >> always about being the brand that you are. being the promise that you want to deliver. that's what brand is all about. that and something you put on a cow or a horse. does fear work? absolutely. but every emotion works. it's just do you want your brand associated with that? certainly, there are companies, remember the y 2k scare when we got prepared and used that and nothing happened. the key thing for you, do you want fear associated with your brand, is it part of your message? does it relate back to what you do? >> lister mint is a great -- listerine. you can tell what brandy use. they use fear of cavities and halitosis and make sure you have good breath. there's lots of ways to use fear. >> that's interesting, larry. i was about to say the same thing. fear is not necessarily fear of a terrible disaster, but it could be fear of i'm not

dressing correctly for work. so is fear a good way to look at this, what problem am i solving? >> what we heard growing up about love makes the world go round is an out right lie. fear makes the world go around. everything we do is because of fear. never kid yourself about that. it absolutely works. turn over to the religious channels, we're not selling heaven. we're selling fear of hell and we don't sell watches so you can be on time. we sell watches so you won't be late. we buy deodorant because we're afraid of smelling bad and people won't like us. everything we do is based on fear. people buy from me. not because they're hopeful to find out how to be successful. it's because they're afraid to be a failure. you've got to learn how to use fear correctly and not just hit them over the head with it and scare them so much they won't

buy. use it to sell. >> should we all be taking a look at our company, no matter what we sell and say, okay, how can -- what fear are we answering? turn it around? >> it gets to the message directly. i think that's the key question you want. he's exactly right. we might be delivering the message different. you can even sell fear with humor. there's lots of different ways to do that. whether it's about bad breath, whether it's about car safety. it's about everything. but in essence, we're trying to do the anti-side. it gets back to fundamental things. every politician practices this every day. they try to get you off the fence. they say something positively or negatively to move you off that fence. that's what advertising is doing, that's what selling is doing. to be able to move that. fear is a great motivator and always has been. again, do you want to be associated with the ultimate fear. >> right. >> that's really a thing you want to be able to have a good understanding of what your brand

is. you looked at larry winter, you know where he stands when he has a book that says grow a pair, you know exactly it's going to be direct. that message is very, very clear. >> you don't know larry very well. he's not direct at all. a shrinking flower over there in the corner. larry, one other thing i took from the piece, the idea that he listened to his customers. customers said this isn't the product i want and he listened and changed it. >> there are a lot of great business lessons in the video we just saw. he does listen to his customers and his customers determined what he was going to eventually sell. they sell the best. we should all listen to our customers. he hired a customer to run the front desk because the front desk needed that kind of expertise. there's a lot to learn from that. >> larry, jeffrey, thank you for this advice and discussion on this piece. you guys stick around, we have more with you in a minute. imagine what it must be like to come up with a business concept, share it with other

people only to discover someone else ripped off your idea and made a business out of it. feels like a dagger to your heart, right? well, one business owner says that's exactly what happened to her. >> cassie has a thriving washington, d.c.-based shoe business. but this is not the company she thought she was going to start. that business was launched by someone else. >> they took the lease and almost took the same name. it was one of these things where is this reality? did i really just about open the store and have someone take this idea from me? >> it all started in 2003 when cast i quit her job as an accountant and open a specialized shoe store. >> what i was planning to do is offer something unique and offer this edited collection which a lot of people go to boutiques

sfiskly for that. >> she was sharing her concept with friends and family. >> i was very proud and excited. was telling lots of people. >> at a wedding, cassie told some folks about her idea and she says those people shared the news with others. soon after, her dream turned into a nightmare. while attending a trade show in las vegas, she quickly realized her business idea may have been lifted. >> i went to meet with one of the designers and i had already previously met with her. she said, i am so confused. somebody just came in, i thought they were with your company and they had similar name and obviously they're buying my collection. i thought it was you. i said, well, that is strange. do you happen to have their card. >> she called the phone number and got quite a surprise. as she recounts the conversation, it went something like this. >> i said, well, my name is cassie rendell and you're not going to believe this. i was about to open the same exact store in the same location

and really almost had the same name too. you must be shocked. bit not a coincidence. we actually heard about what you were doing and we thought it was a great idea so we decided to do it ourselves. and at that point, i was speechless. >> it's hard to imagine that someone would actually casually admit to stealing her idea. but whether they did or they didn't, cassie says because it was still just an idea, her hands were tied. >> there was nothing i could do. there was nothing tangible that i could go back and act upon. i'm not sure i would have anyhow. >> it took months for cassie to get over her disappointment. but she was determined to stick to selling shoes. and that's when devastation turned into inspiration. >> out of that really disparaging, heart-wrenching experience, my business was born. >> cassie reached out to other professionals for a crash course

in catalog sales. while some doubted her rs she was determined to push ahead. >> at the time people were thinking, shoes in a catalog is never going to work. >> of course, that was then and this is simply soles now. staying true to her original mission, she owns a company selling designer names and she's even added designs of her own. >> my brand is lilybea. i started it in spring of 2008. it's become the best selling collection. >> wheel she admits she's tight-lipped about her ideas, i'm a little bit more cautious. i think that would be a wise suggestion. >> she's found peace with her past. >> i am where i am and i'm grateful to be here. so i really strongly believe that, good or bad, every experience helps mold you and shape you for what's to come. >> small businesses have a higher fraud rate than larger companies.

