Hi there, everyone, im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business. Growing your company has a lot to do with your skills, and those of your employees. But, it has just as much to do with attitude. I recently met the owner of a Security Guard company who showed me that a simple change in her perspective turned her slow growing company into a fastgrowing one. To jessica johnson, who grew up in the bronx, new york, there was no question that when her father died she had to take over Johnson Security bureau. The Security Guard company his parents, and then he, had run for more than 50 years. The bronx had one of the highest unemployment rates for the entire state of new york. And some of the highest unemployment rates across the country. It was incumbent upon me and my brother to make a contribution back to the community that had helped us. Her mission was clear from day one. But her sights, well they werent set very high. At the time the company had 16 guards. And she put together what she thought was an optimistic projection. 5 growth each year for five years. I didnt have the scope right. And i think thats what stops a lot of Small Businesses, or at least keeps a lot of Small Businesses and entrepreneurs where they are, is they dont realize the size of the opportunity thats out there. Its all about perspective. Her perspective was way off. Today, she has 150 employees. And her revenue has increased more than 600 times. A far cry from that 5 . So, what changed . Hes been with the somebody since the early days. He went from a narrow vision to a very large vision. Basically an adviser asked jessica what she would do if money were not an issue. At that point a lot of bells went off. So now since i would say about 2010, weve been working on all cylinders, because we have that realization that its much big irthan we think it is. They started bidding on jobs they didnt think theyd get. Even when we didnt know what we were doing, we were talking like we did, and you know what they say . Fake it until you make it. We faked it for a long time. And then after awhile we werent faking it. Early on when you guys were picking big clients and you hadnt had very many big clients or any before, were you just sitting around a conference table saying oh, my god, what are we doing . No, we didnt have a conference table. We had some we had a card table and some folding chairs. So it wasnt that complicated. But we figured what did we have to lose . The worst they could do was tell us no. It was hard. It was tough. There were a lot of late nights. There was some crying. There was a little laughing. But we stuck to it and we did it. We figured if we could do the service, why not try and go after that business . Soon someone didnt say no and that was the beginning of this nonstop growth. They called us, i believe, it was on a wednesday and said that they wanted us to start the following monday. So we had to hire people, have them trained, have them certified, along with the sitespecific training and have them ready to work for that following monday. Johnson Security Bureau went from 16 employees to 36 employees overnight. They expanded their services, providing both armed and unarmed guards. She went out and got the necessary certifications for Johnson Security, here in new york state as well as other states for us to partner with other security firms. But all these changes meant they had to look hard at the way things were being done internally. Lots of things had to change. I mean, i have a friend who has a saying if you cant change the people, change the people. So there are people that started the trip with us, that are no longer on this ride. Because they didnt have the vision. Were constantly evolving from the employee handbook, policies and procedures, and just coming up with new ideas that will Better Service our client. Jessica and her team are still out there pitching. And when i asked her how big the company could be. She told me this. I think this company can rival some of the Largest Security Companies in the world. You are telling me right now i think this company can be as big as the biggest Security Companies in the world, when you got here you said i think we could have 5 growth. That is a big change in attitude. It is a big change in attitude. But ive seen big things happen, and ive seen big things happen in a small amount of time. So, why not . Why not . As we just saw jessica johnsons company is doing well because she has figured out how to grow it. But growing is not always the right answer. One cincinnati familyrun Jewelry Store is alive and well after 100 years in business, thanks to their decision to do the exact opposite and scale back. Barbara jo foreman, better known as b. J. , says that her customized Jewelry Store is her own creation. Boris litwin jewelers was founded by her grandfather. This cincinnati institution was run by her father and then her brother before foreman took over. It seemed to me that there were enough jewelers out there who did platinum, gold, ruby, sapphire, diamond. I was in the arts, and i wanted something a little different. Foreman gave it a try with her mothers emotional and financial support. No one had expected the business to last after her brothers death. He had pretty much prepared the business to close after he died. He never guessed that i would run it. So, what did foreman do . We changed everything. Foremans daughter liz, who works in the family business, says the timing was right for her mother to introduce rings, pendants, necklaces, and bracelets that people might not find anywhere else. When you think of a brand, no matter what industry, its always evolving and always changing. And this is a great example of a business that has really evolved. To make the turn, foreman followed her heart. She didnt want to follow what she calls the industry standard. I didnt feel like going in to millions and millions and billions of dollars and being on that level. I didnt want to do it. What she did want to do was create a scaleddown, yet more personal operation. We do a lot of custom work. We repair. We restring pearls. We change peoples jewelry so that its wearable. And we sell them jewelry. Foreman knew the way litwins had done business needed to evolve. I wanted to hire people who knew what they were doing or i could train them to do what they wanted to do so that they should do for me and then they would just go do it. And foreman knew how to warm up to better suit her personality and welcome her clients. Something else youll notice about litwins is that its on the second floor. While the decision to move up has deterred foot traffic, customers actively seek out the business now. You could pop in and pop out really quickly, and you could still