one that keeps you connected to what matters most. good morning. coming up, the sweet smell of success. a company capitalizing on the science of skrent grows into a multimillionaire business. >> you may know her as buffy the vampire slayer but now she's staking her claim in the food industry. and how you can get the attention of social influencerens and followers and turn them into your customers. learn how to grow fast, learn smart and go far. all coming up next on "your business." "your business" is sponsored by american express open. helping you get business done.

hi there, everyone. welcome to "your business." the show dedicated to helping your business grow. all of us are always trying to figure out the best way to pique the interest of our potential customers. so we think of how to use the right language and the right design. but how many of you have thought about how to use the right smell. if you spend a little more time in a hotel lobby or a store you may smell some of this invisible marketing magic that businesses are buzzing about. it's called scent marketing and we recently visit one of the companies to hear why the battle for you nose has become so fierce. have you ever walked into blooming dales and smelled coconut in the swimsuit department or powder in the baby section, what about amber and citrus in the lobby of a j.w. marriott hotel. that's no accident.

scents are being intentionally created and delivered in hopes of enhancing the customer's smers. >> our sense of smell is the most powerful of our five senses in terms of emotion. >> ed burke is the vice president of customer strategy and communications a scent air. scent air was one of the first companies to figure out that the use of strategically placed scent could influence customer's behavior. >> we've been talking about it for more than 100 years. it can transport us to a different time and place. >> being able to trigger memories through the use of scent has had powerful results. a famous study was done in the '90s with the same pair of nike shoes placed in two rooms. people were 84% more likely to

buy the shoes in the floral scented space versus the unscented one. from dental offices to fashion shows and g gyms, scent air delivers fragrances to thousands of clients, delivering more than 5 billion scent impressions a year. based in charlotte, north carolina, the company's roots date back to the early '90s. started by a former disney imagine nee nooer. >> the idea was to skept the world, trying to figure out who might want the product in the beginning was a challenge. this industry didn't exist. we invested in salespeople. it was about going out to introducing the consent to people, talking about what a scent marketing product might work like. >> when the hospitality industry got on board, it was a game changer for scent air. >> they really believe in creating a wonderful experience for their guests. >> the company developed this

signature scent for global grands like westin and j.w. marriott. hotels use scent in lobbies and other spaces with the intent of elevating the overall mood. scents are woven through the product line giving guests an ability to bring a piece of the brand home with them. >> when we think about our addressable market, it's any business that places a premium on their experience. it's really about driving financial objectives for the businesses that we serve. >> in retail, business owners use scenting to energize customers, influence spending and encourage repeat visits. sport teams use scents in stadiums hoping to lure fans out of the homes and to the games. >> with flat screen tf and hdtv, it's easy to stay home and watch the game. th >> one of the most unique asks

came from the children's museum of indianapolis. they needed something for their t rex experience. >> you could experience die no dung. the intent was to draw kids in and get them to go one step further. >> it's all about making experiences richer, more meaningful and more enjoyable. and for businesses that can have an effect or boosting profits. more than maf half of scent air customers are small businesses. >> it's a small business selling an offering trying to create a wonderful atmosphere and scent plays a wonderful role. >> scent air has 2400 scent to choose from or you can create a custom scent. >> there's a whole process that we'll go through with a customer and we refer to that process as the imaging process where we'll understand everything about their brand and ultimately turn that into a finished scent. >> services start for as little

as $100 a month making scent marketing a low cost strategy requiring not that much effort with the potential for high impact results. for business owners, first think about who makes up your target market. gender, age and culture are just some of the things to consider. most of all, keep it simple. research has shown that multiple note consist distract the customer. citrus and cinnamon invoke happiness. white tea is invigorating. fig is really popular. and when it comes to how much scent you use, keep it subtle. fragrances that are too bold can backfire. scent air adds 6 to 800 new customers a month. a clear indication that scent marketing is becoming a must have tool for many and businesses are embracing the power of smell like never

befor before. sara michelle gellar spent years on screen fighting vampires and dark lords but now she's entered a whole new battlefield, the food industry. she joined hands with two entrepreneurs to launch food crafting brand food stirs in 2015. we sat down with her in santa monica to talk about fighting stereotypes, being a jack of all trades and building a product that has customers coming back for more. ♪ you know her best as buffy the vampire slayer. but sara michelle gellar has traded in her weapons for a spatula and the movie set for a test kich. >> imwas the in-- i was the stereotype of how your life changes after having a child.

