the owner of this clothing company can't pay herself a salary. our makeover team shows her what she's doing wrong with her product presentation and her finances and gets her a paycheck. what we taught her can help you. coming up next on "your business." american express open can help you take on a new job or fill a big order or expand your office. for those who constantly find new ways to grow on every step of the journey, american express open proudly presents "your business" on msnbc.

hi, everyone. i'm jj ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. here's the problem with running a small business. nobody pays your paycheck except for you. and that means if there is no money left over after you've paid for your inventory and paid your employees and your rent and other expenses, you personally get nothing. now, that can be a sign that your business is in trouble or that you need to look at your company differently. that's why this week we're kicking off the new year with a special "your business" makeover which we did for a retail boutique and e-commerce store in houston whose hard-working owner sent out a frantic call for help. ♪

>> this must be it. >> i guess so. >> dirt road divas. southern chic boutique. >> love it. >> yuan and paco with about to shake things up here at dirt road divas southern chic boutique. >> hey, jody. >> there she is. >> this is my friend dawn. >> jody robinson is the owner of this cowgirls store where pistols meet pearls texas style. things might look good at the store from the outside. shoppers are shopping, bills are getting paid, but the end of the month guess what jody has left to pay herself. nothing. and that's just plain bad business. so dawn, owner of powerful accounting and paco founder of enviro sell are going to jump in and give a "your business" makeover. dawn's job, dive into jody's financials and fix what's broken. meanwhile, paco's going to help

increase sales. at the end of this makeover, they're going to get jody paid. the team started by getting a tour. >> this is the little shoe nook that we had built out. perfect for ladies to look at themselves in the mirror to try on shoes. western -- you know, western themed without being a western store. so we do a lot for rodeos. >> this is almost too small. >> it didn't take long for paco to see things to improve. >> you have done a wonderful job of buying. but there's almost too much stuff out there. >> really? >> part of what it is is having five great things is better than having 25 fabulous things. >> basically paco is telling her showing your customers too many products overloads them. and as surprising as it seems, giving that many choices sells less, not more. what you want to display is a tickle, something that peaks their interest.

that starts with what's in the window. and tough look at it from your customers' point of view. >> often we sort of think about windows as if somebody is viewing them like this. right? >> right. >> rather than viewing at them from an angle. so if i were to do a gentle adjustment here, i would adjust those mannequins so both of them were facing me as i'm walking in the door. shift it just a little bit so that the actual focus of the window is this way rather than this way. >> okay. >> make sense? >> it does. >> then that tickle should continue as the customer walks through the door. in jody's case, the store is cluttered with so many colorful decorations that many are hidden. >> i don't see a price tag on this or this. >> that is simply a missed opportunity. >> i am also concerned about what i see in that corner.

>> what do you see? >> and that what i'm seeing in that corner is a gas tank. i'm seeing drd. and i want to see the product. at this point, i want us to put the tickle of handbags and shoes. i can put something up there that says shoes, but if i actually had a boot and a bag up there, it might even signal what i'm going to find in that corner back there. to help make you some money. >> right. >> and make you feel even better about the business than you feel now. >> meanwhile, as paco continued checking out the store, dawn started diving into the financials. and what she finds is that the systems are a mess. this isn't uncommon at all for someone in jody's position. but it is definitely keeping her back. >> when we came in, i have no quickbooks, no background in

business or business degree or anything like that. we had to learn it by reading the manual. you know how that goes. >> you didn't go into business to do quickbooks. >> right. >> so there's that. >> it's very detailed, very good, but it's confusing. >> sure. >> it turns out jody's got several systems each tracking different parts of her business. things like inventory, sales, and payroll are not integrated. and this means jody can't see all of her financials in one place at the same time. >> she has no idea not because she's not a smart person, she doesn't know because the numbers aren't there for her because she hadn't had the systems in place to be able to look at them and make an educated decision. she has an inventory system that's talking her website. wonderful. but that inventory system and that website are not talking to her accounting. that's one of the things we'll walk through today making sure your systems are integrating. right now all you can do is look

at your bank account balance saying it looks like i can pay people friday. right? >> with consolidated systems, jody can analyze her numbers and get a deep understanding about where all the money is going and when. with that information, she can start to make educated decisions about how to run her company. >> the key for this is she's not looking at her numbers to see how much she's spending on. how much of that inventory is dead inventory. looking at that and saying let's get rid of it and sell what's selling. >> dawn and ann start to consolidate all those reports. but before they even look at the details, dawn has another simple question. >> we need to know the terms of your vendors. when are you having to pay those vendors? is money coming in and when is it coming in? and when is the last day you have to pay it? >> we pay for everything up front. >> okay. so we have a pay up front due on

