coming up on msnbc's "your business," her ice cream business took a licking when the unthinkab unthinkable happened. we'll tell you how this determined female entrepreneur rebounded, making the brand bigger than ever. find out out collecting data helped this lunch shop owner. plus, what you absolutely must do to protect that data from a growing threat of cyber crime. let's grow fast and work smart. that's all coming up next on "your business."

hi there, everyone. i'm jj ramberg. welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your growing business. talent, hustle, and guts. that's what jenny britain bower values most in her employees and partners. that is exactly what got her business through a crisis that could have tanked the company but instead strengthened it. >> brambleberry crisp, salty caramel, pistachio and honey. is your mouth watering yet? jenni's splendid ice cream is known for its our teasal ingredients and its very unique flavor combinations. >> i want that one. that is awesome. >> it's a brand built on quality, and it's changing the way we think about american ice cream. and it's not cheap. at about $10 a pint, you pay a premium if you want to

experience the distinctive taste of jeni's. >> we believe if we're making the world's greatest ice cream, people will find us. our north star has to be making the world's greatest ice crime. >> jeni britain bower has dedicated half her life to the art of ice cream. her obsession started when she was a kid, but it wasn't until college when the free-spirited pink-haired art student dropped out of school to open a scoop shop did she realize it was a calling. >> it's delicious, and i have to decide, but i feel like the watermelon is what i want. >> i'm turning 44 this year. so it's really at this point so much a part of me. it's the lens through which i read and understand the world. it's probably a part of my, you know, molecular makeup at this point. >> after years of building the business with just a few employees, the columbus, ohio, based brand needed help with growth. that's when jeni turned to her old friend john low. at the time, he had a big job at

ge. >> i said, well, i love you guys and that sounds awesome and wholesome and i'd love to do it, but i don't think you need a ceo for a four-shop ice cream company. they said, no, you know us. we're kind of artists, and we've created something amazing. we need somebody to help us grow it. >> under his guidance, the company grew steadily, turning jeni's into a national brand. then everything came to a grinding halt when a crisis hit that threatened everything the company stood for. >> we were informed that one pint of our ice cream in lincoln, nebraska, tested positive for listeria. that moment, you know, lives on in my memory as the sort of before and after moment for me. i think of there's stress and then there's crisis. crisis is when there is a before and after. you go forward in a whole different way than you were before. >> the news was devastating.

food contaminated with listeria could kill someone. with jeni's name on each and every pint, the problem struck directly at the heart of this business built on a reputation for being the best. >> we decided to pull all of our ice cream, not just that lot, not just that flavor, but everything and shut down our scoop shops. we couldn't fathom the idea that somebody could walk into our scoop shop the next day and be injured. fortunately, we got through that with no one suffering any serious injury. we overreacted, some would say. well thought it was the only way we were going to sleep that night. >> john and jeni decided the only way toward was to fully tackle the problem and do it with complete transparency. it was a costly decision, but they felt it was necessary if the business was going to survive. >> we had absolutely no idea how much money it would cost us. the fact of the matter is it cost us millions. but there wasn't an alternative. i was saying to jeni at the

time, i don't know if this means bankruptcy. frankly, i can't see a path that we get through this without bankruptcy. we're very fortunate. we threaded the needle multiple times to find financing and find backers to keep us afloat during that time. >> with the very survival of the company in the balance, they relied heavily on what jeni calls talent, hustle, and guts. qualities they always look for in their employees and partners but never expected would be tested like this. >> you want to say you got talent, hustle and guts. you want to tell that to the world >> but you don't really know until you prove it, right. this was our proving it moment. we really came together and figured it out. >> the crisis management started with their suppliers. like the employees, they had to have the same level of talent, hustle, and guts to ride out this storm. mike hersh has worked with jeni's for almost ten years. he's had a long-standing

arrangement to grow the berries, many of go into the ice cream. he admits he was nervous. >> i'm thinking, what am i going to do? what's going to happen? they were in constant contact with me about steps that were being taken. they assured me immediately, don't worry, we're still committed to you. don't worry. that was within the first seven days. they had put my questions to rest. they were taking the steps. they were going to get through this. i was going to stick with them. we're in it for the long haul. and here we are. >> with the support of their suppliers shored up, the next step was taking a hard look at all of their production and processes to figure out what happened. with so many local ingredients from farm-fresh mill to be blackberries to whiskey, it meant really looking at how they brought those items in and what they did with them in the kitchen. >> and then we started testing and realizing that, okay t came from our kitchen.

