small businesses are revitalizing the economy and american express open is here to help. that's why we support "your business" on msnbc. hi, everyone, i'm jj ramberg, and welcome to "your business." the show that champions entrepreneurship, encourages customers to shop local, and offers small business owners information and advice to help take their endeavors to the next level. landing a deal with a major corporation is something many entrepreneurs dream of. it can take months or even years to get that contract, but when you do, it's time to celebrate, that is until you realize working with large companies may not be all that it's cracked up to be, and that's why one entrepreneur decided to cut his ties. >> the best thing about it was that roller coaster ride was over. it was a good decision to avoid the big box stores. >> he knows a thing or two about working with big brands. >> the kohls, walmarts, k-marts, jcpennys of the world. we can cut and sew garments, we embroider garments, dye garments, and screen print garments. >> they had contracts with some of the most recognizable names in retail for years. >> as we started moving into the 2000s, tie dyes were becoming more and more popular, we started getting more and more requests from some of the bigger brands. >> while those incredibly appealing and ego boosting orders would be a dream for many small business owners, over time they were more of a frustration for cass and his team. >> had we had a little bit more consistent business, it would have been a lot easier. >> cass wanted to make sure the deals worked, so he had to make some strategic decisions, cost was the biggest factor. >> we couldn't do the work they wanted us to do in the united states, mainly because of labor, and so rather than starting to turn that work away, in 2003, we opened a satellite location, which was in guatemala. >> as an entrepreneur, cass understood why companies took their production to other countries. >> the wages at that time were about $12 a day, and $12 a day was everything all included. in the u.s., it's hard to hire somebody for $100 a day. >> in his mind, the second factory was designed to get and keep business. >> we were looking at it as the business is going overseas anyway, it might as well be to somebody that we know, i.e. us. >> once the guatemala facility was up and running, the orders came in. having two locations gave cass and his customers some options. >> you could always say we can do it if you can stomach american labor, we can do it quicker up here in the u.s. if you've got time, we can do it overseas, if you want the price. >> costs may have been lower in central america, but having another production facility so far away turned into much more of a burden than a benefit. >> it took us about seven years to really get a foothold and to start everything working the direction we wanted it to work, and it was a tough seven years. >> sun dog's general manager says the operation felt scattered. >> one of the things i do up here is make sure all of our employees and all the different production lines are set, you know, everybody's got plenty of work to do, and down there it was a very difficult thing to manage. >> it was a challenge to deal with new complications like customs and to not see products as they were coming off the line. there was a clear disconnect. >> in guatemala, it was numbers. didn't really get that hands-on feeling you can get here. >> to make matters worse, the orders from big box stores were not consistent. >> it was always feast or fam e famine. here's 50,000 units, get them produced, we need them in three weeks. >> then once the orders were filled, you had to sit and wait for the next one. >> you don't hear a peep for a few weeks and you have a whole labor staff sitting around doing nothing, then boom you get hit with another 50,000 units. >> the entire process was hot on sun dog's bottom line. >> the ebbs and flows were tough, i think. >> the money wasn't really rolling in. >> when you start looking at returns, markdown money, buybacks, all of that profit that you think is going to be there is not always there at the end of the day. >> cass decided to give up those big contracts, but not without getting an unexpected push from mother nature first. >> we got hit with a tropical depression. we suffered 42 inches of rain in 24 hours. that's three and a half feet. >> while there was talk of rebuilding, the factory's destruction made it easier to walk away and take a step back and think about what he wanted to do next. >> it let me get back to core business as opposed to trying to chase, as i call, you know, chasing dollars. >> as a result, sun dog now has customers of every size. >> we have tried to focus in on middle-sized retailers and smaller, down to small mom and pop t-shirt stores, and we're actually able to do better work, better design, and quite frankly, they'll allow you to make some money. >> gone are the days of relying so much on large orders, but it doesn't mean they don't come in, they are just handled differently. >> those bigger orders tend to take more logistical support. we're able to get those through without pushing smaller customers to the side. >> while cass won't close the door on all big deals, he believes sun dog is still headed in a better direction without them. >> we've got hundreds of customers, so if one of those customers decides they want to go a different direction or somewhere else, it's okay, whereas with a big box store, how do you replace a kohls or a walmart? it was great to say and to brag that you did work with these big box stores, but when you look at the bottom line, the real bragging rights are what's in the bank account. >> with only a few more weeks to give gifts during the holidays, we have plenty of great ideas for you to get for your staff and your best clients. this year all made by socially conscious women business owners. here to tell us about these gifts that keep on giving is colleen, director of a nonprofit news site for female entrepreneurs and a contributor to "the new york times." great to see you, colleen. >> hi, jj. >> i love this segment. let's start to try to get through them all. the first one. >> yes, so this comes from a woman named victoria from austin, texas, she was in hawaii, inspired after she had a cup of joe that was delicious. it's a very smooth coffee. it's kind of the opposite of starbucks, it's