recuring revenue and cash flow appealing. from dog treats to skin care to movies. how prescription based models are changing businesses. that's coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy. american express open is here to help. we are proud to present "your business" on msnbc.

hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. subscription businesses are hot. whether it's zip car or netflix, consumer who is are short on time and interested in hassell free shopping are fueling the growth of a subscription business revolution. is this just a trend or here to stay? we take a closer look at the growth of subscription commerce and look at how a subscriber can be more valuable than a customer. it's called unboxing. and the excitement associated with this moment when you open a subscription box is captured again and again online. >> the cool thing about the box, it grows with your child.

>> every month is a delightful experience. >> from birch box to stitch fix and dollar shave club the subscription box model, which seems like a trend is still growing strong. >> it's been an explosion of subscription box service that is can be a smart way to sample stuff you love without breaking the bank. >> subscription services are nothing new. most of them don't involve a box or arriving on your doorstep every month. think about your magazine subscription and the gym membership. >> our grandparents had cole delivered to their house or milk delivers. >> the owner of thevaluebuilder.com says hands down subscribers are better than customers. >> the subscriber are the ideal

customer. they buy on a regular cadence. you sell once and they buy over time. customers in a transaction model are one and done. they buy if you, they may come back they may not. >> karlie sends out a monthly package of toys and treats to spoil your dog. selling a service once is a lot easier than doing it again and again. >> from the business revenue, the recuring revenue is great. you don't have to always go find new customers every month. people stay in the cycle. >> that makes a subscription company a nearly perfect business model. it makes cash flow predictable every month. john says almost any company can benefit from converting all or part of their business to a subscription model. they, too, can reap the rewards of automatic customers.

>> you have this nice consistent, recuring revenue. whether you are a hardware store or flower store or elevator company, if you have that service contract that recuring revenue, you can get through the toughest edges of a recession. >> while subscription based business owners love the protection from the ups and downs of the economy, customers love the autopilot simplicity of not having to think about the purchase decision or the worry of running out of something. it's there when you need it at the agreed upon price at the agreed upon time. >> it's the nature where they want to discover stuff. they want convenience. itis delivered to them every month. they want value. they are the types of things that box companies are able to provide. sometimes it's a combination of a few of those or one of those. that's why they have been successful. >> that success, according to john, translates to more money,

if and when you decide to sell your company. >> the creation of recuring revenue, on any other measure will increase the value of your business. >> more value is the primary reason why amazon walmart and target are getting into the subscription business. it's why software companies made the shift from selling products out of the box to a subscription. >> microsoft office is a subscription. adobe is a subscription. what we use is a subscription because that model is powerful. >> that led this man in austin texas to start his own business called cratejoy. a platform that makes it easy forentrepreneurs to launch their own business setting up a website, e-commerce and shipping. >> we support them by taking stuff that shouldn't be on their plate. they can develop product,

acquire customers, delighting customers and shipping the product out to their customers. >> one of the first customers are annie lynn. she started a business focused on moms and babies in austin after leaving new york city as a fashion designer. >> what inspired me to start a little bundle was utilizing my passion, skill set and design and be able to cater to an industry i believe in which is kids. the subscription business model really was so intriguing to me. >> she's expanded her business. you can buy her products online and in her newly opened retail shop. >> of course my subscription business is the core of how i started. that's not to say things are not evolving. as a small business we have so much in the pipeline. >> it brought in a little bundle's brand recognition,

which may come in handy if the box trend slows down. >> it's a sustainable trend that's been building for a half decade. the model has taken over other sectors and is here to stay. core customer support is one of the top reasons small business zs lose customers. how do you know if you are providing good assistance? here are five signs your service efforts can use an overhaul kurt sigh of magazine. one, fewer customer complaints. for every one complaint, there are 26 unhappy customer who is never speak up at all. a fall in the frequency of complaints could be an indicator clients took their business elsewhere. two, decline in the average time spent on support. you are focusing on the problems rather than listening to unmet

needs. three, discounts and special offers go unnoticed. when people don't recognize them they have lost interest. four fewer referrals. a decline in referable numbers may mean you have poor customer service. five loss of long term customers. losing regular clients is usually not about the price of a product. a shopper is four times more likely to buy from a competitor if they are having problems with customer service. the small business administration program is back up and running. approvals when the spa reached the $18 billion limit for loan guarantees. congress raised the limit to $23.5 billion with the president signing the bill into law. maria is head of the sba and joins us from washington.

