>> business news from the capital region. this is "washington business repo" with abc7 national correspondenent rebecca cooper. cacaptioned by the national captioning initute www.ncicap.org-- >> thank you for joining us for a look at business and finance and the washington region. facebook fails to imess with their first earnings report. marylands in a special session. we will ha more during our rounundtable coming up p later in the show, the first a look at some businesses motivated by more thajust the bottom line.

each were launched d to s succeed but ey are also giving back supporting charitable c causes bending today, we speak to connie gririffith h from gator ron's, t toddracken from frosting bakery and coffee bar and bodil lund from bodil lund jewelry. welcome to you all. connie let me start with you. your business was a labor of love. started out of inspiration f from your husband. >> my husband had a dream to have a business and he had wonderfuful recipes. in 2007, he was diagnosed with als. his dream took a back seat to his disease. in november 2011, i lost him to his disease.

through his sickness, he still talked about his dream. when he died, i decided to keep his legacy alive and produce the sauces. >> he made sure that you knew how to make them correctly. >> nothing was altered. he had files where he researched. i followed the trail and he told me when i went back to work to do something that i loved. over the holiday i was making his wing sauce and i bought these recipe cards. he made me promise not to give that recipe out. it was a sign. >> now you have your firsrst prodts coming out on the shelves. the products are ready to go.

water you going to do with your portion of t proceeds at go to charity? >> we hope toto get out to local gourmet stores. we will donate 10% of our proceeds up at johns hopkins hospital. >> debbie kaufman has been a friend of yours for almost two decades. her husbsband lost his father and s aunt to als. it is a rare disease. it struck me how profound it was. >> the more people we talk to, it ds noseem like the disease is that rare. my husband's father had it as well. >> it i also quite a bit to move from being a successful

woman in the business world to launch your own sma business. water some of the ings you learned along the way? >> it is a difficult thing because i am doing it for my husband and i went to be successful. i want to make sure it is a good product. that packard center is so happy to have us on board. >> mistakes? >> we are going to ask you a little more about m marketing, but w i want to ge to you. i started off meetiting youou at a jewelry store. i bouought this necklace, wandered over and bought t these necklaces from you. then i discovered u were giving youproceeds to a foundation.

tell us about that. >> i b belong to a group of washington-area jewelers. one member was diagnosed two years a wit a rare aggressivee brain cancer. she asked me to collaborate on a project with her which is a fundndraiser for the foundation. >> what i love it i is in it is supporting womenntrepreneu. >> we did this show in order to give part of our proceeds to the foundation so it will continue to grow. >> you are proved thatat a busisiness does t have to give every daa portion of its proceeds to charity. you have designate august 10 as a day where anyone whoho comes into the frosting bakery and coffee bar in chevy chase a

portion of profits will go to a young woman. tell us about her. >> she is the 2.5-year-old daughter of a friend i went to high school with who was diagnosed with leukemia back in october. we are doing this to help the family support some of the medical bills. >> tell me aboutut how you got startedd with frosting. the world as we know is now full of cupcakes. you help your wife pursue a dream of hers and you ar turning a profit. how have you managed tstep out? >> we o offer a really well- roundeproduct. in addition to cupcakes, we will do breakfast bread coffee, and

cakes. we do and a lot of diffent things throughout the day. cucupcak are our specialty but we set ourselves aside by our quality of service as well as our r coffee and breakfast items. >> we alws li to promote sml businesses on the show.w. weant learn about more lessons learned. we will cocome back after the break. we have links to these busisses on our facebook page.

>> were back discussing

philanthropiesn small busisiness. tor ron's is a new rbecue started to honor your husband who passed aw. you all have e been very adept at marketing. ur pducts are st now ready to go out on the shelves. you appach me and did a good job marketing to get on the show. you were already being profiled by abc 7. how did d you get so adept at marketing your business before you even got off the ground? >> weponsored a 5k race and they had a p.r. person who sai we have a newusiness. do you w want an intview? >> doing that helped the bottom line. >> exactly. it was wonderful. > you have talked to

journalists t promote products. we love to talk about it and share it. >> one of the things you are gogood at marketing is you bring together alliances to help women come together to showcwcase their jewelry. >> i learned the importance of having a business plan and said in a budget. i look at it weekly and monthly. >> where did you get advice to help with the business plan? people are very glad to hel. u can ask people for their opinions and t their adve. >> what would be your message to otheher small businesses? >> plan for the unexpected. when we started our first couple months 're running a little

bit tight on their budget and it was something i was not expecting. plannedhead and plan for more money than you thinknk you need. >> what is plan b? >> for us, it was savings. we took out of our savin and we put itack when we made it back eventntually. >> all businesses wh good products and good causes. we thank you for joining us on "washington business report." if you know of a business donating a ption of their proceeeeds to a good cause, send us a link on our facebebookage. up next, our roundtable. first, a federal hot minute. >> as we debate how best to reduce our unemployment, all sides agree healthy small businesssses is key. with that in mind, it is noteworthy to read their recent

memedia stories. our government missed its own goal of awarding 23% of its contract dollars to small businesses. down a full percentage point from 2010. the obama administration seems to be responding. the administration has directed agencies to pay contractors faster to help the cash flow of small businesses. if you are wondering which candidate for president will be betteror contractors take a look at an interesting analysi recently published. links may be found on wjla.com.