receipt inventory that you are personally carrying. >> that's right. >> there's no way she can pay herself if she's fronting the money for inventory. so if she has high inventory, let's just use a number $75,000, we'll just throw a number out there. she has $75,000 of inventory, she's just tied up $75,000 of her cash. hanging on hangers in there. and that's not working for her until she sells it. >> bingo. dawn has already found a source of funds for jody to start paying herself. but dawn's suggestions go hand in hand with what paco is working on. >> let's shut this chapter for now and bring in paco, our secret sauce. >> he needs to help make changes in how quickly she's turning over inventory. for paco, some of that has to do with upselling. >> once i've got them in the door and looking at stuff, how can i take and sell them not an item but a set so i'm not just

selling them a top, but i'm selling them a top, i'm selling a bottom, i'm selling a bralet, i'm selling some other piece of accessory to go along with it. >> how do you get people to think full outfit instead of one item. >> i want to show you something simple here. yeah? >> yes. >> part of what i want to do is to connect this to this. any time i have an up and down rack, i want to think about how can i connect what's here and what's here. and i just want to take this little zone and talk about what might work better. >> okay. >> part of what the problem is here -- this is a lovely garment. >> right. >> and it's one of the more expensive ones inside the store. >> yes.

>> you might even also want to have the underwear that goes with it. because wearing this blouse and making it look good isn't just about wearing this blouse. it's what i wear underneath it that makes me look good in this blouse. >> right. >> okay. and i think this is one of the issues about a store like this is that more than a nordstroms, more than a target, more than a whatever, you can do the consultative sale. to make sure what they're actually walking out the door with is $200 worth of stuff. and if they walk out the door with that $200 worth of stuff and they're really happy and their friends tell them how great they look, i think they'll come back. >> i think so too. >> let's go into a dressing room. while i love the color of this,

inside the dressing room, part of the problem is it competes with the try-on process. >> right. >> and i think if this were a more neutral color, it would work a little better. this might be the place, also, to start talking about social media. >> what do you suggest? >> i might say this is a great place for a selfie. or, you know, send us pictures of us wearing your clothes and we will post them on our social media site. >> good idea. >> and it is so effective. particularly for a business like yours. >> the next day paco suggested connecting the boots with an entire outfit as a way of boosting sales. >> what we're going to try to do is bring a mannequin here and see if we can do a shoe, leg, boot focal point. our purpose here is to be able to sell the idea not the item.

so one of the themes is to get to sell the idea. this plus this plus this plus this actually means a happier customer walks out the door. and it's clear you have all the pieces here. let's go. ♪ >> hey. looks pretty good, doesn't it? do you like it? >> i do. ties it all together. >> after two days of mixing through the numbers and changing things in the store, everyone was a bit worn out. but jody was thrilled with the lessons she learned. >> dawn, i learned that the technology is available now. that all the pieces can pay together. and it's simple. doesn't have to be confusing. with paco, it's the customer's

perception from when they come in from what they smell, see, having gift items available for them. so, you know, all those things together make for profits. i feel hopeful and i think that it's going to lead to a paycheck. >> all right, lady. rock on. >> hopefully with the advice from paco and dawn, jody will finally start to bring home a paycheck. we'll check back with her later this year to see how things are going. what do the experts think 2016 will hold for small businesses? business news daily.com lists five key trends to stay on top of this year. one, tighten cyber security. experts say we'll see an increase in cyber attacks targeting small businesses in 2016, so make sure your company isn't vulnerable to predators. two, focus on the mobile experience. more people are making buying decisions using their mobile devices. so you'll need to adapt or

you'll be left behind. three, collaboration and social responsibility will be even bigger in 2016. being a part of something greater than yourself will ensure that everyone regardless of stock in your company has a sense of ownership in the brand. four, value personal relationships. digital marketing clutter makes standing out from the crowds difficult. so the small businesses that remember traditional marketing methods like face-to-face relationships and word of mouth will succeed. and phi wit-- five, be aware of ad-blocking software. big established brands often have lots of things many small businesses don't. things like small budgets and lots of customers. but as a small business, what you can do is leverage all of that if you're about to enter into a partnership with these brands in some way. denise albert and melissa are founders of the mom.

