Hey, there, everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business. The scramble for customers Holiday Shopping dollars is underway, and independent businesses are doing everything they can to draw customers away from the mall and over to main street. As weve been reporting, the Small Business saturday campaign, which is now five years old, has helped spawn yearlong shop local promotions in towns and cities across the country. In arizona, a statewide initiative called local first arizona has offered a fascinating challenge to consumers. Shift 10 of their shopping dollars to their communitys Small Businesses. The important thing about the 10 shift is that were conveying to people that small, incremental shifts in their behavior can make a big difference. Reporter the message is simple. When you spend local, your money stays local. Whether youre shopping for food, grabbing a quick item from the store, or searching for a local service provider. A simple shift in the way you spend can help support and improve the quality of life for your local community. Every time you spend 100, roughly 43 to 45 of those dollars will stay in your community and recirculate if you choose to spend them at a locally owned business. If you take that same 100 and spend it at a nonlocal corporate chain store, you know only 13 is going to stay. That money just leaves your community almost entirely. The statewide 10 shift campaign spearheaded by local first arizona is getting the word out that making the simple choice of shifting 10 of your spending to a local business can have a big impact. What were saying is, lets all be mindful of where our money goes when we spend it, and understand the local business, in turn, is going to have a local accountant or Graphic Designer or web designer, and that money stays and recirculates in our local economy and creates additional jobs. So if were mindful of that and we understand that small changes make big shifts, you can get more people on board. Im saying, small, simple things. Finding a local mechanic, getting a local haircut, choosing a locally owned theater or bookstore. Anything you can do, simple things. And this isnt just for consumers. A big component of the campaign is focused on businesses shifting 10 of their spending, by taking a closer look at how they source products and services. It instinctively made so much sense, right . That being able to keep those dollars here locally, not just for the business, necessarily, but all the ancillary businesses that feed off of them. The tax accountants, the lawyers. Reporter adam goodmans Third GenerationOffice Furniture business made some big changes after learning about the initiative. I sat down with our Management Team to talk about who our suppliers are that we do business with. We try to figure out, what are the quickest things we can do to shift. We made those shifts, like Office Supplies. Were buying Office Supplies from a big box company. Theres no excuse for that, right . I have no idea where theyre headquartered, no idea where theyre spending the money, no idea what cultural organizations they support or the nonprofits they support. Reporter when adam and his team started looking at where theyre spending the most money, namely with their furniture suppliers, they realized most of them were located far away in the midwest. Then they thought of their old friend and former salesperson, keith mcclain, who had recently left goodmans after 12 years with the company to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. I knew nothing about making furniture. Reporter but he knew a lot about selling furniture, when he bought a local phoenix wood shop. Adam realized that they had an opportunity to have a positive impact on keiths new business by making an effort to shift some of their custommade furniture manufacturing to him. Theres a lot of advantages for us and for them. You know, they can get things quicker. Were here if anything goes wrong with it or if it needs to be fixed or if we need to go measure before we build it. When we decided to commit ourselves to this 10 shift, one of the principles we wanted to do was keep the costs the same, hopefully well save a little bit of money, we may have to pay a little bit of a premium and we decided it would balance out in there. And im happy to say, in the case of keith, for example, it has lowered our costs. As you can imagine, shipping a conference table from indiana to phoenix adds a bit of cost to it, as opposed to from 35th avenue to third street, right . Thats a big difference. So, yes, we have been able to realize some savings and pass them along to our customers. Reporter kimber laning has owned her business since she was 19. Now, nearly 30 years later, she, too, has made the effort to reevaluate how she spends locally. So how did she, the founder of local first, and the biggest cheerleader for the 10 shift campaign in arizona, make the shift for her business . So here at my record store, when i started, the first loan that i got was with a locally owned bank at the time that then merged with another big bank and then merged with another bank and suddenly my books were with a giant megabank. So that was the first thing i went for. Its important for businesses to keep their money in banks that have local decision making, because the big banks, especially in a place like arizona, theres no one here making those decisions, so if we had more localized decision making, banks that were mandated to lend locally, we would start to see a quicker recovery and a little bit more local growth. So we moved our money. In in mesa, arizona, James Christianson runs the local community bank. When he heard about the 10 shift, he took a hard look at all of his vendors so he could better support the community. His shift was purchasing