good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business," want to take a bite out of your competition? find out how the owners of this cookie cutter business are trying to make their rivals crumble. with more than 4,000 locations, great clips is on the cutting edge of franchising. the brother and sister team leading the charge tell us how to run a business with style. we'll have those stories plus why the on demand economy may be good for consumers but not necessarily for owners and employers. that's all coming up next on "your business."

hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg, and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. what small business owner doesn't like to keep tabs on their competition. right? you have to know if they have a new product or or a new service, and you definitely want to be aware if they have any deals out there. one entrepreneur we met has taken his competitive streak to a new level at the cookie cutter business started by his mom. in fact, he believes in order

for him to succeed, others in his space have to fail. >> this is not a game where everybody is going to get a participation medal. i wasn't interested in playing for second place. this is a zero sum game. >> ben clark doesn't mince words. >> i want to win. i want to own the market. i want to be the player, and that's what's driving me. >> his fight is personal. backing down is not an option. >> i have everything wrapped up in the business. this is not a hobby. i have moved my family here and said, yes, we can make it in the cookie cutter business. >> the owner of ann clark limited, the largest manufacturer of cookie cutters in the u.s., runs his vermont company, knowing full well for his brand to succeed, someone else has to falter. >> somebody has to lose. every new business that's successful, some other business has to fail. >> which is why ben has his sights set on the competition.

he wants to steal their customers. >> you know, we can say it 87 different ways, but ultimately, when we're winning, somebody is losing. for us to grow our market, we're going after our chinese competitors. so we're trying to get their business. and that's become our strategy. >> ben's mother ann who founded the company in 1989, says her son brought a new dynamic to the business. >> i'm not a real competitive person. he is a really competitive person. i was not a business person. i didn't even know what a business plan was. i think he thought we were doing everything wrong. >> for them, it was a fun game. it was neat, kind of sexy. i was like, no, we need to grow this. >> staff took notice, too. most never knew that cookie cutters could be so cut throat. >> you think of it from the outside as a fun family-oriented product, which it is, but there's a reason we are where we are, and it's because mainly, ben, is very,

very competitive. >> the number of people buying cookie cutters doesn't really change, which explains why ben just wants a bigger piece of the pie. >> we assume the number of cookie cutters sold in america is constant, so our growth is how do we get more of the market? >> a crucial pitch that they made to retailers is ann clark's steel cookie cutters are made here in the usa. their main competitor manufactures in china. >> a store, a business is supposed to be carrying products their customers are looking for. are your customers asking for chinese product? of course not. then why is that why you're selling? we have an option here. >> if that argument isn't enough, the company is armed with operational reasons to buy from ann clark and not the competition? >> an organization is getting better or it's getting worse. i'm interested in getting better. every day, it's how do we do it better? how do we do it better? we keep relentlessly trying to improve on everything we do. >> efficiency is a top priority. and so the business has and so the business has

re-imagined its work flow. production costs need to be on par with the competition. ben doesn't want pricing to turn off any customers. >> what they were doing is buying for whoever had it and whoever had the best price at the moment. we thought, you know, the hardest thing for us to do is get our cost of manufacturing equal to what it costs to import a cookie cutter from china. and we're there. now we can match the price. >> using newer technology, ann clark fulfills retail and wholesale orders quickly. >> we can respond within a day to their needs. that's important to them because they need to keep their shelves full. if a particular shape is selling well, we can replace it instantly. >> and because production has sped up, the company can offer more cookie cutter designs than ever before. >> we launch a new shape every week. now we have 2,100 different shapes we can sell. we're constantly looking for what's new, what's the market want, and we can launch those shapes. we can do it in a week. china's three or four months. >> when ben realized ann clark wasn't reaching the entire crowd it wanted, he turned online.

