welcome to the hip-hop tour in new york city. we meet one entrepreneuraun traentrepreneur hi figured how to focus on the fun stuff. that's 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. ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. so many of us start out of companies because we love the thing we want to sell. whether that's a product or a service. and then we start our companies and realize that so little of our time is actually spent on that thing. we're too busy handling payments and accounting and doing all of the administrative work. sound familiar? that was the case for one new york native who decided to start a hip-hop bus tour while her heart was with creating the trips that riders would love she found herself stuck handling all the day-to-day tanks that were no fun for her so she enlisted help and hasn't looked back since.

>> reporter: b boys, graffitiat the front of the bus. >> thank you, thank you. good morning. >> the vision hip-hop celebrated in new york the way nashville celebrates country music. >> reporter: debra harris grew up in the bronx loving hip-hop. poed the other than of a company which takes people on what i quickly experienced was an interactive experience teaching people about the roots of the movement. ♪ the company is 13 years old, and a well-oiled machine. but the beginning was typical of so many start-ups. debra pretty much did it all. >> oh my goodness. me. i gave out flyers, i -- did surveys. i was on a bus every tour from beginning to end, i had -- truck loads and bags of speakers and portable speakers and cds. oh, it was a mess. it was a mess.

>> reporter: she knew that the way she was operating was not sustainable. while she was talented at creating trips customers loved, everything surrounding that experience was starting to fall apart. >> i would be in front of the building taking money, you know i'm short. i'm 5'4" on fifth avenue and 31st street. people showing up and i'm trying to count cash. i need to make change. i'm like this isn't saying insane. i can't live this way. >> reporter: the answer came in the form of a partner. a company called zerb. like having a religious experience. >> an orchestra, a symphony was playing because one they really knew their stuff and they were able to explain things to me in layman's terms. >> reporter: debra partnered it up with them handling the part of the business she was drowning under. reservations cancellations, payments and customer service t. is a trust issue. in any business i think you have

to understand that you have to delegate and you have to let go of some things. so once i had that comfort level with zerb and with scott himself, it was a no-brainer for me. >> reporter: scott neuman is the founder, working with businesses like debra's providing thousands of experiences around the country. and every time he works wery a new client he suggests they go through a quick exercise. >> you have to ask yourself what am i not good at? what am i not good at? what am i probably not going to be good at? or what am i not interested in being good at? you got to have that conversation with yourself. >> reporter: for debra that answer was clear. passing off some of the nuts and bolts of the business changed her ability to grow her company. >> freed up a lot of mental space to me to concentrate more on the experience and other parts of the operation. >> reporter: but both scott and debra acknowledged that choosing the right partner to outsource can be tricky and there's a lot to evaluate. >> the number one thing you have to figure out is whose values

are aligned with mean? whose philosophy is aligned with mine? he thinks about their customers the way i think about my customers? who has shown that? who doesn't say it but who shows it? >> reporter: leechbltly debra decided to leave them and go with another service provider who had what she thought some of the other services she needed. >> it was a disaster. it was a disaster. when i left them to go to another company they had all the bells and whistles and promised this and that and the main thing that i needed they weren't able to provide. so that was like oh my gosh. i can't believe i did this. >> reporter: it's all about communication. once you find someone you trust and like working with keep an open line. if there are ever any issues. if you need something new, maybe they can provide it for you and scott and debra both suggested use your partners for everything they can offer. if they have a big client base he likely also have a lot of industry knowledge beyond what you're paying for. >> they are in the loop more so than i am.

