with super tuesday coming up, small business sounds off on the campaign issues affecting them. and what the owner of a pet resort did. those stories, plus the 411 on using four square coming up next on "your business."

hi, there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business" where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. location, location, location. it's one of the key factors that every entrepreneur must think about before expanding their business. in this case, chew toys are high on the list as well. today, the founder of a high-end pet resort shares her story of trying to make sure her business didn't become 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 do. >> we're looking for the folks that have a dog that they're looking to have their dog pampered in an affordable environment. >> a swimming pool, luxury suites with tvs, birthday

parties, grooming services galore, and multiple walks a day. those are just a few of the amenities you and your pet will find. >> we feel that when people come through the door, they're just wowed by the facility. it's not every day you come in and see dogs jumping in the pool. it is like a hotel. it's for the clients, dog owners, as well as the dogs and cats. we want it to be home away from home. >> leah and her late father based their business model on their passion for pets. >> my father, he shared his love of dogs with me. at the time, i didn't have children. i wasn't married. my dog always needed babysitting. my father said, there's no place good enough for your dog and for my grand dog, and there have to be other people like you. >> and that's how the real estate development firm turned this doggy dream into an old town reality. >> we considered dogs and cats our family.

>> during their initial conversations, mark told his daughter that high-ends pet care was an untapped market. >> no one had ever heard of a pet resort, a spa for dogs and cats. you're kidding me. my father used to tell me pioneers get their face in the mud and arrows in their back. >> old town has been caring for people's pets ever since. >> the dogs are our primary business. our cat business has grown. >> everyone was bringing their dogs. we have policemen, business executives, families taking a vacation. >> now about ten years later, the business has grown to two locations. that expansion didn't have happen on the fly. >> we're a privately held company. we didn't have to grow to return noun investors. we wanted to do it the right way. we did it slowly but surely. >> the first facility was built in springfield, virginia, on

land they owned. when it came time to talk expansion, there was some concern about old town competing against itself. >> we feel that nobody does what we do at the level that we do it. >> with additional concerns about diluting the brand, old town looked to put some space between its facilities. >> 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, near the airport for the second resort. >> we looked for high traffic, high population, high incomes. we put a lot of homework in before we pick a site. >> that homework has been incredibly important. when you look at a map, you can see that the two locations are only about 30 miles apart. that's why old town really relied on the research. >> in a region that is beset by the worst traffic in the country and where time is money and

everyone seems to be in a rush, 30 miles is a big difference. >> we felt we had enough distance from our springfield facility where we wouldn't cannibalize that business. >> but that didn't stop the staff from finding out as much as possible about the clients. >> we did zip code studies. we break down as much information as possible. we find out as much as we can about every customer, why they chose the location and where they live. >> there was definitely some overlap among the old town customer base, but there was no way to tell what they would ultimately decide to do. >> we did see maybe 2, 300 people or maybe more that we thought were in a sort of gray zone that could go either way depending on the traffic patterns. >> despite the uncertainty, it became clear that geography would actually work in the old town's favor. having two facilities fairly close together proved to be beneficial for customers who were dropping off their pets for day care or overnight stays. >> some may live closer to one or work closer to another

facility, so when they go on vacation, they might take them to one. when they go to doggy day camp on their way to work, they'll take them to the other location. >> while resernl proved that the sterling resort would be a good fit, that hasn't always been the case for every potential 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. we made the decision that the market didn't have the population density. >> but decisions like that won't stop old town from eyeing the future. they're taking their time because they know the importance of weighing their options. >> if you're an entrepreneur and you're in control of your own business and you're doing it slowly and successfully, i think that's a lesson you learn. i was anxious for a while that we weren't opening five a year. 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. brad kurtz is the executive editor of "huffington post business. carol roth is author of the book "the entrepreneur equation." great to see both of you. >> you too, j.j. >> i love this story. first, because it's dogs. it's so fun to watch these dogs have a birthday party. >> i want to move in there. that's nicer than most of the places that i stay. >> exactly. >> it looked nicer than my last vacation. it's for the dogs. >> the research -- look at starbucks. there's a starbucks on every corner. this, you want to get it close enough so that you can take advantage of your economies of scales. far enough that you're not cannibalizing yourself. they seem to do it right. >> yeah, i think it was a great piece. i think you saw -- and this is something i preach to entrepreneurs all the time. they did this exhaustive study. that's the headline of the

