interest in your company. and also how to stay up with trends and staying relevant. all of that and more coming up on "your business." ♪ small businesses are revitalizing your economy, and 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. ramberg and welcome to "your business" where we give you tips and help your business grow. and similarer to a flash mob and

sweeping the nation, people are gathering to spend $20 en masse to local businesses and it acts as a community-based economic boost, and remember that it can give a big boost to a local company. everybody, wave those $20s and let me see them. >> this mob of eager shop es is not out to find a bargain at a giant super store. >> it is maybe more expensive, but it is personal. sflr th >> they are a friendly mob to have an objective of spending $20. >> today i bought a pair of flip-flops and a bottle of wine. >> this is a cash mob. >> it does not require you to come out to spend a fortune. just come out to see what this is like and you can't help but buy and enjoy. >> hey, come on in. >> igniting the cash mob movement in cleveland, ohio s a

young lawyer who has a passion for meeting new people, and supporting local small businesses. >> the slogan on the blog is that we each do a little and we do a lot. so if each person gives $20 to the store, and 20 people give them $400 and get something back in return and it is not charity. >> there are three rules to participating in the cash mob. >> the first rule is that you spend $20 and the second rule is that you meet three new people that you didn't know before and the third is that you have fun. >> it all started a few short months ago in the fall of 2011 when andrew posted an invitation on the facebook page to show up in a local cleveland neighborhood with $20 to spend at a small business. >> it is one of the ironies about the cash mobs though that we use social media to get the word out, but we are almost anti-social media. we are using the social media to organize people socially and get them to actually meet each other face-to-face. >> the small grass roots

campaign quickly took root. he set up a website instructing people on how to have a cash mob and similar scenes played out all over the country with local organizers getting the word out to the community. carolyn holtz, the owner ovariety mart describes the experience. >> they were hoping for 40 people, and we had 100 people come and there was a line outside of the store an inside of the store and people waiting to pay and three of us behind the counter quickly ringing people up and bagging things. >> on this saturday, andrew had an international cash mob day with 200 of them happening around the united states and the world. in cleveland, the mob was happen ing at a small natural grocery food store called the nature's bin. >> it is a fun environment, and fun way to shop and support a local store. >> how much did you spend today?

>> exactly, $142 and change. >> i just looked at the numbers from today from 2:00 when cash mob started to 3:30 which is an hour and a half, and we had over 300 people come through the store and they spent way more than $20. our total for that span of time, an hour and a half, was $9,000. >> at the same time, in bellport, new york, the cash mob was happening at two local downtown stores sommer salt and bellport liquors. >> i bought wine and that also supports the community. >> and the rules to be cash mobbed for a business is simple. >> locally owned and independently operated and secondly give back to the community. the second part is something that you can't fake. you can't just say, hey, i'm going to start sponsoring a team, and bring a cash mob to my

business so i can do this. we generally look for people who have a longstanding commitment to their communities. >> afterwards andrew encouraging the cash mob participants to hang out in a local watering hole. >> they do the shopping and congregate again to relax and have drinks. there is an old saying that you are not friends with people that you like, but friends with people you do things with. >> with economies and small businesses suffering a cash mob can give the selected small business a shot in the arm and a much needed exposure and support especially when business is slow. >> if a local business is relying on a cash mob to save it, there are bigger problems with the business that an cash mob can fix, and it is just a boost or economic stimulus. so when we go into the stores, there is a lot of people generally speaking in the mob who have never been there so when they go in, they are bringing money and expose sure to the store.

>> and in the end, it is bringing businesses and communities together to make a difference $20 at a time. >> and the importance of the cash mob concept is to really build community and show people that they have the power to make the difference in their own community. is it the answer to the economic woes? absolutely not, but i really think that it is leading to something that can show people that they can make a difference. the cash mob phenomenon is the latest entry in the shop small and local movement. turn now to the this week's board of directors. norm shotski, and mike bloomberg who is the founder of seed fund venture fund, and nice to have you both. norm, another seed venture? >> yes, the gold rush of the 21st century in south dakota and

a kobiashi, a japanese restaurant venture. >> and people care, and they care enough to go out to support a small business, so how do you harness the caring? >> well, i totally agree that the pendulum has swung so far in one direction and so transactional and disconnected with the things that they buy that my kids think that the food shows up in the super market, and we order things on line and we show up at the front door and the days of going into the shop where they knew their name and what you wanted to buy, you have to capture it again, because people miss that, and we are human beings and we need that interaction, and there are businesses that are able to really, and the local coffee shop, and the local store that can help you the fit sneakers the way that just so that you can't do online and you can't do any other way.

