with super tuesday coming up, small business sounds off on the issues affecting them. what a owner did to make sure the second location did not take a bite out of the original profits. that's coming up on "your business."

hi, there, everyone. i am j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business." location, location, location is one of the key factors that every intrapreneur must think about before expanding their business. in this case, chew toys and tender vitles are on the list as well. and today a ven tur shares her story about cats, dogs, and trying to make sure her own business didn't become part of its own competition. >> we felt in our gut that we loved dogs so much and that we cared about our dogs like family, that other people would, too. >> we are looking for the folks that have a dog and are looking to have their dog pampers. >> a swimming pool, and luxury

suites with tvs, and birthday party and grooming services galore, and multiple walks a day. those are a few aminute teas you will find. >> they are wowed by the facility. it's not every day you come and see dogs jumping in the pool. it's like a hotel. it's for the owners as well as the dogs and cats. we want it to be home away from home where you know we will take care of you. >> they base their business model on their passion for pets. >> my father shared his love of dogs with me, and at the time i didn't have children. i was not married. my dog always needed baby sitting. my father said, there's no place good enough for your dog and for my grand dog and there has to be other people like you. >> and that's how the firm turned this doggy dream into an old town reality. >> we consider dogs and cats our family. >> during their initial

conversations, mark told his daughter that high-end pet care was an untapped market. >> nobody heard of a pet resort, or a spa for dogs and cats. you are kidding me? my dad used to say pioneers get their face in the mud and arrows in their back. do you want to be that? >> and her answer was yes. >> the dogs is our primary business. >> we had teachers and policemen and business executives, and we have families that just are taking vacations or needed a break. >> now about ten years later, the business has grown to two locations. but that expansion did not happen on the fly. >> we're a privately held company and we didn't have to grow to return money to investors, so we wanted to do it the right way and we did it slowly but surely. >> the first facility was built in springfield, virginia.

there was concern about old town competing against itself after the expansion. >> we felt nobody does what we do at the level that we do it. >> our first choice may have been montgomery county, maryland, which even though it's not any further, it's psychologically in another state, so it's a little different. >> when that location was too difficult to secure, they weighed their options and chose sterling, virginia, for the second resort. >> we looked for high traffic and high population and high incomes. we do put a lot of homework into it before we pick a site. >> that's been important to hold down success. when you look at a map, you can see the two locations are only about 30 miles apart, and that's why old town really relied on the research. nichlt a region that is beset by the worst traffic in the country and where time is money, ask everybody seems to be in a rush,

30 miles is a big difference. >> we thought we had enough distance from the springfield facility where we would not cannibalize that business. >> but they needed to find out as much as they could about their clients. >> we did zip code studies. we find out as much as we can about every customer, why they chose the location and where they live? >> there was no way to tell what they would ultimately decide to do. >> we did see maybe 200 or 300 people or maybe more that we thought were in a gray zone that could go either way, depending on the traffic patterns. >> despite the uncertainty, it became clear that geography would work in old town's favor, and having two facilities close together became to be beneficial. >> some may live closer to one or work closer to another

facility, so when they went on vacation, they may take them to one, and when they go to doggy day camp while they go to work they take them to the other location. >> when it comes down to the numbers, old town has had to take a pass. >> we did a full market study for the charlottesville, virginia market. they did not have the population density. >> they are taking their time because they know the importance of weighing their options. >> if you are an intrapreneur and in control of your own business and you are doing it slowly and successfully, i think that's a lesson you learn. i was anxious for a while that we were not opening five a year, and we might or we might only open one every five years. ♪ opening up a second location can be great as long as it

doesn't compromise your original operation. let's turn to this week's board of directors. rob kurts is the editor of "huffington post"s small business. and carol roth is author of the book "the intrapreneur equation." good to see you guys. >> you, too, j.j. >> it's fun to watched dogs have a birthday party. >> actually, i want to move in there. that's nicer than most of the places i stay at. >> it looked nicer than my last vacation. >> there's a starbucks on every corner. here in new york there's a small market on every corner. this, you want to get it close enough so that can you take advantage of the scales, but far enough that you are not cannibalizing yourself. they seem to do it right. >> i think this was a great piece, and you have to do your homework. they did an study, and what they

