Transcripts For MSNBC Your Business 20131103

American express open is here to help. We are proud to present your business on msnbc. Hi, there, everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business, the show that champions entrepreneurship and gives you tips and advice to help your Small Business grow. Selling a product or a service that you created, one thats your baby, can be easy, because it comes straight from your heart. Getting other people to sell it with as much passion, well, thats a big ask. Today we introduce you to the company la loop and its founder, elizabeth faraex, who had to learn the trick of hiring good sales reps. When elizabeth first started her company in 2000, she did all the selling herself. We were creating a category, and the only person who could explain that and convince retailers of that was me. La loop takes functional products and makes them stylish. Its signature product is this necklace. Elizabeth created it after losing her fifth pair of sunglasses in a year. When she went to find an accessory to help her, all she could find were old fashion granny leashes and couldnt quite believe that this was all that was on the market, so we came up with this product. La loop started to take off. Elizabeth got them into that madison avenue store, and they were featured as a great gift for mom in the New York Times. And in that week between the time it was in the New York Times and mothers day, that store sold 1,000 la loops. Word got around, celebrities started wearing them. Other stores started calling, and it was clear to elizabeth she couldnt handle this on her own. I realized i couldnt be in all of these places, and so much of the work i do is training stores how to sell the product. I have three children and like to, you know, see them from time to time, so finding sales people was crucial to the growth of my business. Finding just any old sales person is easy, but finding the right sales person, that takes a lot of work. Elizabeth started talking to store managers to see who they liked working with. Because if the store has a close relationship with the sales rep and wants them in their store, likes working with them, then thats a sales rep i want to work with. But so does everyone else. So before getting a rep to sell la loop, elizabeth first had to sell them on working for the company. The good ones, you know, you have to court and you have to share your story and you have to make them want you. Rodney was one of those good ones. He joined la loop early on. I imagine a lot of companies approach you and want you to sell their products because you are successful, so how did la loop get you to come on, when you had so many other choices . Well, it really was about elizabeth and her passion for the product and the fact that she was really showing me something that was new and different. And even once elizabeth was able to recruit talent, her sales drop to the sales people wasnt over. She says it never really is. If you have sales reps who are selling, you know, three, five, ten, 20 other products, how do you get them to focus on your product as much as you need them to . That is really what we do, we think about every day, and they are independent sales reps, so they manage their own businesses, but we have to make sure that we stay top of mind, so when they go into a store and work with a retailer, you know, you want to make sure that they are showing your collection first. At the root of every sale, whether its to get reps onboard, getting stores to carry the product, or ultimately getting a customer to buy one, is the story of la loop. How it started. How wearing one makes you feel, and why elizabeth cares so much about it. At the end of the day, whats most important, is that end customer feels that same passion and that same umph, i guess, fire, for the product that we have. And because that story is so important, everyone agrees. No matter how great the sales rep, theres something about the founder that gets everyones attention. When you sell to a new retailer or have a new line, is it helpful for you to have elizabeth with you . Always. Elizabeth brings a certain cache when she comes in, because she is the source. We live in a world where people want to identify with things now, have more of a personal connection to things rather than knowing they are buying some mass produced piece of whatever, you know, that they can get anywhere. They want to know that something is special and feel as if its something they can make a personal connection to for a long time. To deal with this, elizabeth came up with a new solution, videos. The videos explain who we are. They talk about how to sell la loop in the store. They talk about the materials we use. They talk about how to merchandise the product. They share our story. Its like taking elizabeth on the road with me. Through these videos, store managers say they are better able to understand the brand. You can feel elizabeths passion just through a lens, so you connect with that immediately and share that, and thats what its all about, really sharing that. Even through just that little video, they connect to the product, you know, i feel they get to know her like shes their friend and they are supporting their friend. Today la loop is in more than 1,000 Stores Worldwide and growing, and elizabeth says while she has a team of people to go into stores for her, shell never give up selling herself. Why not . I absolutely love it. Theres something just thrilling that keeps me on the edge of my seat, and, you know, i think at the end of the day, it connects me more than the end customer. As elizabeth found out, its important not to just hire any sales person, but someone who really understands and embraces what they are selling. Lets now turn to this weeks board of directors. Heather thompson is creator of the shape wear yummy by heather and one of the real housewives on bravo. And ceo of a company specializing in covering Small Business and entrepreneurship. Great to see both of you. Heather, when you started your company, you hired independent sales reps. Did you have to churn through a bunch of them . Yes, yes, absolutely. She really nailed it perfectly, you have to find the good ones, and the good ones you have to court. And you have to be able to sell a sales person. As the Business Owner, you have to breathe the fire. You have to have the passion so that they want a piece