i think that there is a trend back towards that direction of a b business. >> and if you really understand how it is helping your community, suddenly, the convenience, sometimes is not as important if you have the extra time, and you will go take it to shop at one of the stores? >> right. it does not increase commerce, because those people have so much to spend, disposable income, but what it does to bring people together. and what i'm concerned about and what they should be concerned about is that it shouldn't turn out like occupy wall street without any reason or value, so they should take it step further and take the list of these people to invite them to go to other places, so it is a good start, but they have to have some vision of where it is going. >> of where to take it. and what else can you do as a small business to get the point across thatp s shopping at my se means shopping for the neighborhood, and not just providing money for me, but the community. >> well, it is about service and

how you treat the customer. plenty of places in the neighborhoods who give that great service, and that great service spreads by word of mouth. better than the internet. so if you do that and give that servi service, and people want to come to see you instead of shopping on the internet. >> yes, and people tend to be loyal to other people particularly in their own community. they feel a little bit more camaraderie than the chain store so, it comes down to service and personal relationship, right. you want to go back to the see the person who helped you last time because they did a great job in helping you find whatever. and selection matters n. this world of commoditcommodityized d to be able to buy anything, and finding those unique products and cureating those special

goods. >> and i have a shop that just opened around me that is specializing in mayonnaise that you can't find anywhere else. >> and a niche that you can't find any other place. >> and that is the specialty of the cash mobs. the revenue stream based on the effectiveness of the commerce site, if so, here are the pitfalls to avoid if you want people to stick around to buy something from you courtesy of mash.com. your site is too slow. nobody wants to wait. so be careful of the plug-ins to slow down site. two, your site is too complicated. if the consumers have to take more than three steps to buy something, it is too much. keep it simple. the entry of the credit card is punishing. there is a standard entry, and

if you mess with torder, users will enter the wrong information and be forced to start all over again. four, you're charging too much for shipping. don't charge more than 10% of the total cost of the item. people are more likely to abandon your cart after seeing a price jump up significantly. and five, your site performs horribly on certain browsers. your potential customers may not use the same browser as you, so test your site on every browser. on this show, we have focused on the facebook marketing google plus and twitter and so today we want to tackle pintrest and how can it help you company? we are joined by an award winning advertising and relations firm director jamie. and you just helped was a makeover on a company. >> yes, and we talked about pintrest. and for people who have no idea,

tell me about the page. >> it is a photo sharing website where people can share photos, share videos and it is put into a like personal pin board or theme board. from there people work in the interest graph where people talk to each other and may not necessa necessarily know each other, but they will re-pin things to their own page and liking and following. >> so i find some pictures on the web or my own pictures and put them on the web, and people see my pictures and put it on their page and it is like re-tweeting? >> yes. it is similar and a microblog, but the interesting thing from a business perspective is that the business wants to get involved in that engagement, because when you have people going back and forth and talking, you are two clicks away from sending them to the e commerce page or contact us where you can do business. >> and small business like a bakery or something, and i have

the pictures that i put on my page and other people can see them and put them on their page and suddenly the word is out for my bakery. >> yes. >> and one thing that is important and the same thing with social media is to combine the effortts. >> je, when you set up the account, set up the twitter and the facebook account and the web dress on there and location-based pin to put on there to show people where you are from. also, i see a lot of the businesses not explaining who they are and what they do in the about section and that is something to concentrate and that will move you up on the sco level. >> from a business there are two ways to participate. swun one is your own pintrest page, and another is to have photos on your site that people can pin. >> well to, make a pintrest-friendly site is that you go to the help section and download a pin-it button and put

