Revitalizing the economy and American Express open is here to help. Thats why were proud to present your business on msnbc. Hi there everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business where we help you fulfill your entrepreneurial dreams with information and advice to help your Small Business grow. Now, when i started my company, like many entrepreneurs, my office was my Kitchen Table. Even when i hired my first employee, we were still at my apartment. But nobody in the outside world knew it. Today there are so many things you can do to keep your Company Looking professional even if you may be having snacks out of your home refrigerator. Desk, chair, computer. A Typical Office setting for a growing business. But in this case, the room next door isnt another office, its a bedroom. When you start from the humble beginnings, you make do with what you have. In 2011 john carrier and two classmates from the university of virginias Business School started 501 auctions. A Charity Auction Management Company that takes the entire process digital. Providing an Online Auction site for each event, a mobile bidding system and support throughout the entire process. They found their system works. We take them from pen and paper to a mobile format. The average improvement is 38 . Like many entrepreneurs, these founders are starting up with very little. With most of their available funds going into the immediate needs of the business, theyve taken up headquarters in the cheapest place possible. Home. It was really just a function of necessity. We needed a place to work. And the home was the best option for that. But how do you present yourself as a Reputable Company when your Conference Rooms doubles as your dining room . For starters, nobody has to know what your office looks like. These days, most people find you first online. So its important to make sure your site looks professional. Our first website was, i mean, i think you could have drawn it with crayon. I think it was. Thats what it looked like. Upgrade your website, thats the first thing you can do to profession professional ayes your offering. I dont think anybody will go with anything too barebones. If you have an established name, you can get away with it. If its something that clients arent already familiar with, prospective clients arent already familiar with, you need to have a nice looking site. You can be strategic with the phone number. The founders got an 800 number that makes them look bigger than they are. If youre in d. C. , you want somebody working locally. If you have an 800 number into a call center, youre not cutting yourself out of that business. As for face to face meetings, they meet their clients on site or go to the customers offices. We can kill two birds with one stone. Do an on site walk through and then talk about the event itself. It means that we can have that office space somewhere else. In theory. Not having offices allows 501 auctions to be in multiple markets without paying multiple rents. Teddys based out of new york, while john is in richmond. Its a matter of being close to where our clients are, to meet with clients in richmond easily, make a day trip up to d. C. And put in face time with them. Coordinate staffing. Its really invaluable. Ultimately people trust people. As they expand, there are plans to bring on more employees in the major markets. There are so many options around the country. Were looking to expand, grow into new cities. When we bring someone on in that market, i think theres going to be an expectation that they find what works best for them, whether a separate home office, whether thats working out of their home as is. Whether Getting Space in a shared place. Theyve brought on one employee in new york. Some people may find it disconcerting to work out of their bosss home. But teddy says it helps to create the companys culture. Youre building a lot of things that are new and that requires constant dialog. And being in your home gives you that sort of convenient and comfortable space to interact with your peers. And the new employee has given some structure to the workday. Suddenly, they have offices hours. When we hired eric who works in our office as well, that changed the dynamic where youre starting earlier. Theres a lot more structure. But because theres no distinction between home and work, the founders are available pretty much 24 7 for their clients. You dont have to go through this process where somebody goes back and asks somebody else a question when you have a question. Everyone knows the answers which has been great. The fact that theyve been anyone to act quickly is important to us. So far the home office has been working for the founders, thanks in large part to technology. We try and get anybody working remotely to come together and Work Together for at least a couple of days out of the month. I think thats so important to getting everybody on the same page. If you cant do that, video conferencing, do a little hangout, you skype. Use ichat. Just seeing face to face and working face to face goes a long way in improving commune chags. Though they have future plans to grow into office space in their major markets, they plan to hold on to the nimbleness and resourcefulness theyve developed now in their home offices. Youre creating something out of nothing. The biggest thing you can do is make do with what you have, whether thats bartering, whether thats renting a space in someone elses garage. Running a business from your home can be a great way to lower your overhead costs, but in the long run, could it hurt your credibility with potential customers . Lets turn to the board of directors. Barry mulch is a Small Business consultant. You can find him online. And angela kim is the cofounder of savor the success, a Business Network for women entrepreneurs. Great to see you both. Great to see you. I was having flashbacks. I started my business in my apartment and it looked just like that. I, for one, am happen that i weve moved up. We did a lot of things so that the outside world had no idea where we were working. You do the same, right . Your sofs so fluid in todays