the opener of a socially conscious cosmetics company rallies her customers to lobby capitol hill to ban dangerous chemicals in skin care products. and smart business lessons from the headmaster of the school of rock paul green. we've got that and so much 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 everyone. i'm j.j. ramburg and welcome to "your business" where we will spend the next half hour exploring the world of small business. over the years we've heard our fair share of business owners complain about too much government regulation but one entrepreneur is doing the exact opposite. she spent time in washington lobbying for more rules around her industry deeply concerned about the toxins she says we're using in our everyday products she started her own cosmetics and skin care line and wants others to copy the way she's doing things. ♪ >> as women, when we lock arms we decide to do something, we can move mountains. >> reporter: and that is exactly

what she is doing with her skin care and cosmetics line beauty counter. >> i started beauty counter because i had become impassioned with the environmental health movement. >> reporter: after watching the documentary "an inconvenient truth" she became concerned with everyday dangers in our environment. >> we were being exposed to toxic chellicals through our personal care and cosmetic products. >> reporter: while hoping to elevate the standard of safety in her home the mother of three discovered startling facts about the skin care and cosmetics industry. >> we have not passed a federal law regulating this industry since 19.38. they've introduced over 85,000 chemicals into commerce since world war 26 of which almost 80% to 90% haver in been tested for safety in human health. >> reporter: these realities soon evolved into the inspiration for beauty counter.

greg thought her vision was simple, create a line that was 100% safe with high performing results. >> the first phone call i made was to a celebrity in fashion makeup artist who was the first leading makeup artist to try to use safer products on her clients. >> i absolutely wanted to prove as an industry expert that this could be done. >> greg brought on mia davis, the former operating director of the campaign for safe cosmetics. >> the idea was to really have the two pillars equally represented on our platform. i started meeting with a number of consultants and labs. we took a list of almost 1,500 ingredients and said we can't use them but the products have to perform. >> reporter: the trio stumbled upon a few people willing to give it a shot. >> what i love about greg she's extremely passionate and unstoppable. >> we spent a couple years raising capital, running between

our tiny two offices hardly sleeping at all, screening hundreds of chemicals and ingredients. >> reporter: beauty counter launched in 2013 with the highest level of transparency and unparalleled standards in safety. >> we created an incredibly strict ingredient screening process, one of the most health protective processes in the country, if not the world. >> reporter: she's recruited nearly 8,000 to make up a robust network of passionate consultants. >> they're sharing the story of beauty counter and making better choices. >> reporter: products are also sold on the website and strategic partnerships with brands like j. crew and gwyneth paltrow's lifetile site goop have a big part in the boomingis with. >> we just passed the 1 million mark, shipped over 1 million products. we grew over 500% last year. we've grown almost 350% this year. >> reporter: greg's mission goes beyond just growing her company.

with the company success under her belt she set her sights last year higher on capitol hill determined to be a voice for change. >> we have taken action in washington, meeting with earn in washington introducing them to beauty counter to a company that is pro-commerce and pro regulation. >> reporter: she wants to empower politicians in hopes of inspiring significant legislation reform. >> we wanted fda to take action to screen for harmful ingredients and protect american citizens. the eu banned close to 1,400 ingredients from all of their personal care products of which the united states has banned 11 to date. >> reporter: this past year they celebrated their second anniversary staging a major stunt in hopes of getting lawmakers to take action. >> we hosted beauty counter socials across the country, we had well more than 1,000 and during the socials we encouraged our consultants and their guests to call their senators and to tell them that we want more

health protective laws. we placed thousands of phone calls and they called us back. they were saying they heard us loud and clear. i think it's safe to say we're not creating movement we are already a movement. >> beauty counter is a perfect example of how one idea passion, and a real commitment to yourself and a world that you believe in is absolutely possible to make anything happen. >> we always say beauty counter we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a great company that's financially rewarding, solid and sound, simultaneously having significant social impact. i mean it's the greatest job in the world. while greg is trying to get laws changed on capitol hill a recent legal decision by the supreme court is having a major impact on small businesses. the court ruled that companies can be sued for discrimination when hiring if it can be shown they took religious beliefs governing clothing or timeoff.