so how secure is your business? here now are five ways to protect yourself from some common forms much fraud and cyber crime courtesy of the u.s. small business administration. one, separate your personal banking from your business accounts. that way fraudsters can't get their hands-on all your money. reporting deductions on your tax returns will also be easier. two, use a dedicated computer for banking. make sure it's one that isn't used for any other online activity, like social media, e-mail and web surfing. these tasks can make machines more susceptible to vulnerability. >> three, have a password policy. make sure your employees change them regularly. also, set rules that passwords are complex and use different passwords for different online and system accounts. four, do background checks on potential employees. the first step to prevent fraudulent employee behavior is to make the right hiring

decisions. and five, secure your i.t. invest in a firewall as well as anti-virus, malware and spyware detection software. when we come back, jeffrey and larry will answer some of your small business questions about how to expand both your staff and your marketing reach. and it's that time of year to go back to school. so i return once more to my alma mater who learn more about succeeding with a minimum viable product. you're comfortable here. it's where you email, shop, even bank. but are you too comfortable? these days crime can happen in a few keystrokes. american express can help protect you. with intelligent security that learns your spending patterns, and can alert you to an unusual charge instantly. so you can be a member

of a more secure world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. time now to answer some of your business questions. jeffrey and larry are back with us once again. the first one is about effective ways to grow your employee base. >> what advice do you have for young companies as they're looking to grow their teams? what best practices on hiring would you have? >> larry, i'll start with you on this one. what advice do you have for him? >> go slow. especially when you're new and you don't have a lot of extra money, the most expensive thing you'll ever have as eye line item in your budget will be people. you make darn sure you really need to hire more people and that you can afford to hire more people. first thing i would do is ask

more from the people who already work for you. as far as best hiring practices, ask the tough questions. ask them what books they've been reading lately. ask them what they know about you and your company and your industry. if i'm just looking for a job, let them look someplace else. >> if they don't know anything about your company, it's not worth talking to them. >> the network of family and friends and that group. i've always found the best people that way. the other thing is i'd ask them why wouldn't i hire you? it's amazing how many people actually answer that question in an interview. when i talk to that potential hiree. -- >> they don't say because i work too hard. >> something stupid like well, i'm always late or things like that. it's amazing how i can just check them off the list. i'm with larry. ask some really direct and hard questions. >> okay. let's move on to the next one. here's a question about getting more exposure for you and your company. >> i would like to ask how the

companies that you've been involved with have successfully garnered media attention and utilized that to their best ability to either launch a product or bring their brand and image to a larger scale. >> this is your expertise, jeffrey. >> i love opm, other people's money. i'm going to get other people to talk about my product. the best way to do that is deliver it beyond anything than you've done before. people will recommend you and that's the best way. do a great job at what you're doing. >> is it just a matter of delivering something great, or do you also have to ask your customers, hey, write about us. >> there's nothing wrong with asking. you should be asking. i say in my last book, never stop selling your company. always keep selling. i can tell you the number of times i've gone in someone's office, a friend of mine and they go, i didn't know you did that. i fail to do that. i learned early on, sell, sell, sell. >> larry? >> well, the worst -- jeffrey is

exactly right. the worst thing to do to get attention is say look at me, look at me. it's much better to have other people say look at him, look at him. you'll get a lot more attention that way. the way you get people to say look at him, look at him is to be amazing at what you do. in today's times, you can't be good. you've got to be amazing. you've got to have great product and amazing service and there's nothing wrong with asking people to talk about you. >> yeah. i really like -- i've had great experiences. it doesn't occur to me necessarily to post-it on facebook or write about it. if a company asks me, then i say sure, i'll write something, i like you. >> it's the best kind of advertising you can get. >> let's move on to the next question from paul. he writes, we've been marketing to small groups much users getting one-on-one feedback. when is the right time to broadening it to larger groups? >> we're talking about the same thing here a little bit. if you market to small groups,

hopefully they'll get the word out for you. >> yeah. but i would throw a word of caution. make sure you're able to handle the large groups. one. worst things to do as a small company is to do a really good job for the customer base that you have and say, look we're ready to expand and you go out and you actually -- it all works. you start to get people's attention. and then you're not capable much handling all that extra business and then you screw the whole thing up because everybody's level of service goes down. be real careful when expanding to make sure you really do have the resources to deliver the service. >> you know what's interesting this question also is he said getting feedback from a small group of people. >> i don't understand the difference between feedback from smalls and large. when it comes to feedback, i'm with larry in terms of how you sell and the way in which you're able to handle that. add a zero to feedback. there's ways to sell to people than you did before. when we start, we start off with

the small group and they're usually a lot like us. we want to expand beyond those like us. again, this is a great example of social media. it's a great way to do this in very easy ways and there's lots of survey tools out there that you can use that are free and some you have to pay for. you should be adding more zeros here. >> also about getting feedback, this gets to your point, larry, about being ready to handle. on feedback, if you get feedback from people, you have to be prepared to be able to react to it, right? >> yes. especially negative feedback. for a guy who sells all that fear, i get a lot of negative feedback. you have to be able to handle that criticism and learn from every critique that you get. >> larry and jeffrey, i love talking to you guys. i hope you're back soon. if any of you out there have a question for our experts, all you have to do is go to our website, the address is open forum.com/your business. once you get there, hit the ask the show link. open forum.com/your business.

