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hi, there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg, and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your growing companies. small business saturday is coming later this month, and the push to get people to shop local is on. in los angeles, the owner of a children's boutique decided she wanted to take an active role in getting her community to support small businesses, so when a position opened up on the neighborhood council, celine jumped for the chance to become a true advocate by running for office. ♪ celine, co-owner of the hip

children's boutique la la ling based in los angeles never thought she would run for council. >> it's made up of 19 board members, and last may there was a seat open for the business representative, and they were really urging people to step up and run for this position. >> although she's noenl her 20s and has the day-to-day operations of making her thriving business run, she had the opportunity to run for the position and become an advocate for small businesses in her community. >> i was kind of inspired by me realizing i could have a larger impact if i thought outside of these four walls and figured instead of just focusing on helping my business thrive, that if i helped my neighborhood and community thrive, then everyone wins. >> to take on a challenge of running for an official position in city government on a local level is just so brave and so courageous and so inspiring.

>> celine and la la ling co-owner started in their late teens. >> we learned so much from her. >> just the relationship with people. >> what benefits us is how much trust she instilled in us. we learned a lot in feeling like our opinions were valid and worth sharing and she gave us a lot of freedom in the store as sales girls. >> ling was ahead of her time when she opened the doors to the whimsical world of la la ling in 2004. she set out to create a one-stop shop for cool moms looking for edgy art, cool toys, and a sense of humor, and she also experimented with interactive journeys. >> we had music class.

we had an art class. this place back here was our little think lab. and we also had a hair salon. >> la la ling quickly became a go-to decemberty station for any family looking for fun and the latest in fashion accessories and furnishings. but seven weeks in when the economy started taking a toll on the retail world, ling started thinking about closing up. >> the thoutds of closing the store was tearing at my soul. it's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to open your business. retail is really tough. >> she couldn't fathom the idea of closing the doors, and the thought of taking over the reins soon became front and center. >> i think the courage at that age is the perfect courage. i think now that i'm older, i don't think i would take the same risk. >> if i have anything to take credit for, it's to take risks.

you can't take risks unless you open your eyes and expose things to other people. >> i think that's why we felt confident to even consider buying the store because she had allowed us to run things the way we saw fit. >> kara approached celine to see if she was on board with the bold idea. >> i called see lean and asked her if she wanted to buy la la ling with me, and she said no. and i said, think about it. >> i thought she was insane because i was 23 and had never considered owning a business. i didn't feel qualified. i didn't go to college and thought i was going to be a singer, and so the idea of owning a business at first did not ring true to my vision. >> after two days of fear and doubt swirling in her mind, celine was in. so when ling finally sat her team down for the dreaded tough talk, she had no idea the surprise kara and celine had in store for her. >> we literally stopped her in her tracks and said, well, how

would you feel if we took over. >> i burst into tears because to me it's the best thing because it's sort of like handing over a family business to two of my daughters in some way, you know. for them to take over ownership was a dream come true. they had great ideas and a new energy. >> the small community of surrounding businesses and the following of customers embraced them as the new owners. >> it's close-knit. >> there's a real sense of identity. >> our neon sign that says meet me in las feliz, this brings the idea it's more than a retail space but a way for the neighborhood to come and hang with us. >> her spirit played a big part in her being part of the council. becoming a powerful voice for

change, a voice to help bridge together small businesses and open communication lines and a voice to make their collective voices matter has been life-changing for her. >> it's been really rewarding, and i'm excited to use that platform to help that store and all the other stores. there's microcosms with friendships with business owners and we can all gain from working together and having more communication between us. so i'm happy to be kind of that liaison between all the businesses. >> it's a bit surreal. sometimes i feel like i don't know what i'ming down, and that's kind of exciting in a way. and if there's anything i learned from owning a business, it's to not be afraid to ask questions. the voice of a neighborhood council can have a real impact. we've drafted things called community impact statements, and those get added on to a bill

that a city councilman might want to pass with our official opinion about it. >> we're living in very challenging political times, and so it really, i think, is so inspiring for young girls like my daughter who's 11 to see women taking on leadership roles in our government, and it starts at the local level. i think it's just inspirational all around. >> small business saturday is all about reminding people that if they don't go to their local stores, they will go away, and nothing illustrates that more than the loss of so many bookstores around the country over the past decade. when her local bookstore closed, she didn't want her readers to be left without an alternative to books. nbc's lauren bush hager has her

story. >> you needed a place to read. >> yes. >> your store's name is books a are magic. >> yes. >> the author of "the vacationers" and "modern loaves" is working on a fifth and last year opened another. >> as long as you want to read book, come on in. >> there you. books are magic. >> they oenltd look leak objects, but really they're doors. you open it up, walk on through, and go somewhere else. >> reporter: straub is not jest a best-selling author. she's mother to river and miles. she and her husband own and operate books are magic. >> your baby, this business, is about a year old or more. what's it been like? what have you learned? >> it's bananas.

