good morning. coming up on "your business," i visit the international franchise show where food trucks like these are becoming big business. we head down to monasis, virginia, where an union cue bader-like company is cashing in on this industry by providing trucks with everything they need. we ask them how they navigate mixing love with business and we talk to the chair woman of the international franchise association about what you need to know if you want to franchise your company. grow fast, two far, work smarter, coming um next on your business.

>> hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your growing business. how many of you love a good food truck? the meals have definitely come a long way. you no longer have to settle for hot dogs or pretzels. with hungry customers always lined up, two virginia business owners have made food trucks their lives, not only their own trucks, but they started a company to help others. the strategy has been so successful that many food truck owners are now rolling in the dough. ♪ >> our entire approach to growth is problem solving. growth is painful and uncomfortable. >> edz wardo and jason know it can be scary to expand your company. >> when you start a business, and you're taking a huge risk,

you know, everything we've done has been in response to trying to solve a problem for our customer. the owners of east coast mobile business launchpad in manassas, virginia, are so focused on the success of their clients that they've made business decisions designed to support them. >> our intent is two things. one is to make it easier to run a food truck so that more people can get into the business, right, ask two, mow we're focusing on helping people scale. >> what started as a company that only customized food trucks in 2007 has transformed into a one-stop shop that keeps these restaurants on wheels rolling around washington, d.c., maryland, and virginia. >> foot food trucks are now like its own attraction. we're firm believers that you don't really need that brick and mortar to make money. it's not a location-based business. .that's the point. it's not a model based location business which means that your rent is cheap and the second thing is, no seating. >> eduardo started after buying

his first food truck in texas. it was an awful experience and he didn't want anyone else suffering the sedback that he did. i the bought it in virginia, i had to rebuild it essentially and i was like, i can't possibly be the only person with this problem. i said man, if this guy can the do food trucks, i can do food trucks. i crunched the numbers and it worked. >> both men loved foot and it worked in many different kitchens. it was that experience they shared with customers buying their first, second and even third trucks. >> you have to really understand what it takes to put together a dish in order to understand what equipment you need to put that together and in which order it needs to be laid out in order to make it as efficient as possible. >> we know how to value the risk. >> they've transformed the food truck industry by offering more and more services. the expansion was largely the result of listening to customers and their needs. the pair saw opportunities they couldn't refuse.

>> we're set up to serve the widest possible range of people that want to start a food truck. and our services are -- you can take them or leave them. nobody offers the same number of services, nobody. >> east coast takes its customers through every step of the process. it now sources trucks, customizes the kitchens, orders equipment, arranges branding and advises on business structuring. they even offer advice about what food to sell. >> make sure the menu makes sense to people and that they've ordered stuff similar. >> there's now a second location where operators can have trucks checked out as part of a service deal. the pair has financed some of their equipment they've built by using their own profits. >> most people can't come up with $60,000 or $70,000. we were seeing people who had really good concepts and who would be successful if they had the financing. and we wanted the sale. we then had to figure out how to get the sale. and if we can just help them bridge the gap to getting a

completed truck, we know they're going to pay us back. >> those payments serve as added revenue during slower periods when there's time to focus on future products. >> the financing helps us to develop a revenue stream where we have guaranteed monthly money coming in and it gets us through the cyclical nature of the business. >> now that they have so many customers on the road locally, nationally they want to make sure they can keep trucking. >> what we want is to see our customers succeed. why? because they'll open another food truck, right, and they'll succeed. >> many customers don't know it, but eduardo and jason have food trucks of their own. >> one of the things that makes us a successful business is that we're transparent and honest with people. >> it allows them to stay on top of trends and better understand the evolving needs of mobile business owners. >> when i open my food truck, none of that was available. and i made all the mistakes, burned all kinds of money on all the wrong things because you don't know which is the right problem to solve.

>> people like conrad heise trust they're in good hands. his questions are being answered and he's getting welcome advice. >> these guys do plenty already, but all of the work doesn't even pale in had comparison to their future goals. >> our big picture growth plan is to replicate the auto industry, is to have a centralized production facility and have service centers in major urban areas around the country where we sell food truck builds, we service the local food truck fleet. >> it may seem overwhelming to some, but eduardo and jason have made this their mission. they've come up with ways to help their customers succeed and they thoroughly enjoy being by their side every step of the way. >> we've got their back. they're not alone in starting the business. we want our customers to feel like we're their partner in

their endeavor. >> food as we just saw is a real passion for a lot of people. and that love spawns many businesses. but what happens when you take your love for food and business and mix it with your love for your partner? nbc sh had anell jones talk to two entrepreneur couples to find out. >> this couple has been flipping over good old fashioned flapjacks long before they said i do. >> pancakes are an american staple. everyone has eaten a pancake in their looimt. so we wanted to do something that relied on everyone's personal experiences with pancakes. we started this business when we were dating, right out of college. >> right out of college, yeah. >> and we got married a couple of years ago. >> 6 years ago, 20 somethings matt and lizzy griddled up their all natural, all american organic pancake and waffle mix, vendors, a bona fide business born out of a simple idea. >> the original idea for birch benders came up when i woke up