now everything is about these people and how i could not only provide but be present. >> slowing down to prioritize her growing fakly with freddie prinz jr., led to a play late with a former publicist and their daughters who love to bake. >> my husband is a chef. >> that was not my field. >> and we decided to have this play date and starting from complete scratch was beyond or capabilities. and went to the store to buy a mix and it was so weird. there were legacy brands filled with chemicals that i would never consider feeding my children or these other end were these let's say maybe higher quality ingredient but lacking in taste. we realized it was a $5 billion category that were ripe for reinvention. >> he was confident on how she was on to something big. >> i was convincing her they was

the person that she wanted to partner with. >> a celebrity gets excited, they want to put their name on something, they'll do press and then they're heart. we had a lot of heart to hearts. if you want to do this, you have to be committed. >> they got greg fleischmann on board and they officially launched foodstirs in october 2015. they started with a baking kit subscription service they sold online then they moved to nationwide distribution. in some ways, sara's celebrity status meant there were more to prove. >> buffy bakes. let's see her come in. but no intention of taking us seriously. an actor is rejected so many more times on a daily basis than any average human. but we know that it only takes one yes for all of those noes. we day way more noes than we got

yeses. but that aspect of it was really helpful in terms of launch. and sometimes things have to be shaken up. just because the book has always been done this way, we're rule breakers. i started on a network that was like -- buffy the vampire slayer was a mid season replacement based on a failed movie on a network no one knew about. we stuck with it and made a network. i do believe you can rewrite playbooks. >> for sara it meant helping their customer rewrite the play book too. foodstirs using their website as a way to invent new fun ways people can use their mixes and gives them a reason to tweet, post and get the word out. >> we give our consumers a reason to go back and buy it again. great of a great product but you want them to use it. >> her career helped her be ready for anything the

entrepreneurial company sent at her. >> we needed someone to code the e e-mails and nobody was stepping up. okay, i'll do it. do you know anything about it? nope, nope, not a bit. i called a friend who had a company, he came over and sat down with me, got a three-hour lesson. for the first four or five months, i did all of the e-mails, i coded the e-mails, i did the pictures. all of it. you have to be ready to get your hands dirty, whether it's cleaning the office or testing products or figuring out recipes or coding e-mails. >> it might be a while before you cesar ra michelle gellar back on the screen. the entrepreneurial life has her full attention at least for now. >> this is my day job, my night job, my weekend job at the moment. my goal probably is that when the business is really up and running and i don't need to be here during the day, maybe i will go back in front of the camera then. i would hope in five, ten, 15 years when you think of baking

the word foodstirs comes to find. it's sosa nonmouse when you think of what you want to use and trust. sara michelle gellar is one of many stars who have a large social media following. when you see a tweet or an instagram post from one of your favorite celebrities showing off the good life with a new bag or beauty product or at a beautiful vacation spot, there's a chance that person has a really good reason to tell you about it. money. we look at influencers cashing in on their legions of social media followers. >> good girl. >> you might say samantha's instagram stardom can be traced back to when her dog aspen almost drowned. >> i started going off in my kayak and she started out after me. i thought she was going to drown. so i wept back to shore and stuffed her into my kayak. >> it was this photo of aspen hably snuggled in her kayak that

changed everything. >> i remember my husband distinctly saying, wow, that's different. >> the pic won a photo contest and hern samantha new instagram followe followers. followers want to know how she gets as spen into her kayak and what kind of kayak she's using. >> a lot of people are interested in the gear that i'm using. >> interests that caught the attention of advertisers who came baring gifts. >> kayak free and dog food, free plus 500 dollars for a post a month. and the watch from garmin in exchange for a post a month. >> we were looking for an influencer who was a female in the outdoor category and someone who was already using garmin products. >> matt is creative director at garmin international scouring

for people like sara. social media users with large followers, fashion to fitness, photography, parenting and of course celebrities. >> before social media we relied on traditional medians, like print and broadcast. that forces you to talk at customers. and now with social media you have a opportunity to be part of the consumer dialogue. >> coca-cola is cashing in too, luring selena gomez who can make $550,000 per post were thanks to her 120 million plus followers. >> it's very effective. it keeps that authentic vibe that people like to get when they're on social media. >> some 40% of people say they've purchased an ie team after seeing an influencer use it on social media, contributing to a billion dollar market this year alone. $5 billion by 2020 according to one forecast. it's money that's funneling down

to natalie who quit her finance job at j.p. morgan to do the influencer thing full time. >> a risk that i needed to talk. >> natalie is now closing in on half a million dollars who love her aerial photographs, regardless of whether or not the kenneth coal shoes we're wearing were part of an advertising deals. deals that can range from $6,000 to $50 thoir5$50,000. >> how much can you make on an an kul basis doing this? >> i'm in the sig-figure range and comfortable. >> wu all of these sponsored posts have raised some flags. >> selena gomez is the most followed person on instagram. how much is she advertising to us. >> i think quite a bit and more than people may know. >> the executive director at truth in advertising. >> it's the wild west right now. the vast majority of social media influencers are not disclosing that these are ads.

