>> once you get your customers through your front door how do you get them to buy? what you can do to change your customers' shopping ha persons. small business owners tell us the most effective ways to deal with negative on line reviews, that and 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 jj ramberg and welcome to "your business", the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. if you are in retail you know this feeling. you see people walk through the door, they look around and then they walk right out without ever buying anything. it is frustrating. but there's a bit of science to changing this. one boutique owner was intent on figuring it out. she hired two experts to come in and mix things up and result in more sales. in 2010 sherry opened peaceful parlor, an ecochic boutique in geneva, illinois. it's the go to for locals

looking for a custom blend of tea or gift. she wants to expand with hundreds of tourists forren a annual festival sherry is hoping to convert visitors into repeat customers of it she called in rich and george ann to help her get the store ready for the new shoppers. >> thank you for coming. one of the challenges we're facing sometimes people come in make a loop around and walk out the door. if you've got people walking in your store making a loop and walking out they are not understanding what you sell. all of those things that make you different we want to help you stand out. >> let's get started. >> so sherry, this area is really important. it's a key area. it needs to stay open. >> okay. >> the first five feet, square feet in the front door of a store is no-man's-land. because anything you put there people won't see until they are at least five feet in the store. that's where we stop. >> this space, this open space

allows them to slow down, now we're going to romance you. >> you're not giving people enough space to walk in and actually take in the breadth of the product. by the time they hit five feet in the door they are almost hitting this table. >> what i'm seeing it's almost like a tidal wave of merchandise more than a tide. what i mean when i saw those when i walked in i had no idea what they were. creating a way to not show so much but make sure there is a sign that explains it. >> i wouldn't understand that these are head bands. we need to do different levels. we're going to show this many bright colors and we need to make sure they are separated enough so that the customer understands that this is not just this folded. >> what is in the back in these rooms? >> okay. right there we have our kids room, then there we have

housewares. >> question, how do i know that? i've never been here. >> a lot of times we're interacting with the folks greeting them and be sure to check out our kids room. >> we need to talk about signing for the entire store. you can't be everywhere. signing is critical for customers. women rely on it, men depend on it. and especially in a store like yours you have so many unique items and stories to tell about products, you need to tell people that this is what this is, this is where we are. constantly as we go through the store. don't use all capital letters. upper and lower case. it's harder for older eyes to be able to read upper case letters. you knew ed to take the average age of your oldest customer and divide it in half. that's the smallest size font you can use in your signs. >> the prime item that draws people in, or that you are known for, is tea. >> one of the things we do here

that's different is we hand blend the tea, we have a working station back here so it fits to have the tea back here as far as logistics to move things and package things. >> it makes sense but could we maybe bring some of the teas to the front of the store? >> does the major location and minor locations. we need to make sure year using minor locations outside of this area. showing the major items. >> with a laundry list of changes to make, they got to work getting the store ready for the first day of the festival. and the next day was the big reveal. >> so we made a couple changes. >> it looks fantastic. >> we gave you the five feet of space here so people have a chance to walk into the store and have more room to shop. we took your table with the toys, brought this one on top of it, combined the two. so now you've got multilevel. it's there's -- easier to shop for people to see, kree cross

merchandised still but you know, it's easy to understand that this is -- >> now it's time to put the changes to the test. >> all right. so what did we learn today? we learned that when customers walk in the front door because we gave them that extra space, they felt more comfortable shopping. >> not only did we see that, we watched everybody go with the flow. we created this path and it came to the right, looked at the focal wall, and instead of seeing just the radiator they saw a product and they were talking about it. and on top of that they looked at the tea. and they all started talking about the tea and that was driving them further into the store. >> the third thing that they said, wow, she's got a lot of jewelry. i didn't know she had that much. we took jewelry away from this space but because of the way it's merchandised they thought you had more. so less in a display is more. >> a couple weeks later we checked in to see if anything changed. we're happy to tell you that thanks to the adjustments made

at her boutique her sales numbers were up 44% from last year. like it or not we're living in a world where everyone can voice their opinion on the internet. whether you sell a product or a service and whether you are e-commerce or brick and mortar. if some reviews are negative it can severely impact your sales unless you understand how to deal with them. we solicited advice from owners and experts what you should do to turn a negative review into a positive experience for your company. >> word of mouth is the life blood of many small businesses. but in the digital age your company's reputation is now at the mercy of online customer reviews. >> having a reputation trashed after 25 years. >> customer reviews on sites can make or break a small business. it affects how the public