a channel he had originally ignored. >> we had stayed away from e-commerce because we didn't think you could sell a cookie cutter online. that was my biggest mistake of all time. we look at those numbers all day, every day, constantly. when i walk in in the morning, there's a report on all of our desk telling us how did amazon do, how did our website do, how many people came to our site? >> he's creating an influential network of cookie decorators and other ambassadors who help with name recognition. >> our overriding goal, we want to support anybody who wants to use a cookie cutter. we have done a lot of blogger outreach, working with a lot of people through social media. they're, in turn, helping us develop our brand. >> ben keeps a constant eye on his competition, but he knows that his company is being watched, too. >> we have seen them on a number of occasions launch product which is a direct copy of product lines we launched. we know they're paying attention. when somebody does something on the web, the other will do something on the web. >> this rivalry has had tense moments.

at one point, the two businesses went head to head. and ann clark took legal action. >> when we entered the kitchen world, we were competing directly with our chinese competitor. so what did they do? they stopped labeling their product, made in china. so we had to sue them to get them to label their product made in china, so at least it's a level playing field. >> meanwhile, online, cookie cutters don't carry the label. for ben, that's frustrating. >> customers look at our cookie cutter and look at our chinese competitors, and ours, of course, has made in the usa all over it. the chinese competitor doesn't have to say anything. the customer just sees the picture. >> even though ann clark sales now make up about 40% of the market, locking up deals is still a challenge. >> now it's an even playing field. you can buy from china or you can buy from a cookie cutter made in vermont. we thought it was a no-brainer. well, it's not. >> so he's continuing to build his brand and tell his story. and for now, ben and his team are celebrating the little victories, in hopes of toppling the competition.

>> mostly, it's one store at a time. our sales people will come in and say, hey, you know, sally's kitchen store in wherever has just converted from china to ann clark limited. that's how we look at. literally one cookie cutter at a time. there's good news for millions of people across the country who are part of the growing on demand economy. business is booming. but while it may be easy for consumers to outsource countless household tasks to people through mobile apps, there's a downside. olivia sterns reports. >> andrew knowles' summer has been anything but lazy. >> as you can see, very busy in may. i got my june and july ones, too. pretty booked all the time. seven days a week. >> his schedule booked, his lawn care business booming. and his new customers in the suburbs of columbus, ohio, well, they're streaming in from a novel source. an online platform called next door. >> before i got the app next

door, i passed out flyers and just went door to door. after i got next door, got a lot more customers, making more money. >> andrew is part of the rapidly growing on-demand economy that attracts more than 20 million customers spending close to $60 billion a year. customers that aren't just in the big cities. in fact, most of them are in rural areas and suburbs like andrews while only a third are in uben areas like san francisco, where these days there's an app to order just about anything. this woman is a former tad today show producer living in the bay area. she's been tasked with hosting her wine club dinner on demand. how much of the dinner do you think we can outsource? >> i would like to outsource everything. is that possible? >> let's try. >> let's try it. i'm excited. >> with a host of new on-demand apps, she flies through her dinner to-do list. apartment cleaned, check. the handy app.

flowers ordered through bloom's that. table settings taken care of with table and teaspoon. massages, yep, massages, from zeel. some of the guilt that i feel from ordering mostly everything on demand has been slowly melted away in this massage. >> that's good. >> but there's more. hair and makeup from be glammed. wine delivery by banquet. food and chef from feastly, and finally, evening attire delivered by the cut and stitch fix. >> you look great. i love the dress. >> thank you. >> love the makeup. you look beautiful. can you believe that you were able to outsource your entire dinner party? >> no. and i'm kind of scared that i know that now. >> cheers, guys. >> everything at this dinner party except the charming guests was provided through an on-demand app, including the refills poored by a bartender hired through task rabbit.

