it is a make or break year for two brothers who started a bridal design country. if they can't make it work, they have to shut the doors. we have the team together, because it is time for a "your business" makeover. small businesses are revitalizing the economy. american express open is here to help. that is why we are proud to present your business on msnbc. hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramburg and welcome to "your business" where we give you tips and advice to help your

business grow. a few months ago we came across a small bridal design company right here in new york. it is an interesting company with designs, but something on the business side seemed to be missing, and we found out that the company was in trouble. we decided to step in and give the owners a "your business" makeover. >> reporter: when brothers steven and gregory started their bridal dress company fancy new york in 2008, they could not believe the initial reaction. at their very first trade show while their peers snickered, the bridal editors took notice. >> this tall elegant woman walked right over to us, and said that i love the sleeves and the collars and tell me the story. >> that is when i knew that there was something, something about the business that would work. >> fancy new york was doing

something different and nowhere else in the collection would you find the common place strapless dresses that brides were wearing. it was vintage inspire and comfortable and tea-length dresses. >> the mood of the brand was to have a nostalgic approach to dressing on your wedding day. >> the business was a dream come true for the brothers. both of them laid off in the recession, steven handled the business end while gregory did the designing, but fancy new york turned out to be a roller coaster of highs and lows. highs were emotional thank yous from the happy brides and a feature in martha stewart "wedding" but the lows were pretty much everything else. >> i have water in my throat for bill payments. i am constantly worried about who is the next person to call me up to say something is overdue or my check bounce d. >> though the designs have struck a chord, the sales have not been robust enough to sustain the business or pay themselves a salary.

the brothers have given themselves a six-month deadline to turn things around. if they can't, they will have to shut down the business. >> gregory will lose his retirement fund. it is gone. i will be in debt for the next 30 years. >> i'm going the do everything in my power to make sure that we don't get there. >> hi, i'm jen. >> i'm gregory. >> thank you for doing this so last-minute. time for a "your business" makeover. in order to get a sense of the fancy experience, i went undercover as a bride. under the guisef doing a story about last-minute weddings, our cameras were there to capture the appointment. i have to tell you something. >> oh. >> i'm not getting married or engaged. my name is j.j. ramburg and i work with "your business" on msnbc. we are here to give your company a makeover. to begin the overhaul, we

assembled a rescue team. ♪ we first brought in business strategist mike makalowitz without the brothers knowing it pored over the business. he looked at the operations, and when they started in 2008, stephen's wife got a job in turkey and when they made the international move they decided to handle the manufacturing there. >> i would have loved to have opened up a shop to hire two seamstresses and done all of the production here in new york, but it was cost prohibitive. >> so it is problem-free that you are getting the problems in no problem? >> i wish. >> that is why you did it. >> when you have to ship anything in the world, you open yourself up to a whole gamut of issues that can happen. >> and with the manufacturing happening overseas, stephen spends six months of the year in turkey while gregory works alone in new york. between shipping and customs

headaches and the differences of time, it is a real issue. >> i call it back filling with logic and a lot of the decisions in the small businesses and big businesses are made on the decisions, and then the logic comes in of why that is making sense to do it, and then the arguments of back filled logic is a mistake. >> and now they currently work with 20 retailers across the country, but in addition to their own shop which they man in new york, only four stores are selling their dresses in s significant numbers. >> you have to look at what is working and patterns of success that you pursue. so no leverage. every 90 days, you sit down, what is working and what is not working. whatever is not working, you have to quickly as possible, get rid of it. whatever is working, quickly as possible, expand on it. mike summed up the meeting with a couple of thoughts. we have a lot of fixes coming your way, and the good news is that it is about doing less. the stuff that you are doing

now, you have to have the courage to stop doing. we will show you how to focus in on the few things, and your business will turn, i promise you. >> and then we brought in the owner of s3 communications. while the brothers were out of town the week before, denise and i snuck into the offices and held a focus group. what do you think of name fancy as it relates to these dresses? >> i didn't know it was a bridal -- i didn't know it was related to brides. >> then when i went on line, it was kind ohoard for me the find, because there are so many things called fancy. >> what we learned about how brides perceived the fancy brand was eye opening, and she shared it with gregory and stephen. >> basically the name fancy is ironically too generic or misleading for the forward thinking dresses that you have here. so we have a few name ideas. one is the house of noto, or

