washington battles. the answers you are looking for regarding the new health care exchanges. plus, this woman auto repair expert succeeds by telling, not selling. it's coming up next on "your business." ♪ small businesses are

revitalizing the economy. american express is here to help. we are proud to present "your business" on msnbc. ♪ hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business," the show that champions entrepreneurship and helps your small business grow and survive. when it comes to cars, beyond knowing how to change the tires and check the oil, i don't know that much. lift up the hood and it looks like a puzzle i cannot solve. a female mechanic in queens, new york saw an opportunity to turn everything around. it's saturday morning at the

great bear auto shop in queens, new york. things look busy. people are pulling in with their cars and awe dra is looking under hoods. guess how much revenue she's bringing in from all this business. >> zero money. >> that's right, zero. the people aren't paying for anything. they are here for a free workshop called women auto know. >> it's connecting the dots, bringing women into the auto motive industry to empower them. >> she started it five years ago in the heart of the recession. she had taken over the auto shop from her father in 1998. the fourth generation to run the business. and things were going well, until the economy took a turn. >> the world as i knew it was devastated because my customers were not fixing their cars. they had no jobs and they couldn't afford to do auto

repair. >> she would sit outside the shop and watch the boulevard, worried about prospects. >> the cars were passing by. itis not many cars. the bus was full. >> she knew she had to do something to get more customers or she would have to shut down the company that had been in her family for generations. around the same time, a few things happened that made her rethink her industry. one day, a woman came in needing help. >> this woman came in frantic that her car was overheating. when i asked her for her records so i could help her, she pulled out four invoices. she was having a major, emotional breakdown. she didn't have a car doctor. she had nobody to turn to. >> she was taking note of the relationship between women and the auto industry. she tells the story of a customer who called great bear and when she answered the phone, he insisted on being connected to a man. >> i put him on the phone. i was whispering what he should

say. >> once in arizona, she was with a girlfriend whose car broke down. the repairman said she needed to pay a bunch of money because the air pump is broken. i was like can you show it to us? he opened the hood and pointed to the alternator. >> with those stories in the back of her mind, she decided if she was going to save her company, she was going to have to do it by changing an industry. she would make it her mission to teach women about their cars, help them learn the easy things like changing a tire and checking the oil and tutor them on the bigger things so they wouldn't get cheated. >> this, to me, is great. i could be looking at anything right now. i think i'm typical. i go to the auto body shop and whatever they tell me, i think all right. i don't know if you are cheating me or not. here, fix it. whatever it takes. is that what you find?

>> i find people are like that a lot. the ones like that, i bring under the hood. not to sell, but to tell and educate. >> now, once a mon on saturdays, she holds her women auto know workshops. >> their car is immune, but speaks. if you can understand what your baby is saying, you are okay and you need to name your car so you become personal. it's not that car again. it's i have to take bessey to the shop. >> telling, not selling saved her company. >> earning trust must be a big issue in the repair industry. >> it's the hurdle everyone deals with on a regular basis. even if you are doing the right thing, there are shops doing the right thing, people don't believe it. >> through the workshops, she's gained the trust of her community. workshops. >> they were a great way to help people struggling in the economy to be able to do things on their own. small services. changing a lightbulb.

how much is a lightbulb? $5? i'm going to charge you 20 to put it in. do it yourself. save your time and money, then when the big things happen and you need a timing belt, suspension or brakes, then come into me and i'm here for you. >> linda has been to a workshop and is now a customer. she's told her friends who have become students and customers. >> i think once they came here and saw the trust and her level of excitement and enthusiasm, they felt more comfortable taking a class. the trust was there. >> she cares deeply about continuing the legacy of her family with great bear. her mission, the thing that really gets her up in the morning, the thing she will not stop until she completes is teaching people about their cars. how does it make you feel when a group of women leaves your workshop and suddenly they know a bunch of things they didn't know coming in? >> i'm like hot dig itty dog,

she got it. it fills me up. it feeds my passion, for real. invigorating. >> many women business owners around the country are just like her, trying to succeed in male dominated industries. that includes diane of cleveland who i met awhile back. she's been in what has traditionally been a man's world. it was her touch that turned this gun store business around. [ gunfire ] >> your pump action shotguns make a distinct noise. your gurdlers know that noise. the chances of them walking away from that is another story. >> there's no question about who's in charge here, but for some customers of this cuyahoga county gun shop, diane can be a