we need to figure that out. listeria, by the way, is everywhere. it's in the dirt that's on the strawberries. we're bringing entire fields of strawberries into our kitchen. it's in the air, it's airborne. but it's very dangerous if it gets into food. you don't want that to happen. we're doing everything we believed we knew how to do before, and it still got in there. so we changed everything. we changed everything we do. we did it, i believe, in record time. >> they also hired a former food safety expert from ben & jerry's to oversee their production. and they decided to do something unprecedented in the industry. test every single batch of ice cream before it went out to be certain it never happened again. >> it's created a sleeker organization that's ready to go forward in a way that i don't think we ever would have been really been able to do had we not had this. >> it has enabled us to sort of take advantage of the crisis and think about the way we operate as a company, and we've come out of it stronger in many ways.

there's a misconception that utilizing data to grow fast is just for really big companies. but look, anyone who runs a business or a department of a business should be collecting data. hiding in those numbers are some great strategies to help your company thrive. to give you an illustration of this, we went to visit the owner of a lunch shop in california who showed us how her data helped increase her cash flow and decrease her supply costs. >> next customer! >> take a close look at this turkey and cheese on a roll. if you're one of these customers at village cheese shop in palo alto, california, that sandwich looks like lunch. but if you're lindsey hiken, the owner here, that sandwich looks like data. raw data. >> these are their bread

choices. these are their spread choices. meat, cheese,. toings. if they wanted any deli salad on the side. >> at the 50-year-old lunch shop which lindsey has owned and operated since 2007, she turns everything into a number. >> we've been open 19 minutes. we've made $266. but some of that is cater. we track how many people are coming in. who's visiting my business. i see a big slice of my business is the 25 to 34-year-old demographic. that's the biggest demographic. >> oh, yeah. lots of data in that sandwich. >> big data expert alan bondy is at vancouver based open. >> how much did that sandwich cost? who bought it? >> he said even small business own kers learn a lot from their data if they just ask the right questions. >> how many times have they bought it? where did the meat come from? how much did the bread cost? >> and those are exactly the kind of questions lindsay asks herself every single day. >> the last 30 days, i've paid 121 bills for a total of

$50,523. >> the problem is tracking those numbers is harder than you think. >> something goes up by seven cents a pound, you don't necessarily notice on the first invoice or whatever. but over time you start seeing a difference in the money that you're making. it's eroding the margin. >> if the costs rise faster than the prices, lindsay says even popular shops like hers can go broke very rapidly, no matter what industry they're in. >> i can't raise the cost of my sandwich up and down based on what the cost of tomatoes are or cheese. >> like any other high-volume business, she says her survival month after month depends on monitoring those food costs because the profit margins are so small. >> i'm somewhere between 86,000 and 110,000 in sales, which is a fair amount considering, you know, our average ticket price is about nine bucks. so doing a million bucks nine bucks at a time is a lot of turnover. >> the first difficulty with tracking those costs is that suppliers don't always give notice when prices change.

