when the economy took a downturn this printer saw the benefit of taking small orders and working more business to business. find out how going small saved his company. and the ceo of 1-800-got-junk with advice on how your business can clean up. that and more coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy. and american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to

present "your business" on msnbc. hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business." the show dedicated to helping small businesses grow and survive. landing big orders is like a dream come true for so many small business owners. unfortunately, as easy as those big orders can come, they can also go. one small business owner was left reeling when his bigger clients took a step back because they were tight on cash. well, it was a major hit, this entrepreneur refused to sit around to see what might happen next. instead, he focussed on smaller clients and built business-to-base relationships that kept his company going.

>> i wouldn't have a business to save my business. >> chip tompkins says clients like rebecca klein and josh wheeler have made his business the success it is today. >> it was the right answer at the right time. >> the owner of we think in ink in virginia knows small business people like rebecca and josh need to be flexible with their spending. >> when you're an entrepreneur and a small business in particular your reaction times to market changes is actually fairly crucial. being able to respond quickly is everything. >> what we have today may be great for today, but in five months, as our business evolves and changes, that needs to be able to change with us. >> rebecca, the owner of rva auctions online and josh, the owner of old dominion mechanical, don't want to waste money on printed materials like brochures or business cards. >> as a start-up capital and cash is really important. it can make the difference between us being able to do a job, and not being able to do a

job. >> you are susceptible to busy seasons and slower seasons and upswings and downswings in the economy. >> that's why chip has made it his mission to help. >> we're commercial printers who specialize in doing short runs for customers that are in sort of a growth mode. >> chip knows all too well what it's like to walk in their shoes. >> it's a local business. printing is very local. we're talking about small ma and pa businesses like mine. little companies that are trying to grow and don't have a whole lot of cash. >> chip encourages clients like rebecca and josh to place small orders as often as they'd like. >> imagine, if you're the customer, and your printer comes in and says why are you ordering so many? you don't need to. i'll give you the same price instead of buying 500 or 1,000 or 2,000, you can buy 100. and then when something changes we'll make the change and print you a couple hundred more. >> we think in ink used to take large orders all the time. but in 2008 the bottom fell out. customers disappeared, and chip knew he needed to make a change.

>> i had stopped trying to sell because it was coming in so fast we could barely handle it. they bought anywhere from three to six month's worth of whatever it was that they needed and then in 2008 they weren't buying any of it because they couldn't afford to. by the middle of november we were sitting here twiddling our thumbs and i said, uh-oh. i got to do something, and i got to do it fast. >> even though chip had been doing smaller runs all along, the light bulb finally went off. >> they loved it. it was not hard to sell. >> he actively pursued more b 2b relationships in order to save his company. his message was clear. >> why buy so many? you don't need that many. something's going to change. you're going to throw half of them away. let's figure out a way to make it easy for you to buy just a few. >> rebecca knows that chip is always willing to help. no matter the size of her order. >> if i call chip and be like i need 36 of this because i have 36 attorneys that i want to mail this to he'd be like okay. i wouldn't have to order 50.

i could scale it proportionate to my project. >> orders small is something most clients never thought about. and so chip had to change a mind-set to get business owners to reconsider ordering big. >> the printing industry had successfully trained the entire customer base all printer, all print buyers that you got your best price by looking for the quantity where you got a price break. the more you bought, the cheaper they were per piece. >> jock says chip's prices are just what a small business owner needs. >> it's part of the solution he brings to us. it's not only just smaller runs but competitive pricing that really works for us. >> if they order 5,000 their price is "x." if they order 5,500 at a time their price may be 2-x but their money is not tied up. >> this model also gives some flexibility. if urgent requests some in the staff can handle them. >> when i've got 20 orders in the shop and somebody comes in with a unique need they have to have it by 3:00 i can butt in line and it doesn't hurt