nato new york. and one involves the script loo look. >> wow, that is really great. >> so the second option is very funky. retro-inspired. and this has a very strong lettering that you then on the web can have fun with looking through the windows at your different dresses and things on the website. so very different. >> it is. it is goes to a completely different direction and it is really bold and actually kind of fantastic. >> denise strongly recommended getting the brothers set up on the pinboard site pintrest. >> it is addictive and men love it and women love it. >> and for the themes for the weddings, she offered to have someone on her team set them up so that the brides could pin the unique dresses on the boards. the next person on the makeover

team is a designer with her own successful line. it was not long ago that aisha said was in the same position as the brothers, and she proved that things can be made economically in new york. >> these are two dresses, one of yours, a fancy dress made in turkey. and this one is made right here in new york about ten blocks from here. >> looking at the face. believe me. what do you think? >> i would not be able to tell the difference. >> and can i also tell you something, this one is $46 less than the one you are paying in turkey. no shipping, no headaches, no nothing, no e-mails. you can get one made or 10 made or 20 made, and they will work with you. >> at the end of the day, they had a lot to think about, a new name, analysis on the sales strategy to do and photos to get for pintrest.

>> and this is a nail biter, you have to have more jawbone time and face time, and that means, stephen, it is time to come back to the u.s. >> so that is the homework and we will meet again and have answers to these things. we have one more surprise tonight, and in the meanwhile, go home, and get some rest, and look your best when we meet again. >> so did stephen and gregory listen to us? to find out those answers as well as what else we had in store for them, hang around for the second part of the makeover coming up. like it or not, facebook's new time line format is almost here. on march 30th, the new platform is roll ed out across the super popular social media site. the changes to the overall look and feel of the site are significant and will impact how the brands talk to customers and leverage content. what does this mean for your small business facebook page? we are joined by the founder of

of the social media group social fresh to give us a primer on the changes and how to customize the page in advance of the launch. >> thanks for having me. >> the last thing you want to do is to go on facebook on march 30th, and say, what happened to my site? >> like the website went down. >> right. everyone should know it is not hard to do some little changes. >> it is going to be looking different right away, but easy steps to take you right to where you need to be. >> and i have looked at people who have changed the site and photos, and there is a big photo across the top now. >> it is a big change, and it is almost like much more close to a real website now, and the big change is that people will notice the full photo the width of the page, and some businesses may have trouble finding an image that large to make it look nice which is the biggest branding element of the page. >> what if you are scrambling and don't have a designer. >> if you don't have a designer

fo or photoshop, take some pictures of the products and the staff and find the personality of the business and use that as an image. another thing is to go on to shutterstock.com or istock.com photos, and you can find these images and a high quality image to use there. >> if you don't put something in there right away, is it blank? it is blank. you can use photos that exist on the page and most of them won't be high enough quality, and some othem blurry, and log on a couple of days before the switch and test it and see if you can find something that works. >> again, you can use photos throughout the site as well, right? >> facebook wants you the remember one thing about the change, use more photos. photos are the most reshared piece of content across twitter and the web, and people react because they are easy to consume, and low guilt factor, and facebook wants more reaction and to do that, they want more

photos and because of that, they have shown it in a much more beautiful page with images all over the page instead of text. >> it is fun for the brand to tell your story through the photos and also a place for the history. >> well, it is exciting and you mentioned telling the store i are, and it is exciting that facebook is giving the small businesses a place to tell the story easily so they don't have to build the website themselves. the time line has date links to the side and you can add a milestone and put a photo with it and stretch the full width of the page and say, we were found ed on this day. ford has the first model t rooling off of the line, and there is a lot of importances of your history. and old spice says they influence the baby boon and have fun with it, and keep people on the facebook page more. >> and we are all trying to tell the story and for people who don't know it yet, this is a nice way to think about it to organize yourself. messages. not as many messages?

>> messages is a new feature to roll out which is available in the admin, and it allows the fans to message you privately like anybody else can message and it is important because it will potentially take complaints off of the wall of the page and give you more control over what shows up on the page and take the complaints to the private conservations which is where they belong. >> got it. and then for the admin section, what is different? >> well, not everything shows up on the facebook page anymore and you have more control, and not all of the fan page messages or the fan messages are going to be on the wall. so in order to manage all of that and find out what shows up and what doesn't, there is a place on the admin called the activity log, and you can feature them or edit them with control, and it makes a lot of sense of what is complicated for a lot of people. login to the admin and go to the activity log and lit giit will you control over what happens there. >> this is a great primer.