piece. i thing i took away as well is what they did first was build a business that people were willing to travel to already. until you have that model perfected, there's no sense in thinking about expansion. they created this great brand, this great service that people were coming from all over. the minute you make it more convenient, that's when you double your business. >> i think that cannibalization is one of those interesting things because people say, oh, well well, if i open up another one, it's going to take away from my business. if you're doing something well, somebody else is going to come into that market. so it's better to compete against yourself than it is to compete against 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 package of measures that make it easier for small businesses to raise money through crowd funding and go public. on the campaign trail, social issues have taken center stage leaving some business owners

wondering what happened to all the talk about improving our economy and helping them. on top of that, gas prices are rising. in today's small business sound off, we talk to members of our focus group to find out what's resonating with them and what seems like political bluster. wendy rosen is the head of the rosen group, a company that focuses on microenterprised development. he's also a democratic candidate for congress. and leonard cooperman runs cnh business enterprises based in treasure island, florida. he owns coin-operated laundry mats. great to see both of you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> leonard, i want to start with you because you have such an interesting story. we hear a lot from candidates from the obama administration that small business is going to help us out in this job crisis. you are someone who had employees, and you actually got rid of them. why?

>> the cost. there is always the issues you deal with. there's scheduling issues. there are payroll issues. if somebody gets sick as a small business owner, tag, you're it. you have to fill in. we're not prepared to deal with all the tax issues, so i have to outsource payroll. it's constant babysitting and constant care. that's something -- or time that i don't have to spend. >> just to make it clear, you had a dry cleaner. now you have coin operated laundry mat, which is why you can have no employees. but it is interesting, wendy. you've run a small business. you're involved with a lot of small businesses. are they sort of the saving grace for fixing the jobs issue for us? >> yes, in fact, 78% of all new businesses created in this country are going to be created not by small businesses as congress defines them but by microenterprise businesses with less than five employees and less than five years old. >> that's an interesting point. when the candidates talk about

small business and they talk about things like -- or obama talks about corporate tax reform, that doesn't affect most of us. >> no, it doesn't. those of us in small businesses hopefully we're growing and expanding and we're not paying that much in taxes, if anything at all. the problem with the tax code is that it gets complicated because of all the carve-outs for big industry and the lobbyists that are protecting those carve-outs for big industry. we need a fairer playing field. us small businesses really do need to be able to grow and expand. unfortunately, in the last few years, what's really happened is that as we create new legislation, it always benefits big business and puts small business -- it depends on how you define small business. the sba defines it as something with a thousand employees. that doesn't seem to be small.

even in the state of the union address, president obama was referring to businesses of 100 to 500 employees. that's not main street. and main street is where all those new jobs are going to be born. >> and leonard, you are main street. you don't have very many employees or any in this business. do you feel like anyone is addressing you when they say small business? >> no. i'm probably almost counterculture to small business. you know, again, it comes back to return on your investment. so i'm trying to maximize that. i'm actually -- with the model we're running now, we have zero employees. i have higher gross revenues, higher sales and higher margins. i can do that without employees, so that's a model that's extremely appealing. >> one thing you are affected by extremely is the higher gas prices. is that right? >> yes. >> so 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.

and what i buy is natural gas. you know, five years ago it really did peak. it's come back down as supply has increased. unlike a gas station, i can't go around and adjustment items in my laundry mats that use gas on a daily basis. it's difficult to price drying. drying or heating your water is almost a loss leader at this point. you need the make the money on revenues on washing. the price of gas is very volatile. >> this is not just affecting leonard. this is affecting small businesses businesses across the country. >> absolutely. the reality is we are all involved in this huge paradigm shift that's social and economic. the really successful new businesses that are going to be created are coming down the pipeline. those of us that are older with more mature or established businesses are really having difficulty dealing with all of these shifts in everything. at some times during the great recession, it really felt like