the second obstacle to tracking food supply prices is the paper trail. the receipts listing changes come in willy nilly, on scraps of paper, left behind by the delivery man. no digital records at all. >> you get paper every day from vendors. there's so much paper, it sort of becomes pointless because i couldn't really find anything. might as well have just thrown it out, to be honest. >> in fact, that's exactly what lindsay does. she just throws them all out. but not before she's carefully scanned each one into her quick books account. >> these are my food costs. >> that daily receipt data is then e-mails into her bill.com account for payment and also sent to a spread sheet showing the rate she's paying. vendor by vendor, day by day, month by month. seeing this data daily allows her to flag price changes and respond to them as soon as they happen. >> either by bringing them back down with your vendors or by adjusting your prices or maybe even dropping something off a

menu. those kinds of things. >> by using the data this way to revise vendor orders and update the products offered, lindsay's retail business is what alan bond calls data driven. lindsay says other shopkeepers who simply collect their receipts in a drawer and wait until their bookkeepers do the math, no matter what kind of business they're n are getting their information too late to use. food costs are not the only numbers she monitors. lindsay also uses bread crumb software to track the cash in the register. >> people make mistakes and that's okay. if there's a consistent thing, you can tell. >> alan says this kind of access to data allows owners to make decisions and change plans quickly and effectively. >> the key with both big data and small data is getting that rapid feed bank and then thinking about the actions that you take. >> but data alone is not enough. when this vendor suggested

lindsay could save 17 cents a poun on precooked roast beef, she jumped on it. and made a big mistake. but the commercing tell it was commercially cooked, and they didn't like it at all. >> the feedback was like, you've ruined my life. i just realized, you know, it's not worth losing that business. >> and that's where the judgment comes in. some numbers matter more than others. and every business owner must decide what to do with the data once they get it. >> i can't say i've ever had a single day of being bored since i bought this business because there's always something to do. it's never the same. no two days are the same. equifax, target, verizon, whole foods. all of these companies have been hacked, and those are big companies with a lot of resources so you need to ask yourself, what are you doing to protect your own company? james c. foster is the founder and ceo of zero fox, a cybersecurity company. thank you so much for joining

the program. i'm very excited to talk to you. i think there are a lot of things we should all be doing that some people just are not doing. >> thanks very much. i appreciate the opportunity. >> absolutely. and you go by foster. not james. >> i do. >> so let's start. number one, you got to at least start think abouting this and ask the right questions. >> that's right. it's not a question anymore of if it will happen. it's when. so you need to plan and invest accordingly. >> what does that take to plan and invest accordingly? where should i be putting my money? >> you've got to get beyond the basics. unfortunately, 23% of growing businesses these days, even on the smaller side, are getting hacked and attacked every single day. 23%. again, it goes back to if. make sure you have a plan. make sure you have a plan if it happens. you know who to call, what to do. most people find themselves in a reactive situation where something bad has ahappened and they don't even know who to call. >> am i right in saying the number one way people get hacked is through employees? >> employees are still part of

the weakest link. >> maybe not number one, but that's a weak link. >> absolutely. >> by the way, i clicked on a phishing scam the other day. i know better than to do this. and somehow they got me. the minute i did it, i kind of freaked out and called the computer person and said, i just did this, can you check my computer. >> it happens. it used to just be e-mail. social has really blown this problem up. everybody is on social. everybody is interactive. a lot of business owners are on social these days. for instance, there's only 135 million websites on the dot-com space today. there's 200 million businesses on facebook. >> how do you warn your employees to do something like i did? again, i know better. so how do i keep my employees who probably already know better from doing this s? >> training has got to be part of the equation. you have to train your work force to understand the security challenges and the risks that affect all sizes of business. >> so it's training. i know there's some programs out there. we had one on the show at some point where they'll kind of test your employees. they'll put some red herrings

out there and see if they click on them. >> there's testing platforms. there's protection as well. making sure you understand the risks on the testing side, incredibly valuable. i think you put a lot of time and effort on the protection side too. >> got it. and you talked about protecting everything. it's not just the website. you got to check social media as well. then you talk about the liability. it's not just your own liability. you got to distribute that with the people you work with. >> look, most business owners don't realize they have the opportunity to transfer son-in-law of that liability back on their vendors. >> how do you do that? >> it's part of your contract negotiation. when you go in to buy a product, buy a service, make sure the vendors are willing to guarantee that capability. all too often, business owners get stuck with the bad end of the stick. when something bad happens and a breach happens, the guys say, oh, you didn't configure it properly. they need to transfer that liability back to the vendor and say, look, if your product