it's great to see you. >> always great to see you, j.j. >> congratulations on getting that signed so quickly. is $23.5 billion enough? if there were more money there, could you be giving out more loans? is demand high enough? >> i'm committed to making sure every e business that needs capital can access it. what we are saying is we want more bankers, more lenders to come online and join sba. sba provides a guarantee for the loans on the margin of being approved. with our guarantee, we stand in as uncle sam to make sure that people get to yes with their bank. one is to bring more lenders on who recognize the value of sba guarantees. second is for us -- we have set fees to zero for loans under $150,000 and putting in technology like linc for capital. it is now connect people looking

for loans by going to our website, clicking on that link and being able to then answer a few questions to get bankers to respond to them and puts the borrower in the drivers seat. talk to me about the entrepreneur act. >> we wanted to add a special part on there. so many men and women are coming back into society. what we wanted to do was help them. we have had a program where we zero out fees up to $350,000 for our veterans. what the measure did, the new legislation, is put it in perpetuity. we started it with sba and congress gave us a statutory agreement. i think it's a great message to all the men and women who serve, to tell them how much we value them. they get counseling, access to contracts from the federal government and access to capital with these zero up to $350,000.

>> congratulations on that as well. one of the complaints i hear about getting sba guaranteed loans is there is a lot of red tape. have you done anything to try to streamline that? >> i think that's right. one of my frustrations is there is red tape at every process. we have put up a program that's start up in a day. i am challenging municipalityiesmunicipalities cities across the country to take the challenge. we are giving out $50,000 of prizes to cities. when a entrepreneur goes to their city to settle and start their business, they can access all the applications they need complete them and submit them within a day. a big winner we are giving them $250,000 if it's a software we can share with other cities. >> one last thing, this week marks the 62nd birthday of the sba. now that you have been in the

job for a little while, is it where you want it to be? >> what i think now is we need to have a borderless marketplace. small businesses across the country know that 95% of the world's consumers are outside of the united states. so, sba for the future for the next 62 years has to think about how we connect entrepreneurs domestically with those around the world. that's what we are looking at. we are looking at continued technological development. we can capture the market before other countries take advantage of our gap not being there. we have raised the guarantee level on our export loans up to 90% so that if god forbid something happens and you default on the loan the government stands in as a guarantor of 90% of the loan. that gets banks to yes. it's a great day for us to be

celebrating the small business administration anniversary. entrepreneurship is now. the career of choice. as a result of so many entrepreneurs innovating, we are changing the world from uber to facebook to under armor, all the company that is sba helped to start, are changing the world. >> they are, indeed. thank you. i know you had a busy weekend. we appreciate you taking the time. >> j.j. you have always been such a great supporter and champion of small businesses. we are grateful because you help us to amplify that voice. >> thank you. thank you. i am steeped in this world and feel honored to have gotten to be for so many years. thanks so much. she's the first african-american woman to own a billion dollar business and spent almost 40 years helping others find work. janice can fill a book with

words of wisdom. jenna bush hager was able to get her to spill secrets to her success. >> one, make sure you are prepared. two, understand what the goal is. three, understand that all of those around you, particularly your family are part of that success and four always always find a moment for gratitude. >> four principals she's been following since the launch a firm. act 1 is a multibillion dollar business with offices in over 75 cities and works in a global scale. >> i never imagined this. i always imagined success, though. >> how has the company grown in the last 30 years? >> you see the evolution in technology. you see the transparency that the world offers. but the fundmental things that

we built the business from have stayed the same. i really think that's more the secret to success. >> there are more than 9 million women owned businesses different than when she started. >> do you feel like the climate has changed for women and especially for minority women? >> le's be clear, the climate has changed, but it's not sunny weather. women still have a lot of -- a need for change. >> do you remember hearing no or did you just block those out? >> i heard a lot of no growing up. my parents didn't allow them. >> it's a recuring theme, her parents, their optimism. >> i have a very pleasant very happy memory of my childhood. but that's more because of who my parents were. our parents were so nurturing and the community so nurturing. we look to the potential and