they built relationships with companies from stouffers to samsung. thank you for being here. i'm happy to talk to you about this. you started this company out of nothing and now you have brands coming to you saying we want to partner with you. we want to be part of this. which is really congratulations to both of you. >> thank you. >> so let's talk about it. you've walked into meetings and come out with yeses. >> we don't take no. >> i can see that. let's go through the advice you have. the first point you talk about is making the pitch about them, not you. >> that's right. so a lot of times i think brands like our brand you want to tell them everything about what you're doing and you want to give them that massive elevator pitch. but the most important thing is to understand who you're pitching. you've got to do your homework. you have to understand who they're marketing to, what their current goals are, what their

initiatives are, what their programs are. and then it's very important after you have this conversation, listen. listen, listen, listen. because you're constantly thinking i'm going to give them this pitch and you're anxious and excited. listen to them and their goals. and then you really want to live their brand as your brand. so you can make them shine and learn things about themselves. >> a lot of times we go in and say what kind of things are you trying to -- even when we pitch. you're in a pitch meeting but give them as much as we'll talk times for them to tell you. and then change your pitch on the fly if you need to. >> if you can, yes. because you've just learned something new about their business or the direction they're going in. even though you've had your own concepts for them, it might change, and you have to be flexible. >> all right. you talk about knowing who you are. >> you have to know who you are and you have to know what you're good at. we're lucky. we call each other work wives. we have an amazing partnership.

and melissa was just talking about the brands. that's what she's really good at. i'm really good at other things. but really know who you are. we know who we are. we are the moms. there is really, you know, to our knowledge nobody doing what we're doing. because we're on so many levels doing so many different things on the small scale and working with brands. we have different media platforms. >> that's what it is for is it's easy to explain. so you are a thing. you're not going to a brand and explaining something complicated. it's this is what we are. >> question bring you to live within the mom community. that's what we do. we are moms and we are part of the mom parenthood community and we reach moms in a lot of different ways. here's what we can do. and we have the ability to be creative. so the more flexible you can be like you said you want to be able to change it on the fly, the more flexible you can be the better chances. >> also the more they can

understand. you have this is who i am. it's very clear. whether i'm someone who goes after moms or i'm doing something else, it is clear. >> you don't want to be all over the map. >> it is not complicated. >> no. we market to moms. many say we want to reach women fresh out of college, not what we do. >> that's part of knowing what your demo is. when you go in to pitch these brands, you say this is who you can reach. period. >> period. >> that's right. but the thing you must know is your demo. do you reach a large audience. where are the moms buying. engage them on social. and our town hall events. we see what they're buying, what they like, what they don't like. and that will tailor our pitch to the brands we go to. >> so great to see you. congratulations on your success so far. >> thank you. when we come back, one viewer tweeted us to ask how much reserve capital do you need for a start-up?

we give them an answer coming up. and a gluten free frozen food line. we'll see if the panel has an appetite for their product pitch. 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 a viewer tweets us, how much reserve capital would you

recommend be available for a start-up i.t. recruiting firm. >> money is the tool by which you're going to fuel your business six months out. that's my recognition of the value of being a strategy-driven i.t. recruiting firm. pay a team, a staff, whatever it is that's required. you need to have the cash flow to sustain the company after six months of support. depending upon how much you're growing, maybe the opportunities are clear and definitive. you're going to have more money available because you want to keep moving forward as a company. particularly in a space like i.t. where there seems to be no limit of the kinds of people particularly in the software arena that need to be hired. and it is

competitive firm, you should run your businesses six months out and you should have enough money to be able to built it at the same time, so that may add another extra cash reserve. >> if you love asian cuisine but you can't handle the gluten, you're going to like today's elevator pitch. the pitchers came one a tasty solution with their line called "feel good foods." now let's see if our judges feel good about their pitch. monica meta is managing principal of seventh capital and amos winbush iii is founder and ceo of woes. >> hi, i'm trig severson. >> i'm vanessa phillips, ceo of feel good foods a brooklyn based food company launched in 2011. trained chef insisted on cooking delicious free gluten free when i told him we had silliac disease. we started the gluten free dumpling and egg roll company as well as asian meals. we offer convenient chef

inspired meal options. the gluten free food industry is booming, an $11.6 billion in 2015. >> currently we're in over 3,000 stores nationwide including sprouts, whole foods and sam's club. with my culinary and food science background i created proprietary formulas that make our food uniquely delicious. in the last three years we've grown triple dinlg identityities. >> $500,000, give you a stake in our company hiring more personnel, sales and marketing as well as future product launches. >> for both of you guys, good job both of you.. looks like that was well rehearsed the two of you. maybe you live together. okay, two numbers, the first one, one through ten, what did you think of the product? i saw you both tasted it. the second, what did you think of the pitch? i will tell you guys, personally, while you're writing, you can give your scores, one through ten for me, the product i snuck and tasted before, brilliant. it's so good.

