yes! yes, indeed. amazing speed, coverage and control. all with an xfi gateway. find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business," her ice cream business took a licking when the unthinkable happened. we'll tell you how this determined female entrepreneur rebounded, making the brand bigger than ever. find out how collecting data helped this lunch shop owner and why it can boost your business. 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." >> "your business" is sponsed by american express open. helping you get business done.

>> hi, i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business." the show dedicated to helping your growing business. talent, hustle, and guts. that's what jenny britonbauer of jenny's ice cream values most in her employees and partners. and that is exactly what got her business through a crisis that could have tanked the company but instead strengthened it. salty caramel, pistachio and honey. is your mouth watering yet? jeni's splendid ice cream with its trademark container is known for its ingredients, and its very unique flavor combinations. >> i want that one. >> 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 are making the word's greatest ice cream, people will find us. our north star has to be making the world's greatest ice cream. >> reporter: jeni has dedicated more than half her life to perfecting the art of making ice cream. her obsession started when she was a kid. but it wasn't until college in the free spear itted 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, and it's probably a part of my, you know, molecular makeup at this point. >> reporter: 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 it into a national brand. with a big business in their scoop shop, healthy online sales, and a retail distribution to high end supermarkets. 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. and 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. and fortunately we got through that with no one suffering any serious injury. we overreacted, some would say. we thought it was the only way we were going to sleep that night. >> john and jeni decided the only way forward 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. and 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. kwauls they always look for in their employees and partners, but never expected would be tested like this. you want to say you got talent and guts but you don't really know until you prove it. this is our proving it moment and 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 hirsch of hirsch fruit farms has worked with jeni for almost ten years. he's had a long-standing

arrangement to grow the berries. when the news hit, he admits, he was nervous. >> i'm thinking, what am i going to do? what am i going to do with all these strawberries? what are we going to do in blackberry season, raspberry season? they were in constant contact with me about steps being taken. they assured me immediately, don't worry, we're still committed to you. 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, and 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 milk to 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, okay it came from our kitchen, we need to figure that out. and listeria, by the way, is

everywhere. it's in the dirt that's on the strawberries. it's in the air. it's airborne. it surrounds us constantly. but it's very dangerous if it gets into food so you don't want that to happen. and 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. and we did it, i believe, in record time. >> they also hired a former food safety expert from ben and 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 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 her 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 lindsay, the owner here, that sandwich looks like data. raw data. >> these are the bread choices, these are the meat, cheese,

toppings, and then if they wanted any deli sal aid on the side. >> reporter: at the 50-year-old lunch shop which lindsay's owned and operated since 2007, she turns everything into a number. >> we've been open 19 minutes and we made $256. but some of that is catering. we kind of track how many people are coming in. who's visiting my business. a big slice of my business is the 25 to 34-year-old demographic. that's probably the biggest demographic. >> oh, yeah. lots of data in that sandwich. >> reporter: big data expert allen bondi is at vancouver based open stress. he says small business owners can 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? >> reporter: and those are exactly the kind of questions lindsay asks herself every single day. >> in the last 30 days i've paid 121 bills for a total of $50,523. >> reporter: 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 eating, it's eroding the margin. >> reporter: if the costs rise faster than the prices, lindsay says even popular shops like hearse 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. >> reporter: 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. >> 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 you know, doing a million bucks, nine bucks at a time is a lot of turnover. >> reporter: 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 deliveryman. no digital records at all. >> you get paper. every day. from vendors. but there's so much paper that it sort of becomes pointless. because i couldn't really find anything. you know. they might as well have just thrown it out. to be honest. >> reporter: 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. >> so these are my food tallies right here. >> reporter: that daily receipt data is e-mailed 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.

