her revenue went from $3 million a year to a at the point of that. what this small business owner learned to get back on track. plus stylish advice from stylist to the stars, ashley hershberger. it's time to make money on "your business."

hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business" where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. all small businesses have their ups and down but for asa products owner it has been a true roller-coaster ride. in her first three years she made millions of dollars in sales only to see them plummet. now her company is back on top with valuable insight into how to run her business and avoid past pitfalls. asa products, the maker of the mobo cruiser want their customers to have more than fun. they want their customers to be wowed. >> on the package, as soon as they open the package, oh, very

nice. when they ride the experience, wow, very cool. when they call customers, wow, you guys are nice. so it's just like you want to have that wow factor that will have people remember who you are. and that's the brand. >> building the brand is now at the core of the company for founder and president melody shay hornstrap, but today business is booming and getting to this point has been anything but a smooth ride. three years after it launched asa products was pulling in more than $3 million a year and then suddenly the revenue plummeted. >> and i was like, our bust just went down from $3 million. >> at the time asa products were imported from taiwan and sold in the u.s. everything from roller skates to yo-yos and the buyer's appetite was huge. >> sell me the product! sell me the products! so for me it's real easy, is

people come to you because the product was hot. >> the reason why the business did so well so quickly initially in the beginning was because of melody's charisma and she has an absolutely great personality. and she is an excellent salesperson. >> because she was so good at sales and it was working, melody paid no attention to the other parts of her business. and that lack of knowledge eventually caused the company's downfall. >> we didn't really have an academic understanding of how businesses worked and didn't have a very sophisticated business model. so of course we ran into lots of problems. >> the thinking at asa products in the begin as seth explained it is give me something to sell and we'll make money. >> then you go on a frenzy to sell that stuff. when the trend dies at the end of the day off lot of products in your warehouse that aren't really worth a whole lot. so yes, there were inventory

problems. >> since they had done very little research to understand their customers' needs, melody and her team were blindsided when demand slowed down. the company also ran into intellectual property problems, problems with their business processes and a host of other issues. >> here we go, $3 million, easy. now we talk about easy go, too. >> with sale at a tenth of their peak, many people would have thrown in the towel. but not melody. >> so i won't give up. i just don't give up. so i say, you know what? it's time to go back to school. >> melody was accepted to the university of southern california' mba program. >> business school gave me a tool to learn the language, understand the concept and use the tools. >> use the tools like learning to create marketing plans and protect financials and understand the marketplace. >> and i just realized, oh, those language, those terms, so what is the target customer? what is the precision of the

product? and what is the branding? >> we started doing things that we had never done before, like trying to figure out who our customers were, who we were. >> reporter: melody started pairing her company down to one product and reimagining the moba cruiser. >> our strategy is focusing on active lifestyle and improving life of others. and then we are providing the customer experience through innovation, style and service. so whatever we do we focus on that. now you are building the brand value. now you're building the company. >> this is a completely different way of writing asa products. >> the mistake i made is i base hot products, hot items. my goal is whatever i can make money, i do. >> she ensures her company is around for the long haul. >> you want to have a clear vision, know where you're going

and apply your vision to every element that you work with in every day. it's not always an easy decision but sometimes it's a necessary one. every small business owner at one time or another is based with the reality of raising prices for their product or service. in a down economy the decision is even more difficult. you clearly don't want to lose your customers but not every client is willing to pay more. so what do you do? marla major is the ceo of the party goddess, a full service planning and event catering company. she's here to tell us how to price for profit without jeopardizing your credit base. great to see you, marla. >> great to see you. >> adjust your formula, your packages? >> it's a better idea than saying, i was $60 an hour now i'm $80. if you charge an hourly rate, why not say here's a flat fee or charge a percentage of what you're coordinating. by mixing it up the customer is

not comparing apples to apples. it is not like you say, her prices went up 50% and you changed your model. being more efficient, you're making more money in tend. >> do you still have to offer something $60 or no? >> i didn't think as long as you communicate how you're restructuring it you're fine. >> stricter parameters, what do you mean by that? >> if you do change your pricing and obviously if it is hourly, you're on the clock, tick-tock. if you're not and charge a flat fee and a percentage, you have to be very clear about what that includes and what it doesn't include. because otherwise you end up having to do all these extra things that aren't part of the project. so, for example, for an event planner, let's say i hired you as a wedding planner and you have a flat fee, i'm thinking you're coming with me to try my dress, every fitting, no, you're