world. Your office really is your website is your storefront. Just as he said, you have to invest in a great website. I think what he did with the phone number was important also. You have 1800 number. It can look professional and sound professional and go directly to your phone. Its not just the phone number. You have to have good professional communication image. Think about your email address. Is it barry 1999, that doesnt look professional. You need your first name, last name, company. Thats easy to set up, even with gmail or hot mail or something. It shows it just isnt a hobby. Youre ready for business. I think if somebody is hiring you for somebody big and they find out youre working out of your living room, they may start to think, okay, this company is not big enough. Right. But i think there are positive toss that as well as the gentleman said on the clip before. It can add to the company culture. It can be a lot of fun. Is your personal space delineated carefully from your personal quarters. I think there is there are ways to make it work. I dont think people really care, jj. People work anywhere any time. Folks want to know who are your customers, what kind of references you have. If you have brand names as references, they dont care where you work. On the personal sield, when i worked out of the my house, i would roll out of bed in my pajamas, gets to my Kitchen Table office, work all day. This is before i had employees. It would be 11 00, im still at my pajamas at the computer. Do that enough time, it gets a tiny bit crazy. As an entrepreneur, you can go crazy. I like to call it a hard stop. Wine at 5 00. 5 00, wow. All right. You set office hours for yourself. Make sure it looks like an office. Put up your diplomas, have trophies there. So you know youre ready to work. Then you take them down if you dont have space. So many people are doing this. Not even just a startup. You still work from home. I have an office space, i have a spa and i have home. Its fluid for me. You know what, an office can be starbucks for a coffee shop, right . You want to do that because you have to as a Small Business owner, you got to keep your fixed costs low and thats perfect. A fun topic to talk about. Weve all experienced it at one time or another. Theres another Small Business. This started in the basement much a home in michigan. It has become a nationwide phenomenon right out of that house. If youre a parent, im sure youve seen the colorful rubber band bracelets all the kids are wearing. I for one keep finding rubber bands all over my kids room. It was the brainchild of a ma lay malaysian immigrant. Theyve sold over one million thanks to youtube and the internet. Coming soon on a child and parent near you, rubber band bracelets. Heres your bracelet. A trend made out of 19th century style loom by tweens who are normally attached to electronic devices. Designed not by the toy industry but by an entrepreneurial midwestern family who built a business out of their basement. This started from weekend project with my daughters and thats when they say dad, this is so cool. The family posted howto videos on youtube to sell it online and assembled rainbow loom kits from their home. I would put rubber bands in the bags. They had so many orders to fill, they had to install an elevator to get boxes up to their garage. Its very mind blowing because we didnt realize that this product would get so big so fast. And when michaels stocked 20 stores sold out immediately. A rare overnight sensation in the billion dollar toys and crafts industry. Rainbow looms have more than 3 million hits on youtube and homemade howto videos. You can make it like this. Have popped up all over the united states. Kids are making bracelets for themselves, their friends, even their parents. How easy is that . An old skill with a modern twist turning this simple rubber band into all the rage. From gmail to hangouts, google is definitely more than just a search engine. In fact, if you know where to look, you can find really useful resources to help grow your business. Here now are some google tools that help you in your everyday marketing and Business Operations courtesy of inc. Com. One, google trends. Language is important when marketing both online and off line. Consider plug not guilty some of your companys key words to see howser chs for these terms have changed over time. Two, think with google is a free marketing resource that gives you insight on useful Consumer Trends and industry research. Three, gomo. Take your existing website through a diagnostic test to make sure its mobile friendly for your customers. Four, youtubes my business story. After uploading video clips and photos, the cool will guide you through templates to add graphics and music. Five, trusted stores. If you offer an Online Shopping experience, trusted stores have to pass a tus for Reliable Shipping and customer service. When you pass, you earn the right to display a trusted store badge. When we come back, what you need to know about creating banner ads that work. And well talk about how women who are moms and entrepreneurs can deal with potential customer prejudice. And angela and barry will have less than a million seconds when they face off in an actionpacked edition of our infamous biz quiz. Has its ups and downs. Seasonal. Doesnt 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. Im Nelson Gutierrez and im a member of the smarter money. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. There is an art and a science to creating banner ads that actually work. The beauty of the web is that you can test, try one thing, and then try Something Else to see if you can do any better. Miles younger is the ceo of canned banners, a company which helps advertisers quickly and easily create banner ads for online campaigns. Hes here to give us tips on how to create effective ads. Great to see you, miles. Thanks, jj. The most important part is what i said before is test things, right . Youre going to give us tips but keep trial and error. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Thats part of the beauty of online advertising. It is very, very easy and especially with banner ads to split test them is what its often called. Test one idea against another, see which does better and keep iterating over that until you can reach whatever your performance goals might be. Lets give easy tips. The first one you say is dont use gimmicky fonts or weird colors, right . Its typically something to stay away from. This banner ad were looking at. The James Carpenter is in this font called comic sands is universally reviled by graphic designers. Below it, just for fun, i used an old english font. Unless youre selling yeag yeagermeister, theres not much call for that. Theres a script thats impossible to read unless you squint. Someone just learned you can change the fonts for the first time. You have to make is something they can see. Lets move on to the next idea. Make sure that your ads look and feel like your website so its not jarring when you go from the banner to the website. You want to make that transition really as smooth as possible for whoever clicked your banner ad. A good a nolg might be a Fast Food Restaurant that has one logo on the sign outside, another one on the uniforms for the employees and another on the drink cup. Its going to turn people off. If you do that kind of thing with your banner ads, people will land on your website and leave. Whats interesting about that, too. The clickthrough rate is going to be low. It just is across the industry. At least this way you get some branding out there even if you dont get people to come to your site. Thats true as well. Also to the point that the clickthrough is low, thats absolutely true. You want to get the most value out of all the clicks that you do get. You also talk about creating different size ads. Why . Uhhuh. The three most common banner ad sies rs 160 by 600. 300 by 250 and 728 by 90. Those are all pixel dimensions in width by height. The reason you want to stick with those, theyre an industry standard, virtually every website will run at least one of those. The thing is not all website will run all three. As were seeing now, theres with the screen shots, theres different websites that run different combinations of those ads. Do any work better than others, miles . I feel the big ones might work the least effectively. You know, thats actually not true. It really depends on the campaign. I have tests showing the 300 by 250 does the best. Its also the most common. The best idea and whats going to give a business the best coverage is to run all three. Okay. And then finally, have a call to action. Give people a reason to click through. Whats an example . So an example would be, if you have an ad for a pizzeria and the ad just says delicious pizza, that doesnt really do much. But then were looking at an example here where were showing them an offer of a large twotopping for 9. 99 and the call to action is to order a pizza online. Its clear what the customer is supposed to could. I love your final point that says ignore all of these points. Break all the rules. For everything weve discussed here, there are a thousand very successful exceptions. Theres the dancing belly fat ads that you see all over the web. Those are highly effective but really offensive to the eye. Whoever made the ads tested them heavily, im sure. Myles, thank you so much. Great to talk to you. We love getting this advice from you. Sometimes you may need to be able to make a presentation on the fly. Well, for those moments, check out our app of the week. Mighty meeting is a free app to up load presentations to the cloud and access them nearly any time anywhere using the near cast meeting feature, meeting members can see their slides from their own device as you present. You can annotate slides with drawings using the interactive white board also. Its time to answer some of your business questions. Barry and angela are with us once again. This first one is about entrepreneur who is are trying to break the mold. Three women in our 30s who founded a company. My cofounder dana has a toddler at home. Im about to give birth next week. How can we sort of disrupt the sort of business communitys mindset that the typical entrepreneur needs to be single and working night and day . I will start obviously with you on this one, angela. You have a 3 1 2yearold at home youre an entrepreneur. Do you find it hard . Not so hard. I call it my gorgeous chaos. Timex pands. If i have two months to learn something, its two months. If i had someone who said can you learn this in two weeks. You do it. You have an hour, you have to accomplish in an hour what others need to accomplish that takes them all night. I have to say, though, i have spoken to some female entrepreneurs out there looking for funding who have gotten pushback from funders venture capitalists who say im worried about you having a kid. You might be pregnant, about to be pregnant, have a baby at home. I think capital sources care about one thing. They want to know, do you have paying customers. If you do, you could be green living on mars, be married to a tree and people wouldnt care. They want to know, do you have cash flow . I would say also, guilt. Com. The women who started that had children while funding it. You have children. I was working from the right investors. Okay. Great. Next up. A question about the potential pitfalls of crowd funding for the owner of a hardware startup. A lot of Times Companies put kickstart campaigns online without really fully fleshing out their supply chain and sort of their business model. They end up committing to things that they cant deliver. And so we want to figure out if thats the right path for us if its not. I think hes asking if crowd funding is the right path for him. Not whether he should not have the supply chain. I think that crowd funding is just another form much marketing, right . Its not a panacea. Most people on kickstart or india go go. They raise less than 10,000. Its really a way to get your message out to the people that you already know to leverage your own network. How does he decide if its the right way to go . He needs to figure out if this is the right marketing machine for him. To strategize, putting