his Office Supplies, janitorial services, and marketing locally. A lot more money stays in the community, which is a plus. Just building the relationships and taking that vendor relationship to a whole new level. I think theres so many pluses to shifting locally. Reporter brandi lovato also take a look at her services. We looked at airconditioner replacements to buying chairs and coffee supplies and did an analysis with local first and found out that we were already 83 local. So what we did was, out of the nonlocal vendors, we picked five of our biggest vendors, i guess you would say, to see what we could shift, and i think we shifted three of the five so far, and still working to do more. I dont know what our final number is, but 83 , i think were probably up to 85, 86. For those that we spoke to, the net impact of taking the pledge to make the 10 shift has been better relationships, lower costs, and ultimately, a stronger local economy. Its a winwin for us, a winwin for the local community, and we feel great about that. The ultimate goal of many of these shop local campaigns is to draw consumers away from major chains and Service Providers and they work. A lot of times, they bring people in. But then, how do you as a Small Business get them to come back . Well, you may want to triading an extra helping of hospitality. Danny meyer, owner of the Union Square Hospitality group, has been running some of new york citys most successful restaurants for more than two decades. If i had to pick between being the best or the favorite, id go for the favorite. There are probably places out there that have better Technical Service than we do. But we believe that its the whole experience. Reporter mark maynard is davids managing partner for the blue smoke restaurants. I really dont believe that most of what we do is so unique to restaurants. So whether youre a consultant or a retail store or a plumber, you should be able to treat your customers in a certain way. They believe their extra emphasis on hospitality distinguishes their restaurants. And they say i pays off. It pays off hugely to offer great hospitality. As a matter of fact, if you look at the zagat survey, every single one of our restaurants in a city of 26,000 restaurants, is among the top 50 of new yorks favorite restaurants. I didnt say new yorks best restaurants. So whats their secret . How do they know what their customers are really thinking . Great question. Im looking at the guests eyes. And if the guests are looking at each other, were doing a great job. If the guests are looking around, were not doing a great job. If the food is taking too long or someones glass of water is empty, theyre going to look around. With all the attention they give to their customers comfort, it might be surprising to learn that the customer is not their number one priority. Put your customer second, absolutely. Because if you real want to have Great Customer satisfaction, your customers will never be any happier than the people who are working in your company. We believe that that relationship between the management and the staff is the most important relationship. And from there, our guests will necessarily be taken care of. One of the toughest tests of hospitality comes when someone on the Restaurant Team makes a mistake. It can take teamwork to fix it. And we really ask our teammates to be incredibly creative and imaginative at saying, i made the mistake, im sorry, how can we end up in a better spot than if we hadnt made it in the first place. Danny calls this writing the last chapter. You cant unspill a glass of wine, but you can always do something to make amends. And this way, you can write the last chapter. Its critically important that we embrace mistakes that we make and use them as opportunities to end up in a better spot. I got this guy and he was, i think he was even swearing, as carrie was apologizing to the table. I approached them to, you know, guide them through the menu and everything, he was still just so angry, and it takes a lot to keep your calm and to like keep helping this person that just hates you. You know, just keep being there for them and keep trying to correct it. I think the key is really expressing to people how sorry you are and that you made a mistake and owning up to it. Danny and mark are quick to distinguish this kind of hospitality from what many people call Customer Service. I think theyre using the word in the wrong way. What service means is that a restaurant or any type of business did the things they were supposed to do. When they talk about hospitality, what theyre talking about is how did the provider of that service make the recipient feel . And theyre completely different things. And this focus on making people feel good, they say, is key to overcoming the unexpected challenges that any business faces every day. Try to do what it takes to make sure at the end of the day, whatever somebody came into our restaurant, they leave feeling slightly better than they came in. And if we can do that, i think our restaurants will have served their purpose. If you do not have satisfied customers, you are absolutely going to get left behind. Providing your clients with what they want, when and how they want it needs to be a priority for your business. Our guest today has tips to help you improve your Customer Service efforts before, during, and even after a transaction. Andrew scleg is the coowner of moneycrashers. Com, a personal finance website dedicated to educating its readers about better ways to save, spend, and their invest their money. So good to see you. Great to be back. So you get a customer, you better make sure they are happy once they work with you, right . So you talk about getting to know everything you can about them. What do you mean . Yeah, one of the