nancy is an attorney at a law firm and former business owner. great to see you, nancy. >> nice to be here j.j. >> as a small business owner, when i am interviewing someone, be specific for me about what i need to be careful about. >> don't if anywhere near the protected classes, finding out about their race religion family status the need for the ada disability, those topics are not job related. they become job related like they did in the abercrombie & fitch when you make assumptions. when you see somebody who apparently has a disability and make the asurpgssumption they can't do the job. if there is something obvious like in this case the woman had a burqa on and they said she'll

never meet the dress code wherever we can't have her, you need to talk. you need to have what we call the interactive process or dialogue. you just need to talk about the situation. >> okay so -- >> is there any reason they can't do the job. >> if i'm understanding you correctly, don't bring up any issues that could be controversyial if if there is something that is obvious, bring it up so that you can make sure that you are all clear on will this affect your job performance or not. >> right but bring it up in a job related way. >> okay. sorry, go ahead. >> is this going to get in the way of you performing the job duties. >> got it and if the answer is no, then you have to go ahead with the assumption that it will not. >> exactly. >> okay so you cannot then if their answer is no and you think yes, that's not fair. >> that's not fair. you never want to make assumptions. if you make assumptions about anything based on accent

appearance, anything, one, you're doing your company a disservice because you're putting your company at risk and you may be losing a great candidate. >> there might be someone really great out there and you're making asurpgssumptions and cutting them out of the process unnecessarily. >> exactly. >> you talked about religion and some other protected classes. in small businesses the consideration is often very informal when you're hiring people. and so and that's what makes it a little bit more you know that's one of the reasons people like working for small businesses because it's informal. are you suggesting that in the interview process you need to be a bit more formal? >> i think you can still be informal but you need to be strategic. >> okay. >> what you want to do is you don't want to have just a conversation, because you don't learn how they're going to do the job, what their skill set is. you learn if you want to have lunch with them but you don't learn can they actually do what you want to do. you want to be more strategic in the questions you ask.

>> tell me where i can go i'm an hr department, usually the founder, head of marketing or something, so i'm going to be doing a lot of interviews. where can i go to educate myself to know what kinds of things i can bring up and what kinds of things i shouldn't bring up? >> well the department of labor, www.dol.gov, has a great website in terms of just giving businesses, there is a section aimed towards small businesses giving them general information on protected classes on some of the laws they need to be anticipating to follow just an overview and then each state has oftentimes their labor employment department, whatever it's called because that varies state to state, also have websites that tell you about the state laws. >> got it. it's really important to understand these, because you want to be fair to the people that you are interviewing and you don't want to put your company in a precarious situation. >> exactly. i mean one mistake, hiring a bad

employee for a small business can do a small business in either because the person is just toxic or because they sue and a suit will take a small business down. >> right, okay. >> so you want to be very careful. >> you want to be very -- but we're not talking about once you bring someone on. we're talking about how to evaluate whether you should bring somebody on. >> exactly, but that's part of the key, because these discrimination lawsuits happen and can happen over the interview. >> right, and again you don't want to just make assumptions and not hire someone because of false assumptions and you want to protect your company as well. >> right. >> okay. but then think about as we are talking about assumptions, if you're making assumptions about somebody who took a different path to get there who has a different life experience you may be hurting your business because they may have a lot of value they can bring. >> exactly. >> and the assumptions aren't just protected class asurpgs ssumption