bit of a surprise. >> i shock people, you know, from time to time because i am a woman that knows about guns. >> diane not only knows about guns, she buys them, sells them and teaches people to use them. >> go ahead and put your finger on the trigger. >> properly. >> that's good trigger control. >> she's one of a small number of female gun shop owners in the country. >> there's more than you know but they are behind the scenes. i'm out front here. most of the gun shops, they are family businesses. the men are out front, but the women are in the back running it. >> diane, who runs the whole show from stock room to showroom never planned to have a career dealing in firearms. it was her husband who got her into it. tell me about the first time you shot a gun. >> oh, my god. let's see. the flame went that way, the casing that way, hit me in the

head. i set the gun down and said this is not for me. i was just -- it was just totally freaked me out. >> she didn't stay freaked out for long. in fact, she discovered she has a knack for the business and a taste for the sport. [ gunfire ] >> it's like with anything that any woman gets into, if you are going to runny type of business, you have to know what you are doing. you have to know your product. you have to be able to sell it. >> i can tell you, firsthand, she certainly knows what she's doing when it comes to operating firearms. >> drop your side. okay, that thumb up. all right. okay. forward. >> whew! >> i told you you're going to get it. >> after 17 years in the business, she rarely takes her eye off the target. >> when we took over, the old owners were doing about $300,000 a year.

we are at over $2 million. >> some of that increase comes from cultivating a new class of customers, women. >> the majority of women feel more comfortable talking to another woman about firearms. >> do you attract more female customers? >> i believe yes we do. but, it's not only just because i'm here. it's because my guys. i have a great staff here. they have their days when i would like to ring their necks, but i have a great staff and they listen to the women. >> bringing in women isn't the only reason her store thrived. she credits savvy investors choosing to put profits back into the business. >> i have a lot of different guns here and all the different calibers. >> i feel like you do not take no for an answer. you will bargain somebody down. by the time somebody walks out the door, they will have

boughten what you want. >> most of the time, yeah. breaking into the good old boys club can be difficult, but there are many successful female executives dedicated to helping other women entrepreneurs follow their lead. here are five national women's business groups worth looking into. the national association of women business owners representing 10 million women businesses, there are 70 local chapters nationwide. two, american businesswomen's association. this network hosts an annual women's leadership conference where you can network with women who could become future customers. three, 85 broads founded by women who held senior positions at goldman sachs, they host lecture events in new york city and regional outputs.

four, ladies who lawn. this website is for female entrepreneurs that offer press on tuneties, networking opportunities and more. five, women's business development center. if you want to get certified as a women's business, this group provides valuable information and resources with a focus on government contracting, they also host web nars and in person courses. these are challenging times for some small business owners who, like everyone else, are reeling from the events taking place in washington. the impasse over passing a budget has led to a government shutdown which has far reaching effects on the community. the small business administration closed down and stopped processing loan applications. refinancing on mortgages, on commercial property is affected. this is just the begin.

this is because of political fighting over the affordable care act as health care exchange enrollment started causing more anxiety and confusion for small businesses that want to participate. how are owners dealing with all of this and what do they need to know about navigating the health exchanges? katie sleet stra is with the national association for the self-employed and david ickert is director of finance with is an employee owned business. great to see you guys. there's a lot for us here. katie, i want to start with you. how are your members feeling right now with what's going on in washington and what's going on with health care, the aca, how are they feeling? >> i think as it relates to the government shutdown, our members are just exacerbated.

in advance of the deadline that is keep on creeping up on us. it's not a short term hit for them. there are going to be weeks of delays, even if the government started running tomorrow or god forbid, it takes until the 17th for a plan to be in place. >> i understand the idea of not feeling like there's an advocate but when it's impacting small business. it's obvious how it affects people baiting for sba loans but how is it impacting the average business owner? >> they are importers and exporters of goods. where are the materials right now? they are probably stuck in the baltimore dock or the new york dock waiting for inspectors to come back on the job to, you know, certify the materials can make it safely into the united states. >> i want to move into the health care exchange. you talked about how your members are interested in this and the confusion. david, i want to get down to

logistics. for people out there, small businesses who are interested in this, but don't know where to start, if you could take me through a step by step, here's j.j. ramberg company, i have 25 employees, i don't provide them insurance right now, but i would like to. i think there's an opportunity out for there me, what do i do? >> if you are under 50 employees, it comes back to the individuals. then it goes back to the exchanges. contacting the exchanges and getting signed up is the step to do right now. >> do i tell my employees to go contact the exchange or do i contact the exchange? >> either one. you as the employer can contact the exchange and see what help you can get from there. >> you know, i'm a self-employed. i see an opportunity, where do i start? >> the last couple weeks we have