did first was build a business that people were willing to travel to already. until you have that model perfected. th , there is no use for expansion. >> and cannibalization is one of the interesting thing, because people say if i open another one, it will take away from my business. if you are doing something well, somebody else is going to come into the market. it's better to compete against yourself than somebody else. there has been a lot of talk about how the government is going to help small businesses this month. the obama administration proposes reducing corporate income tax. house republicans unveiled a pack of measures that make it easier for small businesses to raise money, and on the campaign trail, social issues have taken

center stage and on top of that, gas prices are rising. in today's small business, we talk with some focus group to find out what is resonating with them and what seems just like politic political bluster. we have a democratic candidate for congress. and leonard cooperman runs coin-operated laundry mats. he voted for john mccain in 2008. good to see both of you. leonard, i want to start with you. you have an interesting story. we hear a lot from candidates and the obama administration that small business is going to help us out of the job crisis. you are somebody that had employees and got rid of them. why? >> the cost.

there is always the issues you deal with. there is scheduling issues. payroll issues. if somebody gets sick as a small business owner, tag, you are it and you have to fill in. we're not prepared to deal with all the tax issues, so i have to outsource payroll, and it's constant baby sitting and constant care, and that's something or time that i don't have to spends. >> you had a dry-cleaner and now you have coin-operated laundry mats. >> 78% of all new businesses created this this country are going to be created not by small businesses as congress defines them, but by businesses with less than five employees and less than five years old. >> that's interesting. when the candidates talk about small business, and they talk

about things like -- or obama talks about things like corporate tax reform, that doesn't affect most of small business owners? >> no, it doesn't. we're not paying that much in taxes, if anything at all. it's the problem with the tax code is that it gets complicated because of the need for a fair playing field. unfortunately in the last few years what has really happened is that as we create new legislation, it always benefits big business and puts -- >> or the other side of small business, at least. >> exactly. it depends on how you define small business. the sba is something that defines small business with something like 1,000 employees.

president obama was referring to businesses of 100 to 500 employees. that's not main street. main street is where all the new jobs will be born. >> leonard, you are main street and you don't have any employees in this business, and do you feel like anybody is addressing you when they say small business? >> no. i am probably almost counter culture to small business, you know. again, it comes back to return on your investment. so i am trying to maximize that. i am actually with the model that we are running now, we have zero employees, and i have higher gross revenues and sales and higher margins. i can do that without employees. that's a model that is extremely appealing to me. >> one thing you are affected by is the higher gas prices, is that right? >> yes. >> what are you doing about that? how do you deal with that? are any of the republican candidates or is the administration talking to you when they talk about gas prices? >> no, not at all. what i buy is natural gas, you

know, five years ago it really did peak, and it has come back down and the supply has increased and unlike a gas station, i can't go around and adjust the items in my laundry mats. dry something almost or heating your water is also a loss leader at this point and you need to make the money on washing because the price of gas is very volatile. >> this is not just affectinglandard but small businesses across the country? >> absolutely. the reality is we're involved in the huge pair dime shift that is social and economic, and the really successful new businesses that are going to be created are coming down the pipeline, and those of us that are older with more mature established businesses are really having difficulty dealing with all much these shifts and everything. at sometimes during the great recession, it felt like we were

on a roller coaster ride. and things are beginning to stabilize, but not enough to give intrapreneurs the real confidence that they need to move forward and create new businesses. >> both of you guys, thank you so much and thank you for being a voice for micro-businesses. >> thank you so much. video is a great resource to use for your online marketing, and there's no need to be an expert filmmaker to take advantage of it. here are five videos to make for the web courtesy of the new york prize report. >> a video showing how to use your product can be informational and a great selling tool. two, answer frequently asked questions on camera. this is a fun way to give your customers useful facts about your business. three, profile your salespeople. this gives your customers a way to get to know your team. four, cover customer concerns.

address the top three objections your customers have on camera. and number five, testimonials. the best marketing you have is a happy customer. find people who love your product and get the cameras rolling. when we come back, we'll emphasize in quality get you a bigger size of the market? and we will tell you how using four square can help attract and keep customers. shazi: seven years ago, i had this idea. to make baby food the way moms would. happybaby strives to make the best organic baby food. in a business like ours, personal connections are so important. we use our american express open gold card to further those connections. last year we took dozens of trips using membership rewards points to meet with farmers that grow our sweet potatoes

and merchants that sell our product. vo: get the card built for business spending. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. the most effective customer loyalty programs master customer engagement in innovative ways, and one cool way is by leveraging the media power of four square. we have a communications coach for some of the most admired brands out there, and he's the author of power foursquare, seven innovative ways to get your customer to check in wherever they are. >> for anybody that doesn't know what foursquare is, can you give a quick some re? >> it's a media app that makes