assumptions. >> have an open mind in general. >> right. >> nancy, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about this. it's important for every small business owner to understand these laws. >> thank you, j.j. we've told you in the past about sites like task rabbit and mechanical terp you can hire temporary help to get things done for your company. think of the same concept but where you have access to people with business degrees from places like harvard or wharton. hourlynerd.com connects you to thousands of the world's top business minds giving you a chance to think through your business challenges with the help of an mba business consultant or expert from a fortune 500 company. you explain your need and the site will match you with a group of experts who can best help you. developing smart money habits early on is important to the future growth of your business. here are some tips that lead to good financial management courtesy of ink.com. one, don't pay yourself too

much. keep in mind the difference between revenue and profit when figuring out your salary. two, defer hiring admins until later on. at the beginning you need to stay lean and agile. plus when you have the ability to bring people on in these roles later on you'll have a clear understanding of their jobs. three, use software for tasks you can automate. this can help you put more time back into your business. you can find programs for things like e-mails and team functions. four, hire a tax professional with early stage startup experience. it is crucial to understand your tax obligations, so this is one place you do not want to skimp. and five get right with budget alignment and allocation. make sure you're directing resources to the places you'll need in order to hit each of your growth milestones and you'll want to revisit this often in 2002 paul green founded a music school in ifily fill to

teach schoolchildren to play rock 'n' roll. informally he called it the school of rock. he opened franchises across the country. in 2009 he sold the business. now he operates a single school called the paul green academy of rock and he's about to open a rock music college in woodstock, new york. we caught up with him in between classes in this week's "learning from the pros." you ♪ >> the original model of school of rock was saving rock music one kid at a time. i started school of rock because i love rock music and i like kids but i love rock music. i wouldn't change one moment of my life. that said i will never sell a franchise again. i want to be the boss and i like having control of my business. you can write a contract and the contract can be 600 pages but

you don't have the kind of control at the granular level that i only discovered later was really important to me. take some time and think about what really makes you happy. and with small businesses there's such an urge to expand. and only sometimes does that work out for the best. i'd say don't franchise, just grow more slowly and own every location. if you're going to bring in partners make sure your definition of what success looks like is the same. when i was young and starting out, this guy in philadelphia booking agent, he said to me and i quote, he said it's not the music friends, it's the music business. and i was like eww. that's terrible. i've learned it's the music friends. business is about friends. it's about connections. ♪ know who you're selling.

the great example is if a parent comes in with a kid, i'm selling the kid. if a kid and a mom leave here and the kid wants to do it more than anything in the world and the mom is dubious, they will call tomorrow and they will sign up. if the mom wants their kid to do it and the kid is dubious, you can just forget about it. that kid will talk that mom into it. they become your best thing so we've learned over the years to sell the kid. one thing i tell young entrepreneurs if possible have a movie made about you or close enough that you can claim that it was. we heard this movie "school of rock" was being made and distributed and at first i was pretty mad because they said they never heard of me and my website at the time was schoolofrock.com and the "new york times" called and i got the front page of the entertainment section and turned out there was a 90-minute advertisement for me and my product on theaters and on tv every christmas. how could you be upset.

i didn't see it until years later, i avoided it and showed it to my son and daughters and at the end of it my son gave me a hug and said daddy, they made a movie about you! >> when we return we have your business questions about whether or not to take out a loan for a product launch and how you can manage your productivity if you're working from a home office. in today's elevator pitch, a clothing line designed for young people with autism and other special needs. 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. today's your biz selfie is from meg raglin of new york city she owns plum print, the company that makes books out of your children's art. thank you for sending that in and now we want to see your selfies, too. send us a selfie of you and your business to yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet it to @misingyourbiz and don't forget to use #yourbizselfie. today's elevator pitcher designs clothing she says are versatile, fashionable and makes it easier for kids with autism and other special needs to get

dressed. larry chang say managing partner and rhonda abrams a small business columnist for "usa today." >> hey, nice dress. pink looks really great on you. hi i'm lauren terry. i run independence day tech and wearable clothing. these are completely reversible and we are filling a huge void in the tech and at particle industry in terms of clothing for the 54 million americans with disabilities. so independence day clothing is seeking 200k in return for 10% equity. i'm a former financial tv anchor but more importantly a mother of a child with autism. like it or not aweutism is a growth industry. no tags no buttons, no zippers, no worry, we're gps enabled. 48% of the population is at risk for wandering but with the hidden gps embedded into the clothing in 16 seconds i can track your lost child or even