of that passion. Okay, reeva, so talking about money, how do you do you incentivize people through money or no, is that kind of losing game in the end . People go into sales because they want to make money, right . I dont think you can ever go wrong with incentivizing through money, but i think its also making them part of this adventure, you know, particularly when youre introducing a new product, you get to be part of this Pioneering Team thats going to bring this product to stores throughout america or throughout the world. So i think if you get them wrapped up in their part in making an impact, that really helps, as well. I think also, reeva, this idea you said bringing a part of a team, its not you just send them off, but youre constantly in touch with them and making them feel not independent, but rather a part of your company. Exactly. I think particularly in the early stages, first five years or something, sort of like she said, go on a sales call with them and then video, i think, is a brilliant idea. So its you and them together. Youre not just sort of casting off this manufacturers rep. Tell me how you started, i imagine you sold yourself when you first started your company, then you brought on your first sales rep. What was it like and how did you make sure the first time that person went off on their own, they are representing you the way you want to be represented . I didnt send them on their own right away. The most important hire in a new business is a person spreading your message, so we worked together. I was a oneman show until i hired my first sales rep, then we became a team. So we did a lot of it together. When she could finish my sentences and speak my speak, i know she was ready to go. Now you have everyone inhouse. Yes. How did you make that decision . Not an easy decision, not an easy decision at all, because you work with independent reps, but when youre dealing with Department Stores and the Department Store business, theres a lot of decisions that need to be made corporately and what happens is an independent rep has to keep on checking in with the mothership, so eventually when you get to a certain volume, its important to bring all that inside for the same reasons that we were talking about, really being part of the family truly. All right. Okay. Heather and reeva, thanks so much. As we were just talking about, selling is not easy, but it is one of the key skills that every entrepreneur must master to grow their business. Here now are five sales books every entrepreneur should read, courtesy of yff magazine. One, spin selling by neil rackman. Better understand why you might want to reconsider traditional sales methods. Two, secrets of closing the sale by zig ziglar. Whether your company is selling products or services, you can find out Key Information on closing even the most difficult sales. Three, what great salespeople do by mike bosworth. Get tips on research by various industries. Its a great beginners guide. Four, advanced selling strategies by brian tracy. Drawing from his own successful career, brian tracy shares ways you, too, can follow in his footsteps. And five, how to win friends and influence people. Learn how to make people like you and how to deal with people so they can feel important and appreciated. Like Many Americans out there, Small Business owners are having trouble with the problems associated with implementing the Affordable Care act. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other Administration Officials revealed that the federal website letting Small Business owners shop for health plans wont be ready until late november. Meanwhile, some Small Business owners are getting a rude awakening. Despite assurances from the white house people can keep their current plans, many Small Business owners are getting cancellation notices because their current plans dont comply with the new law. Helping us try to sort all this out is tom hart, the president of the National Association of Health Underwriters and the president of landmark benefits incorporated. And steve roeper is the president of roeper insurance and financial insurances. Great to see both of you. Thank you. Good morning. Tom, let me start with you and give you the first scenario. I am a company and i have less than 50 employees, i dont have to provide insurance, but i would like to. Im not currently providing it. What do i do . Well, my first recommendation to any one of those Small Businesses across the country is dont go to healthcare. Gov first. The technical aspects are uncertain at best. The best approach for any Small Business or individual is find a local agent or broker that can help them navigate through the challenges of the Health Care System and help them find the most economic solution for their employees and their dependents, but even more importantly, helping to make sure whatever physician or provider they have for their health care is part of their network. Okay, so steve, this doesnt sound so different than what i would have done last year if i were a Small Business under 50 people and wanted to provide insurance for my employees. With the Affordable Care act that did come out, they have the exchanges set up, 17 states, colorado being one, have set up their own exchanges, and all the of them actually are fairing a lot better than the government site. But it is very confusing, as tom mentioned. The one thing to keep in mind as which the average public does not know is brokers are a free service, so Insurance Brokers out there, they are dedicated to their clients and they are helping clients to find out whats right for them. If you are a Small Business and go on one of these exchanges, you can get a tax credit, right . You can, but a broker can help you actually get the tax credit. And the irs has a great website set up where you can actually calculate or your broker can help you calculate what that tax credit would be for you and your employees. That brings up a question we received on facebook. Sherry writes, i and my husband are self employed Business Owner operators. We are self insured. Is it better to continue with my regular insurance highmark or go to the government site . How do you answer that, tom . Every individual has a separate circumstance, and theres no true single answer thats best for any person across the country. The fact is, Health Insurance is complicated and ever more complicated today than 15 