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>> welcome bacack. joing us this week sahil kapur, and new to the roundtable, humanvents edotr cathy taylor. let's start with h what turned to talks of business in the wake of aaragedy. after the shooting, everyone was focused on theictims. as a business show, therere was some fallout for two differerent industries. ere was talk of a new gun corol and setting up new procedures and rules of four movie theaters and the movie industry.. let's talk about the gun industry. >> the instant reaction as has

happened after other tragedy gun sales increased in colorado and florida and oregon by more than double digits as people responded to the tragedy. it tooook $4.1 bilon industry and america and has grown accustomed to protecting itself. i do not see a long-term impact on gun sales as they watch where the gun control debate goes. >> so many diffeferent commmmentators made the point that ch time there is a tragedy likeke this, it promised a great dedeal off talk about gun-conol but seemems to lead nowhere. partly because it would not really curb violence.

in part, people admit because thee gun lobby is very power and washington, what igoing on bend t scenes right now? >> thehere has been an extraordinarary o outbreaeak of bipartisanship in the wake of this traged >> we are s seeing right now to do nhing. >> president obama -- they all agreed note new gun control laws. it i is a ry toxic place to go. the last time this issue was taken on w by president into it did not work out very well for r his party and the midterm election. since then, the gun rights lobby has only increased.

this is not really an issue that the vast majority of wmakers in this town want to go. >> members congress popointed out that tragedy could be avoided if people in the theater were armed. it seems to be the anti-gun control advocates are winning the day. mitt romney had to explain why he signed a law in massachusetts supporting a ban on the types of assault weapons we saw in colorado. the kind of leglation that gun righ supportrters atat pour. w did he handle both of those issues in trying to square the patch with the president >> it put him in an unusual position. i think k some of those thingss we saw go back and fth people

are emotionally charged with this. a little explanation as to what an automatic rifle is or an automac weapon is versus a semi-automatic. if we eliminated semi-automatic weapons, it would account for 86% of the guns out the. each time you pull the trigger a bullet is fifired. the shooter was acting with tol disregagard for the law all the way through. colorado is right in the middle of the pack for restrictive gun lalaws. the theater had a ban on weapons. i think there are many things thatat mitt romneyould have pointed out. the homicide rate in america is halflf of what it was from its

1990's peak. there are many things in this debatete in foforming way beyond the nra -- >> did h he failed the exam? >> i am m not qualifieied to say on that one. >> on the thesis of more guns cannot less crime, this is very dubious. >> therere is actually a lot of data that goes to the other direction. aa notion that if everyone is carrying a gun to my people are less likely to shoot each other. across the uniteted states, the more guns there are thehe more n violence there is. the more lenient in th laws ththere are -- there is a

compelling reason to have at least a debate on new gun control laws. >> harry reidd said we wl not even havthe debate so it looks like the gun industry will not have an impact by this tragedy. let's talk abouthe movie industry. warner brothers decided not to cancelhe screening. they held back releasing their box office number there is talk about whether congress should st in. momost people would agree that for coress to step in it is going a bit far but anything of the movie instryhouldo t make moviegoers re comfortable. >> that is exactly the point. this iup to the movie industry to handle. i think they have done a gd

job by being sensitive to their custers banding are people really going to feel comfortable in a theater with a lot of cocostumes on customer it is in their curfew for congress too come in and dictate. that is not the job for government. that all preceded as it shod. >> some people were found to be nervous this weekend. 1 movie has a scene wherere pele come in wearing gas masks in a theater. should people change their busiss modelel in the wakeke of these types of tragedies? i think the debate should happen on a mic level. these areecisioions that should -- i would be very surprised i congress steps i in them than there is a reasonable debate to have regarding why the shooter was able bargain to the

movie. >> weigh onin on the gdp number analyst scott 1.5%. >> i think it reflects whwhat is happening with small businesses in america today. they have the fiscal tax cliff.. ththey cannot plan origure out how muchfter-t-tax p profit day have. >> weigh in. still consecutiveve growth bunot good numbers. >> i believe the l last arter wass 1.5%. the previous quarter was rised downo 2%.%. not good news for the country. >> we will be back with our number of the

>> welcome back. : number of the week is a big deal of. 62%, the percentage of office workers who say they swear at work making washington than numberone city in the nation forswearing among 25 surveys. 64% of bosses say they think less of employoyees who swear at

work. we are glad you joined [ male announcer

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