out an x amount of product that he can deliver the perks. When can he deliver it by, the dates. And then there are websites that can help you determine if this is really the marketing method you want to follow. Crowd fund with ease. Com is one of them. Lets move on to the next one. This is a question about getting customers to keep shopping small. How do you attract new customers when introducing aig new product line without alienating existing customers . Youve introduced lots of product lines. How do you do it . You have to speak the language to that target client. I always say a great business has a tiered business model. The top is the vip and then how do you serve the mass frs that. You need to be able to speak the language of each target client. One thing you dont do is offer the new customers a lower price. Cable Television Companies do this all the time. Its a problem. What you have to do is roll out the right product for the right customers. You may even have two different brands. For example in the rental car industry, hertz has one brand for Business People and dollar and thrifty for the budget conscious consumer. I was speaking to a woman who has a product jewelry, she made a cheaper line and decided to keep it under the same brand which i thought was an interesting dee stigs to mean. Like savor the success. We have where are you in business, thats where you go. Thats your posse. Thats your community. I do think you can put it under the same umbrella, but you have to give them each a different title and for different know what youre getting paid for. Thank you for the advice. Dont go anywhere. Were having you back for the your business biz quiz. If any of you have a question for our experts, go to our website. The address is open forum. Com your business. Once you get there, all you have to do is hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. Again that website is openforum. Com yourbusiness. If its easier, email your questions and comments to the address is yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Lets turn to social media to see whats trending on twitter for entrepreneurial leaders. Technology marketing Jennifer Shahin sweets, its important for us to reevaluate businesses to move forward. If its not broke, break it. Small Business Expert and attorney nina kaufman with this advice. Surprise people. Take on the unexpected tasks and projects and deliver a great result. Frequent your business panelists Dave Anderson tweets inspiration. Great ideas are normally killed not but outside forces but by the ideas originator talking himself out of trying. Go for it. Now that weve heard great tips from experts on how to improve your business, lets get great ideas from Small Business owners like you. So youre usually never going to get it right the first time. You have to make sure that you have the team and the resources and the skill sets in place to learn from your data after the first iteration. And make iterations accordingly. Understand that do not build the product for yourself. Were building an application. Initially, our hunch was the more products we have inside the application, the better User Experience will be. What we heard from customers after we started really going out and talking to customers, people dont necessarily want more options. At the end of the day, its really just a numbers game. You want to expose yourself to as many potential customers. Saying hi to them at an event or reaching out via email or through the telephone its really the only way to get new customers. Dont be afraid of the no. Its not that bad. Its time to put our panelists Small Business knowledge to the test. Were pitting barry and angela against each other in the your business biz quiz. May the best entrepreneur win. You guys ready . Ready. Question number one, according to the nfib, in july 2013, what was the single most important problem facing Small Business owners . Was it taxes, cost and availability of insurance, quality of laborer poor sales . Barry . Id say b. Nope. Can i go . You have a chance, angela . C, quality of labor. No. Zero to zero. It was taxes. That surprised me also. In a recent ecommerce study which is the top source of lifelong loyal customers. Facebook, organic search, twitter or banner ads. Facebook. Facebook, no. Id say organic search, jj. One for barry. Number three, which of the following metro areas has the highest tech startup density. San jose, sunnyvale, santa clara, seattle, washington, washington, d. C. , arlington, zandry, virginia or boulder, colorado. I say seattle. Smart not to pick the first one. That was too obvious. What was the first choice . It was san jose, sunnyvale and santa clara. That was all one. San jose, first one. Thats the one i said would be too obvious. Can i get another shot at it snoo. Im terrible at this. Another try tore barry. I would say boulder. If you had a 50 50 chance. Im giving you half a point for that one. Are we really going to air this . Angela has zero. You can save yourself. Okay. Which of the following was the main source of funding for new business this is 2012 . Family, friends, personal savings or banks . Family and friends. No. Personal savings. Personal savings. You won, barry. 2 1 2. Snooim terrible at this. Oh, no. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you learned a thing or two. If you missed anything, all you have to do is click on our website. Its openforum. Com yourbusiness. Youll find web exclusive content to help your business grow. You can follow us on twitter. Its msnbc your biz. Do not forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. Next week, we pay another visit to main street usa to find out why Small Business owners in one town knew they had to Work Together to save their community. One of the very first meetings we had, someone brought a picture that a local elementary student drew of our downtown. It was a picture of walmart. We just said you know what, we have to do something now. Well take you to bedford, pennsylvania where a main street manager is leading the charge. Until then, im jj ramberg. 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