your world a much more interesting place. you download the free app to your smart phone and you canter any venue in where you are and share the check in, and share it with friends. they know where you are and what you are doing, and it becomes a game as well. >> so from the small business perspective, this is great, because you, carmine, come into my ice cream shop and you check in and everybody knows where you are and that's free marketing for me. >> the point is they are checking into your small business anyway, so why don't you establish a venue on foursquare, and any small business can do it for free, and it's very easy to do if you visit foursquare.com, and you can start to promote specials and ads and promotions and engaging people. you can start engaging people where they are living their lives, which is on their smart phones. can you create specials to

attract and reward them. >> so in essence i am creating a special so i can encourage people to check in and get the free marketing of all of their friends seeing them at my score? >> you can check in and show them your phone and get free chips and salsa. but the mayor is the person that checks in the most in anyone establishment. the mayor can get something extra special. can you have fun with this. there's a restaurant called miss shirley's in baltimore that has long lines on weekends, and they created the special line just for the mayor. so you can reward people just for coming in once, coming in for the first time, or reward people for their loyalty, and get them coming back for more. >> what about places where people are not checking in? i live in new york city, and lots of people know about four square and some are checking in, but if you live in a place where

it's not as common, or you serve a community that is not aztec savvy, how do you get them and their friends to get involved so you can use it as a marketing platform? >> i live in a small town in northern california and people are checking in everywhere. and you will find that there are specials everywhere. there are thousands of merchants actively participating in foursquare. however, as a small business owner, you need to know that people are on their mobile devices. the whole digital trend obviously is to become more social local mobile. foursquare is the type of resource in a sweet spot. >> one of your tips for people is to encourage customers to leave photos and tips. do you reward them for doing that as well? >> there's a restaurant in cal

a.j. bombers that will give you a free cookie just for posting a tip. well, if you post a tip, now there are hundreds and hundreds of tips for a.j. bombers and helps that restaurant become more social. more searchable on google and some of the other websites. >> carmine, thank you so much for giving this foursquare 101 for us. we appreciate it. >> you bet. thanks a lot. time now to answer some of your business questions. rod and carol are with us once again. first one is about doing your homework. >> as a start-up, hot for the new spot, how do we obtain active, reliable market research? >> we talked about this a little bit before but people think market research is so expensive and hard to get. they areiesy and cheap ways to get it, too. the thing called the internet. it is fabulous. >> heard of. >> it for getting research. one thing you can do set up is a free google alert. if there is something in your

industry, some phrase you are looking for, set it up and google will send you all kinds of google information. twitter or you can just go out and ask. find somebody who is servicing a similar consumer and say what's your experience? between those tools you can do it really, really cheaply these day zbluks set up informal focus groups. >> yeah, absolutely. i think that's sometime it is best way to do it. entrepreneurs when starting out, they are in their garage and working 24/7 on this thing. so close to it. when you get out and ask the focus group beyond your friends and family you actually get some really positive feedback. obviously the web has been a game changer and leveled the playing field and can capture a lot of information. i think searches is one of the best functions of the twitter. there are ways that you can set up if you are thinking about launching your brand, set up facebook and twitter pages in advance. reach out to people and bet some feedback that way. you know, interesting in the question talking about a niche product. do i wonder how much market research matters if you are -- carving this niche. i think maybe it is way to expand it beyond the original product. but -- you know, you have to be

asking the right questions depending on what your product. >> listen. you can ask questions and people will answer differently than what they think based on what you ask. i think listening is very, very powerful. you may ask someone what color do you want for this. they will say blue. if you are listen online they have been talking about red four weeks they want red. >> that's why j.j. is wearing red. >> that's right. focus group. >> i asked they wanted red. >> also, depending on what the product or what the company is there may be really cheap ways of just getting it out there. withdrew want to end up in analysis paralysis. >> that happens all the time. i see it with patents. people get focused on protecting their idea and it is not a good idea customers want. don't stumble early on trying to really build on research around it. get it out there and see how i does. >> fast ail fast and cheaply an never the same way twice. >> willie writes -- as small company creating a high-end product how do you create larger market share by emphasizing