he works 15 hours a week for task rabbit. he says it works great with his school schedule. >> i like the flexibility. i'm able to make my own schedule, set my own hours and set my own price rates, so i don't really have to answer to anyone. >> max is one of an estimated 45 million americans powering this new on-demand economy, either performing a service or offering goods as independent contractors. he says his task rabbit work can earn him $1,000 a week. >> do you ever find yourself frustrated with the lack of predictability of the scheduling? >> yeah, i do at times. when it slows down. it's hard to plan out your week when you don't have your schedule set. >> the on-demand economy is a sort of new cultural frontier with plenty of benefits and also some uncalculated costs. what are the consequences of the rise of the on-demand economy for the american workforce. >> jeremy is a professor at stanford's business school. >> fewer people have health care insurance. fewer people are part of

retirement plans. you cannot build an economy founded on a bunch of crummy jobs, because then you'll have a crummy society filled with crummy jobs. >> 67% of those who worked as independence contractors said they wouldn't choose to do it again, according to a survey by deloitte. but in an economy where wages are stagnant, these gig jobs are often filling the gaps. leah is the founder and executive chair woman of task rabbit. >> an average tasker, the way we measure it, is they're paying up to three important bills a month with their task rabbit income. so that might mean they're doing, you know, a few jobs a month. but they're relying on it in some capacity just to make their lives better. >> for andrew, back in ohio, the on-demand economy has helped pay off one big bill. >> i'm heading into my sophomore year of college pretty much debt-free. it feels really good.

>> successfully using social media to reach your target audience is an art that unfortunately some small businesses have failed to master. ink.com walks you through five of the common don'ts you should be avoiding. one, obnoxious overmarketing, unless you are the most brilliant or funniest person alive, limit your posts to two to five each day. two, all take and no give. social networking is about interacting with people. follow others in your industry and share their posts. when a customer comments on something on your profile, respond even if it's only to say thank you. three, inconsistent posting. you can't maintain a follower base if you don't regularly produce content. plan ahead so you always have something to share. four, using every platform. having four or five different social media profiles that you rarely update will never measure up to the impact of maintaining one or two sites well.

be active on the ones that are most likely to attract the audience you want to connect with. and five, failing to measure. you should be monitoring the results of every campaign and using that information to make your future efforts more effective. >> when your customers go to google or bing or any search engine and look up what your company does, how far down does your link show up? there are different estimates out there, but many people have gauged that a number one spot can get you 30% more click throughs than a number two spot, and it just goes down from there. point is, if you're not concentrating on seo, you may be losing out on a big market opportunity. john jantz is founder of the duct tape marketing consulting group and also the author of seo for growth, the ultimate guide for marketers, web designers and

entrepreneurs. hi, there, john. >> how are you? >> i'm good. i want to start with talking about seo has evolved. it truly has changed a lot over the past few years. >> i suppose at one point, seo was really looked at as this dark art for ways to trick the search engines so your content or web pages could show up higher than your competitors. google, they have one goal. if you turn to a search engine and type in a term, they want to give that person the best, most accurate, most useful content possible. they have caught up and rooted out a lot of the spammy things people used to do under the name of seo. seo is certainly now evolved to instead of being a silo tactic, it is really part of the strategic makeup of any marketing plan. >> let's go through some ways you can think about. number one, you talk about using key word research. explain that to us. >> so that's a fundamental seo practice. you find out what people -- there are tools out there, the google key word planner that allows you to find out what people are searching.

how much volume there is for certain phrases you might want to capture and win. but i find that today, you can use so many people are online and doing searches that you can use that key word research as a way for you to understand who your ideal customer is, what they care about, maybe the journey they even take to find products and services like yours. and i think it can -- that it can inform, really, your entire marketing strategy as well as your content strategy. >> and build your website for seo. we have been talking about that for ages. >> yeah, so many people still think about, okay, i'm going to have a web designer design my website and it's going to be beautiful, and then i'm going to have an seo person come along and optimize that. you really can't separate those two today. the structure of your site, some of the underhood things, some of the things like scema, which we'll do a whole show on, that the search engines

used to understand what the content really is, and what the website is about, have to be done really as part of the practice of designing the site, building the site, and then deciding what kind of content goes on the site. >> you think of seo in two different ways. one is if i'm providing a great experience for my customers and if i am providing them an easy path to get through this, the search engines will recognize that and i will come up on seo. but number two, there is still as you just said, some technical stuff you have to think about. >> i think that the more -- there's a lot of truth to what you said. you still have to write great content, engaging content, have to have a great experience. because what that does, that gets other people linking to your content. that gets people in social media talking about your content and sharing your content. those are all signals that help the search engines understand that this may be more valuable content than say other content that people aren't engaging with. it does certainly help. >> okay, let's move on to the next one, focus on on-demand