>> reporter: by using the data this way to revise vendor orders and update the products offered, lindsay's retail business is what allen bonde calls data driven. lindsay says other shop keepers who simply collect their receipts in a drawer and wait until their bookkeepers do the math, no matter what kind of business they're in, 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 cash register. >> we assigned a single cashier to each register. end of the day people make mistakes, and that's okay. but if there's a consistent like, oh, she works every wednesday, every wednesday this cash register is short. then, you know, you can tell. >> reporter: allen 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 feedback. and then thinking about the actions that you take. >> reporter: but data alone is not enough. when this vendor suggested lindsay could save 17 cents a

pound on precooked roast beef to replace her store cooked supply, she jumped on it. and made a big mistake. but the customers could tell that it was commercially cooked and they didn't like it at all. >> the feedback was like, you've ruined my life. and 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 once i bought this business because there's always something to do and it's never the same. >> equifax, target, whole foods, have all been hacked. they're big companies with a lot of resources. you need to ask yourself what are you doing to protect your own company? james foster is the founder of a cybersecurity company. thank you so much for joining us the program. i'm very excited to talk to you,

because i think there are a lot of things we should all be doing that some people just are not doing. >> thanks very much. appreciate the opportunity. >> yeah, absolutely. okay, you go by foster, not james. >> i do. >> so let's start number one, you got to at least start thinking about 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. >> all right. what does that take to plan and invest accordingly? where should i even 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%. so 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 happened. and they don't even know who to call. >> got it. okay. the number one -- am i right in saying the number one way that people get hacked into is through employees still? >> employees are still part of the weakest link. >> so maybe not number one but

that is a weak link. >> absolutely. >> by the way, i clicked on a phishing scam the other day. right? 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. and it used to just be e-mail. social has really blown this problem up, because everybody's on social. everybody is interactive. and a lot of business owners are on social please days. for instance there's only 135 million websites on the dotcom space today. there's 200 million businesses on facebook. >> so how do you warn your employees to do something like i did? again i know better. how do i keep my employees who probably already know better from doing this. >> training has got to be part of the equation. you've got to train your workforce to understand the security challenges that are out there and the risks that affect all sides of business. >> so it's training. i know there's some programs out there. we actually had one on the show at some point where they will kind of test your employees. they'll put some red herrings out there and see if they click

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

not thinking that through right now? >> i don't think they think that through. and i'm not sure they even understand that they can do that. >> right. okay. and then finally, if something happens, you got to be up front about it. >> be up front. be honest. communicate quickly. >> uh-huh. >> i think reputational and brand damage is one of the longest and hardest things to repair. >> yep. >> and so 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 points in the long run. >> and that goes right back to your 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. will 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. >> thank you.

i'm here with this week's elevator pitcher sam white, who is here to tell our panelists about your new product. tell me about it. >> well, this is a cooling technology that i deployed in india to help dairy farmers chill their work without generators. but my wife couldn't take the heat, well fiancee at the time, and 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 go in to meet our panelist. >> 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. the cooling technology. i should have this at my kids' soccer game. we have patrick mcginnis, and mitchell who is the co-founder of june group, a digital advertising company. i think you will 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. and 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 out of the freezer, lasts for hours. i've sold 3,000 of these necklaces on amazon, and my website,s a$49 retail. i'm looking to raise $500,000 in exchange for a 10% return on your investment, in order to expand internationally. now this is a social impact investment. over 15 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 all wearing leis, you could get off the plane and go to hawaii.

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. okay. patrick? >> all right. so i gave you a nine for the pitch, and an eight for the product. i thought the pitch was pretty tight. you gave me metrics about how you're performing. you talked about the social impact which is a important thing to talk about and you explained why you're the right person to build this business n terms of the product, i need to get out in the field. it's hot under the lights but i need to test it in the real world but you convinced me it's a good product. >> i gave you seven for product and eight for pitch. starting with the product, i don't know if this is a great look for me on national television. it certainly is -- i love the idea of it. i think it can use a little more development. it's a great concept. in terms of the pitch, i believe there's a lot of great data and did a terrific job explaining it and so forth. i would love to have a little more passion and fun. >> that's good.

that's great advice. i know you're passionate about. this. i spoke to you about it. good luck with everything. thank you so much for coming on the program. congratulations on the product. >> appreciate it. >> thank you for your feedback with this. >> pleasure. >> thanks. >> how would any of you like to come on your business and pitch your company like you just saw? the best way is send us a video of you doing your one minute elevator pitch. you can send it to us at -- >> we look forward to seeing those pitches. coming up next, what you need to do to maintain the company culture when your business is growing fast. and we've all heard of fomo. do you know what fobo means? we'll have the answer whether we return.