>> what we allow them to do is build a network and have other people they can tap into either because sometimes we just make the connections. you know what? you should really talk to donna out in california. let me put you in touch. other times, we already know on this one. you shouldn't do this because we've seen eight companies do it and it everybody inner works. >> reporter: in addition, debra also works with a marketing company to target international travel groups and plans to outsource more of the company's functions as she grows and it makes sense. because when it comes down to it her passion is not computers and reservations and marketing plans. it's showing the world the birthplace of hip-hop. ♪ in 2007 michelle fawn was a college student with a passion for beauty she wanted to share with the world. so she decided to start uploading makeup tutorials to youtube. todays second most sub described female on the site her on

makeup line with l'oreal and successful sup description box called ipsy. we sat down with her to talk about what it took to disrupt the world of beauty and how she continues to innovate as her empire grows. >> i was really at the early stages of youtube at its infancy. with my laptop i started to film beauty tutorials showing people interested how to take care of their skin do a natural makeup look and within a few months i started garnering a lot of views and subscribers. there was no road map. i was really going with my gut intuition. failure is like a compass that points you in the right direction. i needed to fail to know where i really needed to go. so i've done a lot of things. i've had product lines that were too expensive. way over priced and it was partially my fault, because i didn't vocalize what it should have been. i was too scared and i relied too much on other people to make the decision when i should have taken ownership in it because it was my brand.

influencers who are often have their own following and now that they have an influence if they promote a product that they really enjoy and love, people will really listen to them because they feel like this is a friend. this is an influencer that i look up to and you can now have a niche market ten years ago if you want to just focus on eyebrow tutorials, without the internet you wouldn't reach out to a lot of people. because of the internet because it's called a world wide web and a global treech share your story with anyone. so now the market is bigger. for me to still maintain relevance it still has a lot to do with again, maintaining that relationship with my followers. i still talk and comment to my followers on youtube, on twitter, on instagram. you know what bruce lee said be like water. it's true. be like water. flow with it. flow with your community. go where they go. your community goes on snapchat go there, too. live streaming, meerkat or periscope, go when they go and maintain that dialogue and that conversation with them.

for me that is the true form of having longevity in this business, it's growing with your community. i'm not going to be number one forever. so i knew that if i want to maintain influence and relevance, and have more of a longevity in this industry i have to build a sustainable business. everyone from different parts of the world who have different specific needs, they were asking for advice and tips on product recommendations. i couldn't answer to everyone because i'm only one person. right? and also i have a limited bandwidth. so if you go on ipsy you sign up for the beauty profile, and we ask you questions like what's your favorite lipstick? we learn everything about what you like in beauty and then we send you a personalized beauty discovery bag every month, and since then we've grown massively with little to no money. honestly. no traditional advertising, all word of mouth. we also have a very interesting operating system calmed ipsy-os, any beauty creator can use all of the state-of-the-art cameras,

lighting equipment, supplies. we also give them apps they can use and tools, digital tools to help grow their numbers. things we're included in for free. no strings attached. what i want to do is build the next generation of more michelle fawn's everywhere around the world and create more microentrepreneurs. the fact we're able to work with the newests and coolest influencers really pushing boundaries of the beauty industry, yes. i mean that puts ipsy at the forefront of innovating trends because we're inso vating along with them. it's very important for me to keep an eye out on the horizon and see what's new and what might come up and bring ipsy along with it. if you are over a certain age, millennials may about complete mystery to you. chances are you're looking to are hire some of them and that requires creating a culture and benefit structure that works for this generation. lindsay polec is a millennial

workplace expert and spokesperson and author of "becoming the boss: new rules for the next generation of leaders." congratulations. >> thank you. >> i'm so happy for you to xplarn this generation to our viewers, many of whom don't know what quite to do with millennials. let's go through, what do you need to be a good place for a millennial to work? what do you need to do? >> if the thing to understand being a good place to work applies to all generations but millennials are bolder for asking perks other people tend to want too. first and foremost is the desire for training and development. how will this job not just do well for the company but actually make me better. >> you hire a millennial in an entr position. stuff needs to get done. right? so you give someone training and you have this nice environment, but suddenly six months of training, they come to you and say i want a raise and i want to be promoted to the next position. how do you deal with that? because i hear that from a lot of people. >> i do too, and i think a lot