harvesting? >> what i'm really talking about is a lot of people are talking about, you know, creating demand and what i want to say is that you want to harvest demand. and if you do seo effectively, what happens is people begin to know, like, and trust your content and start to share your content and come and visit your website and your web pages and your blog, and what that really does is allows you to harvest that demand that you're creating, and in a way that allows you to charge a premium. going out and chasing, you know, and creating demand is much harder. >> all right, john. i think this is great. this is a great intro to the primer, but people should get your book to read more about it. thank you so much. so good to see you. as always. >> thank you, j.j. on august 11th, greaclips opened its 4,000th location. the hair salon franchise which is known for its no-frills reasonably priced hair cuts makes about $1.3 billion in revenue. to be honest with you, i had to

fact check the number a few times because i couldn't believe it, it's so extraordinary. shortly after launching in 1982, ray barton joined the company as an early leader who eventually bought out his partners including the founders. he's now chairman of the board, and his sister, rhoda olsen, serves as the ceo. we talked to ray and rhoda about the important of their team members, how technology only gets you so far, and why you need to admit your mistakes and in this learning from the pros. >> it's really hard for me to imagine a company that doesn't understand that the employees are the heart and soul. if you don't care about them, nothing else makes sense. i hate that word or that phrase, it's business, it's not perso l personal. it is personal. and the way that you care and the way that you value your employees drives every aspect of your business. >> when we train stylists, we

talk about how important their role is, because they're the ones who touch the customers. they're the ones that interact with the customers on a daily basis. if they're not motivated and happy and well trained, they can't give the customers what they want. >> how can we not care about them when they're extending our brand? business has gotten really complex, but not complex to let someone know you care. technology only supports relationships. i can see how powerful technology has been in our business. our online check-in is amazing. what it does for the customer. how easy it is for them to use it. but also with the cliff notes. the customer -- when the stylist is talking to the customer, they can see what they have done in the past. and those notes are right there. even if they were in a different salon last time. >> technology can be a reminder.

it can be a reinforcement, it can send a message, it can give you information but it won't every replace the relationship you have with the incredible stylists in this salon. there are people who believe that technology really can replace some of that relationship. but technology doesn't have a personality. it doesn't have a smile. >> be authentic. i think part of our culture is just to be who we are. that's part of the lesson i guess i learned over time. >> once i got into the business world, i realized it was powerful to simply be me. i think people clearly know if someone is not authentic. there is so many signals. people can't cover up who they are. we are who we are. >> admit your mistakes. i laugh. i watch companies all over. i watch what they do when they make a mistake. i think about what i would do if we made a mistake or what i do do if we make a mistake.

it's so easy to say you're sorry. why can't people just say i'm sorry, we screwed up. >> it is easy to get defensive. if you just calm down and say, we screwed up, we made a mistake. it happens. there is nobody in business that hasn't made mistakes. when we come back, things you need to be aware of when hiring a chief technology officer. and how becoming a recognized expert will help you attract customers. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order

or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards d services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. we are in the process of bringing on a chief technology officer, which is a pretty important role. i'd want to know how would you advise we go about finding that person that understands the vision of the company, that understands the mission of the company but also that has the necessary skill set? >> bringing on a chief technology officer into your company is a huge expense for any small business. i admire that you're doing it but you have to be really careful doing it. let me show with you what's worked with a few of my clients. some of them have decided not to go the full way and commit it a full-time person.