one morning, i was really hungry, wanted pancakes, but i didn't want to go to the trouble of making pancakes. >> the hospital duo says it took 99 taste tests to settle on their one step recipes which only require water. >> millennials like things fast and quick but delicious. so we wanted to make the best possible pancake experience with the least possible work. >> i had a feeling we were on to something because there wasn't anything like that. i truly fundamentally from the bottom of my heart believed that this would work. but it took a while. >> we would go to the stores and do two a day demos and we did that every day for a year. >> the concept paid off. the business now taking a bite out of an industry that serves up more than 200 million americans a year. >> we have 15 different heads of pancake, cinnamon, organic chop lat chip, pumpkin spice, butter milk. >> sold at 6,000 groceries and big box retailers across the

country. >> and it's very rewarding to see how far it's come. . >> pillow talk is a lot of pancake talk. >> talking of mixing business .pleasure, there's plenty of talk between this california couple. four years ago, josh and rosy quit their jobs in toys and tech and started sugar phenom, a grownup candy boutique with unique flavors. the. >> the story has kind of followed our love story. >> right. >> and it really started out of our third day. josh took me to see willie wonka and the chocolate factory. it hasn't been done before. >> with 130 different textures, shapes and colors, the company now sells millions of pounds of candy a year. >> when we started sugarphenom, we thought it would be a hobby. and the response has been amazing. i think people really got it. >> last summer, sugar phena's gummy bears made a splash commanding a wait list of 18,000 people. >> we're really lucky in that

we're in a working relationship and rosie gets to do all the creative packaging and design. i get to do the more boring things. >> he's really good at the boring stuff. and i think we're always on a constant sugar high, so that deaf had natalie helps our relationship. >> yeah. >> and that sugar high has translated squarely into success. >> we know how lucky we are that we get to spend every day together. we get to travel, we get to taste and experiment and find new candies. it's a pretty amazing experience. >> oh. >> we're happy today to have with us an incredibly successful entrepreneur who is also a if a lan thr philanthropist and his rags to riches story is being featured in a documentary. john paul, thank you so much tore joining us today. >> my pleasure.

you've got a great station. you're super cool so it's nice to be here. >> i wish we could talk with you the whole day, but you've been so successful in your life. and i know you started you were homeless .things were hard. but i would love to hear from someone who is so successful about the time when you felt i need to give this all up. did that ever happen to you? >> so many times. i was so down i could look up and see an apt. obviously, it's abdomen expression. but no, in fact, with john paul mitchell systems, because we only started west side 700, every day for two years, we should have gone bankrupt. it was tough. it was hand to mouth. and i -- and very difficult. it was like, why are we doing this? i can't pay the bills. i can't sleep at night. that happened many times. people are saying no, i can't get this from this person. a lot of times. but deep inside it was i know what we have is the greatest product for hair. i know if i keep on talking about it to enough people and

they try it they'll be reordering it. and after two years, which is a big movement for us, after two years we were able to pay our bills on time. not off, but pay them on time. we made it and $2,000 each. since that time, were there ups and downs? of course there were. but what you have to do is when you have ups and downs is realize that don't take your mind off the goal. obstacles are things we'll always see, but you put your mind back on the goal and you go around those problems. because many times people pay attention to the -- to the trivia many. and then you learn after a while, pay attention to the vital few, not the trivia many. they were subside. >> so do you think this is just your personality and who you are that you are just a go gutter and you're an optimist and you're ambitious or is there something that you did in the middle of the night when you were up at 2:00 in the morning worried? >> well, when i was up at 2:00 in the morning worried, it didn't help any. the bills were still there the next day. but what happened later on, after a couple of years, i just

started writing before i went to bed, challenges down. i can't pay this bill, i have this problem, write them all down on a piece of paper. instead of thinking of them all night long, like most people do win put it in the bathroom so when i got up in the morning, you do what you do when you get up in the morning, it's still there. . i can remember every problem i have. i didn't have to think about it any more. and believe it or not, that helped in the years to come. >> i do believe it. i believe in all those tips and tricks you can do to help yourself get through the day and all these challenges. >> sure. >> every successful entrepreneur i have interviewed has this same attitude which is i dreamed so big, i dreamed ridiculously big. and when somebody didn't agree with me, instead of listening to them, you didn't listen to your distributor. >> oh, no, no, no. >> i think that's where a lot of people get stuck, right? >> that's true. >> they think their dreams are too large so they don't let themselves believe in them. >> that's correct. or if they have a dream like our original dream was only if we could do $5 million a year at paul mitchell, we would all make