poszsibility than the threat or denial of opportunities. >> would you say your parents were your greatest mentor? >> absolutely. not mother or father mother and father. >> she grew up in segregated north carolina as one of 11 children. >> i'd love to sit here and sound pretty about it. i'm not pulling out the violin strings for folks to cry about how i grew up. the reality of it is it was harsh, it was ugly and should never have been that way. >> her parents taught her to rise above it. >> my mother used to tell us to be outstanding, sometimes you have to stand out. i grew from that root of really working forward, not being held back. >> it's an attitude she hopes she's instilled in her own children, both who now work with her at act 1. >> i would describe her as passionate hands on but with the right balance of empowering

people. a perfectionist, in a good way. >> do you feel like you are still growing every day? >> i feel in some ways newer and fresher than i did when i first started my company. i believe that's because the more you learn, the more you want to know. >> when we come back we'll talk about how you can export your product and how to deal with a vendor making unauthorized charge backs. how the concept of mindfulness can help you run your small business more effectively. 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 selfie is from stephanie swan who owns cottage lane kitchen in chapel hill north carolina. she makes kond meantcondiments and relish. take one of your business and send it or tweet it to us. please use #yourbizselfie. it is time now to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help us. michael goldberg is a professor

at case western university and the co-founder of the bridge investment fund. former sba administrator, now the ceo of a customs brokerage firm. good to see both of you. >> good to be here. >> thank you. >> let's get to the question of expanding internationally. >> what are the top five things i need to know to get into exporting my product to other countries. >> all right, steve, let's start with you. if not five at least a couple. >> i can give you a rapid-fire response here. first of all, get educated. there are terrific resources both online and in person. the sba, the department of commerce have great websites export.gov commerce department has facilities around the country. there is a lot of help to be had. secondly understand the compliance piece. it is the hardest part of getting your goods to where they go are getting across the

border. you need to understand what it takes to get them across the border. in that process, you need to understand what you call your total landed cost. map understand what each component is going to cost. you'll need good partners. i recommend going to a great customs broker to get help. obviously you'll need to find buyers for goods and great trade shows and organization s where you can find buyers to sell to overseas. >> michael, he makes a great point. thank you, steve about you just have to get together so many things. sometimes when you're starting this, you don't even know what you don't know. you don't know the questions to ask. >> absolutely. part of it is international is a huge opportunity. which countries? where do you start? >> who is in that network?

steve's comment about the department of commerce, the gold keeper -- relatively inexpensive, $350 investment for the program and they can help with that match making and distribution. my general advice is start in your network. whom might you know? but these other resources are relatively inexpensive and great. >> find someone noncompetitive to you who are doing the same thing and ask them. >> absolutely. let's move to the next question about charge back. >> how do you deal with distributors that take unauthorized charge backs from your invoices? >> before we get into this michael, can you explain to the audience what a charge back is? >> sure n this situation it's essentially a distributor who is getting a product and it sounds like there's some relationship issue here where they're asking for a refund on that product. and it sounds like the entrepreneur is asking this question -- there's something deeper going on there that i'm struck by.

it's not just about, you know the chargeback itself when he says it's unauthorized but like who is your distributor? if you have the right relationship with the distributor -- there will be things along the way. you don't know when you're selling a product why that charge back is happening. is it a broken product, something that was defective? what he's getting there is broader than the unauthorized charge back. >> it looks like it's getting down to trust. right, steve? what do you think? >> well i agree, first of all. these people are often your face to your clients and you want to maintain a good relationship to them and you need to understand why the charge backs are happening. it may be something you can address because you do have a quality issue or a different issue. first of all make sure you understand the pricing terms in your contract very well. i would talk to other people in the industry or potentially other clients of this distributor to see if they're having similar issues and then sit down across the table with