of millennials feel the world moves faster. we're on internet time now but forget their skill settle take time to develop. soft skills talking face-to-face negotiating, winning over a client building long-term relationships. companies need to realize training doesn't just mean here's how to do the job. it's all of those other thing. how to answer a phone, how to leave a professional voicemail, write a professional e-mail. these are things companies can offer very low cost. there's so much training online. ted talks on various topics can be valuable. but millennials have to step up and educate themselves and employers need to be better saying here are the exact skilling you need to build more of. it's not just time. >> it's maturity. >> that's the point. saying it's not just time. this is not the old way of doing things, stay here three mores, get promoted stay three more you'll get promoted. this is the skill set you need to get to the next level and i want to help get you there but you won't be promoted edd until you

get there. >> this is what happened to me and the mistakes i made. i'll help you rise up to that level. >> talk about leadership experience. for people at all levels give them a place where they can shine? >> we asked millennials do you feel like a leader already? 83% of millennials felt like a leader regardless of whether they led other people already. i think millennials have a very high level of confidence and in high school and college today there are a lot of clubs.- extracurricular. leadership experience can be an individual contributor role but it's about saying what more can i do? how can i help? how can i contribute? it doesn't always have to mean leading other people right away. >> finally, you talk about customize where possible? >> customize everything you possibly can. i call this the build hebert generationreeral --

build a bear generation. how can i make this job feel unique to me? i talked to one small business own here said i can't offer rotational programs but had a mini rotation. let all of my junior people switch around the roles they did. i bring them to meetings with me. i don't make every day feel the same. it also means customizing the ben fitsds you offer. young people think if i join a small company i won't get access to the benefits at a bigger company. disability insurance, life insurance, certainly health insurance, also, could you strike a deal with a local gym? could you take people on field trips? you know often? could you have a masseuse come in once a month? those little perks can go a long way to making millennials feel you care about them. >> the marketing department is open. having a brown bag lunch and talk to you about what we do and the i.t. department is doing smog something. you don't feel siloed in your one area. >> absolutely. >> a great conversation. so happy to meet you. thank you so much. >> thank you so much.

we were just talking about how to hire millennials. now what about how to market to millennials? what makes them tick when it comes to buying products or services? what makes them attracted to one brand over another? here now our five ways to affectively get yourself message to this generation courtesy of mashable.com. one, go mobile. 85% of people ages 15 to 35 own smartphones and are on them all day, every day. so make sure your mobile experience is act vised and includes a clear call to action. two, support immersion. millennials want to share experiences with others. ask consumers to add their own stories or pictures to your small business' larger story. three, be transparent. this generation loves companies like warby parker that presents a mission and sticks to it. interact with your audience through social media so they can see how their company and use of their product is making a

positive impact. four find your target. millennials are more attached to experiences than products. promote the lifestyle your business supports on online channels to market to its audience. and five create brand evangelists. find your biggest fans on social media or in the blogosphere and engage on a personal level. when we come back we answer your small business questions, including how to get a line of credit before you become profitable. and you can look but you better not touch. we're talking about poison ivy and today's elevator picture know you ho you to remove it. 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 weeks your biz selfie from scott silverman of massachusetts who owns silverware software which makes apps that track business mileage and expenses. could be useful for some of you out there. now, we want to see yours. so just like scott, take a selfie of you and your business and send it to "your business"@msnbc.com or tweet to @msnbcyourbiz and use the #yourbizselfie. time to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in ho temperature out.

entrepreneur brad harrison founder and managing partner of scout venture and heather thompson founder of the fashion brand yummy by heather thompson and if she looks familiar it's also because she's one of the real housewives of new york city. thanks for being here, you guys. thanks. >> thanks. >> get to the first question about credit. if your pretty profitable what is the best route to get lines of credit for your business? >> all right, brad steeped in funding. >> yeah, well so we were talking before how hard it is to get credit in today's market and you know for most businesses, especially one that has inventory or purchase orders a lot of times the way to do that is from some level of factoring were where you actually go show what your sales are going to be and go out there and do that. so i think there's the factoring and then also looking at the streams of money coming in even if you're not profitable and going back to those and saying hey, can you float me 60 to 90 days? >> there are all kinds of alternative ways. you shouldn't just think about