>> thank you. >> congratulations to both of you guys on that. okay, monica, let's start with you. >> product i would give it a 20 if i could. i'm not missing the gluten and it was phenomenal. i'm going to buy this for sure for my own family. i would say the pitch an eight. it was very clear, it was very, the need, how you got here, how you explained hoar here was clear. >> the product is a ten. really, really, good. i can say that the casing is super light, with i is good for me. the pitch nine and a half. i've seen a lot of pitches. i can say that it was really dense and packed, so kind of work on that. evaluation i'm having a little issue with, but valuation is what valuation is. >> congratulations. i think these are the first tens we've ever seen on products. >> oh, wow been. >> you've done a great job. >> great way to start the new

year. ? we wish you the best of luck with everything. i think you've just recruited three more customers for your product. >> oh, thanks. >> and thank you for your advice on this, really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thanks. if any of you out there are interested in coming in to pitch your company here in the elevator, send us an e-mail. you can just send it to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. our experts will tell us if they think you have a chance of scoring some funding. in your e-mail, include a short description what have your company does, how much money you're looking for and what you plan on doing with that money. we look forward to seeing some of you here in thele vator. time for the top two tips you need to know to help your small business grow. amos and monica are back with us to help us out. we've had our new year resolutions. think about how we'll make our companies grow. >> my tip is for people looking to raise money, new year, new needs for money, trying to meet with investors, i think the big thing to think about is to focus on making a connection.

it's a rookie mistake for investors to just jump right into the details of their business without really trying to make that connection, and they should start by telling a story and it's really about skipping the jargon and focusing on the big vision, and it's really that ability to make a connection that will make the person on the other side of the table stop and listen. >> amos, you just raised money. >> yes. >> and really, it is about somebody wanting to invest in you, right? they have to feel comfortable with you and believe that you can do it >> absolutely. which is the reason why my top tip forre entrepreneurs in 2016 focuses around being intentional with your habits, mainly entrepreneurs focus on things people with do for them versus things they can do for themselves. if things aren't going right in your pice or personal life you're the ohm person who can change that. be intentional for the things you give power to and the energy that you give and most of the time it's our habits that bring us down.

>> so what habits? give me an example, what are you intentional about? >> self-doubt, especially when you're an entrepreneur, you don't know if what you're building is, will be successful. it's important to realize that these feelings are creeping in, and you should develop strategies to get rid of them. if that means finding a mentor, if that means getting into business books, if that means focusing on positive affirmations, i think as an entrepreneur, you have to look at everything in your life to make sure that you can be successful. >> and monica, off he done all these studies on the brains -- >> yes. >> the brains? the brain. >> all of them. >> mine, too. >> at least all of ours and what amos is talking about has a lot to do with what you wrote about. >> he could not be more correct so as an entrepreneur you've chosen a profession with a ton of uncertainty. the way the brain processes uncertainty is loss aversion.

it's fear and lots of it. you need to pepper your life with these crutches that can allow you to survive and sustain past the difficult times. some people call it grit. some people call it yoga. it's find a way to center yourself and to remind yourself what's important, to shake off the things that are bringing you down so you can just persist towards action. >> it's about doing something that you can control. >> absolutely. >> right, so when you are feeling out of control, because you're nervous about your business or you're nervous about this deal going through or whatever, you know that you can control running. >> yes. >> so i know that this one thing i've got control over, this one thing if i take time in the morning, i can control that, and once you can control one thing, it extends out into the rest of your life. >> and one key word with control means trust. it's like if you're searching for control over something, that means you don't trust the process and you have to go through the process in order to get to the other side. there's nothing that you can do today that will leapfrog you to success. you have to go through the

proper steps. >> it's true. all right. i love this conversation. i'm again so glad we started off the new year with it. thanks for the tips, both of you. moving on to this week's your biz selfie it comes from robert dobbins who owns a&d propane from houston, texas, fitting, monica came from texas as well. pick up your cell phone and take a pick tire of you and your business and send it to our e-mail address or tweet it us and don't forget to us ususe use #yourbizselfie. thank you everyone for joining us today. we'd love to hear from you. if you have questions or comments about today's show, e-mail us. you can also click on our website, it's openforum.com/yourbusiness, where we posted all of the segments from today's show, plus lots more. and don't forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms, too. next week the owners of an egg company create a niche in a

crowded space. >> to the customer, the product isn't going to change. it's still from small family farms, the same size flocks, nothing in terms of how we raise the chickens changes, and i think that's the beauty of the model that we've developed in terms of scaleability. >> we'll tell you how these entrepreneurs have ruffled some feathers and why retailers have put them high on the pecking order. 'til then, i'm j.j. ramberg, and remember, we make your business our business. 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 battle royale, republicans start 2016 with a new resolution to attack. >> if a jeb type, which won't happen, no energy. i mean this guy's got no energy. >> say yes or no. senator rube yo can't even seem toet that that down. >> chris has a liberal record to a republican. >> did trump's birth he hurt cruz and our panel weighs in. president obama's final state of the union. we'll talk to senior white house adviser valerie jar receipt about why it could be unique in american history. and the state trooper indicted in the sandra bland case, now trying to get his job out