years ago, so you have to go through a complicated process, regardless of a individual, Small Business, large business. Whether youre self insured or fully insured, you have to go through the process to figure that out. Whats the benefit of me getting insurance through one of the exchanges, versus telling my employees, okay, you can go to the exchange individually . Starting january 1st, it is law due to the aca every individual in america has to purchase insurance, so whether you get it through your employer, which in the past most people have gotten their insurance through employers, or now, where people can go out and buy guaranteed individual coverage through the exchange and they are looking at getting subsidies. So a lot of people will be able to get their individual insurance with a large subsidy, paying a large percentage, of their insurance cost, which is very, very beneficial. I am a company. I dont want to have the headache of providing insurance for my employees, but i would like to help them with it, because i want to help them out. I dont have the manpower to deal with the logistics of it. Is there a way that makes Financial Sense that i could provide my employees with some money that they can go out to the exchanges to get their own insurance . Well, first of all, that particular employer is the exception, not the rule. Most small employers, including myself, prefer and enjoy to provide comprehensive Employee Benefits to their employees, but at the same time for that particular employer that wants to provide access to affordable and accessible Health Insurance, yes, they can work through the compensation systems they provide for their employees and provide funds in order to have access to the Health Insurance, but at the same time, an employer cant do it by themselves. And quite frankly, if an employer doesnt understand the challenge of Health Care Reform and Health Insurance, neither is their employees, and it gets back to the original point, finding a local agent or broker to help navigate the complexities of Health Care Reform, compliance, wellness programs, and quite frankly, trying to provide the best value for Health Insurance, you have to see a local agent or broker. And like steve said, find an agent feature that lists all 50 states of agents and brokers who are qualified, competent, and professional to help with all those challenges. Thank you for helping us mine through this issue. It is incredibly complicated and were just at the beginning of it. Hopefully, it will get less complicated as we go on. Thank you so much for joining us. When we come back, heather and reeva will answer your business questions. Theyll tell us what they think about a viewer who says women Business Owners are harder to win over than men. And Small Business owners on main street in East Greenwich, rhode island, have great ways to have customers shop local on Small Business saturday. 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. Receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. Just shoot your Business Card receipts and theyre automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. Im john kaplan, and im a member of a synchronized world. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. A new survey by Small Business site shows 50 of Small Business owners are maintaining current strategies by starting promotions earlier, leveraging social media, and increasing email marketing. 22 of respondents said promotions like Small Business saturday are making a difference in their business. So, what do some entrepreneurs have in mind to get customers to shop local . We go to East Greenwich, rhode island, to find out what Small Business owners there are doing to attract customers on november 30th. Its really the small stores, the boutiques, the restaurants, the services, those are what keep everything going every day. After almost six years, lois hollin hollingsworth knows how crucial shopping local is to her community. The people here are so supportive, the town in general, they are supportive of the Small Businesses. Susan swanson, whos owned the green door for 23 years agrees. It is our lifeline. Without the support of the locals, we wouldnt be here. So. Other boutique david macs is one of the newest businesses on the block. It is about time that everyone started supporting this Small Business. You are supporting your neighbor. And thats why all three Business Owners are prepping for saturday, november 30th. Small business saturday, i think, is a great reminder to other customers, different Customer Base as well. It lets them know that were here. Here are some of the plans that they have in mind for attracting customers. Were going to have a few demonstrations, probably someone doing jewelry, we might have someone doing wood. Well have someone doing crochet. And im trying to get some live music in. We will, of course, have in store promotions and sales. Well have cookies. We are going to give away to all of our customers who spend 50 or more a 25 holiday surprise bag. And if you spend 100 or more, you get a 50 holiday surprise bag. Courtney, lois and susan arent alone either. If people didnt shop local, we would have empty doors. Business owners up and down main street will be marking the start of the Holiday Shopping season. They are going to find local designers that i showcase here as well as price point items that will be affordable to pretty much everybody. We will be offering free refreshments, a gift with purchase, and some flowers for the ladies. We really make it a destination location. Events like Small Business saturday are a welcome addition to what used to be a quieter life on main street. It has changed dramatically from me being one of the only people on the street to one of many now, and the company is wonderful. So we just hope it keeps increasing. Eloquence jewelers owner daniel lance says the day has only boosted his business. It has been good. The traffic has been good. Every year its been a little bit better than the year before. And iris giswaldi says in her 26 years she noticed a change for the better. She hopes the Shop Local Movement in East Greenwich is here to stay. It is just unbelievable. When i first came on main street, you could not have believed the stores were here and there. Nothing like it is now. It is fabulous. You should definitely shop local. This is where you want to be. And you want to keep us