just thinking you're coordinating the day of. you have to be super clear about what it includes but use it as a marketing ploy to get more business by saying what it doesn't include. but i can do this, this and this. that kind of thing. >> and put the other things a la carte. >> right. and then the customer is like, i didn't know she did those things but it is clear from the get-go. >> the other thing is to be clear. >> be clear. you can't come to somebody in the middle of the project and say, by the way, i decided to raise my prices. but you can do it ahead of time and use it to your advantage as a marketing strategy. you can say, listen, because of the economy i'm changing my pricing structure. however, create some sense of urgency. if you book me by x date you're a great customer, i will grandfather in the old rates, that kind of thing. especially if you do it at a time when you could be slow. it could be a great time your slow in july or august or november, send out that marketing piece and use it to get a bump in business.

>> i think that grandfathering the old rates is really helpful because now you've done something special for me. >> absolutely and i feel valued as a customer which is you have to provide great customer service. you can't change your pricing or raise your pricing and say, oh, yeah, i'm going to have lackluster performance. no, you really need to be on your game to make sure your staff is ready to go, all the systems are ready to go before you raise the prices. >> and people are going to object. >> people are going to object but it's important to have a script and a plan ahead of time. but what the objections are going to be. so many times i see small business owners and the first time they answer an objection to a customer is in front of their best customer. forget it. figure out the top three to five objections that most of us get and kind of write a script and role play with somebody's critic ahead of time. so that person can say, you don't sound convincing at all or look so nervous and are not making eye contact, practice answering the objections so you

really come across like you know what you're doing and are justified and people feed off that confidence. >> if you have a good relationship with your customers and say, look, the economy is bad out there. in many times that might be enough because they compare about you and other times you changed your package so are offering them more that doesn't cost you anything. >> correct. i always say offer something very valuable to them, high value to them, low cost to you. and each of us in business have certain things we can throw in that the customer will feel thrilled about that doesn't cost us anything. >> marla, thank you so much. this was all great advice. >> thank you for having me. do you get to the end of the day and wonder where the time went? here are five ways to keep distractions from damaging your productivity courtesy of entrepreneur.com. one, make and post a list. put it where you will see it every time you look up so you can't ignore it. two, stand up when someone comes into the office.

this can help visitors from lingering unnecessarily. most people get tired of standing and then leave when their business with you is done. three, limit outside attention grabbers. take calls at set times to stay focused at the work at hand. four, clear your desk. if you're ready to dive into larnlg project, get rid of any distractions. and number five, take small bites. don't wait for large blocks of time or you may never get to them. you can accomplish more than you think but with an extra 15 to 20 minutes a day. no the age of the web of smart phones and social networks, every action a business takes can be exposed and critiqued in realtime. that's why more than ever utmost is honesty is important. he's co-author of the book "extreme trust." it would be nice if we didn't

have to call it a competitive advantage, but you say honest because we all need to be honest. >> honesty is the best policy. >> this is an interesting book. you talk about a lot of companies being honest when they don't necessarily have to. they wouldn't be lying if they weren't honest but they kind of go beyond in order to keep customers. >> they protect the interest of the customer. the reason the book works today is because now we are in the age of transparency from twit tore facebook and linkedn and youtube. you can't hide a secret anymore. >> one bad review, one person on twitter with a lot of followers who says something about your company, whether it's good or bad, it gets out there. >> a lot of businesses have made their money basically by having better information than their customers. that's not going to happen. >> okay, let's talk about the examples. jackielawson.com. >> jacquelawson.com, they are an

e-greeting card company. and you subscribe to it on an annual fee. you get to the end of the period and they automatically renew you. and they hope you don't notice, but jackielawson, they will send you an e-mail. we will renew your subscription on this credit card, do you want to do it? >> why do they do that? presumably they lose customers? >> but they gain reputation and they gain credibility and they earn the trust of customers who are going to refer other customers to them. >> that was a small company. now we have jetblue. >> the other day i'm on a jetblue flight, five hours, everybody was terrible inveechblt they got out the plane at kennedy and handed out

a letter. sorry, under our customer bill of rights, we are giving you a refund and that determines if you paid with trueblue or cash refund. if you paid in cash a full refund. you don't have to do anything to claim the refund. we are going to automatically place this in your flight bank to use it for your future travel. i can't tell you the number of times i've had some kind of refund from the airline and they say, go on our website, click here, click there, use your ticket number, nut the date of travel, waive a ticket in your hand. >> this is going to cost jetblue more money than if they made it harder but it's about customer service. right? >> exactly. it's about being proactive in protecting a person's interests. it is not untrustworthy to give you the refund and go get it itself, but it's proactivity trustworthy, trustable, a form

