Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20140727

Hi, there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business where we give you advice and information on the issues that affects americans entrepreneurs. New data shows over the last 17 years womens Small Businesses have increased an astounding 68 . But according to the democrats on the Small Business community those women are missing out when it comes to loans. Their new report claims that while women own 30 of Small Businesses they only receive 4. 4 of Small Business phones and 7 of Capital Venture funding. The report also says women even businesses are only being awarded 4 of government contracts. Media entrepreneur is dedicated to empowerering those in the u. S. She testified about the gender gap. So great to see you, nelly. Hi, j. J. So great to be here. So excited to be on the senate floor and representing entrepreneurs and latinas on the senate floor. I know you do so much work for women and helping them with Small Businesses and entrepreneur. Shep s ships. Get down to the root of this. Is it that not enough women are applying for loans or theyre getting turned down . I think it started before that, j. Jmt. I think theres always these opportunities for women, earmarked opportunities for women and women of color and latinas, right, but the government doesnt market those opportunities nor do these women even know sometimes that these opportunities even exist and then theres no training for them because the Business Center needs to be reall rietzed for it. The reason i want to do this is to have them meet with each other, have them partner, because some people have more experience but other people have more experience in new kind of digital areas and other areas and they need to partner. So its a series of issues that dont allow women to really take advantage of all these opportunities that are out there for us. You know, Harvard Business school did a study where they found that a man and a woman would go in, get financing, they would do the same exact pinch and the man would get financing more than a woman. And i think that is true, but i think that troouthfully, peop are trusting women more than men. I think if we get the right information and training, thats what im doing. Im pushing. I believe that women even with all the problems we have, this is still the best country in the world. To be a woman and an entrepreneur. Where else in the world could a nela galan whos an immigrant come here and be an entrepreneur. What are you hoping for . We hope it gets passed. We do have a lot of women senators who do understand and they really want to help us, and i think we have to help them help us more. My job is to get latinas involved as well. We think somehow miraculously its going to work. We live in a democracy. The beautiful thing about living in a democracy is we get to complain. We get to call on them and we have to do it. Nely, thank you so much for all you do. Its important work. Appreciate it. Thank you, j. J. Ive been involved in a lot of ventures. While a lack of funding may be seen as a disadvantage, it can actually also be helpful. When you dont have a lot of resources you have to get creative. As the owners of a handmade home Goods Company found out, when you are forced to do more with less you often come up with the best ideas. Everything i have seen is a limitation. Its previously defined who we are. When ron morris and his partner start add business which is a home manufacturer and art gallery, they pretty much had nothing more than an idea. This was a dream that diddetnt have any more financing. We never took loans. Probably because we wouldnt have kept them. Ron and ken were in a situation familiar to any. They had what they thought was a great idea but no obvious resources to see it through. Weve never approached problems with this cant be overcome idea or attitude. Its always solvable. Even if youve got to change what the solution is, its solvable. So they were forced to be innovative and every moneysaving decision they made became part of the sfab rick of what the brand is today. We have mined the one Natural Resource that we know we have which is our creativity. That startied from day one when the entire budget from the company was a 500 the loan from kens parents. That didnt get them very far. It bought us some fabric and bassic supplies. They started looking around. We had tons of fabric that i collected when i was little or from my aunt imagine. Because they didnt have reams of the same fabric, everything they made, shirts to pillows, was one of a kind. From the very beginning our object hasd to be ar tease nal. You mean. Our Design Principles were really flexible. Today even though they can afford more they stick to their roots because its part of their identity and everyone loves the fabric goods. Again, it all has to be low cost because what were doing is not a high end thing. 