>> including selena's coke coca post it only included the word ad. >> with so many people being influencers out there, can the ftc enforce the rules? >> to date they've only brought four actions against companies that have vie slated the social media influencer rules. and that's four out of thousands that are occurring each and every day. >> leaving consumer to decide for themselves whether or not they're under the influence. new york. well just saw the power of social influencers. we wanted to get some best practices on working with them as a brand. mom influencer hilarious viral videos have amassed more than 100 million views. we recently attended the blog her conference in orlando and sat down with her to get her top tips on how to get the most out

of influencers like her. >> i think a brand would hire an influencer because our followers and fans really trust us. there's data that they trust influencers 92% of consumers trust influencers like a friend. so if you're recommending a brand to them, they're going to really listen to you. because they are like my friends. i have lots and lots of online friends. >> and you're talking about something specific. for you it's women, moms, that's who you speak to. >> right. >> to others it may be cool 18-year-old teens. >> as a brand you need to find the influencer that's right for you. you want a product to moms, come to me. if you want something for cool 18-year-olds, i'm not your girl. >> if i'm a brand and i want to hire a influencer, how do i think about this? do i think of the money spent on branding, am i going to get customer acquisition? how do i decide how this money is being used?

>> for video that's a great brand play and you get exposure to lots and lots of people. it's a huge splash. i've done projects that have ended up on good morning america and they were branded. but because it was a real message that was getting out there. and i think if you want customer acquisition you probably want to go with click throughs which would be a blog post. someone can read and actually click right through and sign up for your camp or buy your product or download your widget or what not. >> and how do influencers charge for this? can you get by it on a cost for acquisition basis or do you pay a flat fee and get what you get. >> for video you would pay a flat fee. if you -- you can pay per click through. a lot of people pay that way. there's affiliate programs where you get a percentage back as a an influencer. lots of different ways to do it. >> when i'm a brand thinking of

who to work with, one, i can work with you because you're moms. beyond that, a step deeper. how do i figure out which influencer is going to give me the best bang for my buck. >> one thing i would look at is not necessarily the size of the american's audience but how engaged in their audience with them. you can have someone with a million followers and two likes on a post and you can have a smaller audience and their audience is really engaged. i would target who are you trying to reach and really think about that and see is that who this influencer is reaching for hur. >> how much control do you have as the plannbrand when you're tg to the influencer or do you have to say i'm putting it in your hands. >> to be honest, if you hire a great -- 98% of directing is casting. if you hire a great influencer who understands their audience, you need to trust them. they know -- my sponsored videos

tend to be shared thousands of times because i know what is going to resonate with my audience. but i really listen to the brand and i like to talk to the brand trektly, not through my agent t. so i can really hear what -- what is the message you're trying to get across? what do you want people to take away from this. >> so i give you everything i can and let you run with it? >> i think that's the best way to go because the influencer really knows. >> that's why i'm hiring you. thank you so much. we recently talked about the importance of letting go of the reins and why you need to master of art of delegation. if you missed that segment you can find it on our website. well, this week we wanted to continue in that vein and talk about how we as leaders can stay focused on the big picture. here are five ways to keep your eye on the prize and not get bogged down by the little stuff. one, schedule time to think. and keep that appointment. give yourself the space to be

creative. it's easy to lose that when you're focused on the day to day. two, use technology to your advantage and automate everything you can. while the transition may wheel overwhelming it will free up time for you to concentrate or more important things. three, make sure that your employees get ample training. you will never be able to he can to us on the big picture if you're constantly being called in to put out fires. empower your staff with whatever they need to make decisions without you, and then trust them to do their job well. four, pretend to boot strap "your business," even if things are going well, pretending to be a cash-strapped startup for an afternoon could help you achieve laser like focus on the most efficient next step. and five, reconsider your network. if you feel like you've been operating "your business" as usual, you may want to consider shaking up the people surrounding you. actively seek out relationships with people who are different from you and who will challenge

you to think in new ways. when we come back, why you need to take the emotion out of your exit strategy. and how having a gig on the side can help you run your company. 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. ♪