quality? >> smart. very mart. small businesses will never win on price. it is quality and more importantly i think service. i think that's how you establish the touch points with your customer. s that how you get them talking, referring other customers, coming back. you know, in the case of this, i would wonder how you sort of expand beyond this one product. but -- you know, i think -- service is definitely something that can distinguish you from the crowd. >> how do you make sure your customers are talking you about about you? >> external versus internal. external basis customer's testimonials are fantastic. if you get them on video even better. interest sounds so much more credible when you have somebody else who is touting what you are doing and instead of you doing it yourself. internally you should be training your employees as well to be talking about quality as a focus so i think you can have a nice balance between an external focus and an internal focus and then, of course, pricing. make sure that you are pricing

something that has that perception of quality because if you come in with something that's too cheap then a lot of times people don't believe the quality story even if you are saying it. >> price sing so tricky. there is so much science and so important about putting out a message of what your product is. >> i think -- just getting back to twitter quick, i have a lot of friends in the fashion industry and accessories industries and have very active twitter accounts. one of the things i get a kick out of is that they always retweet when their customers are buzzing about their product, just picked up this pair of sunglasses or whatever it may be. it sort of shares the conversation but it also incentivizes other customers to tweet about the product because they want that recognition, if these companies have big followings, twitter is a big medium. >> you are both active on twitter. >> yeah, well. >> rod, you recently took a bunch of people to jamaica. >> i did. >> did you had this board of

directors. tell us about what you learned down there with all of your ex-zblerts sure. an amazing trip. as you know, richard branson has been a great friend to us and is a member of small business board of directors, you remember as well. basically i was down there in september for the opening of the branson center of entrepreneurship in montego bay. it is an incubator for up and coming jamaican entrepreneurs and i was struck how talented and motivated this group was. i have a great group. let's bring them down here and have a summit where they can all connect with one another. more importantly offer some mentoring advice to these young entrepreneurs. so we went down there and i think the great thing is we had a big conversation about entrepreneurship. state of it as well. actually shot footage and got great comments here. let's take a look. ♪ >> the biggest issue we have is uncertainty on the tax code.

sooner can get clarity and certainty going forward the faster we can fix this problem and get america back to hiring. >> biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs next 12 months is the same last three, four years. that is trying to get capital efficient business off the ground. you know. what -- way that manifests itself you see a lot of service companies getting started and technology enabled service companies primarily because you know, the -- services business has quick cash flow, does not require as much capital and technology enables and may require up-front capital and technology going. once it is in, cash flow is good. >> number one challenge is the uncertainty and speed of change. so -- the internet made everything faster and it is going to continue to be that way. other challenge is in the macro economy of the world. there is a worldwide inflation. entrepreneur has to adjust itself to those conditions. >> hardest thing about being an entrepreneur is that feeling of

often being alone and on your own. easily forget that challenges you are facing and other people are facing, too. both by meeting the other board members and meeting the men here we solve that problem. getting together physically in person is really key. >> i think the biggest challenge entrepreneurs are facing right now is the economy seems to to be in recovery mode. and yet, some entrepreneurs are not feeling all that strong about it. i think that it is time to talk the lead. time to grow your business. don't be afraid to hire or invest in your business. if you are going to sit still and wait until you feel good about it you will miss the wave that's coming by. ♪ >> i have to comment on how jealous we are. talking about entrepreneurs and look at the background. >> i was getting nostalgic. you saw me in mica ban my caban there. >> to get out of your element in order to really have a moment to

think about where you are going. >> that's right. you have to take a couple of steps back, take that giant leap forward. if you try to leap forward right where you are you don't get the momentum. it is great to take back and have the time for strategy which is so hard to do when your entrepreneur -- you are an entrepreneur and doing things on a day-to-day basis. >> rod, thank you for that package and making us green with envy. >> happy to do it. >> thank you for everything today. >> thanks. >> to learn more about today's shoeshgs ju show, click on our website. you will find all of today's segments plus web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. become a fan of the show on facebook. we love getting your feedback. followous twitter if you would like. @msn @msnbc/yourbiz. what about the challenges of opening a business 3,000 miles away? >> thought to myself, 3,000 miles away for your second

location is exactly what they say you shouldn't do in retail. >> how can you be in two places at once and make it work out? we make your business our business. sam: i'm sam chernin. owner of sammy's fish box. i opened the first sammy's back in 1966. my employees are like family. and, i want people that work for me to feel that they're sharing in my success. we purchase as much as we can on the american express open gold card. so we can accumulate as many points as possible. i pass on these points to my employees to go on trips with their families. when my employees are happy, my customers are happy. vo: earn points for the things you're already buying. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business.