your lost grandma with alzheimer's. now this is a market that has huge major mainstream crossover implications and yet the major designers and retailers have not yet accepted not yet stepped up. end pep dense day has stepped up and we are hoping you will too. lauren, thank you so much for sharing this with us. i'm going to take the clothes and give you guys two numbers, first what did you think of the product and second what did you think of the pitch? this is for kids and acuts? . we are expanding now into our second line of production and had the cry out for more mature fabrics for the alzheimer. also doing kiddie fabrics. in july, coming out with 14 new looks, could much pleatly reversible, spill anything or can't get this on or don't know which is front from back that is okay because the back is the front, the front is the back and completely reversible. with this shirt, you have the front is again, equally meted neck equally meted body. the front is the back the back is the front. no scratchy tags to ruin the day

and secret hidden gps compartment. >> hear what you have to say? >> 9 on the product, 7 on the pitch. i love the product, probably a huge market for it other specialized products coming along, untucked, an untucked share fosser men who don't want to tuck in their shirts. i love niche markets because i think there are riches in niches, size to address. >> 7 on the pitch. what could she have added? >> i didn't know the address -- the size of the addressable market, you used a very large market and i didn't get a clear sense of how you were going to use the money and it felt like a very high valuation to me on the money as well. and so i think that it could have been a little tighter on some of that but i thought overall, ral great job. >> larry i don't think since we have started evaluating a product we have ever got an 10. >> i thought she did a great job explaining the problem. i love the fact she has experienced the problem which is always the way great companies start. you felt it you know the problem, you want to solve it

where great teams come from and very clear how you are helping to solve the problem with the reversible clothing can't make a mistake. >> you like the pitch, too, a 9. >> my only comment on the pitch, i'm sure you have proof points on why the business is scaling, why it's doing well you didn't share that with us i think if you did that would lend credence to the thesis. >> put traction right away. lauren, thank you so much for coming and sharing this with us. we really appreciate it. and you guys stick around. if any of you out there have a product or a service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel and your chances of getting interested investors, just 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 how much money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with those funds. we look forward to reading your submissions and seeing some of you here in the elevator. 's time to anticipate some of your business questions. larry and rhonda are back with us once again. the first one is about clients

who need cash. the client has limited funds to spend on a product launch or something new they are doing in their business what advice would you give them on taking a small loan going into debt what would be the best option if you know it's going to provide a return in the long term? >> so how do you decide, larry, if somebody should take on debt if they are in a good position to? >> i think there's two options. take on debt which is borrowing money from someone else or sell equity, which is selling a stake in your k the most common form i'm seeing today is what's called a convertible note enable to borrow money from someone and give them the option to convert that into an ownership stake in your company don't road. that's how a lot of young companies raise capital, especially from friends and family. i don't think it is a bad idea unless struck shaurd bad way. >> convertible note is not a bad idea? what do you think? >> the best way to raise money in your business is through seams. before you look at debt or equity putting the time and energy to see if you can actually go in and do presales of your product or your

prototype, get cash that way, then you are not giving up either and it depends on what it is, they might be able to do a crowd funding program, which could be the equivalent of making early sales to raise money. so there are also a bunch of new alternative financing going after small business and i would be very wary of them. they are often 40 or 50% annual interest. and they are exploding right now. so one should be very cautious about those. >> read the fine print, if you're going to go after one of these? >> anyway to avoid debt i would do that first. okay. let's move on to the next question about working at home. >> one of the things i'm wondering what advice, tips or tricks you have about managing productivity while being home officed. all right, rhonda, let's start with you. i do work from home i have throughout the years and you have to be at least i found, i had to be very diligent about it. i started my business from home and i worked from home for over a decade and i actually have employees at home i loved working at home. i think there's a lot of great