100 and under is where we like to live. Their lack of funds also meant they didnt have a marketing budget. The Company Started in brooklyn, new york, but moved to easton, pennsylvania, where they opened their store. They took every opportunity they got to bring customers in. Everyone who walked by your door, that was the first thing. But that wasnt enough, especially since easton itself had fallen on hard times. We were very aware. We had to become a deadty nation to get people to come in. We had to create reasons for them to visit. Thats how they became part of the mercantile home plan to get people to shop local. We wanted to get people talking about us, however they could. Whether theyre coming to the class. If thats how they connect and get to know us, theyll learn about all the other stuff. These events proved to be much more ben fishial than any Public Relations or social media campaign. That thick happened to be something also that the town was in need of. They originally created six selections to get customers to come back to the store. If we only sold candles, we wouldnt attract the diversity. You had to give them note cards and handbags and scarves and all the other thing. While the season app launch is now 4. The constant reinvention has become a trademark and a reason for the customers to return. Evidently everyone whos in this town, how do we make it interesting for the five people, the lets change it ore and have a new collection and those five become ten become o 20. It allows ron and ken to see clients interact with their products. You immediately as a designer see a reaction to something you made. You prototype it. Its on the floor and you see, does it leave earthquake, do people touch it . For customers, the future of the business is personal. Easton has totally made us. The Community Members support us, they inspire us and make suggestions, you know what you should make . Its a relationship that ask exciting. Theres another frustration they struggled with at the beginning. They didnt know how to best explain their brand. Ken and i often saw it as one of our biggest limitations to try to get people to understand everything we did. We put so much into everything we did, we thought they knead to know. Theyve overcome this too. They dont need anything now. Thats because their customers do most of their talking for them. Folks come into the store and you overhear them explaining to the person they brought in. Its great and its always changing around its upcycled and its classes. Like we dont even have to do the work anywhere. It can also mean knowing when youve taken on more than you can handle who decided to cut back on their business. Their message is the same. Mary leonards decision to launch her own company was a dream come true. The Business Plan was to have an Online Business and have one store for the chocolates. I actually had fwour flavors. But that plan quickly changed before Chocolat Celeste were put this the background. I had to punt. Afew months after that i had a store. The majority beige retail. The change in plans also meant a change in leonards daily life. My original thoughts were they was starting more of a lifestyle business than a sevenday business but now it was a fulltime effort. The Retail Business grew because of her changing it. The experience became a little overwhelming. It started to become physically daunting because i was up at 7 00 in the morning and i finished work at 11 00 at night and i was doing that day after day. And so about ten years into the very profitable life of Chocolat Celeste, an admittedly tired leonard took a drastic action. I made a decision and jumped off the cliff again and said im closing. To the surprise of some customers, leonard halted production, closed all of her inventory, shut the doors, abandons the store and took two months off. She cut back but she knew she wasnt closing for good. I need to start over and have it be what i want it to be. Leonard wanted more joy in her life so she overhaul ld her company. The business will be transformed into what i want it to be which is an internet business. She spent the summer returning to her original claim, selling her chocolates to corporate clients. Leonard also slowing out of the Retail Market because she wanted to control her life and regain her business. It gave me new life. There was a little more spark in me than there was before. Dan wedge knows a thing or two about cutting back his hours because hes already doing it. Being in charge of your own business tends to consume your life and its nice to have the idea of something else. He now closes his store for the first week of every month and he has no regrets. I was working 50, 60 hours a week for 21 years. Not only minding the store and people expect me to be here a lot of the time and its hard not to be here when you have a store but also out buying books so almost every weekend. Id be out for one day, sometimes two days buying books. The First Response was, oh, no, you cant close. He understood it could affect his revenue but thats why hes cutting back and not calling it quits. Im a retailer. I like running a store, having a place to go every day. He says he knows it might not work for other entrepreneurs but its worth examining if youre looking for change. If they want to do something else, theyve got to make room for something else. Find blachbs in their lives. Thats why im doing this for myself. Mary leonard agrees. She says sometimes you do things for yourself which may result in a better business. Go to the place where you have the most enjoyment, and thats where youll be successful. A little thankyou gift can go a long way in making a relationship and our app of the week makes it easy to send one. Hit up apps of the week with your contact so you can buy and send a gift with the swipe of your finger. You can choose a bottle of wine, sporting events, dinner invitations you can send to your customers, employees, and if youre working really hard, dont forget your spouse. Ask anyone with me. I get antsy after ten minutes in a meeting but i get that theyre important at time. Here now are five tips to conducting a productive meeting courtesy of fastcompany. Com. One, keep meetings to 15 minutes. Research says 10 to 18 minutes is how long most people can Pay Attention before checking out. Consider setting a timer to keep yourself in check. 2, take the chairs away. Have the team stand up for status update meetings. A recent Washington University study says standing for meetings leads to greater collaboration on ideas. 