♪ >> business news from the capitol region. this is "washington business report" with a7 national correspondent rebecca cooper. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- this week in business news, growing concerns in cyber security. calls for new rules in how the nfl does business. in our small business spotlight, a low-cost way to maximize your marketing plan. but fifirst, in today's one-on-one, we sit down with the ceo who grew a small georgetown store into the largest chain of its kind in the u.s. in laununched a blue mercury 1999 as a website but quickly realized she was too far ahead of the interernet curve. customers were not buying it.

she opened her retail store and stuck withth it. now with 50 retail stores and growing and a booming internet business, i sat down with her to learn more about how beauty is much more than skin deep when it comes to business. to "washington business report." forbes magazine describes your company as now the largest duty retail services company in the u.s.. how did it start out? , i came to washington and worked in finance. back then you could only buy cosmetics at department stores or drugstores. i had to travel 30 minutes to buy my lip stick. i thought there had to be a better way. the whole idea was the friendly neighborhood store where you could get expert, honest advice. e-commerce and quickly realized we were too early and needed to have stores.

>> let's back up here in your path is an interesting one. you are a california girl at harvard business school and even at business school you love to make up, you loved products, you loved facials. there weren't a lot of peoplplee at harvard business school focused on makeup and cials?s? >> no. i hadhat passion because it was not profefessional to love makeup at that point. when i was growing up in california, i had facials before anyone knew what facials were. when i came to boston, i was looking for spas and skincare products and i could not find the ones i used in california. it became a reality when i moved to washington. >> as you say, you worked at mckenzie before you went to harvard to get your mba. you not only got your mba at harvard, he [inscernible] what did you think youou were going to do? >> i thought i would go into business and make my money and

then go into public hollis a. -- policy. >> you were in d.c. after harvard business school. company trying to buy a and met your future husband, and now he's coo of this company. you are ceo. he is coo. added that relationship develop and what now? >> -- how did that relationship develop and what now? >> he was the sort of pers i've never met before. > his name is barry beck. >> yes. he got more done in a day than anyone i ever saw. i recruited him more as a hire, but that evolved over time. we got married when we opened our fourth location. i always joke, we had kids at different locations. numbera kid at location five, location number eight. our last kid came location 13 through 25. with as m many things on

their plate as you have, it's good to learn from. teach a s sum of the tricks of e trade to balance. >> everyone has a way. i integrate work and life together. my two girls with me. we hopped on the metro and went to union station and checked out the new store together. for me it's about iegrating. i'm never off. some people have to turn off. it's all mixed together for me and i think it works for me. >> hiring people is one of the most important things when you are a retailer. what have you leararned over the years in terms of the most important steps you need to take, quaualities you need to lk for to find the best people? >> i have a lens. i look for skill, will, and fit. the do they fit with culture of the company and how we work. one thing that is really important to us is we have to have beauty products. if we don't love them, we can't

learn them. we have to be nice. store.cecept is a friendly if you are not nice and you don't like other people, we are not the right lakes. it is a lot about culture and that is the hardest grade >> is it hard to find someone who loves makeup products and still has a good as ms. mine in retail mind -- business mind and retail mind? >> even then, the shaving categories are important. how did you slowly make the online part of the business succeed? >> we just kept at it. we launcd our site in 1999. jeff bezos spoke at the business school. i saw this whole new world. i thought, if can buy cosmetics online it would be the best thing in the world. it was too early. not everyone had a fast internet connection. we kept pushing at it and finally it took off probably about 10 years ago. we have been in the business in

e-commerce for a very long time and continue. >> beauty products are a huge market. the big-name competitors don't want to see some upstart take any of their market share. how do you beat back the big guys and keep growing? >> we see trends earlier and we are very nimble. >> your 15th year.r. when you look back at where you started and where you are now, what part amazes you the most? >> it's hard to even imagine. it's 15 years. we have 500 amazing employees. we have a plan to go to over 300. it's ways one tng at a time. one lipstick at t a time, one store at a a time. that is the way to do business. think big, but work small. that seems to be the best way to do it. >> thanks so much for joining us on "washington business report."