things about it. but there are a couple of things you really do have to do. one, you have to be disciplined, set regular hours and really stick to them. and also watch about child care or spouse care 'cause both of those can really drain your time. and they can be -- have an impact on it. don't expect that you're going to batch your kids at the same time you're running a business that you're trying to grow from home. and finally, find isolation, build a team of people who are your virtual team that you can go to for advice that you can spark ideas off. use co-working spaces occasionally to work with others, even going to the coffee shop and get out. >> i think that is a very great point. i remember when i started my company from my apartment, i would wake up at 6 in the morning, roll out my pajamas, start working and it would be midnight, still be in my pajamas working. i started to, once in a while, just make a lunch plan just to get me out of apartment for a second, see the broad world and just have some interaction with people.

>> i think you should try and replicate your work space that you had in the office when you were productive. i find when i work from home if it is a different screen setup, different keyboard different phone system, different desk a you will of those things can make you a little less productive. replicate what you are accustomed to in the office. that might help. >> let's see the last question about managing your businessz it grows. the biggest question how to take the business up to the next step. easy to run a business going 100,000, 500,000, 1 million. how do you run a million dollar company? >> optimistic question, a big discrepancy theme those numbers, we step back a bit. the question is how do you manage growth, right? don't want to grow too quickly and have everything go into chaos. you invest in companies that are fast growing. how do you do it? >> all the companies we have are growing from $5 million to $100 million. i have to bring pattern recognition to the company, by that bringing in company that have seen a company scale from

10 million to 100 million, at the management team level, at the board level, it can also be at the investor level, but if you bring in folks with pattern recognition, you will avoid some of the common mistakes doing it your first time. >> what kind of common mistakes? first of all, i would say let's not overlook how hard it is to get to $1 million. small businesses in the united states, a business in the united states, fewer than 2% of women-owned businesses and 7% of male-owned businesses made $1 million in revenue. let's not dismiss how hard that can be as well and i think a lot of the people watching really know how they would be thrilled to make $500,000 a year in revenue. let's not dismiss that the second thing i would echo larry, if you want to grow a large business, you need partners who know how to grow large businesses. very few businesses scale organically to that kind of size. it is the rare exception. you really have to have partners who, from day one, are sitting there saying how do we make this a really venture that's going to be you know $1 billion business, $100 million business

and you need people like larry. >> also what i found personally is that you have to put processes in place as your company grows, that you need when it was small and if you don't put those in place, it is all going to fall apart. >> absolutely. all right. well, thank you so much larry and rhonda so good to see both of you guys thank you both for your advice. >> thank you. much and if any of you out there have a question for our experts, all you have to do is send us an e-mail, we answer them every week here on the show. the address is your business at msnbc.com. thanks so much for joining us today. the lessons don't end here we have a lot more on our website, open forum.com/your business. you will find all of today's segments plus more videos to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter, at msnbc your biz and on facebook and instagram, too. next week we roll up our sleeves for a special show where we help a viewer with a glen ling happened bag business targeted toward people with diabetes. see how our makeover team solves

big problems like lowering the cost of manufacturing so this small business has a chance of turning a profit. >> oh. very nice. >> and the total cost? >> the total cost -- >> to put it together. only put it together around $47. >> wow. >> and the material should cost no more than about $7 or $8. >> total? >> yes. >> everything? >> yeah. >> oh i could love him. >> till then i'm jj ram berk and remember, we make your business our business.

hillary clinton launches. now what? all right, good morning, thanks for getting up with us this sunday june 14 2015. it is nag day in the united states of america. our country's colors adopted by the second continental congress on this day back in 1777. we have some more fun stuff on that ahead this morning. also today is the first day of the rest of hillary clinton's presidential campaign. the former secretary of state formally launching her white house bid on a small island in new york city's east river yester