every day is busier. i think a lot of us are advocates not only for our own books, but books period. >> there are tons of articles saying people are reading less now thanner. what do you say? >> people are saying, you know, since people are reading on their ereaders, i haven't read a book. they probably weren't reading before. i don't read as much as i used to because i have two children and a bookstore and a lot of responsibility, but it's the thing i love most. >> it made me so misty-eyed. i love when i cry and the person doesn't. it's like, that's beautiful. i imagine many think i'm nuts. >> that's because your mother is a librarian. >> i love books. i feel the same way. i can't help but looking around. sensory overload. >> that means we're doing it. >> the right thing is paying off. they've sold 150,000 books in just their first year.

>> i can't help but stop. a poetry gumball machine? >> it's the best thing in the world. >> love. i can't imagine summer how the green world begins. >> it's full of them. >> i'm going to take that and keep it with me forever. >> yeah. >> what should i be bringing home to mila and l l l -- me ma and papi. >> this is about two cats, very similar. one likes potato chips. >> i did have a cat who tried pasta. >> well, there you go. >> i know. >> your favor part of the store is this octogon. >> yes. it's this secret little hideout. >> magic place. >> where you can be by yourself and have a book. >> is that a good place to read? pretty good? are you living your dream? >> i wrietd books for a living. people pay me to do it. and i get to talk about books all day long. it's a dream. it's a dream. actress monica potter tames

hometown pride to a whole new level with her brand monica potter home. with flagship show in gafrtsville, ohio, and an ecommerce site, she's making it easier for fans to shop far and local. she's activ acted alongside som hollywood's biggest names like nicolas cage and freeman. what you probably dmoenl about monica potter is she's also a successful entrepreneur. >> i've always had this business plan that i wanted to do something like paul newman. i love him so much. he's one of my biggest inspirations aside from my dad, and he's from ohio too. >> in 2012 she started monica potter home, an ecommerce site that features home goods and beauty essentials that are all

made by local cleveland artisans and craftspeople just like monica herself. >> growing up in cleveland, i saw how hard people work and how much they care about their city and their community. >> completely self-funded, for monica, this isn't just a side gig. it's a true passion project. >> i'm lucky and i'm grateful because i get to act, and then i get to use that cash, saying it blunltdly, use the cash to put into this and create a business. >> with her name front and center on all the labels, monica makes sure each and every item is something she wants to sell to her customers. >> people work hard for their money. i'm not going to sell them junk, i'm not going to make junk. if there's a bad batch of something, we throw it out. my standard is would i give this to my mom or my kids? if the answer is no, then it goes out. >> thinking of her fans as family led her to find new ways

to interact with them face-to-face. >> we were online and people love the stuff and then i love to connect with people, so i thought this could be a great opportunity to have a destination location in garre s garrettsville, ohio, where we have a store front, shipping, handling, distribution. >> monica measures success in more than just the bochl line. it's equally about sharing monica's first love, her love for her hometown, cleveland. >> all of the products that we make, the candles, it's all here. 's sourced here, made here. sometimes i have to be karel because you can get so caught up in the business part of it that i've been lately, you know, losing sight as to why we starltded this to begin with, and that was to bring jobs back home and hopefully expand and help other communities and cities.

i'm in las vegas at shop.org where a lot of people are thinking if they have a brick and mortar store, how do they get customers into their store to actually buy something? it's something my next guest thinks of a lot. david is owner of bricks works. thanks for stopping by. >> thanks for having me, j.j., i appreciate it. >> i think what you're doing is fascinating. your whole company is about getting people who are browsing on their phone and getting them in to a retail stheer that right. what we focus on is helping brands and retailers who engage in online content and get them into a store for a branded experience and offer them a higher level of experience when we get to store. what we find is those sorts of experiences are catalysts for driving value out of those customers. what i mean by that -- >> i was going same let's take all of those words out and let's say, give me an example. i am a spice store.