when we return, no matterr what size your business is, you need a marketing strategy. how to build one on any budget when we return with our small business spotlight. ♪

♪ welcome back. how can sma business buildld trust, loyalty, and connection without breaking the bank? it's all about your marketing strategy. here to talk with us about how to build a marketing strategyy s president and ceo of all-american managagement groupa media, marketing, and d managigg and ourng company, small business expert t and cecf successful culturere. welcome to you both. let me talk to you out the strategy you have laid out for us.

we are going to focus on two today. you call it the ace model. what is the ace mol? >> it is a solution to the lack of trust. theaverage bineswoma average consur is struggling with trustight now. they d't have it. we d't trust our politicians, we don't trust the brands our parents used to trust. we don't trust the media. now is there e some people who have figured it out. the key compoponents are to firt have authority. yoreally have to have authority and prove that you are worthy of at your position is. you he to have a sense of credibility. ace is an acronym for auththorit credibility, and accs. then i went to have credibility.

a vision of that pizza made perfectly for yoyou, the consum. sord, i'm going to make it easy for you to know about it and to access it. most businesses don't break it out strategically like that. we don't even trust ourselves today. we go to reviews to fige out, is this a good product,, eveven though we have all the information about it. all businesesses but espspeciay small businesses need t to keepn mind that simply being an expert in what you do is no longer enough. surrounded by experts. inin the washington region, you have lots of e experts to draw o say that is why it is importa to bring ithe ace model. solutionumbeber two you call the one to 099 rule. >> most people know about the rule. technology has sped up our world so much, so fast.

[indiscernible] because ofof that, you can't afford not to put things in a domino effect. starting with the most important single thing, not a whole set of things. who does that, the busininess and does that creates a domino effect. >> the domino falls and it has the ripple effect.t. had dominoes laid out, the kinetic energy in the e firt domino is a fraction of the kinetic energy of the st domino. >> one of the e things you streed in the hohole one to 99 is thatthe old glitch the man who chases two rabbits go hungry. you say that is especially important for small businesses.. you can't try and chase to many different gogoals. you have to focus. >> entrepreneurs have a tendency to wt to have a lot of plates spinning in the air.

experien has taught me that when you focus on one thing and really do it well, then you move , and you getg elslse momentum when you do something really well. for example, for "washington i always puput," it on my facebook page. not only that, , i blogged thatr put it on twitter. i created additional information from what we are doing. i take one thing and cascaded through multiple channels. doing one thing rlly wewell, and then leveraging itnd monetizing it along other platforms and other ways to get your message out. >> we only have 30 seconds left. we will link to that information on our facebook page. one stragy is how to win overr the media. that is an important one. i want to get to another one. you cacall it the superfood of small businesses, podcasting. can you give us the 10 sond rendition of podcasting?

is to take your business and fitted to your bank account. it's a way to show your best custom what you are all about. that small ta audience and build that compounded effect. you can take that podcast.t. yocan digitize it. yoyou catake the podcast and put it in other formats andnd it gos from there. >> go to our facebook page to learn both from you. en we return, the roundtable takes on the top business headlines. we will talk management problems of the nfl and the growing problems with cyber security.

>> welcome back. in business headlines this week, does the nfl need a new business game plan? consumers got a double whammy. here to talk about those topics "washgton p post" columnist and head of hp enterprise security. have the two let's women start off by talking about ththe nhl. you lead the d.c. chamber of commerce. you're not big about res andnd regulatis. you say every busins should dedecide f for themselves, but e need new rules and regulations for how the annana felt does business -- nfl does business? >> the nfl has to look at themselves very carefully. what has happened these past few weeks and what has just been revealed is absolutely outrageous.