it on the website. what you will get is people coming to the site and get eyeballs on the page and simply hit pin-it, and that goes to the p pintretst page and you do nothing but driving people to your site. >> and so you pin it with the button and suddenly, you will have access to it. and if you want the create something that you hope is viral on the site and hope lit draw people back to your site, what is something that you can do? >> a cup of thiku couple of thi. you can put a coupon on the site and say $10 off of a dress. come in and print it and show it or show it on the smartphone. another way is to incentivize a pin, because you want it to become viral and want people to start interacting and engaging with the pins. you can do it re-pin to win promotion where we have seen a jean manufacturer, and you ask them to repin the photo and you win a pay of jeans and it is a

standard give away and an easy thing to execute. >> are those too commercial to be very successful or no, does it work on pintrest? >> well, not a lot of people are doing it and people will be drawn to it. >> okay. so interesting. i don't think that we can have a full discussion about pintrust without talking about copyright issues so we go to a question from one of the viewers. >> what is the value of pintrust which is growing quickly and i want to make sure that my firm is protected from the copyright? >> well, this is a tough one, but the good rule rof thuof thuo ask if you have permission to use this. if you own a bakery and take a picture of the cake, then you own that, but if you have content, then you are to look at

the license to make sure it is covered and this is not just pintrest, but blogs and my own personal blog has been in a m monetary compensation, too, and you don't want to be in that area, but good rule of thumb, do i have permission of the person who owns it to use it. >> that is interesting, because it is one if you are taking pictures from elsewhere, but the one that you brought up, too, about the own pictures of your own sites so if you have a photographer take a picture of you, and you better make sure if you want that repinned that you own it. that you own the rights to that picture. >> exactly. these are situations that may not come down the pipe, but -- >> but they may. better safe than sorry. >> yes. be safe than sorry and ask myself, whoever took this picture, do i have their permission, and more often than not, the answer is yes, but don't take the chance. >> i want to leave the segment for people who think it is so overwhelming, because there are so many social networks, at the very least if you have visual assets on the site, put the pin-it button on there. >> yes, definitely.

>> no reason not to do it if you can get the programming in, because it is simple and how-to guide on the pintrest page how to do it and you will be losing eyeballs if you don't do it. >> jamie, thank you so much. >> thank you. still to come, what should you pay a con sultant to write your business plan? and from charlie's angels to lady gaga and how a designer built an empire to stay relevant on this week's "learning from the pros." 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. from farrah fawcett's swimsuit in "charlie's angels" to the sleeping bag coat and the famous shades for tnorma kamali continues to expand the line. and it is timeless for women of all ages and sizes for under $100. we sat down with her at the new york boutique about the importance of getting attention and challenging yourself in this "learning from the pros." ♪ i'm special ♪ so special

♪ i have to have some of your attention ♪ ♪ give it to me it is very important for a designer to understand that you need to sell, and you need to get people to pay attention to you. it started really as a retail store owner learning about merchandising and selling and how the change the window and all of the things that you could do to excite people and make it entertaining for them. i remember designing a snakeskin patchwork cape all done with stitching around each of the different coer lors of the snakeskin and i opened up the cape so it filled the whole wind window. it was very exciting to see for the eye. that is when i started to get this celebrity mostly rock and roller following who wanted to wear those things. i think it is important to evolve personally.

fashion moves quickly, and it moves seasonally. and so does the social environment, so does the economy, so do so many other things. and so, you must stay in pace with all of those things. and if you are, then you are evolving as well. you need to know what people are thinking if you are in a business that is about women, you need to be a part of the community and the world. ♪ push it to the limit >> i made it and then i challenged myself again, so i am doing ka kamali culture which i very different and the key is that you do things that are important for you to do and that are exciting for you to do, but initially, i think that initially, you have to know who

you are, who is the authentic you. i have done films. i have done children's clothes, men's clothes and all kinds of accessories, and i have made chandeliers and metal furniture and i done some architecture and designed the building and whatever i felt like i wanted to do, i just did it and made it happen, because it would keep me excited about fashion design which is my base. so, doing a lot of other things will keep you stimulated and then it feeds back and gives you more ideas for what it is that you do. when i worked at the airlines, this is the '60s airline, and that is like the peak business that you want to be in like pan a. am and service was the ultimate