most important aspects is your customer. And too often, Business Owners are focused on their product or their service, but not enough on the Customer Service experience, which is really whats going to keep that customer coming back. So you need to talk to a few different groups of people. Talk to your longterm repeat customers, find out what youre doing well, what keeps them coming back when they could be going to a competitor. And look at your past customers who are no longer doing business with you, and your target demographic customers who might currently be doing business with your competitors. Ask them, what can you do better . What voids do you need to fill in your Customer Service experience. And what are your competitors doing well that you can bring into your business to attract those customers. You talk about eliciting this feedback often. Do you literally mean calling people up and asking them, or do you mean sending surveys . How do you get this information . All of the above. Business owners make it too complex, sometimes, and i say, wi just ask, however you want to do it. Shale them, use online polls or surveys, take more of a grassroots approach. Talk to your customers walking in and out of your door. Go out on the street. Find people that fit your target demographic. Ask what you can do to get your business. One thing i do is, as an online publication at money crashers, anyone that unsubscribes, i personally email, i ask them why they unsubscribed and what can we do to improve the site. Do you annoy people or no . Im sure some people get annoyed, but i think they appreciate it. And actually a lot of the unsubscribers will resubscribe when they see that im invested in each and every one of them, i care about their experience on our site. Or maybe you can direct them somewhere, and you say, oh, you were looking for that, we actually have that, you just didnt see it before. Let me show it to you now. You talk about taking all these results, creating a strategy, and implementing them. One of the problems, you might hear from somebody, i desperately need this, you have to take it in aggregate, right . Right. Theres a strategy you need to use to tackle the various issues. I recommend kind of a triage list that you want to set up of the top five complaints and suggestions you get from your customers. I say, start off by ranking them by volume of number of complaints, one, two, three, four, five. And then youve got to take a approach where you analyze twos a s of these issues, one being the financial cost to address that issue, and the other being how much time well need to be invested to adequately address that feedback. And what youll find is something interesting. You might actually start with points three, four, and five. Those might be the quickest and easiest fixes. And then you might move to one and two. That might require the largest percentage of your budget or maybe it will take months or years to fully address those issues. I think also to look at, these people say we want this, we get complaints about it all the time, but is this keeping them from using the site, right . So is it as important as people say it is, even if i hear it all the time . Yep, exactly. You really need to communicate with your customers. Its too often overlooked by Business Owners, and by doing this,y going to find great elements and great strategies you can use to grow your Customer Base and improve the chance for longterm success of your company. And finally, reward your employees. So people who discover things, reward your employees. So theyre always looking out for the customer. Right, its not enough for just you to care about Customer Service. You need to instill those values in your employees. Start off with little rewards or incentives. Maybe thats a coffee, maybe take them out to lunch, maybe a certificate or picture of your best employees from the private month. Maybe a little more tangible, a yearend bonus or salary raise for the following year, directly correlated with how they performed in Customer Service in the previous year. Andrew, thank you for stopping by. Thanks a lot. Thanks, jj. Customer reviews have the potential to make or break your business. So how do you get more of the positive ones and fewer of the negative ones . Here now are five ways you can make sure your startup gets more fivestar reviews, courtesy of smallbiztrends. Com. One, ask for feedback directly. If you dont ask for their opinion, customers are more likely to just post something publicly. So its better to get their thoughts in a controlled environment, right after theyve finished doing business with you. Two, claim your business on review sites. Set up a designated place for customers to share their reviews and theyll have an easier space finding your review space on search engines. Three, be available. Make it easy for people to reach you. Include Contact Information and your social media accounts on your website. Four, monitor what people post. No matter how great your service is, youll still get a few negative reviews online. Track what people are saying so you can take action when necessary. And five, highlight the good reviews. You dont have to just respond to negative feedback. Share the positive ones on your blog and social media. Open enrollment for businesses with 50 or fewer employees is set to begin november 15th, but there are already snags in the system created by the Affordable Care act. The website for the Online Market place that will offer Health Insurance for Small Businesses has defects and mistakes, which the government is scrambling to fix by the 15th. With us to sort out what owners should do is markganya. Hes the coowner at boras lowe insurance in boston. Hes also a member of the National Association of health underwriters. And michael stall is the Senior Vice President at health markets, which provides Insurance Solutions to individuals and Small Businesses. Thank you both so much for joining us today. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Mark, lets start with you. What is the opportunity for Small Businesses right now, once this website launches, presuming it launches well on the 15th . So, jj, i think a great place for Small Businesses to start first is to make sure they have a licensed broker or agent that represents them. When you go to court, you would never go to Court Without a lawyer. You shouldnt purchase Health Insurance without the advice of a licensed professional. So i would start with the National Association of health underwriters, to find an agent, at www. Nhu. Org. So then, mark, how does this make things any different than they were before . If i were a Small Business with any number of employees, i would go find an agent who could help me get Health Insurance. How does this website change things for me . I think the website gives brokers an opportunity to help connect those who have not traditionally offered insurance or have struggled with the cost of offering insurance. It provides them another avenue and another solution for them. In fact, over 70 of Small Businesses in this country already offer insurance and three quarters of them work with a broker or agent today. So what the healthcare. Gov or the Shop Exchange offers is another pathway for small employers to offer Health Insurance to their employees. Michael, do you believe that more Small Businesses will start offering insurance . If this is just another path, right, is it going to be cheaper. What incentive will Small Businesses have to offer insurance now that they didnt have three weeks ago. Jj, were seeing something very different. If we step back for a second, Small Business owners are finding that Group Insurance in general really isnt working, truthfully. Theyre seeing increase rates significant year after year after year on their group Health Insurance plan of 5, 10, 20 , and they want off that treadmill. Theyre spending more on Health Insurance than they are on rent. This is not a benefits problem, its a business problem. And the issue is that the Shop Exchanges by themselves are not a panacea. Theyre just not. Theyre having theyre struggling getting off the ground. Theyre having a hard time attracting a significant amount of Insurance Companies to it. So the plan offerings are more limited. And the subsidies available are also modest. Fortunately, though, jj, the Affordable Care act has provided a clear alternative for Small Business owners to continue to provide Health Insurance to their employees in a different way. And what were finding is that Small Business owners are increasingly migrating away from Group Insurance and to an individual Health Insurance solution thats packaged as a benefits program for their employees. By doing that, they access the more significant subsidies that are on the individual Health Insurance market place, which also opens on 11 15, that on average is providing subsidies of 75 or more. In the people, the Shop Exchange is another thing to look at. As you are evaluating what is the best option for your company, as of november 15th, should the website come off without a hitch . And we shall see. Here is another, at least, computerized, on a website, way that you can look to see about providing insurance. Thank you both so much for coming through and sorting this all out for us. We really appreciate it. When we come back, we have the answers to help you run your Small Business. Well discuss when its time to walk away from a potential investor and approaches to take when managing millennial employees. This business meansiness, so everything in thathe community. Its how i care for my family. What you spend in the Community Stays in the community. Were all independent folks. But, you know, one store on a block cant make it without other stores. You cant swim alone. I think if we are going to challenge the big guys or anybody out there, we have to make sure that we make it better than anybody. When i knew i have it, basically, i will go into my fridge and eat it every day. And i said, man, this is a good product, then im done. Its time now to answer some of your business questions. Lets get our board of directors in here to help us out. Jennifer shaheen is the president of the Technology Therapy group, a group focused on digital marketing, and Michael Goldberg is a visiting assistant professor of design and innovation at Case Western University in cleveland. Thanks so much for being here. So great to see you guys. Thank you, jj. Great to be here. Lets get to the first question. It is all about the search for capital. As entrepreneurs, were constantly on the hunt for funding. But, what is the best way to identify or the best time to walk away from an investment . Michael, i think thats a really interesting question, right . Oftentimes, when youre looking for funding, youre so desperate, you know, people think they should just take anything. That is not the thats not the case. Absolutely, jj. Its a great question. And i think the first question that an entrepreneur needs to ask is, do you want to bootstrap it, and basically try to grow the business a little bit more slowly through the revenue of the company, and maybe not take money from an outside investor, so thats the first question you ask, do you take it or not . I think for the person that ask the question, theres the presumption that theyre probably looking for money. He may want to grow more quickly. And building that deep network, starting with friends and family first, because those are more accessible people, and then branching out, who else is in your network. I think you also need to