the bank. >> you shouldn't. sometimes factors situations may involve personal guarantee. >> uh-huh. >> so it's really important to keep credit your credit scores good. your personal credit score. having a savings account on your own doesn't mean you might want to use that for your business but certainly you can leverage is for a bank loan. either a line of credit potentially, or a bank loan and there's a subtle difference between the two. one has a fixed rate. >> uh-huh. >> and a line of credit has a variable rate. look at those as well. >> the spa provides government loans, also requiring a guarantee, but you can use your personal assets as heather said to help boost what amount of money they'll give you. >> move on to the next question about the possibility of competition. >> how do you get a step ahead of competitors that are entering the marketplace? >> i think this is an interesting question. right? because you want to be aware of what's going on around you, but you don't want to be so focused on it that you're so scared of them that you're making bad

decisions. >> 100%. you have to always remember why you got into your business in the first place, and stay true to that. you have to offer a point of difference, from the competition, always. you know what makes you better? so if she's asking about people coming into a market she's already in i would say definitely remember why you started your business. what was your reason for being? >> right. >> and stick to that because they can only follow. you know what i mean? remember, that your ideas are individual, and you can -- you're going to be the best one to execute them. >> right. >> and i also think that innovation is a process. so to stay ahead of your competitors, you constantly have to innovate. that requires two things. number one you need to have a vision for where you see your business independent of your competitors in the market competition. the second thing is have a process for innovation whether that's a quarterly meeting, where you talk about what you've done well what you haven't done well and where you are along the life cycle of achieving your vision. >> and ideally, if you do that

well, some competitor may come in with a new idea we've talked about this idea evaluated it. >> talk to your customers, analyze, waurch the social trends and skydecide if they're right for you. >> the last question from the owner of a company that makes crackers. >> a growing business we have limited resources, only ten people. so my question is where do you focus your resources? on the sales and brandy side or on production side? >> classic start-up question. >> yeah. >> yes. so -- >> so i actually think there's the two things that you always have to do. number one you have to have sales. if you don't have sales it doesn't matter how much product you're producing. but on the other hand you have to make sure that you have quality production always because your customer experience and customer satisfaction is what makes you a real business. >> yeah. it's not a choice. you have to do both. >> right. >> you have to do both. without sales you can't feed your production line.

without production what are your sales people sells? that question in before is a divided question, you have to invest in both. it's supply and demand. >> i think you have got to make sure your product is great. right? because if you have a, a sub-par product, your sales team will sell it and no one will come back again. >> 100% and -- you know everybody's getting smarter and smarter and smarter. >> right. >> the consumer is really really knowledgeable, and educated and has a lot of choices, and at a lot of different directions. so always you have to ship a quality product that you are proud of. >> yeah. >> and with social media, the ability for viral distribution and word of mouth to take off. if you have an amazing product and you believe in that product and can consistently deliver it then it will get out there. >> builds it and they will come. >> always. >> and silicon valley thing, spend less money on marketing, right? build a great product and people will start talking about it. maybe once you get to a certain point spend more to blow it out.

>> absolutely. stick around. we need you in the elevator in a little bit. >> thanks j.j. if any of you out there have a question for our experts we answer they are em single week here on the show. so send them in. just go to our website. address, openforum.com/yourbusiness. go to the ask your show link to submit a question or rather send an e-mail. address is "your business"@msnbc.com. as a small business owner you are probably inundated with information on the latest apse and websites that are supposed to increase your productive any and marketing efforts, but which are actually worth your time? we asked viewers which tools are their favorite so you can focus on the ones that will actually deliver. >> so one app that i really like and that i use a lot is called read ability score, and what it does is after you've written some copy you copy and paste that into this app, anded it