when you look at business themselves, i don't like lots of regulations. i lea it to businesses looking at their own conscience. but what has happened to the anna felt -- nflfl -- it's all about money, at the end of the day. >> that's why i'm going to bring in [indiscernible] because i spent all of my volunteer time working on chilid abuse and domestic violence. is treatedhe nfl a nonprofit, it is a business. not yet beenhave convicted, although h some of tm have. inyou keep your start team until you are forced to do otherwise -- star team in until you are forced to do otherwise? to actu afterer -- you have torotectct the integty of the organization, especially in a a youress like the nfl, reputation and what your fan base and what the general public

thinks about you is tremendously important. they also rely on the public reputation to get public financing for stadiums and for all kinds of interconnectis with thehe public sector. i think it's very important for stronglyove much more towardsunishing adequaty anyone who is involved in domestic abuse like this. they just got a terrible black eye e from this whole experienc. >> interesting choice of words. >> that was deliberate. sitting here with barbara andnd myself, i'm not going to make you defend all men. yosay and other important things in term of branding your business took a hit this week, and that is cyber security. home d depot following the malwe

problems wh target faced as well. justis something we should expect as coumersr do we need to pick our retail stores more carefully? >> sadly, what you are going to see is more of these exposures. are already inside most of these companies because they are so professional. yoyou are literally dealing with someone who only does this one thing to break in, and then may sell that access to someone else who steals stuff. >> i give hp kos. they posted a a tutorial you hae done for all businesses to look at. i recommend people take a look at that. one of the things that struck me that he said theroblem is whether yoyou arhome depot or target or whoever, is the perception of negligence. you say that''s not necessarily fair, but these guys are not necessarily being negligent. how do you deal with it? >> if you fire they're going to get in, you had better be spending your time to trtry to

findhe bad guys inside your environment toook like the .uys you have to have a plan for after it has gone all the way through. if the people and proce in the entire plan that these companies have to deal with when they try to figure out how to deal with cycyber crime. >> bob mccartney, another organizatition experiencing glitches. the d.c. health exchange. tell us where you see the problems. >> i wrote a coue of columns about the problems that consumers are having, that users were having applying for and getting health insurance through the d.c. health exchange. >> i have be impressed with the leadership at the health exchange. i think they have done aetter jothan a lot of places, but even with good leadership these health exchange places are clearly not working as advertised. >> they are not providing

high-quality, six gma customer servicee. running theho are health exchange are committed to trying to improve things, but is too complicated -- but it's too complicated rate the computer system wasn't very good to begin with. it is very hard to navigate. a lot of fixing to do. when you have problems, it's very hard to solve them. this is what i found from a lot of users and from brokers who try to hp people navigat inyou have been brought under your new rule as [indiscernible] to try to help them fix the problem. what are they going to try to do? >> i am not working on both problems. nobody would hire me to fix eir i.t. we are doing other things with them. toll thesensitive

problemshat bobob has written about and when i was at the chamber we hea some of that as well. we all have to take a little step back. this was smuch that theyey were trying to get done, so soon. >> you did not support the health care plan at the beginning because you said would be too onerous and hard for business. but it is what it is. >> you have to figure out how to make it work. theyis a new business that started up p last year. you are to have things along the way that are not going to work wellll. how c confident are you that they can fix the overridin problems they are facing or is it too big o of a mandate? >> i think they will get their. >>-- there. >>usiness leaders looking at how they do business in virginia. at. lawmakers looking whether they change ethics, rules in d.c.

should business leaders change how they dbusiss when it cometo lobbying lawmakersn e commonwealth in d.c. and maryland? >> busess leaders are ing to find that in vginia in particular, the politicians are going to be very waryf playing ball in the ways they have played ball in the past. business leade will find that the politicians will be very reluant to accept too many gifts, especially personal gigis or athing that would looook bad in the paper, at least for a whe. thpublicity over the mcdona's verdict was so negative a a g so much attention that politicians will be nervous. you've got federal prosecucutors virginia but in across the country, emboldened to go afterict politicianwho takes anythi that he she- are they going to change?

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>> thanks for joining us. be sure to tune next week. that is all for "washinon busine report." ♪

>> thiweek on "government matters" -- >> there are real challenges going forth. computers have changethe way americans s interactith their government. >> right now i need a place to do classified wo to really make this go further. >> the u.s.s. naval academy wans to accredit its cycyr curity. can they afford the building to go with it? it has been a battered year for the thrift saving plans. "government matters" starts right now. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> to our viewers around the world and the american forces network and here in the nation's capital, thanks for jojoinings. vernment is the engine