been telling our members, go to healthcare.gov. it's the portal if you have internet connection which some americans don't and there are well publicized phone numbers and center hard locations to go to. healthcare.gov is a great place to get started. you can preregister and walk through the process. you don't need to transact the purchase of health insurance right there and then. you need to get the last tax return. please have that ready. they are going to ask you for your adjusted gross income level. that will help the system verify if you are able to get premium assistance. make sure you have any relevant medical documents that if you have a pre-existing condition or the names of your doctors. >> i want to ask, i want to turn to david for a second. as a business owner, what do i need to evaluate as a small business person? should i be going to one of these exchanges or should i talk to a broker and go through more

traditional experience of getting health care if i want to provide it for my employees. what questions should i ask myself? >> from a small business perspective, small businesses are unique and resourceful. gathering as much information as they can at first, then make the evaluation for their particular circumstances is the best way to proceed. >> katie and david, thank you for starting to help us parse this out and understand how it works. appreciate you coming on the show. when we come back, we answer your small business questions, including when the time is right to hire a cfo. and, we'll tell you what you need to know about effective text message marketing. has it's ups and downs.

seasonal... doesn't begin to describe it. my cashflow can literally change with the weather. anything that gives me some breathing room makes a big difference. the plum card from american express gives your business flexibility. get 1.5% discount for paying early, or up to 60 days to pay without interest, or both each month. i'm nelson gutierrez and i'm a member of the smarter money. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. if you live with a teenager, you probably already know this. e-mail is passat. just the other day, i was talking with a business owner trying to reach college students. after a survey, she realized her e-mail marketing is ineffective. she needed to be texting. it's not just that demographic. 90% of all american adults own cell phones.

i wanted to take time to dig into text message marketing. james citron is from a mobile and online payment company. he founded an mms and sms text message company that was bought earlier this year. great to see you, james. >> great to see you as well. >> i find this fascinating. i love e-mail. i use text but i get annoyed at text message marketing. i know there are lots of people that that's where they get their information, where they want to get their information. >> the challenge is 90% of e-mails today go unread. >> right. >> 70% of facebook posts and 80% of tweets are missed by consumers. most consumers go, i want to get my messaging on the one device i have with me 24/7. it's text messaging. >> start from the basics. if i'm a company and want to get people signed up to my text messaging/marketing plan, what

do i do? >> get a short code and promote it. you want someone to opt into the loyalty program, text join to 51515 to get texts. >> where do i get the shortcode? >> you can use pavea service. there is a few sites where you buy the short code. the short code is replacing the domain name. instead of your website address everywhere, you see small businesses put their short code everywhere. on signage you walk into a retail store, you see it on bus ads, print ads. >> what kind of things do i give? is it the same kind of marketing i would use on e-mail. do i give coupon codes. i see $10 off 30 when you spend $30. is that the kind of messaging you want to put snoout? >> text is how we communicate with our loved ones. you're delivering text marketing, you want to do something valuable. exclusive content, cool coupons and personalize it so the message you might get from j.j.

is based on something you might have bought before, or something that is catered to your interests. >> it is interesting, because when we talk about marketing, and social sites, we talk a lot about don't give them offers. what you really want to do is start a conversation. where as do you think of text as very transactional, actually give them an offer. this is not a conversation this is give them something they want? >> you can actually deliver much different information than just coupon. the brands that do the best job are delivering videos, pictures, multimedia, and then they're following it up with a coupon. >> i see this, you also have a message from rick ojeda here, enjoy this 39-second teaser video. it is still short enough to fit in a text, click through, you get the video. >> in this example this is a company by the name of partners trust. when you're buying a home today, you want to have a relationship with your broker this is maybe the biggest purchase you ever made in your life. to get a 30 second video from the agent telling you, this is

who i am, these are properties that might be of interest to you actually bridges the gap between it is not just a transaction, you're building a relationship with the consumer. >> there are opt out rates the same as in the e-mail. forget the spam part. people who actively opted into an e-mail newsletter, offers letter versus someone who actively opted in -- it is usually much less on text. when you say i want to get a text message from this brand or picture or video or coupon, you're really -- you're opting in, saying send me something of val yue on my personal device s it is much lower. >> thank you. >> well, thank you. video conferencing has come a long way from the expensive setups of its early years. so, if you want to see everyone participating in your meeting, but don't want to travel to do it, check out our app of the week. blue jeans is a free video conferencing app where you can chat with up to 25 people at a