go the facebook right now and check it out and get ready for march 30th. thank you, jason. >> thank you for having me. social media can be an easy, but time consuming way to market your small business. here are five popular web-based services to help you leverage the power of social media while keeping the time commitment in check courtesy of bizbest.com. get more mileage out of log comments by using discuss. it is a platform to allow users to sign in. and buffer is a great way to monitor your activity. you can add posts and tweets to the system and have them automatically distributed throughout the day. three, posting lets you post to all of the major social media sites and schedule the posts in advance. it pulls the comments from the sites into one place. and four, multifeedia is a great tool to manage your pages and schedule the content and track the messages from one dashboard.

nu number five, monitor what is being said about you online using sprout social. the site will track your social media efforts. so, did stephen and gregory take the makeover advice? stick around as we take one of the biggest names in fashion to propose how this bridal company can propose its changes. you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen.... for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect.

as we saw earlier in the show, stephen and greg nato, the owners of a bridal design company, fancy new york, need some help. when we first left the offices we left them with a lot to think about, new name, and new strategies and marketing ideas burk we also had one more big surprise in store for them. take a look. >> hi, you guys. you both look great. >> thank you, you do, too. >> thank you very much. so you guys talked about how you go to a lot of events, but you are always on the outside. tonight, you are about to be on the inside. when gregory and stephen started the bridal business four years ago they had few contacts inside of the fashion industry to guide them. we decided to change that by

asking the top designer nanette lepore who designs inside of the new york garment district. i want to introduce you to nanette lepore. >> nice to meet you. >> amazing. >> the next day stephen and gregory got down to brass tacks and touring her headquarters and sitting down with a one-on-one conversation to start the mentorship. >> you have to pay attention to the warning signs that say it is a potential mistake and you bury it in the back of the mind and you say, oh, my god, i had the sixth sense about that. >> after much needed encouragement and advice, they left the meeting with new rolodex of contacts and business ventur

venture. >> you will do a great business here in new york city, i know it. the facilities are here, and you will have more control and everybody will be happy, and everyone in the garment center is willing and able to help you. >> well, we will contact them next. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> the next stop was the much anticipated meeting with aisha si sayed. i brought two designers to meet yo you. >> hello. nice to meet you, stephen. >> this is where the best selling linda dress was made in the heart of the new york city garment district for $40 less than the factory in turkey. the brothers brought two more dresses to evaluate and manufacture in new york. >> we do stuff like this. >> okay. >> and the brothers rush back to the office to meet jamie ham ill, a social media expert. he gave them pointers and tips on how to set up and use pintrest to spread the brand. >> i know you have heard of it and it is the new hot quote,

unquote social network. it has outtrafficked google plus and linked in since january. which is amazing. >> the last stop on the mission was to meet with me to get a picture of the request of the team. they were asked to change their name. >> we decided not to change the name. we feel strongly about girls don't shop by brand name. our name would have been irrelevant to put into the logo, itself. however, it is not to say that we shouldn't tweak the name. so it will be changing from fancy new york to fancy bridal. >> though the name didn't change much, everything else did. >> we broke it down to who are the best selling stores, and out of the 22 stores, there are five of them that do the best work that do the best business that

we pay no attention to, and they are going to be our focus. >> and manufacturing. how did it go? >> amazing. really, really amazing. so that the sample we saw the other day, we brought two additional samples to the manufactur manufacturer, and immediately right off of the bat, she said, that is funny, why are they doing it this way? if they stitch it underneath, it will roll better, and always looking for someone to impart a little bit of their knowledge, and it is -- we are so excited about working here and just being able to run up, and go, pop in, and say, how is it going? >> and the big question about stephen moving back to the u.s. from turkey? >> it is in plans. the october date that i have been talking about as our cutoff point is the date that we will be moving back. >> with the new factory and new sales strategy and marketing plan and new contacts, suddenly, the october deadline didn't feel as overwhelming as before. >> you guys, good luck on

everything that you are doing. i'm going to be back here in october. octob october. >> october. >> you will still be around. >> yes, we are. >> indeed. gregory and stephen have a lot to do over the next few months, and we will check pack with them in october to find out how is it going. in the meantime, mike is with us n now, and he is the author of the upcoming book "the pumpkin plan." and colleen is director of entrepreneur.com. mike, thank you for all of your help with that. >> may i say one thing, a little bit of throw-up came up in my mouth when i saw myself wearing a dress. i haven't done that before, since college. >> and you are not wearing it today. >> it looked like a barillo pad of disgustingness. >> a lot of times when you go into the company like this, the