anything because it only takes 20 minutes. if you're running all big orders and you butt in line you could throw someone off by days. >> having newer printers helps out, too. >> digital printing is why we were age to come up with our business plan. because, there's no make ready on a digital copier. >> chip says there've been some results that even he didn't expect. >> the consultant that works out of their home clearly gets an advantage from it. not only can they do small orders but they can customize them for the particular client they're going after right now. >> jock like many customers, also sought chip's advice for ways to grow his company. >> i'm not a marketing person. i'm not an advertising guy. i need someone to help us design those products and that's where they're great. >> even though competitors have taken notice of chip's strategy other printers in the area haven't really followed suit. >> in 2008 there wasn't much revenue. and this was the way to get it back. and you know high competitors don't want it. they think i'm crazy. that's fine. >> smaller orders have benefited we think in ink. but they've created a little more work too. >> it's harder to do because 12

orders to make up 5,000 for the year, means 12 invoices. and collecting the money 12 times. and depositing it 12 times. et cetera, et cetera. so from that perspective, it's a little more challenging. >> but in the end, it's worth the hassle. chip says these small orders have meant big business for now and the future. >> instead of trying to reinvent who you are, figure out who you are and tell the world about it. package it so that it makes sense. we really didn't change what we do. we just changed a little bit how we do it. changed our message. and it was really fun. for chip tompkins taking in smaller orders turned out to be the key to growing his business. but an approach like that isn't going to help any small business unless you have a proper plan in place. creating a business plan was the big difference between stagnation and expansion for a brooklyn designer who didn't want the rug pulled out from

under her by not having vision organization and an understanding of the competition. >> by many accounts four years after we started her custom carp the design company, malene b. malene barnett was very successful. she designed carpets inspired by her travels around the world and had them hand made in nepal, india, china and mexico. soon after launching she landed her first client. anishka clark gave malene one of her first jobs. >> i was looking for brooklyn designers and i happened to come across her on linkedn and took a look at her website. >> and she got press. lots of it. decor, house beautiful, luxe magazine to name a few. she had a goal to get people to buy her carpet. and she went after it with gusty. >> i attended every event related to my industry. whether it was a cocktail for an

opening of a product, anything related to designer. whether the magazines were giving it, i was there. and then i exhibited in trade shows because that's how i was able to connect with the design community. >> like many entrepreneurs, her work became her life. she operated on one premise. every moment was a sales opportunity. >> there was about survival. basically it was just okay, i need to get a sale. okay i need to go meet this person. i need to be at this event. it was just a constant in in in. >> so constant that malene hadn't had a chance to step back and really take a look at how her company was doing. and when she did, turns out it wasn't doing as well as she thought. while she was working hard and seemingly doing everything right, her sales weren't growing. >> okay. i have all these elements. i have the production i have the talent i feel i have the personality to connect with people. i have the media. so, why isn't everyone flocking?

>> she forced herself to take a breath. and with the help of a program called 10,000 small businesses she got into the weeds of her company to figure out what she could do to turn things around. the result of her research this 42-page document. the malene b. custom made carpets business growth plan. >> it's focused me so much that it's funny in the beginning survival you couldn't think. now the growth plan is keeping me thinking. >> it has sections on aspirations, financials leadership style, the industry as a whole. and it's a road map of where the opportunities lie, and how to take advantage of them. >> and so you take all of your potential growth strategies, put them through the feasibility checklist, pick the one that looks rosiest at the end. >> exactly. because they have to be a match a fit to where you are and where you want to go. now i'm more focused on the different areas where i want to focus on growing. so my two focuses right now are developing my licensing business, as well as focusing on

the luxury residential and commercial interior projects. that's how i'm going to really grow, and again, create a brand that's long-lasting. >> now she's doing something she would have never done before the plan. she's saying no to people. >> so when i hear someone say, oh, yeah i want a custom carpet, and you know, it's a small carpet. i know now, that's just not really going to help my business grow. >> malene's business is on the rise again. and with her new focus, she's also able to have a life. >> i actually cut my day at 7:00 now. i shut down. i used to work as i said 10, 11, 12:00. but i shut it down now so i am working differently. >> differently and definitely better. what do you do when you find a problem that needs fixing? well if you're a disruptor you start a business. brian scudamore started the junk removal company 1-800-got-junk with just one vehicle. now, the company's signature