like $250,000, we're set for life. when we got there, we realized we could do much better and we learned how to be bigger and bigger and bigger. little did we know we would get into the millions. if you put all of ours together, it was over a million. i know in the news recently they sold one company, george clooney was involved, a billion dollars. and they do 120,000 cases a year. patrone does around 3 million cases. that puts us over $10 billion in value. >> you are a big philanthropist. unfortunately we don't have time to get into that. you're such an inspiring story. i appreciate you coming by and i encourage everyone to read the documentary and read the book. >> the american dream is still alive and we business can make

it. keep your eye on that goal. there will be a lot of things along the way and they'll discourage you. as long as you know there's rejection coming, it doesn't hurt you as.much. >> you are the example. thank you so much. >> you're very welcome. thank you. it makes it a lot harder to be a good leader if you don't put some focus on your own health and well being. entrepreneur magazine gives us these five high impact ways tore business leaders to protect their minds and increase their productivity. >> one, get a good night's sleep. according to a harvard medical school study, lack of sleep can reduce your focus and limit high brain functions. get six to eight hours a night to achieve peak performance. two, work on your eating habits. our food is our body's fuel. put bad stuff in, get bad stuff out. wholesome meals give you stable energy, fatty foods take more energy to break down and can cause you to feel drained. three, get out and exercise. regular exercise can help you be a better leader.

exercise reduces stress, fights depression, improves your confidence and boosts your creativity, all which makes you a better leader. four, make time to meditate. no matter how spiritual you are, you can yof your performance by taking some time to unplug. just five to ten minutes reflecting in keeping yourself grounded every day can make a big difference. and five, read voraciously. reading has a direct impact on your emotional awareness. read everything from news to self-help books to stay balanced and well informed. >> i recently stopped by the international franchise expo in new york city where companies were wooing potential franchisors. maybe your company has what it takes to be next. where do you start? shelly sun is the international franchise association chairperson. there are more than 300

locations nationwide. so she knows what she's talking about. we asked her to give us the nitty-gritty of what you need to do if you want to franchise your business. >> i think from a franchise or a perspective, people need to know they have a solid business model. ideally, they've done it once for the company on location and replicated it a second and third time to know it wasn't just luck the first time and making sure that it's something needed by the consume other a national scale, that it's not a local or regional fad. and then i think there's skill sets that they might not have that they're going to have to make sure they supplement with their own education and building out a team. but what are the mistakes that people make? i know a lot of people would say, i have a great company, i want to franchise it. and they don't quite understand, hey, this is going to be hard work. >> i think, one, most are not properly capitalized. i think like building a house, i think it will be done faster and cost less than it will, actually. so i think that's one. the second is i think they

really underestimate the skill sets of the franchisees coming in have and, therefore, what we need to provide in terms of training. so, for example, you know, we had really robust training programs for our franchisees in terms of operations, sales, and clinical. multiple weeks. we realize most of our franchisees have never looked at a profit .loss statement. they don't have financial skills. so we had the to build that in and teach our franchisees that critical component. >> so you need to really put money, a lot of money aside for training. that is it. >> absolutely. that's really our only interaction with our franchisees. i send one or two of my people out to their location to help them refine the model, but in materials of having them have access to my entire team and myself, i get to do that in the training process. so that's critical. >> do you suggest that you have a company-owned franchise first? >> i think it's critical. that's my own bias because i don't know how you train for something you haven't done. >> and is everything -- before you franchise, was everything

button upped? >> i think for us it was very buttoned up. i think was everything written down? i think there's things that as you do the business for a few years, you might just assume it's known. so i think you're kind of fine tuning -- >> so write everything down. >> you're fine tune to go make sure everything is written down. i think that's critical. >> what's the biggest mistake people make in getting franchisees? >> i think it's they're anxious to grow the brand so they might not have the standards that they need and will evolve to hopefully with time. but i think there's multiple.different criteria and i think it gets better as you have more franchisees. you certainly need to have a certain amount of money. they need to have a certain skill set, whether they're going to be in an operations role or sales role. and then have they led people? so in our organization, once a franchisee gets to a very large scale, he may have direct and indirect employees of 400. someone who hasn't managed white

collar and blue collar labor when we're utilizing, you know, low wage employees for some of our offerings, that we're going to need franchisees that have that skill set. so one. and as we grow and scale, we use profiling tools to see who made great franchisees who were happy and who were under performing franchisees. >> as you grow. it is great to use data. thank you, ali. congratulations on the growth of your company and organization. it is really great talking to you. >> thank you, my pleasure. >> everyone stick around. coming up on "your business," we talk to our brain trust should you build an app for your company. if you do, how do you get people to download it. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but...