we were on a roller coaster ride. to some extent, it still feels that way. things are beginning to stabilize but not enough to give entrepreneurs the real confidence they need to move forward. >> both of you guys, thank you so much. thank you for being a voice for microbusinesses, which sometimes gets the shaft when people talk about small businesses. >> thanks so much. video is a great resource to utilize for your online marketing, and there's no need to be an expert filmmaker to take advantage of it. here now are five videos you can easily make for the web courtesy of the new york enterprise report. one, product demonstration. a video showing how to use your product can be informingal 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 sales people. 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, recording your answers will build trust. and number five, testimonials. the best marketing you have is a happy customer. so, find people who love your product and get the cameras rolling. when we come back, will emphasizing quality give you a larger share of the market? and the social media bandwagon rolls on as we tell you how four square can help you 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. one really cool way to create incentives is by leveraging the social media power of four square. carmine gallow is the founder of gallow communications. he's also author of "the power of foursquare, seven innovative ways to get your customers to check in wherever they are." >> hi, j.j. thanks for having me. >> for anyone who doesn't know what four square is, can you give a quick summary?

>> it's a mobile social media app that really makes your world a much more interesting place. you download the free four square app to your smart phone, and you can literally check in to virtually any venue where you are and share that check in via twitter, facebook. share that check in with friends so they know where you are, what you're doing. it becomes sort of a game as well. >> and so from the small business perspective, this is great. you come into my ice cream shop, you check in, and then suddenly everyone knows where you are and that's free marketing for me. >> the point is, they are checking in to your small business anyway. so why don't you establish a venue on four square? any small business can do this for free. it's very easy to do if you visit foursquare.com. you can start promoting ads and specials and engaging people. you, as a small business owner, can start engaging people where they are living their lives, which is on their smart phones.

you can create specials to attract and reward them. >> so in essence, i am creating a special so that i can encourage somebody to check in so that i get the free marketing of all of their friends seeing they've been at my store? >> you can walk into any chili's, show them your four square, and get free chips and salsa. that's at the most basic level. the mayor is the person who checks in the most in any one establishment. so the mayor actually can get something extra special. in fact, you can have a lot of fun with this. there's a restaurant called miss shirley's in baltimore that has very long lines on weekends. they've created a special line just for the mayor. the mayor of miss shirley's gets to cut to the front of the line. 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 aren't checking in? i mean, i live in new york city. lots of people know about four square. if you live in a place where

it's not as common or you serve a community that is not as tech savvy, how do you get them and their friends to get involved in this so you can use it as a marketing platform? >> i live in a relatively small town in northern california, and people are checking in everywhere. but you're right, j.j. what you'll find in new york city, new york is where four square started. you will find that there are specials everywhere. there are thousands of merchants actively participating on four square. you find less of that in smaller rural areas. 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. four square is the type of resource that's in the sweet spot. >> can i ask you one last thing? one of your tips for people is to encourage your customers to leave photos and tips. how can you encourage? do you reward them for doing that as well? >> there is a restaurants in

milwaukee, wisconsin, called 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. it helps that restaurant become more social and searchable on google and some of the other websites. >> carmine, thank you so much for giving this four square 101 for us. >> you bet. thank yous a lot. time now to answer some of your business questions. rod and carol are with us once again. the first one is about doing your homework. >> as a startup, how do we obtain accurate, reliable market research? >> we talked about this a little bit before, but people think that market research is so expensive and so hard to get. there are easy and cheap ways to get it too. >> right. now there's this thing called the internet. it's fabulous for getting research. set up a free google alert.

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

you have to be asking the right questions depending on what your product is. >> you also have to be listening. you can ask questions, and people will answer differently than what they really 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 may say blue. but if you're looking online, they're talking about red. >> that's why j.j. is wearing red. >> depending on what the product or what the company is, there may be some really cheap ways of getting it out there. you don't want to end up in analysis paralysis. >> that happens all the time. i see it with patents. people get so focused on protecting their idea, and it's not even a good idea that customers even want. don't let the, you know, don't stumble early on trying to really build a lot of research around it. get it out there and see how it does. >> fail fast, fail cheaply, and never the same way twice. >> all right, let's move on to the next one. this is from willie. as a small company creating a high-end product, how do you