blue trucks can be found in cities nationwide. because of his success, he's also started two new businesses in the home services sector. in this week's disruptor, we'll see how 1-800-got-junk took a fragmented mom and pop industry and professionalized it. >> i went out and started 1-800-got-junk as a bit of a play on the got milk campaign. our name our phone number our website would all be the same 1-800-got-junk. made phone call after phone call to get this phone number and after about 50 phone calls i finally tracked down that it was the department of transportation in idaho. i kept making phone calls, called a guy in the telephone room, and he said you know this sounds like this is important to you, you've called me three times in the last couple of days, he gave me the number. and the rest is history. but i was so convinced i would get that number that i went and designed the logo as it is today before i even had the phone number, because i knew that that was the brand. so when i come up with something, you know, a vision of where the company could possibly

go i'm determined, i, you know work hard to get there, and i rally people around me to join me in making that vision a reality. disruptive to me means that you're challenging the status quo. you're doing something differently. if i look at 1-800-got-junk we took a fragmented mom and pop industry and professionalized it. we had always said we wanted to be the fedex of junk removal and to us that meant clean, shiny trucks, friendly uniformed drivers, on-time service and upfront rates. and we've used technology to be disruptive. we can have someone go to our online booking engine and immediately dispatch the closest truck. what our customers find is disruptive and it's sad that this is the case but that we do we will say we will do. that's disruptive because it just doesn't happen in customer service like we would expect. we all deal with home services and how often do people deliver on their promises? i think it's rare. we take feedback. we do follow-up calls on every job. and we ask every customer within 48 to 72 hours how did we do. how -- what could we have done to improve? and we're in this perpetual learning cycle with our

business. where we have to always be better and always give the customer what they want and need. we hire an attitude train on school. franchising allows you to build and scale something much more quickly than doing it the first time. so we looked at our business and said how do you do it the 1-800-got-junk way? how do you load the truck? how do you answer the phone? how do you deal with a customer complaint should one arise? it's about picking franchise partners who have the passion who want to drive something and be a part of building something much bigger to the. it's about finding people who are not just interesting but interested. my mantra is always be branded. then if you're always logoed it's a chance to stand out. it's a chance for people to notice the brand, and ask questions. competitors help us. and they allow us to stay on our toes and mike sure that we do a great job and that we're always number one. when the competition comes in and they do a great job, we try and learn from them and say what can we do better than them? if we're so good at taking the ordinary business of junk

removal and making it exceptional, why can't we do it in painting, in moving, and who knows what's next? maybe gutters. landscaping. we want to get into that home and really be the company that's first to mind and that's chosen by a consumer who has anything that they need done around their home. my favorite thing about 1-800-got-junk and where we're going in the future is it becomes an incubator of all these great people who work out in the trucks work on our call center, and many of them ultimately go on to start their own franchise, not just in 1-800-got-junk but in wow one-day painting. almost everyone comes from that internal family and growing into one of the brands. and so what i love about what we do is we teach entrepreneurship. we've got all these interprenerus. people who work in our business and help us grow and have ownership of their own. i see us building a home service empire. billion dollar business and then some. starting a business is always risky.

but there are certain growing industries where there are both immediate opportunity and long-term viability. here now are five hot sectors to consider courtesy of ink.com. one, food e-commerce. entrepreneurs who can provide hungry consumers with the fresh ingredients they want without a high price tag will have a golden opportunity to encourage them to shop online. two, legal mare juan fwha. navigating the regulatory hurdles is a challenge but the growth possibilities are huge. three, agricultural software. technology to help increase farmer's profits is already takingtake ing root in the u.s. four yoga and pilates. the $10 billion market for classes and related products offer tremendous promise since the industry has no dominant national player. and five, relaxation beverages. americans who are sick of the energy drink fad are looking for the exact opposite. sleep aid drinks. entrants should act fast

though, convenience store shelves are already filling up with new brands. some people are just simply efficient. they're incredibly good at managing their time. and then some others find that the entire day has gone by and they've accomplished very, very little. and since their to-do lists are not going away any time soon and there are only 24 hours in a day we have enlisted someone who help us think about how to be most productive. kory kogan is franklin-covey's global productivity practice leader. she focuses on content development for time management project management and communication skills. she's also the co-author of the new book the five choices, the path to extraordinary productivity. it's so great to see you. i think this is such an important topic. because we all have so much to do. >> we do. and thank you for having me. it's a crazy time. >> it is. always crazy. talk to me about these five tips. what do i need to know? >> you start at the beginning with act on the important don't react to the urgent. really there's three problems