instead, if they have a candidate they like, they bring them on as a consultant, somebody part time. no matter what somebody tells you how they'll be committed to the business and share your goals and your values, you're never really going to know until you work for the person. so what i recommend is bring somebody on for maybe three or six months at a time, have a consulting agreement with them with the stipulation if things work out, we can turn that into a full-time gig. it is the best way to find out whether or not that person really delves into culture and whether or not it is something that will be with your company for the long term. we now have the top two tips you need to know to help your small business grow. let's introduce our panel and get their advice. marketing strategist dory clark is an adjunct professor of business administration at duke university's fuqua school of business. and john jansen joins us for this as well. so good to see you. >> thank you very much, j.j. >> let's start with you. you are speaking all around the country. we are lucky to get you here today. share with us one of the things you talk about. >> absolutely.

so one of the things i talk about in my new book standout is the importance for small business professionals to become recognized experts in their field. and the reason that this matters so much is that in many cases if you're a small business owner, it can be a race to the bottom. you feel and need to sometimes compete on price, but that's never a winning proposition. you can always go lower because there is always someone else that's going lower. on the contrary, though, if you're able to establish yourself as a recognize the expert, people will come to you. the marketing process becomes so much easier and you can get paid what you're worth. so there's three ways you can do that. the first is start creating content. and that could be blog posts, it could be giving speeches, it could be starting a podcast. but you have to get your ideas out there so that people can know what your ideas are and say, that resonates with me, i want to do business with him or her. the second is developing social proof. this is a term from psychology. essentially what it means is you need to give people short cuts so that they can see that you're

credible. it could mean becoming the president or officer of your local chamber of commerce. it could be getting involved in your alumni association. it could be becoming a columnist for your local paper, but a marker of credibility. third and finally, it's about building your network. because the truth is you're judged by the company you keep. and if you are known to be part of a circle of people that are true professionals, if you're able to develop connections with other people that are respected business leaders in your community, that will redown to your benefit and you'll get the benefits of their best ideas and insights. >> great advice. john, you are up. >> thanks. one of the things i'm certainly talking about and every marketing is talking about today is content. content has gone from being a nice have

to people saying content is king to now really content is air. it is the thing that drives seo, drives advertising, drives pr, it really drives almost every channel we havto be today. so it's also become one of the hardest things for small business owners and so i advise them to think like a publisher and create an annual editorial calendar for their content. and almost think of their content like they're writing a book. so the major themes for your book are the key word phrases, the things that people go out there looking for your business for and you want to think of those as chapters of your book. so do key word research and find autowhat people, your ideal clients and prospects, are looking for and what kind of content you'd like them to be looking for to find your business and design your editorial calendar around that. create 12 monthly themes. and think about focusing on each of those themes in a given month so you can plan out. >> where do you put this content? >> so, in many, many places.

certainly you want to have it on your website, you want to have it as a blog, something you offer to guest posts so you can get word out and exposure out in other places. you might also think about different formats for it. create video and audio formats. take a month's worth of themes and turn them into an e-book. it is a great way to kind of plan out your entire year. >> thanks, both of you. this week's your biz selfie from brenda who runs mary's daughter in madison, wisconsin. it is a money managing service for older adults and veterans and brenda, as you can see, is a member of the american association of daily money managers. and works to protect vulnerable individuals from fraud and identity theft. she also let us know she is a long-time fan of the show. so thank you so much for watching. now, why don't you pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your business. no professional pictures please, remember. send it to us at

yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet to to @msnbcyourbiz. send it to us at your business and include the name of your business, the location and e ourbizselfie. >> thank you for joining us. we would love to hear from you. if you have any questions or comments about today's show, just send us an e-mail to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. please also go to our website, openforum.com/"your business." you'll find all of the segments from today's show and a whole lot more. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order

or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. the last time there was a national election was two years ago, of course, in the 2014 midterms. the republicans were already in control of the house heading into that election. but they did great. even though they were in control of the house, they picked up 13 additional seats in that election. the democrats were bumped. everybody knows the general rule that if your party holds the white house, you usually lose seats in a mterm election. still, when theemocrats lost 13 seats last time in 2014, they were kind of bummed. and president obama took some of of that on himself. shortly after that election in 2014, you might remember, president obama did