create a larger market share by emphasizing quality? >> smart. very smart. i've said it a million times. i probably sound like a broken record. small businesses are never going to win on price. i can't think of a single win that does. it's quality. more importantly, i think, service. i think that's how you establish the touch points with your customer. that's how you get them talking, referring to other customers coming back. in the case of this, i would wonder how you sort of expand beyond this one product. you know, i think service is definitely something that can distinguish you from the crowd. >> how do you make sure your customers are talking about you then? >> i think it's external versus internal. customer testimonials are fantastic. if you can get them on video, even better. it sounds so much more credible when you have somebody else who's touting what you're doing instead of you doing it yourself. interim internally, you should be training your employees to be talking about quality as a focus. i think you can have a balance

between an external and internal focus. and of course pricing. you have the perception of quality. if you come in with something that's too cheap, a lot of times people don't believe the quality story. >> i know. pricing is so tricky. >> just getting back to twitter real quick. i have a lot of friends in the fashion industry and accessories industry. they have very active twitter accounts. one of the things i get a kick out of is they retweet when their customers are buzzing about their products. it sort of shares the conversation. it also insent vised other customers to tweet about the product because they want that recognition. if these companies have big followings, twitter is a vain medium. >> that's r.o.e., return on ego. >> you both are very active on twitter. >> we try. we're slowing drawing you in. >> i want to do something a little different. instead of asking another question -- because, rod, you

recently took a bunch of people to jamaica. you have this board of directors. >> i did. >> tell us a little bit about what you learned down there with all of your experts. >> sure. it was just an amazing trip. richard branson has been a great friend to us. basically, i was down there in september for the opening of the branson center of entrepreneurship in montego bay. i was so struck by how talented and motivated this group was. i said, you know, i've got this great group. let's bring them down here. let's have a summit where they can all connect with one another, but 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, the state of it as well. actually, shot some footage and got some great comments here. let's take a look. >> i think the biggest issue we all have is uncertainty based on the tax code and future

government regulations that may come out there. the sooner we can get clarity in that and certainty going forward, the faster we can fix this problem. >> the biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs in the next 12 months is the same it's been for the last three or four years. that's trying to get an extremely capital efficient business off the ground. the way that manifests itself, you see a lot of services companies getting started and a lot of technology enabled services a primarily because, you know, the services business have quick cash flow, don't require as much capital. the technology enablement might require a little up front, but once it's in, cash flows are good. >> number one challenge is the uncertainty and the speed of change. so the internet has made everything faster, and it's going to continue to be that way. the other challenge is in the macroeconomy of the world. if there's a worldwide rapid inflation, the entrepreneur has

to be able to adjust. >> i think the hardest thing about being an entrepreneur is the feeling of often being alone and you're on your own. you easily forget the challenges you're facing, other people are facing too. by meeting the other board members we solved 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 be in recovery mode. yet, some entrepreneurs are not feeling all that strong about it. i think it's time to take the leap, time to grow your business. don't be afraid to hire. don't be afraid to invest in your business. if you're going to sit still and wait until you feel good, you're going to miss the wave that's coming by. >> all right. i mean, i just have to comment on how jealous are we? we're sitting here talking about entrepreneurs. look at the background. >> i was getti inting nostalgic. i said, if you're going to do an entrepreneurship summit, jamaica is a good place. >> carol, you talk with a lot of

entrepreneurs about getting out of your element to have a moment to think about where you're going. >> that's right. you have to take a couple steps back to take that giant leap forward. if you try and leap forward where you are, you don't get that momentum. it's great to take back and have the time for strategy, which is so hard to do when you're an entrepreneur and things on a day to day basis. >> rod, thank you for that package and making us green with envy. thank you, guys, for everything today. really appreciate it. >> thanks, j.j. to learn more about today's show, click on our website. it's ownforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's s segmen segments, plus more information to help your business grow. don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we love getting your feedback. you can also follow us on twitter if you'd like. it's @msnbcyourbiz. this week, we talked about opening a second location close it your original business. what about the challenges of opening one 3,000 miles away? >> i sort of thought to myself,

going 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? until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, 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 passthese poino 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.