in business. Time now to answer some of your business questions. Heather and reeva are with us once again. This first one is about the reach of your personal brand. I believe that there are three elements to a personal brand. Your likability, your celebrity, and how much value you bring to customers or prospects. What are some other aspects of personal brand that can be used to increase ones personal brand . Reeva, i want to start with you, i know youve written a lot on personal brand. And do you separate personal brand from your companys brand . Maybe thats a good way to start thinking about this. Well, i think a lot of it depends on what your company is, but i think in one sense youre the same. And so you have to be really cognizant of that. That what youre representing is also representing your company. I think a big part is authenticity. You have to live and breathe your own brand, but if you want to set yourself apart from that, it gets really it is hard, social media today, you have to be really careful about because youre seen as representing your company, drunk tweeting, Facebook Party pictures, you have to be you have to monitor yourself as if youre a politician to make sure there is nothing that is going to kind of conflict between who you are as a person and who you want your business to be. Well, you have a personal wra brand, right . Youre on the show on bravo and have a business brand. Do you think of it as a personal brand . I dont at all. It is to me in a way it is kind of a new age like moniker for branding, a personal brand. You got to start with a need. What are you building a brand for . There has to be a need out there. What are you starting your business for . There has to be a reason. So then who you are as the person, like we said when we saw before, the founder was so important to the sales people because there is that personal connection, i am my brand and my brand is me. And no matter what i have become or go on to be in my life, yummy is always going to be a part of who i am. That will never change. And youre right, i mean, i have to be careful. Im on a reality show. I want to make sure that who i stand for, what i stand for and who i am comes clearly across no matter what i do. Ultimately people are going to connect with you. As you were saying before, for people to connect with you and as a result they want to buy your product. 100 . On the reality show, someone may like what i stand for and like what i say and say, im going to go check out her product. But then there is someone already buying my product that when theyre looking at me on the show, they want to make sure, thats the girl i bought into. I think they really go hand and hand and it is very important. Okay. Next question is a question about a problem with attracting certain customers. We work so well with the men, where men are signing up to be members to engage in their personal brand, where with women not so much. Could you give us some advice in regards of how do we engage with women founders. Shes a woman, so i ask her, what do you think youre doing wrong . Are you speaking to a woman . Are you asking people who have come but havent signed up that are female, like what are we missing . I think it is important to ask those questions. It is again, hard for me to understand what are they selling . Personal brand. Like, you walk into the showroom, whats in there . You know what i mean . It is kind of for me, it is a difficult term. And so, reeva, but this also brings up to me is, okay, if youre getting men and not women, should you even be concentrating on women . Maybe your product is just for men. Maybe your product is just for men, but in this particular case i went on their website, and i looked. Its not very female friendly. They have this one placard that said, what is your expertise and there is five men in the picture. So if you want to cater to women, you have to build a place whether it is online or in person where women feel comfortable. Women also tend to do a little bit more research than men before they sign on to something. So theyre going to be going on your website, or doing some research and you want to create this place where they feel theyre going to be taken care of. Okay, well, heather and reeva, great to see you both. Thank you for coming on the program. Now, heather and reeva always have helpful advice about how to improve your business, but now it is your turn. Here are some great ideas from Small Business owners like you. Have Quality Content on your website, content that flows and is clear and maintain control of your online assets. Passwords, databases, accounts. We have a painting. When they hit the numbers, we do a painting for them, which is a great big one and put on the walls so they know that the Company Cares about them. You need to have a tag line or a title on your Business Card that makes people ask you a question. My tag line on my Business Card is im the chief naval officer. So people always want to know, what is that . My tag line for my company, its your sexy little secret. They want to know what my sexy little secret is. The sales proposal is often your last attempt to lock down a potential client. Check out our website of the week. Proposable. Com helps you create webbased sales proposals tailored to your businesss needs you can embed videos and pictures and the Software Comes with templates if you dont want to start from scratch. Once youre finished, a private url is sent to the potential customer. You can see when and for how long your client views the file. Thanks, everyone, so much for joining me today. You can find out more about todays show on our website. It is openforum. Com yourbusiness. Youll find all of todays segments, plus web exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. You can also follow us on twitter msnbcyourbiz. And please do not forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. Next week, the changing face of entrepreneurial work spaces. Members only clubs are popping up all over the country, helping startups get their businesses off the ground by offering education, mentorship, and community. Plus, with Small Business saturday approaching, we go to manchester, new hampshire, where one entrepreneurs online bridal registry is getting customers to skip the Big Box Stores and shop local for the happy couple. Until then, im j. J. 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