3, no laptops for note taking. Even though theres no real difference in fwaktual recall, you understand concepts better when you write out your notes as opposed to typing them out. 4, leave phones at the door. They are a distraction to the work at hand and a Marshal School of Business Survey of more than 5,000 professionals found that cell phone use is almost always frowned upon by your coworkers. And, 5, keep meetings to ten attendees the or fewer. The leaner, the more time Everything Else gets to focus on their workload. When we come back we answer your Small Business questions on whether you should outsource your taxes and new strategies to combat negative online reviews. And the winner of a elevator pitch contest looks for a concept of a mobile maker space that would bring 3 hd printers to vocational schools. If i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing ive learned is my philosophy is real simple American Express open forum is an online community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make Smart Business decisions. If you mess up, fess up. Be your partners best partner. We built it for our members, but its open for everyone. Theres not one way to do something. No details too small. American express open forum. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. Promoting from within is a phrase thats used a lot but we use it a lot. The person already knows the philosophies of your company. Very, very important. And think even more importantly, it lets other people who are just started or have been around for a while know that theres going to be opportunity down the line. Its time now to answer some of your business questions. Lets get our board of directors in here. Gene marx is the head of the marx group that provided Consulting Services and shes the ceo of a marketing zen group, full Service Online market and digital p. R. Firm. So happy to see both of you guys. Good to see you. Happy to be here. Lets dive into these questions. First is tax time. The first year i did the taxes. Now some of my staff does. At what point do we go outside . I ooh going to go with how much it annoys the director of collaborations. I dont know if you know this about me, j. J. , im actually a cpa. For me if it was always close enough, thats good enough. Thats not the way for a cpa. For any Small Business owner whether they have one oer two employees youre supposed to do what you do best. I mean taxes, even in my company, i have ten people it. Is a complex world, whether its payroll or corporate. You should have a cpa as early possible. Youre going to spend a little extra money. Whatever youre investing in that person, thats what they development you focus on what you do best. By the way, if you have that money, youll have all this free time. No doubt. Did you ever do your own taxes . My first year. A good cpa is a strong roi. So outsource that and you might be surprised as to what you end up saving. When i let someone else do it, i realized i could have had those deductions. It wont cost that much especially if youre a Small Business. The answer is now. Right away. Moving on. This is a question about creating a collaborative environment. How do you go about picking the best Software Solution or the best systems to help your staff communicate effectively and pass tasks on efficiently and effectively . I know this. When youre small, its easy, were all sitting in a room together. As you grow, you need to systematize it. Figure out exactly what it is, what type of tasks, are you looking at three people who need to work on one project or do you have multiple projects. Then i would look at software that fits that goal best. It depends on your specific needs. The bigger the team is, the more complex. Look at your reviews. Thats your best friend online. Start with your goals, pick a few software that you think might help you accomplish those and then look up what you need to narrow those chances down. There are a ton of really good players as well. Really have to figure out if you have the culture. A lot of companies, you hire people people youre trying to collaborate with, do you have the culture to manage them, will any of these work . At this stage in 2014, most of the big name applications, base camp, zoho, Microsoft Office 365, those are standard applications that most Small Businesses are using right now. Some are using them better than others because they have a better culture. You can give people as many tools as you want. If they dont use them, its a waste. Thats exactly right. People get so caught up in figuring out the futures, well do this, well do that. Honestly at this stage, theyre all pretty good. Were not all that complex. It depends on whether or not youll make best use of this technology. Lets get to the next question about negative reviews. I have a question around poor reviews on social media like yelp and on amazon. I have one person give a tremendously horrible review on a book thats really unjust. How do we handle that . Hes talking about books. It applies across the board. Youre a restaurant, a service, a product. I have to give a shout out to my sister. My sister is a doctor and runs two offices in south philadelphia. I wouldnt let her cut my fingernails, by the way. Im told shes a very good practice. Shes been practice iing foreve. She got a couple of bad reviews. Its the internet. There were a couple knuckleheads that bummed her out for the entire weekend. You cant let it bum you out. Look at this guy. If youre going to be out there and on yelp, youre opening yourself up to people to making those comments. Number one is, if you dont take it to heart and dont let it bum you out. Number two is, if youre going to respond and you should always respond, always take the high road. The last thing you want to do is get in a fight with