perceives your handling of customer service. >> you got to be engaged. >> what can and should an owner do to combat harsh critiques? engagement. doing nothing is generally not an option. tess. remember these. take a breath and don't kree act out of anger. >> wait. do not respond for at least i would say 12 hours because you really need time to calm down. >> one is you don't take it to heart, you don't let it bum you out. two is if you're going to respond and you should always, take the high road. >> two, don't argue and remain positive. >> i simply tell them they are wrong and crazy and they should get out of here. no. with negative reviews, everyone no matter who they are and no matter where they are coming from, they have a reason for saying what they are saying. >> you don't want to start any battles or anything negative. if you try to be negative about somebody else's comment all that really ends up doing is cause

other people to come in and start trying to battle you. >> you don't defend the store and tell the customer they are wrong because they believe in the adage the customer is always right even when they are wrong. so the idea was to really soften their complaint and turn it around to try and make it as positive in terms of my reaction as possible. >> finally, offer an apology if warranted and a real slogs. >> we correct with it a better product and fix it and make sure they receive a replacement product as soon as possible. >> put my phone number on my product so people can contact us. very often in a world where everything is an 800 number or wants to go to a website it's wonderful to be able to pick up a phone and talk with a manager or owner of a company. >> at the end of the day not everybody is going to like your product. if they like your service you made a lasting impression on them. >> by reaching out to resolve reviews you're showing the

public you care about your customers which could result in increased loyalty. sometimes mending fences are stronger than those never broken. >> i think it's all an opportunity even maybe when you read it and you find that person say what are you doing. but the bottom line if you take it in the right vein and use it to try and make it better i think it's all good. i really do. it is incredibly important but also incredibly hard to find the right people to hire. step one is generally posting the job. so check out these sites that may be useful in your search. one, pinterest. create a board for the job. office pictures and recruitment videos to excite potential candidates. two, mogul for women that connects users to trending content. if you are looking for a way to reach talented females consider posting opportunities there.

three, recruiter is geared toward employees that already have jobs that are open to a move. after potential workers create private profiles, you are sent e-mails of the ones you might be interested in. four, check out dice, a site that focuses on hiring for tech jobs. over 2 million users they pull in data from more than 100 sites to give you access to skilled tech talent for your company's openings. and five, zip recruiter is ideal if you want to cast a wide net in your search for talent. you can post a job to more than 100 of the top on line job boards with a single click. hiring isn't the only part of your business that can benefit from some of the resources on the web. so let's find out from our viewers what online tools they are using to run their businesses more efficiently. you can produce graphic designs, you can do graphics for

facebook, twitter, instagram, social media, icons, whatever you are looking to do and have it come across as quality work. i use canva for my facebook cover, my twitter cover, for specials, and different things i'm doing. it has a social media feature so you can share your designs with others, they can follow you so that they can see the work you've done. >> so one website that i absolutely love is nonprofit marketing guide.com. this woman has single-handedly transformed my marketing from all over the place to clear and concise. she is speaking to an audience for a nonprofit but this applies to the small business as well. she has many free products, web i nars, how tos and it's all really great. >> mighty bell is a website and turning into an app that allows

you to build many social networks that function as member areas where you can build a community of your members or your customers where they can interact, where they can access content that you make available for them. it's free to use, free to start and really awesome way to both distribute content and put your members and community members all in one place and interact with each other and learn from each other. as a business owner you have got to keep on top of your finances which seems obvious but it's part of the job that too many people seem to ignore. our next guest is here to simplify it. according to him there are five crucial numbers. justin crane is the founder of crane financial solutions, he teaches business owners how to plan their cash flow and be strategic with business finances. >> how you doing. >> i like that you are simplifying it to five. i think it's like the big bad scary thing for people. they don't know where to start.

>> yes. >> if you can say here are five. if the you get, though we're getting off to a good start. >> absolutely. >> the first one, sales. >> we got to track our sales. sales are the life blood to our businesses. we need to know how much money is coming in and where it's coming from. >> you find people who don't kn know? >> a lot don't know what their sales are. the thing i recommend is that why don't we write down whether we're service based or product based business, the top three things that we sell. make a list of them. write them out and figure out well, what is product a, service b, whatever. and start tracking that. that way you can know where the money is coming from. which can help you get clearer with finances. >> perfect. next one, marketing. >> yes. marketing is a big one. the average business owner invests about 2% to 3% of sales in marketing. i want people to consider doubling that if not getting to 10%. because marketing is the life blood of our business. >> first you have to understand

what you are spending. you have some here and e-mail and then flyers. put it together. >> absolutely. you have to make a list of where you want to actually invest in marketing. because we need to think about it as investment because we want the money to come back, we want to make money so we have to make a list of what we're going to invest in, we have to come up with a plan and the most important thing a lot of business owners don't do is don't have a marketing campaign. >> right. >> they don't have a calendar of events. you have to think through it and plan out your year as to what you want to market your business. >> then profits. >> yes. like everyone knows that yeah, you have sales, but if you don't make money in your business and if your business model doesn't allow you to make money easily, then you're going to be out of business in a few years. you have to make money. >> cash, we found so many companies around 2008, 2009, they ran out of cash. >> yes. it's very, very important to track your cash flow. and as soon as i say that statement of cash flow a lot of