what do i need to do to get people into the store. >> we don't deal with spices. >> which is why i used it as a hypothetd cal. >> you would use your website to offer content around the spices you offer in your store, and brick work would place a button, a simple button that would allow you to come in and have a consultation with an expert spice merchant or associate inside that store who would really help you build out a whole catalog of spices that you want to bring into your kitchen. >> do you believe if you're a brick and mortar retailer, you need to have some kind of experience. >> absolutely. the future of brick and mortar is the experienced in retail. you put the unique assets, the associates, services you can offer, the uniqueness of the product categories you can fwroing physical retail. pull those together in a coordinated way to add a higher

level of experience for the customer. >> because if not, i could buy it online for anyone. >> it's so easy to buy online, so you have to come with a higher value proposition in store to get the customer in the store. that's experience. >> i'm going to put smoggen my site and it will go on my mobile site. it will say, come on thursday and i'm going to have aing cooing with classes class. why do you need that besides me the retailer sticking it on my site? >> the reality is ecommerce for the most part is fairly straightforward. i set up a warehouse, a website, i add a checkout, and i can really get going. we see that with a proliferation of brands with shopify. it's complex. it involves people, locations throughout the country. and so for the kiensd of brands we work with, 200 to 3,000

stores, you need software that serves a system of record and engagement to really manage all of the complex ways, all of the business rules, really manage the configuration of what those experiences look like and be able to mine the data we can deliver off of those experiences so you can in the future improve and enhance those experiences at a local level but do it to scale. >> it's interesting. so it's important not tonal say, hey, come to my cooking class, but you want to say, who looked through, who clicked through and came, who clicked through and didn't come, what else did they look at on the site, et cetera. >> there are more customers making online to offline journeys rare than purely offline to offline or online to online. you want to be able to gather information about those customers, so you can offer them a better experience when they arrive in store and you can

drive a higher conversion rate. >> so when i come in -- i'm going to use the spice store again. i come into the spice store because i saw the cooking class, someone else at the spice store knows j.j. always cooks with cinnamon. once she gets here and is in my cooking class, i'm going to teach her about cooking with cinnamon and try to sell her this rare cinnamon from madagascar. >> yes. we can help the retailer understand you have an affinity for cinnamon or you have been browsing online and pass that through to the associate who is able to give you that experience. >> it's so interesting. ultimately it's just about each particular customer. >> i think in general we experience the world with our phone in our hand today, and so this convergence of physical and digital is coming over retail like a wave right now. >> well, congratulations on your store. i know you work with a lot of big customers. it sounds like you're doing a

lot of great work. >> thank you. we're right in the middle of our third podcast, "been there, built that." i get to talk to business owners about the highs and the hards of running a business. this georgia, to hang out with co-founder and ceo ben chestnut who tells me how his side house will turn into a business that did half a billion dollars in revenue last year, and how he was offered $1 billion to sell his company. that is right. $1 billion, and he turned it down. he tells me why. so i hope you get a chance to listen to it. if you do, leave comments. we love hearing what you think. check it out. called "been there, built that." find it wherever you get your podcasts. when we return, tax deductions you should be looking into now before the year ends. and whether owners should pursue new opportunities or stay the course.

the community doesn't just have small businesses, it is small businesses. and that's why american express founded small business saturday. so, this year let's all get up, get out and shop small on november 24th. i got croissant. small business saturday. a small way to make a big difference. # . when you're building a company, you're going in one direction and all of a sudden multiple directions open up and you can actually go in, and is it better to stay focused on the path you're on or dilly dally in the other ones or change and pivot all the way around? >> let me first say some of the best entrepreneurs and companies are the ones that try to find a way to say, yes." however, it's easy as a start-up

to get shiny object syndrome. all the things come in your way. three things to do to evaluate he's opportunities and figure which to take. first, does it align with your strategy? oftentimes we confuse tactics with strategies. strategies, analyze customer base, segments, to figure whether there's a product fit. second thing can you do is to ask yourself what would i have to give up? entrepreneurship isn't a big buffet to keep piling on new tasks like you would mac and cheese. you have to give something up. so is this opportunity going to help you get ahead more than you're giving up? the last thing you freed to nee does this opportunity align with my values? the big values on motivational posters aren't just for looks but help you make decisions. if it meet those things, willing to give something else up and a new tactic, not a new strategy. i say find a way to say, "yes." the year's coming to an end. business owners should be

thinking now of getting their taxes in order. what are some of the best moves to help? here to help us, gene marks, a columnist for the "washington post." i think we do this segment every year. >> we do. what do we do? first of all, you meet with your accountant. right? still time to do this. not everybody is crazy about meeting with their accountant. it's the thing to do, plan ahead. big changes in tax reform. one for pass-through organizations. if you're like an s corporation or a limited liability, something like that, big tax advantages for you, maybe. get your arms around that and you might want to consider options of changing from an s corporation to a c corporation, or if you're a c corporation, maybe changing to an s corporation. >> this quickly? >> no. get all of your paperwork in order ready to go so you're all set for january 1st of next year. the reason i say that is because