we're solving first today. one of them is we're making more decisions than we ever have before. number two, our attention is under unprecedented attack. and we're just worn out. and so these five choices are the process by which we master the skills of decision attention and energy management. choice one, act on the important, don't react to the urgent are the skills of discernment and we say what we need to do is pause, really get mindful, our brain is the number one tool that we need to use. get mindful, pause, assess the situation, clarify it and make a decision to get the best return on the moment for the thing that's in front of you. >> okay. now focus on the extraordinary. >> go for extraordinary. you got to get really clear on what's important. so identify the few most important roles in your life put them in a life wheel. looks like a pie. evaluate how you think you're doing in them. because it becomes very real and then set up vision of success in each of those roles. that really come from the gut. i'm a mother i'm a director i'm a practice leader and then use that framework to make

decisions and discern all day long. every week you should do what we call the 30-10 promise. take 30 minutes before the week starts to quietly determine what your big rocks are. what's most important? could be a big project. but it could be date night with your spouse or partner. or having a conversation with the employees as we're trying to get this business going. so before all the gravel all that stuff comes in get that stuff in to your calendar. because, the research shows the more specific you get about getting it into your calendar the higher the probabilities of accomplishment by 200% or 300%. >> you fill in around it instead of having this other stuff push it down. >> you have to be vigilant. take ten minutes at the end of the day to mark things complete. move things that didn't get done. but be driven by the large things and let the gravel fall in around it. >> this one we already kind of talked about, don't let your technology rule you. you rule it. >> rule it. get very conscious of your addiction. it's a waste. >> yep yep. >> talk to people.

talk to your employees. you try to you know text while you're talking to them. bad news for production. so you want to do that. and then you want to really turn your technology into a productivity engine. fire don't burn out your brain is the number one tool in this knowledge worker age we're paid to think so it needs lots of oxygen the right nutrients. five energy drivers. eat, move sleep relax, connect, pick one of those, get really good, get your brain healthy, because it is needed to drive the high value decisions and the focused attention that's required in the 21st century. >> and i think also just give yourself time to think. stop doing once in awhile and give yourself time to think. >> get yourself into your thinking brain. the frontal cortex will be amissed if you take some of that time how much your own productivity both personally and professionally go up. >> absolutely. all right. well thank you so much for coming on the program these are incredibly helpful and i think sometimes things that we just forget about because we're so busy doing. right? >> so busy doing.

and not everybody is perfect. so try one or two things and you'll be amazed at the results where you're getting the important things done and leaving some of the rest behind. >> really appreciate it. thank you for writing that book so we have a resource to go to. >> thank you for having me. >> still to come jeffrey hayzlett and alfred edmond on automating your marketing and whether to trade mark your brand. american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don't leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it's a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets, traveler's cheques, a lost card. really? that worked? american express' timeless safety and security are now available on apple pay. the next evolution of membership is here.

this week's your biz selfie soms from jenny fulton of mist jenny's pickles in north carolina. i have tasted those pickles and they're really really good. now, we want to see your picture. send it to us at your business@msnbc.com. and it's time to answer some of your business questions so let's get our board of directors in here to help us out. marketing expert and change agent jeffrey hazlett is the head of the hazlett group and alfred edmund is the senior vice president and chief content officer for black enterprise where he's responsible for all aspects of marketing for the company's major franchises. so good to see both of you guys. we have a marketing powerhouse panel today. >> a one-two punch right here.

>> let's get to the first question. it's about landing a contract for business. >> as a certified woman-owned business i get a lot of rfps in the mail and i would love to submit and bid and win a contract for an rfp. i would love any help out there for requests for proposals on tips and tricks on how to actually get one of these contracts. >> i think this is a great question. you get something in the mail you get excited because you fit, but it's actually the pitch that's going to get you the work or not. >> it's not just the pitch, it's also getting to know the organization a bit better. a lot of rfps already have an insider and they're going out to make sure ther gety're getting the best deal from the person they have. find out some of the inflewancers, get to them and see if you have any chance. >> how do you do that? >> linkedin all those kind of things use social media, go on the website. >> also she's a woman-owned