not very acidic. she decided to start this company, and when you buy the coffee, the proceeds go to support scleen water causes. more than a billion people around the world don't have access to clean water. >> you can give it to a whole office. >> we love the holiday packaging, it's really a perfect gift. >> the scarf is beautiful. >> we thought these would be good if you had hipster employees, things like that. this comes from someone inspired after a trip to cambodia to start her company, and her company is called prama wheel, and when you buy one of these scarves, you support a cambodian seamstress and provide a uniform, a school uniform, to a child so they can attend school. >> so great, it means so much more to give something that also gives back. now these are beautiful boxes. >> these were one of the more unusual submissions. these are box-sai. they remind me of the russian dolls, this is a box within a box within a box, and there's all these pictures of bees. mary aspenwall and her husband take the pictures and create these boxes. the idea is to bring attention to the dwindling bee population. >> then there's a note on the inside. >> you get a message at the end and this says thanks for all you do to make life so sweet. you can customize this. we were thinking if you were a business owner and wanted to give these, you could do anything if you have a new service you're going to be doing in the new year, you could announce it. it might be a clever way. >> these are bracelets here? >> these are bracelets from a mother/daughter duo in kentucky. i'm wearing one of them. >> what's the name of the company? >> it is horse feathers. it's by chelsea farmer and her mom tammie. this is refurbished metal they use. proceeds go to supporting causes like the arbor day foundation, which replaces trees in areas where there's been wildfires and things like that. we also like these for staff or customers because you can customize them, put people's names on them. these are for men, by the way. these have coordinates on them. maybe that's a guy thing. you could put your office coordinates, i suppose on it. >> that's funny. something that makes it meaningful. >> totally. >> these bags, makeup bags. >> yeah, toiletry bags, i think these would be good for business travel because they can throw them in their suitcase. these comes from katie rock. she uses material out of nicaragua, it's water resistant. activist, all of these bags and her products support girls sports programs around the world, so these particular bags support running programs in ethiopia. >> this is great. >> how could you not love trouble the dog? he's very soft and fluffy, and he comes from sheila duncan of marblehead, massachusetts, who unfortunately had a lot of cancer losses in her family but she was inspired to create him because he brings joy and happiness to whoever has him. her company will donate trouble the dog to children's hospitals. >> sometimes it's nice to give your clients gifts for their kids. >> that's what we were thinking why this would be a good gift for staff or for clients, anyone for a family. even if you don't have a family, nice dog to have. >> this chocolate, last but never least, the chocolate. >> this is delicious. rescue chocolate. she is a big animal lover, has a pet pit bull, she wanted to create this to raise awareness that pit bulls, it's called peanut butter pit bulls, pit bulls can be good pets and 100% of the proceedings go to animal rights organizations, so very good cause there. >> thank you for all these ideas. again, not only does it make you feel good to give it, makes them feel good to receive it and you get to create a dialogue. you're telling a story that may get your clients or employees attention more than if you gave them a basket of cheese. thanks so much, colleen. >> of course. after selling sparknotes to barnes and nobel and shutting down the popular music sharing site e-donkey. they started a free online dating site okcupid in 2003. in 2011, match inc bought okcupid. we sat down with sam in dallas to talk about everything, from the importance of knowing what you want, to why you should try new things. ♪ >> a lot of people are very protective of their ideas, they don't want to share their ideas to anyone, they are afraid they'll be stolen. ideas are cheap, it's the execution that matters. i could have told you i was doing a free online dating site, lots of people had free online dating sites, but it's the execution of my partners and i to make okcupid to happen. ♪ it's important to be clear to know what you want out of your business. some want a business to pay their salary for the rest of their lives, some people want a business they want to sell for millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, and those are different kinds of businesses that require different people on your team, different amounts of capital, different funding stories. in my case we knew we were going to sell the businesses. we wanted businesses that will live on forever, but we were realistic that these would be companies we're going to sell to other businesses. i think it's hard to be visionary when you're looking -- when you're at the bottom of the valley and you have a big hill to climb and you have to have a long-term vision. you have to go back to your fundamental beliefs and not be swayed by the short-term myopia around you. focus on what you believe in the world to be true, and in that case, we knew the internet wasn't going away, we knew sparknotes would be a thing people would use for years, and at that moment in time it didn't have value, but we knew we had built something valuable and the internet was going to be something big. you put those things together, sparknotes is something you want to own, not sell. something you want to be buying, not selling. be articulate about a long-term vision for the business. match hadn't had a ceo for two years. it was really a diversified, distributed business where each person was kind of running their own business and there wasn't someone pulling it all together daily, talking to everyone, sharing best practices across the business, and really just articulating a clear vision for the future of the business, and i think people get excited about this, when they understand there's a vision that we're all, you know, rolling in the same direction to pursue. every startup faces a challenge of how