of extreme trust to protect your interest to make it easy for you so you automatically are going to get this. >> you talk about a home builder who warns you when your home warranty is up. the home builder is going to make more money if they fix something on thursday rather than monday. >> if 30 days before your home warranty is up and the home builder sends you an e-mail or contacts you, 30 days. why don't i send somebody over to fix something. it's still on our nickel. how cool is that? >> and what they get in return, referrals. >> this particular home builder we mention in our book gets a lot more referrals, like 40% of business comes from referrals. a typical home builder, 15% to to%. >> there's a lot to learn from the business owners. thank you for sharing them with us. >> thank you, j.j. when we come back, how the popular website ask.com uses improvisation as a team-building tool. and stylist to the stars sally hershberger tells us how to make the cut in business in this week's learning from the pros.

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. now we have her trend-setting hairstyles, her sensibility and her $800 haircuts. sally hershberger is one of the

most sought-after hairstylists in the world. from first ladies to hollywood's leading ladies, her savviness has kept her in this for decades. she overseas bi-coastal salons and two hair care lines. we caught up with her to get her insight on taking the brand to the next level and how carving out me time can actually benefit your business in this learning from the pros. ♪ >> obviously you're born with your eye, if you're in beauty or whatever, but i think the key is doing what your gift is. i think it's important to just know what you're good at and then you're usually going to love that because you're good at it. and picking things that might not necessarily make money in but if you're clever you'll find a way, how to make money. ♪

>> i've been offered to do salons in many department stores, be all over the place, but it's -- you know, i don't want to dilute my brand. the press was like, oh, my god, you charge this? i think about it, women want to look beautiful, men want to look beautiful, you can buy a bag for $800 and be fine about it, but you can put it down over there and this hair you're wearing 24/7. it's on you wherever you go. it's your best accessory. i was changing the way women wore their hair. i wanted hair to look just effortlessly sexy, have movement without seeing product in the hair. you need something to give it guts so i really started playing with products. i mean, i'm very creative in that way. and then i realize 50% of great hair is the product you use. it's common sense for me to come up with a product line. do not worry, do what you think

is right. because your instincts take you to great places. if you listen to other people, what do they snow in you should listen to you're. it's fun to get advice but at the end of the day you're always going to do what you want to do. ♪ >> i'm not a workaholic at all. people think i am, i'm far from it. can you surround yourself with creative people, smart people, so it allows you to enjoy the life because this is it. it is not a dress rehearsal. you need to be able to enjoy life and you also bring more to your work when you, like, look around you and have fun. ♪ social media is a great marketing tool but once you start you sort of have to keep feeding the beast. you need to keep coming up with good content to keep people engaged and do it in a way fun for you so it doesn't become a chore. here with ways to organize your

social media messages, torre johnson, the ceo of women for hire, a company that creates recruiting events to connect professional women. she also the author of "sparkle and hustle." thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> i loved this chapter where it talked about this. we do social media all the time but it really makes it easy. >> and it came to me out of necessity. for me, figuring out every morning, what am i putting on facebook today, became a chore and i started not doing it. this is awful, a week can go by and i'm not doing anything. if i'm going to make facebook work for me, i have to be engaged. >> fur going to do it, do it. >> you have to do it. we put together ways to think about what to put out on social media. monday you say review. what's that? >> for example, if you create a plan for yourself and know every monday you're going to review something, maybe you talk about something with seeing a book

over the weekend, an article you read. give a little feedback and ask other people if they have seen the movie, what they thought about the tv v and it gets the conversation going. >> it structures it. you're thinking, what am i going to say and you're like, what am i going to review? >> this is just one specific idea that i think works. so reveal. i love revealing something that's a little personal about you because i think if people know you and like you and trust you may will want to do business with you. so just very recently in the past couple days it was miss 18th anniversary and put a little picture up just mentioning that. it got 700 likes. a record for me. i'm like, hello, people -- i don't talk about work that way but revealing something personal with your family, friends or kids. i work with my husband so that makes sense that's something i'm talking about.