business. there are supply and development councils within the company and each region of the country that's designed to not just eded to match up suppliers with purchasing agents to help you stand out. when all is said and done the purchasing agents want to do business with people who look good. >> and alfred just said something that was really really important and that is there's a lot of support groups inside that group. so there are women groups looking for women business owners. get to know them. they'll help do the politics inside that company. >> let's move to the next question about streamlining your operations. >> with technology is there any way to automate your management your business management or your marketing functions of your business? >> i like that she's asking the questions. it is a big question. >> but there's some rules of thumb i have about the whole thing about automation. and i'll give two big ones. you automate things not people. so using automation to replace

things that really need human interaction almost never works. anybody who has called a customer service line and gotten a thing, not a person knows that. the second thing is to always remember that your automation should be about two things growing revenue and making it easier for the customer on the client, not necessarily making it easier for you. so the most efficient internal processes if they don't result in boosted revenues and a more efficient experience for your customer or client that kind of automation can be very expensive on both ends the cost of getting it and the impact on your business. >> i'm always surprised business owners don't automate certain things that are time consuming. things like their accounting and those types of things. lots of businesses i know that don't even use quick books or some other kind of version of that. but on your marketing side depending on your sides, there's products like hub spot, there's products like mail chimp that make the doing of the e-mails faster, that make the automation so when someone cliques on your website and says i'm interested an automatic letter goes back from the president of the

company which is you. there's a lot of little things like that that you can do that are time consuming and you can utilize every day. >> i think the way for her to think about this is to first go into the business and say where am i spending my time and what is very tedious for me to do and where do i think i could speed things up or what do i need measured i'm not getting measured. >> and how can you sha rink the distance between you and your message and the customer. if automation does that, it shrinks the distance between what your messaging is. >> as a business own, know those steps. do it yourself force. do it first. >> i'm also surprised when we're talking about automation on the finances. you mentioned this. >> all the time. >> how few people really understand their numbers and there are all -- >> the tendency to think that the machinery is going to do it for them. you still have to know your numbers cold. >> but this gives you a way to at least look at them. >> even if you're using

expensive cloud or something. >> let's move to the last question. it's about your all-important brand. >> when a small business or a company is rebranding themselves or branding themselves for the first time when is the best point in that process to trademark the brand that they've created? >> jeffrey? >> well right away you want to start thinking about those things. not necessarily go through the full registration of that but at least trademark it and say this is my prior art, this is my name, this is the thing i'm using. the biggest thing is build your brand. work on the services, work on the product you're delivering first before you even really begin to think about the name. >> first of all, you don't have to formally register for a trademark at the beginning. as soon as you start offering your product or service you should be using that tm symbol because that in effect serves notice to the marketplace this is your brand, this is your trademark. researching to make sure the branding you're going to use is not being used by someone else but then you can -- once you start putting products and services to market you should

use that tm symbol. >> and every time i have started a new company or a new product, the first thing i do is come up with a name, list of names, check it see if there's someone using it and then i go to my attorney and say now go look for those names and see. if no one has it i start to secure the process. >> thank you so much. great advice from both of you guys as always. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> and if any of you out there have a question for our experts, we answer them every week on the show, so send them in. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. once you get there, hit the show link to submit a question or e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. thanks so much for joining us today. if you want to see any of our segments again, we post them on our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. we also put up a bunch of web exclusive content that will help your business grow. you can follow us on twitter

@msnbcyourbiz and we are on facebook and instagram as well. next week we visit a company with an unstoppable can-do culture that starts at the top. are you demanding of your employees? >> yes. >> in what way? >> probably all of them. >> see how setting high expectations drives the invention company quirky to do the impossible. until then i'm j.j. ramberg and remember, we make your business our business. american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don't leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it's a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets, traveler's cheques, a lost card. really? that worked?

american express' timeless safety and security are now available on apple pay. the next evolution of membership is here. another attack in europe. all right. thanks for getting up with us this sunday morning. the sunday the day after valentine's day. it's a day that begins with much of new england in the grips of yet another monster storm. we're seeing record-shattering snowfall totals in some places up there. still no end in sight to that. we're going to be live in boston just moments from now. also brutal arctic chills heavy winds elsewhere in the country. some other records being set there. we'll have an update on that as well. also this morning it's d