doesn't work, there's a financial ramification. >> are most people not thinking that through right now? >> i don't think they think that through. that's right. i'm not sure they even understand they can do that. >> right. finally, if something happens, you got to be up front about it. >> be up front. be honest. communicate quickly. i think reputational and brand damage is one of the longest and hardest things to repair. i think your customers will really appreciate if you come out and say, look, we were doing a lot of things. we missed this one thing. we had a problem because of it. here's what we've done to fix it. that level of transparency will earn you big pos right back to first point, which is have a plan and know who to get to because if you do not have a plan in place and you're scrambling to see who to call, you're not going to be able to be transparent with your customers in a way that makes them feel safe. >> that's exactly right. >> all right. wi well, foster, thank you so much for coming on the program. i hope this is a reminder to everyone that they need to be paying attention to this.

>> so do i. thank you. i'm here with this week's elevator pitcher sam white, who's here to tell our panelist about your new product. tell me about it. >> this is a technology that i deployed in india to help dairy farmers chill their milk without diesel generators. my wife couldn't take the heat. well, fiance at the time. she's my wife probably because i did invent this. >> so this product not only is going to help people, but it helped your marriage. >> exactly. >> let's two in to meet our panelists. >> is this your color, by the way? >> i really love purple. but i'm going to try the gray one on while we're walking. >> fantastic. >> the cooling technology. it is nice. i should have this at my kids' soccer games. we have patrick mcginnis and mitchell, the co-founder of june group a digital advertising company. i think you'll do great. >> fantastic. looking forward to it. hi, i'm sam white, inventor of

the nano ice cooling necklace. millions of people suffer from chronic heat issues. my patented cooling technology lets them beat the heat in style. a few years ago i was living in india deploying an industrial cooling technology based on creating really compact ice, but my wife couldn't take the heat. so i took that ice technology and created this beautiful cooling necklace that when you take it out of the freezer lasts for hours. i've sold 3,000 of these necklaces on amazon and my website at $49 retail. i'm looking to raise $500,000 in exchange for 10% return on your investment in order to expand internationally. now, this is a social impact investment. over 50 million people suffer from hot flashes alone in the united states. so please come help me improve the lives of so many people who suffer from heat. thank you. >> nicely done. it looks like you guys are wearing lays when you get off

the plane and go to hawaii. okay. both of you, i need a number, one through ten, what did you think of the product and what did you think of the pitch? patrick? >> all right. so i gave you a nine for the pitch and an eight for the product. i thought your and and 8 for the product. you that it it was pretty tight. social impact is an important thing to tuck about today. you explained why you were the right person to build this business. in terms of the product, i need to get in the field to know if it work for sure. but you convinced me it's a pretty good product. >> i gave a 7 for the product and # for the pitch. i don't know if this is awe great look for me on national television. >> it is. >> i like the idea. it can probably use a little more development. it is is certainly a great development. i agree there is a lot of great data in there. you did a terrific job explaining it. i would love to have a little

more passion, a little more fun. >> that's good. that's great advice. i know you are passionate because i spoke with you. that's great advice is. good luck with everything. thank you so much for coming on the program. congratulations on the product. >> appreciate it. >> and thank you for the feedback. >> my pleasure. >> thanks. >> how would any of you like to come on your business and pitch your company like you just saw? send us a video of you doing your one minute elevator pitch. send it to us a lot your business at msnbc.com or post to youtube and send us the link. tell us what your company does, how much you're trying to raise and what you will do with the money. we look forward to seeing the pitches coming up next, what you need to do to maintain your company culture when the business is growing fast. >> and we have all heard of fomo but do you know what fobo means? we'll have the answer when we return.

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! "we got a 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. as you scale a business, how do you make sure the culture, the core values and that mission-driven focus begins to permeate every part of the

business and are embodied in every team member in the company? >> so for me what was important is those five values. we call it five ps you have to write them down. you have to get everyone trained on it and disseminate it within your organization. i follow this formula of 20/20/60. 20% of the time i'm telling everyone about the history of the company, 20% about the present. this is what we're supposed to be doing and 60% of my time in the future. sit is all defined by what our past is, our experiences, what we learned. that's very, very important. getting it defined. you have to let people know about it. every week you have to communicate those values in different ways to motivate, inspire people. you really don't train. you inspire people. you take those on values, those things that made you successful, that are going to make you successful and make sure everyone in the organization knows about it. and you repeat it often.