will tell you what level people are who are reading this. it really helps me as a copyrighter get across very plain and simple messages, and what i also like to call the homer simpson test. if homer can understand it then it's probably pretty good. >> help scout is an amazing tool your customer support. i recommend to almost all my clients they use it. what's great about the tool is that you can add multiple team members into the software program and when there's e-mails coming in oftentimes one person may not be able to answer all of the questions coming in. so you can add notes internally that go back and forth from your team members and the customers never see it. so then your main customer support person can always be the one answering them, but know they're getting the accurate information that that person needs. so it saves, again, on time with e-mail because you're not having to forward e-mails back and forth. it's all within this one tool. >> one of the apps i really love is called sponge. it's an online content curation system. it allows you to add rss feeds and track all of the different

websites and different blogs that i read about, and i can curate the content and push it out to my website or write my own articles. >> so one app that our business uses is called freed camp and it's a project management tool and it is totally saved my business as far as coordinating with freelancers and our v.a. anyone who has dealt with poison ivy knows how hard it can be to get rid of. today's elevator picture has a poison ivy removal business and hoping our panel is itching to get in on it. >> hi. >> hi. >> i'm steve greenspan and i'm from poison ivy removal dot com. i'm looking to fran xhiz out my business. been in business 45 years safely removing poison ivy without using toxic chemicals. we selectively manually remove the plant by itself our ideas are immediate, 100% safe and

guarded against future growth. >> how much money? >> half a money, $750,000 to do. >> build out the franchise and develop products in the wings now. >> get that away from me. >> okay, you guys. two numbers. the first one is the product. and the second one is the pitch. as someone who has been covered in poison oak -- scale of one to ten, yeah. >> i hope that everybody hires you, yeah. it's the worst. >> not a joke. >> you look ready. heather the product and then the pitch? >> put them down yet. start with you. >> i didn't put them down yet either. >> what are you doing over there? >> okay. >> okay. >> go ahead. >> so i give awe ten for the product because i have been stung by poison ivy and it's awful and love it's environmentally safe. seven on the pitch because i believe in the brand and looked into it a little more but didn't hear enough from you on what

really you were looking for. what you needed. j.j. had to ask you. i think if you just round that out, i know your product is amazing. just -- polish up that pitch. >> thank you. thank you. >> brad? >> and i gave you a nine for the product. again, i also looked you up and i think everybody's had poison ivy that i know and so we understand what need it is. and unclear about the other products you've talked about, and then i gave you a five for the pitch, because i don't think you made the one big point, which is what do you need from us? how much money and what are you looking for? so i gave you a five for the pitch. >> thank you. >> and i'd also say, put moor oomph into that pitch. you're dressed up got this. you're successful. tell us why and why someone wants to be a part of it. >> okay. >> i would say the biggest thing in evaluating entrepreneurs, evaluing the person and their passion. your passion didn't come through as much as we know you have. >> and your products that also are supplement to it. i mean definitely look this guy up. he's the real deal. >> right.

>> and very passionate. >> so brag a little. brag a little. >> okay. okay. >> all right. >> great. thank you so much. thank you for saving us and many people's backyards. and thank you, you guys for your evaluation of it. >> of course. >> if any of you have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances are getting interest investors, send us an e-mail. address, yourbusiness@msnbc.com. include a short summary of what your company does how much money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. we look forward to reading the pitches and seeing some of you here on the show. thank you so much for joining us today. to learn more about the show just head on over to our digital platform. it is open forum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments and exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. it's @msnbc yourbiz and don't forget we are on facebook and instagram too. next week we'll learn why

subscribers can actually be better than customers. >> subscribers are the ideal customer, because subscribers buy from you on a regular cadence and you sell them once and they continue to buy from you over time. whereas customers in a transactional model are really they're one and done. right? >> from monthly surprise boxes to netflix, we'll take a closer look at the success of the subscription phenomenon and why it can enhance the value of your business. 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. in 2012 in mid december just before christmas, andrea mitchell was on the state department beat at the washington bureau for nbc news when andrea mitchell reported some dramatic, very unexpected news about then s soecretary of state hillary clinton. >> nbc's andrea mitchell is in our washington bureau with more. >> good evening. officials say hillary clinton was never hospitalized but has been home forcing her to cancel a trip. tonight her doctors say extreme dehydration from the virus caused her to faint and over the