be looking for money before you need it. That process takes weeks, months, if not years to raise capital. It takes a lot of coffee meetings, a lot of lunches, and building those networks to find that right capital source for the entrepreneur. Someone yesterday said to me, you know, you should ask for advice if you want money and ask for money if you want advice. Which i thought was really funny, but actually, it seemed deadon. I spoke to a woman who was looking for funding and she spoke to a few Angel Investors who were offering her the capital and she turned it down, because she realized, were in this for the long haul together, and we dont share the same values. And actually, thats part of one of my stories. Investments dont always have to be just monetary. They can be partnerships too. And, you know, i did this myself, i actually looked at another firm. They had more tech than we did. We wanted to do a partnership, and i flew out there, checked them out, and i realized that they were talking one day and walking the other. So, you know, you want to make sure youre doing your homework, making sure that if you are investing with someone or youre building a partnership, you want to make sure that they are exactly who they say they are, and not just putting on airs, just to, you know, building that relationship with you. Right. Because in the long run, you will be kicking yourself for that. Lets get to the last question about working with another generation of employees. How do we adapt our workplaces to the growing Millennial Workforce . Michael, i will start with you. You are a professor, you have taught a lot of millennials. Not that i actually understand millennials at all. Although i have my girls as they move into teenagedom, like, theyre going to be my mini millennials. One of the things i see in my students, they want to be engaged and have fun. A number of leading companies are giving their employees opportunities to get involved in the community, carving out time out of the workday to do community service. This isnt just a oneday habitat for humanity or oneday sort of paint a school kind of project. Its actually really substantiative community work. I think for companies that do that, and theres a number of great examples of companies that do that for their employees, millennials included, employees are getting out in the workplace, networking with the business community, building relationships outside of their business relationship, so its actually great for young people in a company to get involved in community work. And actually in the longterm, its a happier place for the business and its good for business. Michael, i totally agree, and love about the way you say, engaged, because i actually talk to my staff all the time. I have predominantly a millennialbased staff, because were a digital agency. So one of the things they love is just the environment itself. Make the environment, so you talked about going out in the community. Also, bringing that community feel inside your company is important. So, making sure that the daytoday feels more like a community. The comments i get from my team are, they love the fact that we have dogs in our office. And i know not everyone can do that, but we have a dogfriendly workforce. Look at making your own rules. Were not corporate america, youre Small Business, you can do totally different things. Even just fun Little Things lightning alike asking what snacks they want in the fridge can make a difference. And one of the things i hear a lot, they really enjoy a relaxed environment. Not having to get dressed up every day if they dont need to. That, i think, is really important. I know, again, not every business can do that, but that does make a big difference for them. And last for me is technology. I find so many businesses forget that this is a generation that likes to say, im running late through text messaging, and they may not make phone calls. So keeping in mind the tech that they like to use and growing and changing with that audience would really make it more friendly for them. All right, great. Jennifer, thank you so much. Michael, so great to see you. Hopefully it will be here in the studio next time. Thanks so much for joining us today. If you want to learn more about todays show, just click on our website, it is openforum. Com yourbusiness. Youll find all of todays segments plus some webexclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. You can also follow us on twitter. Its msnbcyourbiz, and we are on facebook and instagram too. Next week, Small Business saturday is just one day of the year, but in one alabama town, every saturday is about living local. The movement is just growing and the possibilities are endless. We get the tax revenue for each of our villages and since weve kicked this campaign off, weve seen that rise. Well tell you how residents are being encouraged to live, shop, dine, play, and even love small. Until then, im jj ramberg. And remember, we make your business, our business. This business meansiness, so everything in thathe community. Its how i care for my family. What you spend in the Community Stays in the community. Were all independent folks. But, you know, one store on a block cant make it without other stores. You cant swim alone. Welcome to the front lines on the war on isis. This is the syrian town of chobani and this is all that remains of main street. This city has been holding out against an isis onslaught of thousands of militants for the last several weeks and its been paying a heavy price. To understand, you need to know whats happening here. Well have reports from here coming up as we explain the u. S. Led strategy on isis, whats working, whats not in our live report that begins right now. Good evening. Im richard engle. Weve now left choni