or you can e-mail us your question and your comments too. that address is your business@msnbc.com. are you constantly for getting all of the passwords for different websites? check out our app of the week. robo form is a free password manager and form filler that allows one click log-ins in a quick and easy way. save the app to update new log-ins from your mobile device or desktop. information is protected by an extra security pin. if your phone falls into the wrong hands, your information is still safe. i think one. most interesting concepts in business today is the idea of a minimum viable product. a few months ago, i went to my business school reunion at stanford and sat down with a handful of professors to talk to them about what they see as key factors to business success today. we have the last piece in the series for you. i chatted with russell siegelman, a lecturer in management who spent seven years

at microsoft and 11 years as a venture capitalist. i started by asking him to define mvp as it relates to companies. >> a minimum viable product is the idea that you create a simple -- a low resolution perfect. it allows you to put it in front of early customers and see if they respond to the few pieces of function, the few use cases that you want them to respond to. in other words, try to address the core of the problem and don't build lots of bells and whistles. because that can be a lot of waste. you can spend a lot of time building things that customers don't care about. >> this isn't even about starting up. it's about when you're launching a new product as an existing company or service. >> in fact, some big companies, one company here, multibillion dollar company, this is how they launch new product. >> you strip a product of bells and whistles and get it out to customers and see what they think? >> yeah. it's all about experimentation.

see if customers have some interest in doing what you're doing, even at an early stage, the sooner the -- the earlier the better. in a sense, what you want to find out is whether you're solving the probable plem before you invest a lot of time and energy. >> it's hard, when you have an idea for a product or service, you can see the big picture, the perfect picture, how do you strip it down and still test it, still get them something that is viable as a consumer to experience? >> yeah. it's a trick. i'll be honest with you, a lot of entrepreneurs have a struggle with this. they see this grand vision, see this wonderful product. why would i show a limited function that's not, sort of have the final fit and finish that i expect, put it in front much a customer. they're not going to like t the truth is, there's some truth to that, but the truth is, if you find early adopters that care about the need, they should respond to that. if you don't get that spark, you're probably headed in the wrong direction. we do advise really start really

low resolution prototype, simple things and see if you can get customers to respond to that. >> what do you do, ask questions, give them surveys? >> yeah. that's the trick of the mvp. customers stated intentions and what they do are often quite different. yeah, you can do market research, you can ask for surveys, you can ask them what they think. but at the end of the day, it's better to see them do something. that's the whole idea behind mvp. i might tell you i want something, i might tell you i'll use your product. but see if i try to use it. >> you launch your minimum viable product, how do you get enough feedback so you know how to move from there snoo. >> there's nothing special with that. you have to enlist early adopters. those are the people motivated to use the product. you give it to them, they use it, you follow-up. how often did you use it? >> one of the things about internet products, you can watch how often they use. that's a good sign.

>> the key to all of this then is having an open mind because you have, again, this idea of a product and once you get feedback, the end result that you should be getting may be entirely different. >> that is so true. retail entrepreneurs get locked in on the problem, not the solution. because the solution should come from the customer -- i mean, you have to have the vision, you need to direct the vision in a general direction, but you don't want to get too focused at the beginning on the solution because you don't really know what's going to solve the customer's problem. >> i think it's fascinating. we talk about so much about listening to the customers. this is a way to act on it too. thanks so much. >> my pleasure. thanks so much for joining us today. to learn more about today's show, click on our website. open forum.com/your business. once you get there, you'll find all of today's segments, plus web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow and you can follow us on twitter as well.

it's @msnbc your biz. don't forget to become a fan of the show. next week, when you first start your business, every cent counts. quite often, the cheapest place to take up headquarters is right at home. >> it was really a function of necessity. we needed a place to work and the home was the best option for that. >> see how these two entrepreneurs are getting clients to see their start-up as reputable despite the fact that their kitchen doubles up as their conference room. i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business, our business. there are cameras,, police, guards...ds us. but who looks after us online, where we spend more than 200 billion dollars a year. american express can help protect you. with intelligent security that learns your spending patterns,

and can alert you instantly to an unusual charge. so you can be a member of a more secure world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. car companies make pianos. the same one that makes pianos makes motorcycles. i feel like everybody else knew this. i never knew this. i feel like -- if it was just motorcycle and piano company, but it's not. a whole bunch of companies have these kind of combined product lines. behold for example the hyundai piano. it is the same company that makes hyundai cars.