business owners roll their eyes. but you can easily tell your bookkeeper or accountant to tell you what were the top two drivers of cash, where did the money go, how did the money come in. how much money did you make. also having cash in the bank, having money in the bank allows you to say no when you're a business owner. because a lot of business owners take on projects that they probably shouldn't do, just for the money. but if you know how much cash you have you are so much clearer where you are. >> finally taxes. you don't want to be surprised. >> taxes are huge. it's a big thing that business owners need to plan. you need to know are you an s corp., you have withholding, you have to pay estimated taxes. a lot of business owners wait until the end of the year and that's okay but i would rather have you pay as you go. pay the taxes as you make the money. >> estimated taxes. >> you won't have a big surprise. >> if you have good accounting software it's easy to get these numbers. >> yes. but the thing is that if you are a business owner and you get overwhelmed and stress out tell

your book keeper to give you these numbers. that way you're on a need to know basis. what you really need to know and you'll feel way more empowered with the information. >> i think that's the point. set it up, right, set it up so that these numbers are easy to get and good quiet in the habit of looking at these numbers every morning or week or whatever works for your business. >> i think tracking is a big thing. it's understanding that you can have people help you with it that you don't have to do it all yourself. >> great. thank you, justin. appreciate it. >> thank you. you want more advice to help run your business, when we return we talk about growing your brand without losing your identity. and to pay yourself a salary. today's elevator pitcher a way to open locked doors.

our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com this week's your biz selfie from david who owns fun to eat fruit. the company puts custom logoing and messages on apples and pears. i wonder how he does that. we would love to see yours as well, so send a selfie of you and your business to yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet it to @msnbc your biz and use

the hash tag your biz selfie. >> this week's elevator pitcher had an idea to help realtors and property managers gain and give access to apartments and houses without having to carry keys. taunia is the founder and ceo and lisa is an investor with new york angels. >> hi. my name is megan, founder of keys y did you ever think about how many other people have been given that key? unfortunately keys can be copied, lost or stolen. when paired withen a on line calendar showing when a home is unoccupied create easy opportunity for unauthorized access or theft. this kept me up nights as a property manager. so i created keysy a software flat form that allows the ability to remotely manage access to properties from anywhere in the world using our

patent pending keyless lock and smart phone app. it doesn't use wi-fi or blue tooth. it's based on light transmission of data so it's safe, secure, device diagnostic and what real estate professionals are looking for. we already have three large management companies in each of our target markets for beta tersing and looking for $200,000 for 10% of the company to help us small manufacturing for our beta locks and staffing for onboarding new customers. >> good job. i'm going to give both of you these. two numbers. the first one, 1-10, how do you think the product is, and the second one is how was the pitch? i would like this for mif house. forget property managers, the number of times i lost the keys to my house and calling my husband. this would be good for me. i think i could get you one. let's start. >> i gave her an 8 for the

pitch, and a 6 for the product. i think you were great. i think you covered all of the major points, you had enthusiasm. i think maybe you know, if you could speak a bit more about the competition in the pitch that would be helpful. i think on the product side i do see the need for this. i think that there is also a lot of other technology already on the marketplace and so if you could maybe articulate more clearly why it is this is different and safe and not hackable and i think that would go a long way. >> and those are kind of related, the 8 and the 6. taunia. >> i gave you an 8 on the product and 9 on the pitch. i'll talk about the product. i agree it sounds like i was there with you, i was like i didn't know i was nervous about that but i am now that you the elme about it. it sounds like something that is necessary and anything which really starts to leverage technology i think has a great runway. i would have liked to have known a little more detail about how you are pulling off the tech and how you're going to reverse

engineer against any unauthorized access, so that was going on there. the pitch itself i love that you came from your own personal experience. i think the one thing i would say is there was also an opportunity to think about the case beyond property management that gives me thought how big is the market. how could this be solving problems for every person who has a lock, not just a property manager. >> great. thanks, both of you. good luck with your company. thanks for stopping by and pitching it. >> thank you. >> absolutely. if any of you have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances, send us e-mail. to yourbusiness@msnbc.com, tell us what your company does, how much money you're trying to raise and what you're going to do with that. never know, somebody out there watching the show might be interested in helping you. it's time to answer some of