my co-founder and i are currently working on an exit strategy, we're trying to take an analytical approach to it and we could really use some help and guidance in that area to kind of take the emotional issue out of moving a business forward. >> when trying to understand the value of "your business" for an exit strategy it's important to get a couple of different data points. number one is public markets, you can look at companies that do similar things even though they're much bigger companies, there's normally a multiple on revenue and there's underlying data. the second thing you can do is you can look at how much cash the business is throwing off. so what's the ebitda, how much money will it generate over the next couple of years, what's the growth rate of the business, and those are all variables that give you predictability into what the true value of the business s so for me i think

it's really important to look at key business which is revenue, growth and profitability. look at those things. there's comparable metrics out there of how to value something in any industry, whether it's hardware, software or services, and then you can use that to get an analytical valuation for "your business." we now have the top two tips that you need to know to help your growing business, venture capitalist patrick mcginnis the downeder of deargo advisors and the co-founder of pipeline angels, a network of women investors. >> let's start with you, patrick. one thing that you think our viewers need to know. >> lots of people talk about side hustles these days, in fact, about 30% of americans are doing a side hustle, but did you know you can use your side hustle to grow your actual business. when you're working on a business you are heads down all the time but it's important to look around, learn from others,

invest your time or money in other people's businesses or maybe start something that's maybe unrelated what you're doing during the day on the side where you can do that without messing up your day job or your actual business. >> do you think most people with side hustles are in the early stages of their company or do you think it's people that -- when you say side hustle you're also talking about investing you're not talking about starting your whole thing on the side. >> you can do either one. let me give you an example. there was a friend of mine who has a travel company, great business, it was going fine, pretty mature. then he had this idea for a smart suitcase. he found a partner, they launched the business it's called blue smart now it's doing millions of dollars of sales and he works there now. >> it also gives you perspective, right? it's sometimes a fire under your belly because you're excited about something new when maybe if you've been running your team for a long time you're getting a little bit bored with it. it gets everything more exciting. >> it's a great way to diversify

and get upside but most importantly a great way to learn. >> nwhat about you. >> leverage "the do-over." it comes from my side hustle. i loved your book and how you made the point that entrepreneurs can have a side hustle. i'm an 110% entrepreneur. i launched a podcast called pitch makeover. we interview entrepreneurs and i give them a literal makeover for their pitch, you know, what they should keep, what they should add, what they should delete. and the reason that my top tip is leverage "the do-over" is because i go to so many pitch events and entrepreneurs get all this feedback and they are not applying the feedback, they are not putting it into practice. what we do on the podcast, pitch makeover, is as soon as i give them that makeover, as soon as i give them the feedback, guess what, they get a do over, they get to do their pitch again, implementing the feedback that i give them. and so the reason that it's so

powerful is because when someone -- you know like some people say an entrepreneur the startup is their baby and as soon as you get feedback that's constructive criticism it can get you deflated. instead of thinking of it as something that is disappointment we're giving these entrepreneurs the opportunity to do over their pitch. >> basically the gist is when you hear criticism don't think it's over, i just pitched to patrick, he didn't like my company, tiek to throw in the towel or i want this partnership. basically say, okay, i'm going to listen to what you say and use it the next time. >> yes. >> thanks both of you. this week's your biz selfie comes from kevin robinson who owns petro chem metals in baton rouge, louisiana. please send us your picture, we love seeing them, pick up your cellphone, take a selfie of you and "your business" and send it to us at "your busines

business" @msnbc.com or tweet it to @msnbc your biz. don't forget to use t the #yourbizselfie. >> thanks for joining us today. here is something i learned from today's show. earlier patrick was talking about how if you have a side gig it can help you with the company that you're running day to day, but the reality is most people don't have time for a side gig or they may not have money to be an investor but we all have time to do something outside of our business and we need to do this just to get inspired and get our brain thinking a different way. go walk in the park, go take a half hour and go to a museum, have lunch with somebody who has nothing to do with "your business." getting out of the day to day of your company can give you all kinds of ideas that you don't have room to think about when sitting at your desk or talking to your managers all day.

if you have any questions or comments about today's show e-mail us at "your business"@msnbc.com. you can also click on our website it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. we've posted all of the segments from today's show plus a whole lot more for you. don't forget to connect with us on our digital and social media platforms, too. we look forward to see you next time, until then i'm jj ramberg and remember we make "your business" or business. 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. ♪ good morning and welcome to "politics nation." i went to chicago this week, among other things, to meet with local leaders regarding the trump administration's decision to send federal agents to that city in order to stop the epidemic of gun crime. i will tell you more later in the show, but also we will talk to a former congresswoman who is pleading with her former colleagues not to take away her healthcare coverage after she has been diagnosed wit