of all the rule changes. it might benefit you to change status. do the work now so you're ready to go in 2019. >> exactly. >> number one. >> capital equipment you talk about. >> correct. accelerate into depreciation. you can spend up to $1 million on capital equipment. j.j., you don't really is a to paper for the stuff. put a down payment down, finance the rest. still historically low interest rates. get it into service by the end of the year. boom. get a full year's deduction up front. a really big, big deal. >> a big deal up to $1 million. >> buy that capital equipment is number two. number three, if you don't have a 401(k) plan, get a freakin' 401(k) plan. every business should have it. benefits business owners and employees. very inexpensive to set up and because of tax reform you have an encouragement. you get a $500 a year credit for the next three years, a credit, on your taxes, just for setting

up a 401(k) plan. >> even if you don't contribute to it? >> even if you don't contribute to it, as long as it's set up for employees to use you get the tax credit for doing it. only for companies with less than 100 employees. that's most of our audience. >> if you set up a 401(k) plan you as a company don't need to contribute. can be a schs ervice. >> the government trying to encourage. retirement savings is a huge crisis in the country. the government is trying to encourage us to save more money. if you do it, we'll give awe tax credit. it's a credit, not a deduction. whatever taxes you owe, you take it right off the top. number three. >> i want to remind people. i remember when he set up ours, it's a little complicated. >> you got to talk to your adviser and accountantant people set it up for you easily. you need to understand. finally, the work opportunity tax credit. >> a big deal.

expires the end of 2019. for particularly small businesses, j.j., if you hire somebody that's long-term unemployed. somebody on welfare a veteran, somebody that just got out of prison, right? if you provide that person with a job you can get up to a $9,600 credit on their compensation against your taxes that you owe. it's part of this work opportunity program that's been around a few years, and a lot of business owners are not aware it exists. >> how do you find these people? >> first of all, finding, recruiting people long-term -- a whole other conversation where to go to recruit them. assume you found one. assume you hired a veteran or somebody that just got out of prison or somebody on welfare last year, two years ago. go back a couple years ago and amend your returns and apply for the credit. the issue i have to warn you, it's a complicated calculation. your accountant might not be that crazy about doing it. there is a boutique industry of

people out there able to do that stuff. google, work opportunity tax credit. find a consultant to help you. go back and get money on your taxes. the work opportunity tax credit, starting a 401(k) plan. take advantage of that accelerated depreciation and meeting with your accountant and giving real thought about potentially changing your tax status for 2019, because of the changing rates, might benefit. >> and the opportunity tax credit, hard to find good people these daydays. >> it is. >> a lot of amazing people fit into the categories you talked about. >> not only that, talking about employers having a hard time paying people and keeping up. if the government's giving you back a few thousand, put it in your pocket or give it to the employee and give them more if that's what attracting the better employee to your company. government's trying to help. pay attention. >> thanks. >> thanks, j.j. this week's "your biz" selfie comes from dawn kelly.

her company sells all kinds of juices and smoothies and has a make your own salad bar. thank you so, so much for sending that in, dawn. we love seeing your picture, and best of luck with your business. thank you so much for joining us today. here's something i've been thinking about. if you get a chance to listen to the podcast, ben chestnut talks about a time his business was very stressful and bringing that stress home without even realizing it. i hear this from a lot of ceos and their partners at home. so what we all need to remember is that work is hard. sometimes it's really fun and sometimes it is really complicated. but we have to think about what we're bringing home with us, and talk to people about it. right? talk to your family about it. talk to the people in your business about it. talk to friends, because we all go through this at some times, and very honest about once he realized it, able to talk to his wife about it and everything turned out fine.

we'd love to hear from you. if you have questions or comments about today's show, e-mail u us @yourbusiness@msnbc.tom. click on our website. msnbc.com/yourbusiness. we posted all segments from today's show plus a lot more and don't forget to connect with us on all our digital platforms, too. hear the story about ben chestnut, check out the podcast. "been there, built that" down download it for free. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg, and remember, we make your business our business. >> announcer: sponsored by --

the community doesn't just have small businesses, it is small businesses. and that's why american express founded small business saturday. so, this year let's all get up, get out and shop small on november 24th. i got croissant. small business saturday. a small way to make a big difference. good morning, everybody. i'm david gura. this is "up." we are here every saturday and sunday at 8:00 eastern time. on this saturday, deadline florida. the cutoff just hours away to get all ballots counted. and the races for governor and the senate could not be closer or nastier. >> i will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the great people of florida. >> under fire, new questions about the new acting attorney general. just what is his relationship with