your business questions. taunia and nisa are here. the first one from al, he writes we're planning on expanding to meet a new market and catering to existing clientel. interesting question. >> when you talk about the soul of your company you talk about the culture and what you stand for when it comes to dealing with clients. i would say three tips going through this growth. the first is to really get clear on what your values are as a company. how do you treat your company, how do you treat each other and really what does the customer stand for. you make sure going through growth to hire people who believe what you do and share those values so they are going to treat your customer in the same way even as you are experiencing growth. and lastly, i would say please keep checking in. because you would be surprised how quickly these values slip when you add people who may or may not know what you stand for. >> i agree completely. i think the soul of the company and the culture is very

important. i think if you're making any kind of change to the brand you really need to communicate with the customers way ahead of the time that you plan to make the change. you need to explain who you're making changes to them. so that gets them loyal to you, more than they already are. it makes them brand ambassadors for you. that is really important if you're making changes, not to lose that customer, that existing customer there. >> right. if you are expanding your brand hopefully you are doing it in a way that or offering something that these people will like too. to your point these are the first point of contact that you have. let's move on to the next question about getting paid. >> how do i determine when do i pay myself a full salary? >> i imagine you must get inall the time. >> absolutely. so, i think as a general rule you pay yourself a salary when you have some traction, you have revenues, you can meet your expenses. the question is do you pay

yourself the minimum to cover your living expenses or what you're worth? i think investors like to see some kind of flexibility here like maybe build in a ratchet up system so that if you meet certain milestones in numbers you pay yourself more. if you are the business is failing then you pay less. so i think that's important also consider your corporate structure, whether you are a c-corporation, llc or sole proprietorship. there are certain tax applications so you need to check that out as well. >> and you started a few companies. when did you decide to pay yourself? >> my perspective is pay yourself as soon as possible. there are a couple reasons. the first is you've got to cover your bills, it's super hard to stay committed to a company if you are not making ends meet. for any business owner you can feel guilty like you shouldn't take it out. if you're working 24/7 you have to. the second reason why this is important it gives you a much more realistic picture of what

your business actually looks like. because your books can look great because you're getting all of this free labor from you but it doesn't give you a really clear perspective on what it's going to take to get your business to the next level. it's good for invest terse. you can start to learn how to scale. >> let's go to the last question about getting your name out there. >> as a small business how do you find innovative ways to market your product with using very little cash? >> i'll start with you, taunia. you do a lot with social media a free at least money wise way. >> i'm going to take it as a given your product is good. so when you have a great product, the biggest thing that's going in your favor is customers who can try your product and you can get in their hands so they can become advocates. social media is by far the best passage way to get this out there and to enable your customer to tell your story. so as soon as you find people who like your product, then you want to be giving them an opportunity to post to your

social pages. or give them case example you are in the services business of how they succeeded. people always are going to trust something that comes from their friends or trusted network may more than they are going to be based on advertising dollars. the trick is make it easy to tell your story. >> and have something to talk about. i find a lot people try something in social, it doesn't work, then they give up. it doesn't work for me. so though it's free it didn't work it's not worth my time. >> no. you have to tinker. facebook, google ad words, twitter, have everybody that's touching your company doing this on your behalf so that you create virality. i think there are other ways that you could like create for example a blog or funny video that gets attention, it's inexpensive. and really effective at making things go viral. i would also say that there are gorilla marketing tactics you can use off line as well.

people paint logos on their car and drive them around or go to an event or trade show and offer free food. they love that. there's a lot of inexpensive ways you can market your company, free pr, et cetera. >> thanks so much for all of your advice. appreciate getting to pick your brains for a bit. >> if the any of you out there have a question for our experts send them in because we answer them every week. get freef advice. send us e-mail. yourbusiness@msnbc.com. >> thanks so much for joining us today. if you want to learn more head over to our website. it's open forum.com/your business, you'll find all of today's segments plus web exclusive pieces with a lot more information to help your business grow. we're also on twitter, it's @msnbc your biz and on facebook and instagram too. next week, have you ever wondered how santa claus stays busy during the summer? he helps the owners of a new hampshire amusement park spread

holiday cheer to guests seven months a year. >> people love christmas. what's not to like about christmas. >> most everybody is in the christmas spirit when they hear whether it's june, july, august or the first of december. >> is we'll tell you why santa's village is still such a popular destination for generations of families after being in business for 63 years. till then i'm jj ramberg and remember, we make your business our business. we thought we'd be ready. but demand for our cocktail bitters was huge. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding. fast. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. you can't predict it, but you can be ready.

another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself. realize your buying power at open.com. daring rescues in frigid waters. >> i can't stand this thing i need help. >> massive floods. >> oh, my god. >> it was unbelievable, just how quickly that the water was moving. >> and danger at sea. >> absolutely life threatening situation. >> get ready to get wet. catching air and crashing hard. falling in. >> it was a real quick, violent crash. >> and flying out. >> oh, my. >> when it comes to the power of water, expect the unexpected. >> oh, jesus. >> went over.