problems are not that big. i mean, they are big in terms that they need to be changed and they will make big changes for your business, but having you come in and denise and aisha, they were clear from the outsider's perspective, it is clear that you need to do this. the lesson in part is that entrepreneurs need to take a step back and see, as you said, what is working, and what is not working, and really analyze it. >> almost like a scientific approach is what you are saying. the challenges are not insurmountable and break it down like that and come up with an l analytical way of dealing with them, it can work. >> and there is a great analogy, if you are going from california to new york, and you take a small correction, you will end up in canada. so they need to make the corrections sooner as opposed the later. >> and we were harping that 4 of

the 20 retailers were working for them, and yet they were spe spending their time on all of the other retailers, and it is hard, but you to cut the customers out. >> yes, and can i plug the book. i didn't ask, but i will. in the "pumpkin" book, you have to get rid of the vines to get the nutrients to the big pumpkin. and get rid of the diseased vendors. >> but ask them why things are not working out, and sometimes, they can be a great source of information to find out what they are not liking so you can fix the problem. >> and context was important, because they were manufacturing in turkey, and one of them moved there, but they could not find a cost efficient way to do it in new york city, and when we introduced them to people, we found it is cost efficient and gets rid of all of those headaches and that is just about meeting people, and networking. incredibly important. >> well, a lot of the business owners have their head down in the business, that they don't

step out and do the networking that they should be doing, and they are not thinking the big picture, but they are so focused on getting there u the day. you know, this is a great example of how once you step out, you can see it more clearly. >> they are making a mistake that i see every business owner makes, when it is not working, they try to fix it out. >> and i want to talk about the name. we had denise come in to try to suggest a new name or logo and the guys decided from fancy new york to fancy bridal and the suggestion from denise was house of nato or nato new york, and i would love for you the write in to twitter or our facebook page to let us know what you think. i know you had opinions on this. >> yes. i think that it is a terrible name. i can't say it any other way, and for the same reasons that the focus group mentioned.

one, if you go the search online, all sorts of fancy listings will come up, an none of them are the bridal salon and it does not say anything about these dresses. fancy is not a word that i would use to describe them. maybe nostalgic or vintage or jackie o. >> you think that the name is okay? >> you are a guy. >> that is true. they are guys and they don't see the consumers, but let me give you to the counterpoint, i'm the king of bad names. toilet paper entrepreneur is the worst name, but it is memorable. if they love that name and believe in it, they have to find out why it is memorable and tell it to the community. own it. if you keep it, own it. >> okay. this was so much fun to do, and we will again check in with them in october. i can't wait to see it. time now to answer some of your business questions. mike and colleen are with us once again, and the first one is

an e-mail from robin. she writes. i have a unique business idea that i would like to collaborate with existing businesses who would be interested in becoming a supplier or wholesaler and how would you choose the vendors to participate? >> well, she has to get people interested in whatever the idea is. >> well, she mentioned unique business idea and i wonder if she has tested it out. for any business owner or potential business owner, before you spend time, energy and money jumping in, test out the unique business idea and it might not be something that fleiss and it might be great, but have a focus group and work and before you invest a lot in this. >> and when she goes to find these partners, how does she find them? >> you have to try small, and if you want to go with the big vendors to say, i want to collaborate with you, they are saying, who are you? but the smaller companies are looking for a risk. so look for the smallest vendors and willing to take a risk and propose the idea and change it

from collaboration to more of a traditional vendor relationship. >> that is something that she wants to do if she wants to work with the existing businesses which is a great idea to partner with a existing business who has relationships with the suppliers and vendors an partner up with your own track record and then maybe the vendors and suppliers will work with you. >> thank you, both. if you have any questions for the experts go to the website, and the address is openforum.com and there you can ask the panel. again it is open forum.com/business. you can e.t -- e-mail your questions to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. if you don't have weeks or months to wait for answers go to our website to get you in touch

with the market through online chats. after specifying the customer you are looking for, you can go to one-on-one chat room interviews. if you want feedback from a logo or file pitch, you can share files through a gutcheckit.com. each interview costs you $35. for more information on the show, go to our website openforum.com. we will have web content to help your business grow. follow us on twitter as well. don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we love to get your feedback. next week, you may think that there is no room for the small business entrepreneur in the world of cable television, but you'd be wrong. >> i can't own a great big company, but i have the same entrepreneurial spirit, and i own it, and i control it. >> meet one of the hundreds of small business owners who own

and operate small scale cable tv systems, and find out how they have found a way to survive in the world of the giant corporations. until then, i'm j.j. ramburg, and remember, we make your business our business. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that's the power of all of us. that's the power of all of us. that's the membership effect of american express.