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. as you scale the business, how do you make sure that the culture, the core values and that mission driven focus continue to permeate every part of the business and are embodied in every team member in the

company? >> so for me, what was very important is that those five values, we call it five ps, that i, one, write them down. you have to write them down. then you have to get everyone trained on it and disseminated within your organization. and i follow this form laugh 20-20-60. 20% of the time i'm spending, telling everybody about the history of the company. and then another 20% about the present. this is what we're supposed to be doing. then i spend 60% of the time in the future. it's all defind by our past, our experiences, what we learned. that's very, very important. so first, getting it defined. you have to let people know about it. and every week you have to communicate those values and different ways, motivate. you know, inspire people. you know, you really don't train, you inspire people. you take the values, those things that made you successful, that are going to make you successful and you make sure everyone in the organization knows about it and then you repeat it often. we now have the top two tips

you need to help grow your business. patrick and mitchell are back with us. all right. two tips. one from each of you. >> my tip is beware of fobo. >> i know what fomo is, fear of missing out. >> i'm credited for inventing the term fomo. >> now you're creating a knew one. >> i created them the same time. it is much worse than fobo. fear of a better option. instead of making decisions, we leave all the doors open and never actually decide, right? and so in this age of big data and analysis paralysis, it's critical to be decisive. ask yourself, why are you hoe d holding the doors open? close the doors and make a decision and move on. >> so true. too many options is paralyzing sometimes. >> yeah. >> i think it's better to just, i agree with you, just be decisive, direct. you can go back later if you

need to and change everything up. all right. you're up. >> so my advice is simple. don't stop. the temptation to try something else or to give up or to quit, you know, 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 really doesn't happen. just experiences and learning. en that and that is the main thing is keep doing it. >> that is great as you're looking back. failure never happened. it was just experience. when you're in the middle of it and everything is crashing down around you -- >> that's the thing. that's what separates people who are successful from people who aren't. a normal person would never go through what an entrepreneur has to go through. 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. it really is no fun to your point. >> i want to know how both of you do that don't stop. right? it's common to want to give up

when things get tough. >> i think the big thing that i found helps me is to always remember to enjoy the small things. enjoy the small victories. the big picture is something you can't sol inform a day. but the small things can you attack one by one. >> so get small victories. what do you do? >> my dad taught me it's about perspective. you have to take a difficult situation and embrace it and say this is what i'm supposed to be doing. this is what i have to go through. and what can i learn from it? and when you look at it in those terms, it's not a block or not a wall, it's not devastating, it's just difficult. and difficulty is okay. >> right. my mom used to read us the book, "the little engine that could" when we were growing up. she was a successful entrepreneur. as i god older, i added i think i can't when i started my company which is that we cannot be expected to be able to solve every problem ourselves. and so if you just recognize what you can't solve and then say i'm not going to solve the problem, the only problem i need to solve is who is the person that can help me solve this

problem? right? and so recognize wlag ying what can't do. that's what i do when i'm up at 3:00 in the morning worrying about something going on in business. all right. i love this kind of almost self helpy stuff. as i've been doing this show for longer and longer and talk to more and more business decision makers, i realize that that is the part that often is the hardest in running a business. >> yeah. you feel alone. you feel like you're the only -- >> or embarrassed. >> or embarrassed. that's something a lot of people don't talk about. you're in the spotlight. it's just you. you're going to say dumb things every once in a while. hopefully not on a show like this. >> if you do, we'll take it out. all right. thank you both. this week's your biz selfie comes from alexander donaldson and a great little helper. he runs alexander donaldson trucking in stone mountain, georgia, an interstate carry eastern mover for residences and commercial businesses.

we love seeing the photos from around the country. so please, right now, pick up your smart phone and take a selfie of you and your company. no professional shots. and then send it to us at -- 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. that person saved the company in my eyes. i would never have gone back because that person was so great, i will absolutely go back to that company. so this is just a remind that's right people on the front lines, the people dealing with your customers can absolutely make or break your business. so treat your customers well and

treat your customer service team or anyone that talks to customers to treat them well. we would love to hear from you. if you have fany questions or comments about the show, e-mail us or click on our website. we posted all of the segments from today's show and a whole lot more. don't forget to connect with us on our digital and social platforms as well. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, remember, we make your business our 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! "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. good morning. welcome to a special edition of "politics nation." we call it 2017, the year of social justice. and indeed it was a year that felt at times, well, like a roller coaster. the events in charlottesville, the fight to remove confederate statues, the nfl against police brutality, jeff sessions at the helm of the justice department and, yes, president