but revealing this can't be a good thing. >> okay, report. >> right now i'm on tour meeting different speakers and women, all about small business, and i know the vast majority of my followers on facebook and twitter don't come to my events. so i'll share little didbits and report to them what speakers say, share pictures with them, share what's happening behind the scenes so everybody feels like they are there. reporting what you have going on is a great way to share information. >> and then promote. >> promote something you're involved in. and this is where you mentioned i have a book, so i'm of course telling people on facebook to buy my book. and i'll share different excerpts and different things from the book so every day the message is not, buy the book, buy the book, but i'm sharing tidbits from the book and that's promoting it. >> what about the other things, report? >> i think you can celebrate

victories. something of your own, maybe some media attention and want to share it. maybe it's a victory one of your clients or customers achieved. maybe it's a new product introduction or asking for feedback is a really big one. so sharing interesting questions with people. for example, you have a cupcake business, and if you have to design a cupcake, what would it be? people love sharing exclusive deals and offers that people can only get on facebook. there's a lot of businesses where every single day, whether it's seven days a week or one day a week, they share some kind of exclusive deal or coupon. that's incentive to keep people actively engaged in their facebook page and it works with twitter, too. >> it's monday, review day, it's simply a way for you to organize the messages you put out. so you wouldn't use these publicly in any way but a great way to create a content grid for the week or the month.

and you start plugging in little things so you're never at a loss of direction. obviously you want to leave room for spontaneity when things are happening in the news, things happening that are excited, you don't have to feel wedded to only this. but just as you plan a show and look weeks ahead at what's going on, similarly you can do the same with your social media. >> go to your book, then you can find all of -- for a month. >> we give you an example for a month. a lot of variety. >> this is great and fantastic advice. thank you, tory. >> thank you. fostering a creative environment where people are not stuck doing and thinking the same old, same old. it's something we should all be thinking about. how do you do it? our next guest came up with a really fun way. dudd sleeds the ceo of ask.com and started the unorthodox practice of having workshops at

his company. they have caused a culture shift that he says inspired new ideas. doug, great to see you. >> great to see you. >> i have to be honest when i heard that my heart fell to the bottom of my stomach, like improv petrifies me. >> it's not scary at all. in concept a lot of people at the company were nervous at first, but once they got going it becomes easy and that's what it is about. being silly and being free and it's not scary once you get going. >> before we talk about how to get people to do it, i just want to know why. why does this help having people get up to do improv? how does that help your business goals? >> so much of business these days is planning and focus. getting a quarterly plan and execution, but what that does is wiping out a skill, listening and creating in the moment and building on it. that's a lost art. we found certainly in our company with all the focus that

we had become really good at, what we have become bad at is getting a new set of ideas and improv was great for that. >> once you do improv, how did that change things? did people start thinking out of the box? what happened? >> it's thinking out of the box. we start a meeting with a spatula in the middle of the room. we'll say, give me ideas on what the spatula can be used for other than flipping food. and somebody will drop it on the ground and say it's a gravity test or put it over their eye to say i'm a pirate or for an eye test or something like that. you build on these things and start listening and responding. anyone can do it. we find we get great ideas we wouldn't otherwise get. >> so you do this with a spatula, nothing to do with your business, but then the same skills happen when you say, okay, what should our facebook campaign be? >> right. a lot of what happened in our company and i think that's why it spread, there's this sort of culture of i'm going to raise my

hand when i know what i'm going to say and it is bullet-proof. the modern version of being attacked in the forest by a cheetah. that was a threat to your survival in evolutionary times but today that's a boss saying that's a stupid idea. people don't say anything. i have to say everything stashts out stupid so there are no stupid ideas and then we can build on them. >> so i'm watching this segment and think, that's fantastic, i want to start it. how do i as a small business owner say, okay, we are going to start doing improv guys. what do we do? >> we have a little bigger company to help us get started. you can use ask.com to find ways to get started but the key is make time for it. really make time for your company, set aside and bring everybody in to it. whether it's the receptionist or the head of the division, they can all sort of add to the idea

and build on them. >> for someone sitting here like my shy about acting and think, oh, god, i can't do improv. how do you deal with someone like me? >> there's no up there. you're sitting in the same meeting you would be sitting in otherwise. you're sitting in the same office and everyone is participating so there's no audience. you're not in front of everybody. that makes it really safe. the key is that it's safe. >> it's easy for everyone to blurt out something with a spatula versus me on the stage saying to talk about a spatula. very interesting and creative. thank you for coming on the show. >> thank you for having me. it's been great. every small business owner needs to find out what their customers think at one point or another. if you're looking for a more interactive way to do that, check out our website of the week. popsurvey.com creates high-quality online surveys to help you get feedback for your business. questions are asked one at a

time and customized to fit your needs. the surveys also look just as good on mobile devices as they do on a computer screen. to learn more about today's show, just click on our website, it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments plus web-exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter, @msnbcyourbirz. don't forget to become a fan on facebook. until next time, i'm j.j. ramberg. 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.