goal for everything. you learned service there better than you can ever imagine has ever happened since then. that service experience, i am now sitting with the we call them special agents for kamali culture and i'm teaching them everything that i ever learned at the airlines so that we develop a reputation of having extraordinary service, and that we never let anybody down. every experience that you have should be used. what else do you need to know? ♪ >> it is time to now answer the business questions from you. first is a question about how to brand your company. >> how do i create consistent branding with a very small company with limited funds across all the social media and my website? so creating that con ssistent

image with a small budget? >> well sh, the budget is not t issue, but it is the creative branding. >> well i think of trader joes and groupon and the way they have created a distinct voice of the way they brand the products and write the e-mails that come out, and i would encourage the person who had this question to actually look at models of other folks who have created a good voice in the market, and then kind of write down the one or two kind of messages this you want to consistently get out in twitter and facebook and pintrest and whatever and stick to those messages and ask, is that what we are about? and am i hitting on that theme to stay consistent? >> that is the hardest thing to do, right. >> yes, except i disagree a little bit. you have to be personal. you know, number one. and you to be honest, and you have to be who you are and really if people are thinking that you are selling a good and

service, and that is all you are doing, they are not going to pay attention, and besides the social sites, you should be a blogger to do that. so if you are going to be able to get those qualities of being personal and honest and giving something else, something extra like a great social site i'm told is okay cupid to tell you is the best way to put the profile on is front end and then decide because more people pay attention, so if you can give tips that are good within the business, you will succeed. >> i like that idea of being personal, too, because you don't have to worry about what the voice is, because it is simply your voice that you are editing. and next question, e-mail from christopher who writes, how much should i look to pay a person to help me with my business plan? >> nothing. nothing. the biggest mistake that people make is that they figure that a business plan is to raise money or a business plan is to show the future, but a business plan ostensibly the first thing and the most important thing is for

you sh you, and if you write that business plan and understand that business plan, you will get a more honest approach to it, so don't pay anything. you know, there is plenty of programs that you can see to dress it up and you can look for and things like that, and talk to other business people, but the process, itself, you should understand it, and if you do it, you will understand it, and you will understand the cash flow and the future of the business. don't pay anything. >> and you, micah? >> well shgs, i agree completeld the day of writing 50-page business pla business plans are gone. it is filler and we don't encourage it. so what are the five or the seven or the ten critical questions facing this business. how do i get customers? how do i price it? what is exactlyhe product? put it in slides and keep it short. that is a much bet ter approach and much better use of time than writing lots of prose. >> and though presumably have answers to more things in the

back pocket but you don't have put them in a novel. >> in fact, the best business plans are people who are able to articulate the business plan and they don't need a lot of pages to document what the approach is going to be. >> this is a question from michael who writes, i'm having a lot of trouble to process bank and credit cards, and where would he go to find out something like this? you guys are having trouble, too. >> well, it is funny, because in the hotel that we opened seven days nago we opened in tioga, north dakota, you have to plan for it. they want background information and they don't accept you, period. you have to prepare it takes a while. it took almost a month to find this processing company and we had to fill out lots of forms and credit checks and lots of things and not like ten years ago where anybody would accept you. so today they don't just accept you.

so you have to do the homework and the research. >> how do you do the homework and the research? >> well, online is a good way to do it, and other people which every business does is to ask them, because there is a lot of hidden charges involved in this thing. they can advertise the cheapest and may be the most expensive. so i go to other businesses and ask them who they use and are they satisfied with it? you will find two or three different processes over the years, and they will tell you the best thing to do. >> and like everything, find people who are doing it and get their advise. thank you for your advice, both of you, we appreciate it. and if any of you have a question for t he experts go to website. the address is openforum.com/business and once you get there hit the ask the show panel link and the link again is openforum.com/business or e-mail us your questions at msnbc.com. >> is paper invoicing slowing

you down? then check out the website of the week. this is a site that will help take the billing out of the system. you can track time and expenses and billing. you can invoice clients in any currency. to learn more about today's show click on our website. it is open forum.com/your business. you will find all of the s segments today and plus web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow, or you can follow us on twitter and it is @msnbc your biz. and next week a guy who takes on the guinness book of world records. >> we love the opportunity for people to create their own records. >> we will tell you how they are opening up the world of record setting. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and

remember we make your business our business. 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 or, a new locationding 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. >> jeb bush says he would, says he would consider