somebody online. Youll lose. If you get a couple of bad reviews and its not reflective. If its reflective, you have to fix it internally. If its not, you better bolster up that review site. A bad review can help your business because it humanizes it. The problem is when you only have one review and its a bad review. With your sister, if youve got hundreds of really great positive reviews, that one negative review actually makes you seem more human. It makes people believe the positive reviews more just been contrast. It can actually work in your favor. The key is to not focus on necessarily the negative review, but make sure youre constantly cultivating the positive ones which most businesses dont do because theyre so hung up on the negative ones. Vickys got to invest in somebody or someone in her office to keep looking at yelp and the other sites. If people are out there talking, they have to be ready to respond. If someone gives a bad review, sometimes they have a good point and its a way to figure out what you can fix in your business. So great to see you both. If you have a question, go to our website, we answer them every week on the show. The address is openforum. Com yourbusiness. Once you get there go to the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. Beginning with our first show eight years ago we have preached the gospel of having a solid pitch. Pitching has now become a staple of entrepreneurial studies at universities around the country. Todays pitcher was the winner of the City University of new york smart pitch challenge. Lets see what our panel thinks of his concept for mobile maker spaces where other budding entrepreneurs can create new products. Hi, im cofounder and coo of test the truck. Technology and is the cornerstone of our world. Imagine these resources on wheels. Thats tesla truck. A mobile space for the masses. Whether youre a school that wants a Yearlong Program or want to be part of a robot making workshop, tesla truck is it. A parking lot with a 17foot box truck with people learning, creating and collaborating. Thats the vision. We or asking for 325,000 for a 20 stake in the business used to build and furnish our first truck, well use it for marketing and curriculum development. We expect to earn over 650,000 in our first year with only one truck. So its penetrating the market thats virtually untouched. Please join us. Congratulations, first of all, on winning the competition. Whats going on with the flowers. This is a 3d printed vase from one of our 3d printers. Oh, how cool. Ill give each of you the pitch. One to ten, how was the pitch . From you, which was scarier, this or the competition . This definitely. Gene has a piercing look. I thought you were going to give a flower to them. Gene, lets start with you. One to ten, the pitch . First, ill give an eight to the pitch. The only reason i say not a perfect ten, this is the way it is, j. J. , on the show. Youre throwing out numbers, i dont know what your finances are like, what youre going to be learning, i would need to see a little more. Your approach was fan it is tick, your enthusiasm, you made me understand what youre going to try to do in just a minute. All right. I give it a nine. Very confident. I understood the idea. It was compelling. You obviously have a short amount of time to deliver a little information. The only reason i docked one point, i would have liked to understand your final audience. You mentioned schools, but it was so brief that i missed that and i had to go back and think who was the audience for the truck. I would talk a little more about your final audience and who is going to be bringing you the dollars. One of the highest scores on the show so far. Congratulations here. Good luck with everything. Thank you very much. Thank you guys for your advice here. Thank you. If any of you out there have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investors, send us an email. The address is youbusiness msnbc. Com. In that email please dont forget a summary of what your company does, how much money youre looking to raids and what you intend to do with that money. We look forward to reading those pitches. To learn more about todays show, click on our website, its openforum. Com yourbusiness. Youll find all of todays segments plus web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. You can follow us msnbcyourbiz. Become a fan of the show on facebook. Were on instagram, too. Next time, they call it the green rush. The cannabis industry is the most challenging industry that ive ever been involved with. I describe it as Crisis Management by hour. We spend some time with the pioneering colorado entrepreneurs who are staking their claim in the Risky Business of pot. Until then, im j. J. Ramberg. Remember, we make your business our business. If i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing ive learned is my philosophy is real simple American Express open forum is an online community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make Smart Business decisions. If you mess up, fess up. Be your partners best partner. We built it for our members, but its open for everyone. Theres not one way to do something. No details too small. American express open forum. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. Is there another ceasefire . Breaking news this morning on the broken ceasefire in gaza where intense fighting resumed overnight. Hamas spokesman has confirmed to nbc news that they have agreed to another 24hour ceasefire. There is no word yet, though, on that from the israeli government. Israel says its naval, air and ground assault resumed after hamas fired seven rockets into israeli territory, 25 in all since the fighting resumed. Hamas 34i8 tants claimed responsibility for the