time. everyone can connect to the same meeting using their platform of choice from google video chat, to cisco and skype. share or view content during the meeting and arrange the conference participants to suit your preferences. time now to answer some of your business questions. adam rich is the co-founder and editor in chief of thrill list, the all digital men's lifestyle brand and celeste hilling is ceo of skin authority, based in carlsbad, california. it was profiled here on the show, which is how we met you. great to see you on the set. >> great, thank you. >> adam, great to see you too. >> my pleasure. >> first question is about keeping your employees in the small business game. >> how we can incentivize our employees to continue working for us when we're still kind of at a small and early stage when we're not able to provide them with monetary compensation. >> i'm going to up this a notch

and see -- you work in the technology world. let's talk about engineers who are getting head hunted 16 times a day. so how do you -- this is what you do. you have a lot of them. you were small, but now big and well known. how did you keep people? >> a lot of it in the early days was ensuring job satisfaction and, you know, so much of it isn't monetary. think about, like, people that work for charities, they're not getting paid well but they care about what they do. if they're not shaping the mission of the company, in some cases we put them on really cool projects. let them do what they're really interested in doing and in some cases pioneer cutting edge stuff that we benefitted from having these guys create for us. >> when you have a startup and you have so much to get done, how do you carve out time for them to do this cool side project when really you need this new product built. >> it is hard. and i think that is really one of the biggest tricks because they can't go and do vanity projects when the whole site has to be kept running. and in some cases buying the guy

whiskey after a long day and having the sort of personal connection. >> the other is to really give them the opportunity to invest, for example, in professional development. it is not cash compensation, but giving them an ability to enroll in a program that is outside of work, that helps develop their skill set so they feel -- >> do you pay for it? >> absolutely. letting them feel like you are investing in them and believe in them in exchange for the passion for what you do or having something on the internet that show great ideas and giving them credit. so much of it is about appreciation and recognition, and that goes so much further than cash in so many ways. >> and culture, having a place where you like to be and feel like you have an opportunity. okay. let's move on to the next one. it is about hiring other managers to help run your company. >> as the company grows, at what stage is it appropriate to hire your first full-time coo or cfo? >> i think there are two things going on there, like, what the -- what the gentleman was

describing and then what he sort of deposited as a solution. the c at the beginning of those titles is why you spend so much on the people, you want someone who is going to innovate and going to actually make decisions and invest in that channel beyond just executing what you need and when you're talking about payroll, just get an accountant, get someone to do your books. if you think you need someone to be a thought leader and innovator, that's when you pony up for a c-level hire. >> got it. >> the other thing is when you're small and growing, cash flow is critical. and a lot of times when you look at investing in someone like that, they can pay for themselves in efficiencies, you can get in operations. and effectively managing your costs and your expenses that return back and pay for tha position. so in my mind, you know, you want to be able to be the strategy leader in your organization for all the things we were discussing. and you don't have time to do that if you're micromanaging operational things that could be better executed by someone. i think you have to know what your strengths are and hire to

fill the gaps. many times a coo or cfo is critical to that. >> let's move on to the next question. an e-mail from neil. he wrote, how does a small bisset a profit margin. should it be a standard for your respecti ivive industry? do you have guidelines for small business owners? >> i think what is critical is a lot of people look at industry benchmarks and they are important, but it is so important to work backwards to what margins you need to cover your operational costs and to really look at having, in my experience, with our company, setting those margin goals and then making sure you're really consistent with that when you go out for pricing and everything else you do is really critical. so while industry can be a benchmark, it is really critical to have a goal and make sure every time you set pricing or go out into, you know, looking at the margin of what you recoup, you're factoring in all your overhead. >> it is a sign of who you are,

right? your margins this or this. what are you selling? >> i think the other thing is how much you charge is also a big sign of who you are. so if you know what your cost of goods are and know the margin you want to make, there is the question of what you take to market as your price. sometimes a high price dictates a quality product. >> right. do you want to be a luxury brand, mass brand? >> you look at luxury spirits world and so much of that is just who are we going to be competitive with and how are we going to be perceived at this cost. >> all right, celeste and adam, so great to see you both. thank you so much. we appreciate all of your advice today. and if any of you out there have been watching, but you want to learn more about today's show, all you have to do is click on our website. it is openforum.com/yourbusiness. once you get there, you'll find all of today's segments and web exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. it's @msnbcyourbiz. and become a fan of the show on

facebook. next week, we talk to iconic lifestyle guru and business woman martha stewart. >> i have always said ever since i started working that i am my customer. i want to appeal to me. what's missing in my life? what void can i fill that will fill the voids for everybody that's like me? >> we'll get more sage advice from her about her remarkable journey to entrepreneurial success. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. and, remember, we make your business our business. building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. the timing, the actions, the reactions. everything has to synch up. my expenses are no different.