do you get known, how do you get people to use your product and hear about you, it's especially difficult in a category like dating where you have companies spending hundreds of billions a year on marketing and you're just a little guy with no marketing budget. i think one thing that small companies have is they take more risks. they can operate without a lot of constraints because they are more risk averse. think about the things your competitors, companies you're trying to disrupt could never do and that often will be sort of blue sky space for you to work in, because no one else is going to operate in that space. when we come back, we answer your questions about running your small business, including one on how to combat online shopping cart abandonment. and customers spent more than $5 million on small business saturday. we'll talk about why it was so successful and how to keep the shop local movement going through the holidays. cass shriver used to sell his shirts to big box stores and even opened a factory in guatemala to keep costs down. now that factory is closed and cass is making more money by giving up those big deals. for more, watch "your business" on msnbc. brought to you by american express open. visit openforum.com for ideas on how to grow your business. it's time now to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help. les is the president and ceo of success, and author of the synergist. angela is the co-founder of savor the success, the business network for women entrepreneurs. let's get right to the first question, it's about cyber sales. >> as a small business selling online, what would be the most effective method to combat shopping cart abandonment? >> i love this question. i worked for a company called cooking.com in 1998 and it was one of the things we thought about the most. you see people get stuff in their shopping cart and never come back. what do you do? >> we have an auto responder that goes out after two days, five days, and then ten days, and after five days we send out an incentive for them to come back and purchase the product. i would say 2 out of 10 customers it will convert. the other thing -- >> this is for people where you have their e-mail address. >> yes, exactly, and they've gone through the entire process. and if they go through the entire process, i've been on the receiving end where if i put something expensive in my shopping cart, i'll get a call from a sales rep. >> if you don't have their e-mail yet and they haven't gone through the registration process, it's a lot about keeping your site simple. >> simple and having other compelling actions that will, frankly, get their e-mail address. if they've gone as far as putting something in the cart, have something up there if you're a service company, free download, white paper, if you're selling products, opportunity to get a coupon for the future. you get their e-mail address, put them in some piece of software and when you've done that, once they come back on your site, presuming they use cookies, you're able to track the point at which they drop fi that page if you have one page where people are falling off, maybe your order form is too complicated, you can simplify it. get their e-mail address if you don't have it already. >> great idea. this is from an event planner about marketing his brand. >> how can our company better promote itself to those associations, meeting planners and large corporations coming into the region and is it social media? >> he has a target market. how does he reach them? >> all due respect to bob, not a personal statement about him that phrase at the end of every question, is it social media, it needs to go away. it is not social media. social media is a hygiene factor. it would be great for bob to make sure he's got whatever, linkedin, facebook, other sites, but it is not going to revolutionize his business. if he's doing trade shows, go downstream, go to the hotels, the economic development units, go to the people who are asking people to put trade shows on to come into the area and make relationships with them. start downstream. social media is way upstream. might get a lot of business. you'll lose business if you're not there, but it is just a hygiene factor. >> getting into the hotels, what do you do? co-market with them or how do you get them to pay attention to you? >> networking is so important and happy clients are the ones that talk because when you build a viable business there is nothing more effective than your happy clients. and i think the networking and co-marketing with hotels as he said and as a consumer, that just recently did trade show for my organic skin care line, i will go on the website and if you can advertise on the website, i was looking for, you know, an event planner and something that could do a trade show services. so that's a great place to get the word out as well. >> les and angela, thank you so much. great to see you, as always. if any of you have a question for our experts, go to our website. the address is, openforum.com/yourbusiness. when you get there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel or if you would rath, e-mail us your questions and comments to, the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. the holiday season comes at us faster than expected every year. so make sure your business is ready for the busiest sales quarter by keeping these five tips in mind, courtesy of yfs magazine. one, make a good impression. potential customer maze be coming across your brand for the very first time. so make sure your store windows and website are in order . two, don't forget visual merchandising, give gift items or services better positioning on a online and offline. three, upsell and cross sell. there are more opportunities for add-ones and complimentary merchandise offers. train your sales team to know the ins and outs of everything your company provides. four, have adequate holiday staff. you do not want your customers to get stuck in a long wait. and, five, use social media. engage holiday shoppers on facebook and twitter with sales promotions and entertaining content. bet those unfinished data entry jobs and small projects done and out of the way. for basic taskz you just don't have the time to do yourself, check out our website of the week. taskrabbit.com is an online mcet place that lets users outsource jobs. post a description of the