>> we now have the top two tips that you need to help grow your business. patrick and mitchell are back with us. all right. two tips. one from each of you. let's start with you, patrick. >> my fear is be aware of fobo. >> what is that? >> i'm credited with creating the term fomo. it is is much work than fobo. fobo is fear of a better option. it is the idea that instead of making decisions we collect as many as we can, leave all the doors open and never actually decide. so in this age of big data and analysis paralysis, it's really critical for people to be decisive. i tell people ask yourself why are you holding those doors open? if it is just to have an option, closing the doors, make a decisions, and move on. >> it is so true. too many options is paralyzing sometimes. it gets better -- i agree with

you, just be decisive, direct. you can go later if you need to and change everything up. okay. you're up. >> my advice is simple, don't stop. the temptation to try something else or give up or to quit. people don't realize when you start a company, you're embarrassed, humiliated, stepped on, beat up, abused. if you just keep going, then failure doesn't really happen. just experiences and learning. in a the main thing, is just to keep doing it. >> so that is great. failure never happened. it was just experience. when you are in the middle of it -- >> it's terrible. >> -- and everything is crashing down around you -- >> that separates the people who are successful from people who aren't. you have to not be normal. you have to put up with things that the average person would not in order to succeed. you have to want it that badly. >> i want to know how both of you do that don't stop. right? because it is common to want to

give up when things get tough. what do you do? >> the big thing that helps me issen skro enjoy the small thin. >> so get small victories. what do you do? >> my dad taught me is it's all about perspective. this is what i'm supposed to be doing. this is what i have to go through. what can i learn from it. when you look in those terms, it is not a block, a wall, not devastating. it's just difficult. and difficulty is okay. >> my mom used to read us the little engine that could. she was a very successful entrepreneur. i think i can, i think i can. i added this to i can't thithin. we cannot be expected to solve 6th problem ourselves. if you recognize when you can't solve and saw i'm not going to solve a problem. the only problem i need to solve

is who is the person that can help me solve this problem. so recognizing what you can't do. >> that's great. absolutely. >> that's what i do when i'm up at 3:00 in the morning worrying about something going on in business. i love this kind of almost healthy kind of stuff. as i have been doing this longer or and longer i realize that that is the key. >> you feel like you're the only one. >> orem bearsed. >> orem bearsed. a lot of people don't talk about that. you're in the spotlight. it's just you. and you say dumb things like this. hopefully not on a show like this. >> if you do, we'll talk it off. >> your biz selfie comes from alex app der donaldson and a great little helper. he runs an interstate mover and

carrier in stone mountain, georgia. we love seeing these from around the country. please right now pick up your smartphone and take a picture of you and your company. no professional shots. send it to us at your busine business @msnbc.com. or tweet it @msnbc your biz. thank you so much for joining us. earlier this week i had an issue with a company that i was a customer of and i was talking to them or on hold for literally an hour talking to someone after someone after someone none of whom were helpful until finally i reached someone who was helpful and resolved my issue. and that person saved the company in my eyes. i would never have gone back. but because that person was so great, i will absolutely go back to that company. this is just a reminder that the people on the front lines, the people who are dealing with your customers can absolutely make or break your business.

so treat your customers well and teach your customer service team or anyone who talks to customers to treat them well. now, we would love to hear from you. if you have any questions or comments about today's show, please e-mail us at your business @msnbc.com. or openforum.com/yourbusiness. and don't forget to connect with us on on all our social media and digital platforms as well. 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. i'm hugh hewitt. a victory over isis in raqqa, the self-pro claimed capital of the self is-proclaimed caliphate. joining me to recap the week and a look ahead, james hol mapp of the "washington post", sun minute kim of politico, courtney