that distributor, armed with that knowledge to see if you can work toward a solution. >> it's true. a lot of these issues with relationships with partners whether it be marketing partner, distribution, even your co-founder, have a conversation right? have a conversation and understand where they're coming from. >> these things can become adversearial very quickly. you don't want that to happen. >> especially if there's an easy solution or easy explanation. thanks for stopping by today. if you have a question for our experts we answer them every week on our show. use us to get some advice. head over to openforum.com/your business. once you get there you'll see a link that says "ask the show." click on that to ask your question or send us an e-mail at

your business @msnbc.com. people are trying to be more mindful in running their business. for some of them this centers around meditation. for others it's about something else. i wanted to dig in and figure out what it means and how being mindful relates to running a small business. researching and publishing on this topic for more than 40 years. have you ever mindlessly started up your car and followed the same route as always before realizing you actually had meant to go in a different direction? ever signed a credit card receipt only to realize you never looked at a charge or sat next to a bowl of chips and finished them off without even noticing? >> i've been studying this close to 40 years. one thing i'm reasonably confident of is how mindless most of us are, virtually all the time. >> there's a joke where a speaker asks an audience what is j-o-k-e? they say joke. what is p-o-k-e, they say poke

and what is the egg white part of the egg called and everybody says yolk even though it's the egg white. >> exactly. i'll get calls for donations and i'll say to the person if you stop right now i'll give you $500. they don't stop. they keep going through their script. >> according to a professor of psychology at harvard, many of us run our companies pretty mindlessly. we do things that worked in the past without asking if they're still relevant. >> entrepreneurs often have to give their pitch over and over and over again. and you end up sounding like a robot. you almost can't help it. >> but you can help it. >> if you make it new in very subtle ways then that newness becomes apparent. it becomes attractive to people. you become attractive. how do you make it new? part of the way you make it new

is not to think that you've gotten the very best way of doing it. >> keep changing it up? >> yeah. and the changes don't need to be big. they just need to be subtle so that you're present. >> what exercise would you tell someone to do? i'm going out to give a pitch to somebody. it's really important. >> pay attention to your audience. change what you're doing in subtle ways to meet the needs of the respective audience. >> what is mindfulness? >> it's the process of noticing new things. that's alls it. when you notice new things that puts you in the present. >> one area where mindfulness can have a huge payoff comes in recognizing the true talents offered by your employees. >> if i were mindless i might see you as rigid. if i were mindful i might realize from your perspective you're probably being stable someone i can count on. if from your perspective, you see me as gullible and you call me gullible what i'm being is trusting.

the point is no matter what trait we're ascribing to people there's an alternative way to understand it. and so we end up with more respect for the people we're working with. and to show that respect they then work harder. >> as an employer it would seem then you have to hire the right people who you trust to be mindful. would you argue with that? >> yeah i would argue with that. >> okay. >> i think that everybody can be mindful. and that what the employer needs to do is look at the policies that are in place that actually foster mindlessness. >> according to ellen, mindfulness or lack of it can have real world consequences. like when a public comment is made without thinking about the perspective of the audience. >> there's no one who want this is thing over more than i do. i would love my life back. >> former ceo of british petroleum, tony heyward, talking

about cleaning up the 2010 deep horizon water spill. >> i'm sorry for inconveniencing him. maybe he would be on a summer vacation. >> bobby jindal's reaction was shared by many. >> yesterday, hayward post this had apology for what he called his hurtful and thoughtless comment. >> had he been more mindful, ellen says he might not needed to have apologized for he his comment. >> since everything wases always change changing, that thing you thought you new is now different. >> if you're mindful there's no absolutes? >> absolutely. >> thank you so much for joining us today. if you want to learn more about the show head on over to openforum.com/yourbusiness. we'll have exclusive pieces with a lot more information to help your business go. follow us on twitter @msnbc/biz.

we kick off tenth season of your business as we have a special edition of main street series. when we got there we discover aid big surprise. >> physically we're in the united states but economically we're in mexico. >> until then i'm j.j. ramberg. 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. the biden bombshell. all right. good morning. thanks for getting up with us this sunday morning, a morning with the possibility of a joe biden run for president is getting a fresh look. if it happens, this could pose a threat to hillary clinton's claim on being the inevitable democratic nominee. much more on what's going on with joe biden in just a moment. we're waiting this morning for a brand new poll on the race for president. this is a critical poll with all