task and how much you're willing to pay someone to do it. prescreened candidates sign up to complete it for you. it was music to the ears of small business owners as cash registers were ringing loudly on this year's small business saturday. the national federation of independent business reports customers spent close to $5.7 billion shopping local this past post thanksgiving saturday. that's a testament to how the brand of small business saturday, now in its fourth year, has taken hold with consumers. susan is the president of american express open. which created and has championed the concept of small business saturday. and the shop small movement. american express open is also the sponsor of this show. great to see you, susan. >> thanks for having me. >> this clearly hits a nerve with people. it has grown so much in the past four years. why you to think it resonates so much? >> we started small business saturday when we were just coming out of the depths of the recession and our customers were saying we need more traffic. now that really has taken hold and it really hit a nerve. consumers everywhere really value their neighborhood, retailers and small shops and really want to do -- they want to take their own action so they can help. it has just ballooned. i have to say we never thought it would be this big. we certainly hoped it would. we are thrilled. >> can you give any example of small business where this is really changing things for them during the holidays? >> absolutely. there are thousands of stories, i have to say. we will tell a lot of these stories as well because we want other businesses to learn from those who have really leveraged this program for their success. but businesses have been having their best days in their history. we just had a business who told us this morning they had their best day on small business saturday, this year, since they opened in 2004. we had folks tell us that their increases in sales, they doubled, they tripled. the traffic has doubled. that's come through their doors on the day. thousands of events, all over the country, in regards to neighborhoods coming together. we have had parades. we have had street performers. we have had punch cards for consumers -- >> we have been doing this series going around main streets in america. and everybody cares about this small business in their neighborhood, but i think they need to be reminded sometimes. i go to the local toy store. it is not always the most convenient for me to go there, but i think what would happen if that toy store wasn't here anymor anymore. it is worth it for me to walk outside instead of buying something online. >> 52 cents of every dollar you spend in your community stays in your community. >> that's something small businesses need to be marketing more, don't you think? >> absolutely. most small businesses are hiring employees from their local communities as well. and they are also the folks who are supporting through their taxes and through their own contributions, they're supporting the local infrastructure of your community. and the biggest point that i always love is a strong downtown community means higher housing prices for that particular town or community or neighborhood. so a strong downtown center really enhances lifestyle, and enhances wealth, and enhances employment. >> so i'm going to leave with this question. knowing all of this, and knowing the excitement that was generated around small business saturday, and the support, what can small businesses do to keep this going until next saturday after thanksgiving? >> absolutely. well, look, the small business saturday is really just meant to be a focus of activity in order to spur awareness among consumers how important small businesses are to them. it is an opportunity for small businesses to ride the wave that we have created through small business saturday. and that's really what they should continue to do. now consumers have awareness, they're reminded, keep reminding them. keep telling your customers, hey, shop local, it is really important. the other thing that they should be doing is finding strength in numbers. what we have found is when neighborhoods come together, in a dozen or two dozen businesses come together, and create some sort of event, it increases traffic and everybody needs more customers walking through their doors. so increasing traffic is such a vital element to continuing the shop small movement. >> we found that exact same thing on the successful main streets, from the successful main streets across the country. thanks so much for coming on. giving us a recap and congratulations again. >> thank you. continue to shop small. thanks so much for joining us today. if you missed anything from the show, just go to our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. once you get there, you'll find all of today's segments, plus web exclusive content, with a lot more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. it's @msnbcyourbiz. become a fan of the show on facebook. next week, the owner of a landscaping company came up with a holiday solution to what had been an annual dilemma. >> it's very difficult to become a stronger company where you are shutting down from the beginning of december to the beginning of march. it is the number one best investment we made for our company. we'll tell you how this company went from nine months worth of work to operating all year long by investing in a seasonal franchise. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. cas shriver used to sell his tie die shirts to big dog stores. they even opened a factory in guatemala to keep costs down. now that factory is closed and cas is making more money by giving up most of the big deals. for more, watch "your business" sunday mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. year after newtown, will congress do even the least it can do? another cold december morning as we draw closer to the shortest day of the year. we find ourselves starting to think about time. time, which is running out on a law that keeps plastic guns from being able to make it through metal detectors at airports and schools. and if congress does renew the law in time this week, it may come with a pretty big loophole. is anything going to happen this week? we'll also be taking a look this morning at everyone's fascination with the new pope. pope francis. with what may be an elu