i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. how does a founder/ceo go from selling enterprise software at prototype level to sell out of a large scale in a few years? >> we want to take software in a prototype and sell it and license it out to larger companies. you can do this. this happens all the time.

advice for you. in the world of business, it is about connections. you need to see who you are connected to. if you are doing business with larger software company, go through linkedin connections and see if you have friends to get human interaction. somebody you know or somebody that somebody knows. you have to trust people. filing for a patent or talk to a patent attorney to make sure your property is protected. that is something you should do before talking to somebody on the outside. and finally, if you don't know anybody or not sure, go to linkedin. search for people in the industry with the title of business development. business development people at corporations, they are tacsked with deals and partnerships. that is the first entry way in talking to somebody about the product to sell or license to them. >> when you are making big decisions for company or the group you are leading, you need

a brain trust. people who can be really honest with and get feedback. we have our brain trust segment chris myers. he has a financial services conditi company working with a million small businesses.linda nikki. congratulations to you. it is a platform for expecting and new moms. you have an app. you have to get people to download things. i find when i talk to people it is nearly impossible to get people to download an app. they may love your company, but you actually download an app is a lot. it is a big ask. how do you get people to do it and should you have to app? >> well, there was a question we thought long and hard about. our users were asking for an app. i think moms are and pregnant women and target audience are

app oriented. they like the app on the home screen and open tit up. lots of people download, but not everybody completes it. it is the in-store that is the most important thing. the first activation when they download it, they put it in the phone and it is signing up and putting in details. you are asking a lot from them to do that. so really have to sell the benefits early on. so they understand exactly what they will get by giving you information. it is the whole issue of i'll give you the information, but here is what i give you in return. you have to make sure that is a good transaction with them spending the time and taking the effort to go it and giving back something and making sure the consumer knows what they get for energy and effort. >> she is absolutely right. due to that, we have the opposite direction. we don't have a mobile app. >> you have mobile site.

>> a mobile site. the reason is we thought through the things you talked about. ultimately, we realized there is too much there in our system and we are dealing with numbers and financial management to put into a phone app. that is a tough choice. a lot of people say we really want an app. we want to move in that direction. we had to hold the line. guys, it doesn't lend itself to that model. >> you already have their attention. they get to open their browser on their phone and get to your site which that's an easier ask than getting them to download and install your app. >> we have both. sorry, chris. we have nearly 600,000 people who signed up to get e-mails from us. they are getting content and coming back to the site to the mobile site and web site. we only have 25,000 on our app. which is really interesting. >> is it a benefit?

>> the app users are engaged. they are properly the most engaged because they invested so much into downloading the app and installing it. it is taking up space on their phone. it may take up memory. that is a big investment. once you have them and you deliver on that, those people are your big advocates. that's what we found. those are the people that will go and tell friends about us and use us every day. we have good engagement from those people. >> we adopted more of a push model. instead of saying you should download this app and here is how you engage and get that information. we said we will push the relevant information to you directly to drive that engageme engagement. >> in an e-mail? >> e-mail or text message. >> i see. when you are trying to make this decision between an app or mobile site, do you feel you can launch your app with mvp? as you would a norm product or

no? >> i think -- i think it has to be mvp has to be well throought through. i think it has to be a minimal valuable product. >> thank you. great discussion. thank you to both of you. what really helped us make the leap was rewe reduced custor base from 230 to 8. we did this in year two. we went through 80/20 process. got rid of customers not profitable. freed up capacity. >> we increased the last few months by opening up the shenzhen office. it allowed us to grow over 200% in the last few months. >> a couple years in to our business life, we discovered that everything we're doing is vendor driven. everything is based on referrals. vendors, manufacturers and customers like simple and

reliable. we have been very fortunate that 62% of our business last year, the new contract s was repeat business from existing customers. >> we tried to outsource people before we bring someone in because it is more flexible for us and as a business that has tight resources while you are growing, that seems to be helpful. this week's your biz selfie comes from ed roth who owns stencil 1 in brooklyn. ed is an artist and graphic designer. it is fantastic to see companies from around the company. send in your selfie to msnbc.com. include your name, name of your business and location and do not forget to use th the #yourbizselfie.

i hope you enjoyed the show. thank you for joining us. we would love to hear from you. if you have anything to say, questions or comments, just e-mail u us yourbusiness@msnbc.com. head to our web site as well and we put up the segments from today's show and a lot more. connect with us on social media platforms as well. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. and remember, we make your business our business. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go!

you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. morning glory, america. i'm hugh hewitt. you normally hear me on the radio network from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. on weekend i'm here on msnbc. the convulsions in great brit n britain. now the donald trump administration. dysfunction at state department. on thursday, politico published a story between secretary of state rex tillerson and the head of the white house personnel