do that. But most people dont really want to do that when they come here now. They want to they want to sit down. They want to talk. They want to see whats happening. The space is smaller than former litwins locations. But employee Sarah Froelich says the setting is actually more inviting. And customers spend more time looking. This is a business about relationships. Not just about, you know, jewelry. With the move to the second floor, litwins adapted a more web centric marketing strategy. Blog posts, facebook updates and an enewsletter drive customers to check out the selection. Customers that came here decades ago are still coming. And new customers, really, theyre coming because some of them are coming because of the social media and networking, and because of things they see an facebook. Foreman even cut her hours and started taking appointments. Shes only open four days a week. Foreman says she has no plans to grow any further. Even when taking into account lit winss success. Shes scaled down for now and shes liking it. I just wanted to be small and be nimble. I think you have to find your own niche. The big boys are so big, and they have much deep pockets, how can you butt heads with them . Who wants to, even . Every year, Angel Investors deliver billions of dollars to startups nationwide. Some of the most Successful Companies were funded by angels. For example, ford, aol and amazon. Com. Here now with three secrets for winning over angels is david s. Rose the chairman and ceo of gust, which operates a deliberative platform for early stage equity investing and he is a founder of new york angels. Hes also the author of the new book angel investing the gust guide to making money and having fun investing in startups. What more could you want besides making money and having fun at the same time. Thats the goal. Youve been doing this for a long time. You see so many pitches. And theres something about the successful ones that pique your interest that a lot of other ones dont have. Lets get to your tips. Know everything about your business. Isnt this a given . You say a lot of people dont know everything about their business . You would think its a given. But you would also be amazed to see how Many Companies come in and cant answer the simplest questions about their competitors, about their costs, about their margins, about their projections. About their products, about their supply lines, about their employees, about their growth path. You really have to know absolutely everything. Investors are betting on you and your ability to lead this company. And so you cannot possibly be overprepared. And then if you dont know the answer, they lose confidence in you. If you dont know it its all right to say i dont know and ill get back to you. Do that more than once or twice or on issues that are really important like what are your margins and youll be in real trouble. Have a business with goldilocks projected financials . Remember goldilocks and the three bears. The business that you are presenting to angels for funding when you do your projections to show how much revenue youre likely to get over time, if you show too much and youre saying well do 50 million in revenue this year from a standing start, nobodys going to believe you. Right. On the other hand if you do too little and say after ten years of working really hard at this business well do 50,000 a year in revenue. This porridge is too cold. The goldilocks predictions are just right, now that doesnt mean you fake your projections to meet the goldilocks number. It means that the business has to be rational and for a business to be investable by angels it has to be something where there is a significant upside. Okay. And then finally dont reinvent the wheel. I cannot say how important this is. Lots of this stuff has already been done. Absolutely. Everything has been done. There are very few new things under the sun. So if you come in to an Angel Investor with a very strange capital structure or youre looking for weird notes or terms, or youve done strange deals with friends and family, its just going to screw it up. Yand it looks weird. It looks questionable, right, whats the point . There are ways of doing this so dont reinvent the wheel. Use existing standard kind of term sheets and deal structures. Great. Thank you so much for giving us insight. I know a lot of people are looking for money. How do you find good angels . On gust. Com or going to your local angel group. There are hundreds of angel groups in every state in the u. S. And virtually every company in the world. And those are angels who are proactively looking for new businesses like yours. Okay, great. Thanks, david. Great to see you. Thank you. We all depend heavily on the opinion of others when we make our purchases. In todays crowded app store youll need lots of positive reviews in order to give your app the ranking boost it needs. Here now are five things you can do to help stay on top courtesy of entrepreneur magazine. One, use a review pluggen. One popular plugin makes it easy to prompts using to review your app. Two, incentivize users. Reward them if they choose to leave a review. A good way to do this is by providing points or credits. Three, offer exceptional customer service. A good experience is a sure way to get a positive review. Consider integrating help which allows you to communicate directly through your users through a twoway instant messaging window. Four, time the prompt. Wait to ask for a review until after the user has accomplished something within your app. Or has finished with his or her intended task. Asking them to leave a review when the app first loads can often annoy people, and make it less likely that theyll do it. And five, run a contest. Give out prizes to randomly selected users who leave a review. When we come back, well talk more about growing your business, as we answer your questions about expanding from a local company to a national one. Plus, how to deal with posts on social media that could be causing some upset. And our experts decide whether todays elevator pitch for a magnetic pocket to wear while jogging will have a good run. 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. You need to put away your pride. You have to be willing to really put your neck out there at every single turn. I remember after one event where i was speaking at his glamorous fashion show and im like this is great, its a good marketing opportunity. It was on an incredibly rainy disgusting day in the basement of a hotel, four people turned out. But you have to put your pride away because there are bonecrushing, humiliating moments in being an entrepreneur. Time now to answer some of your business questions. Lets get our board of directors in here to help. Les mcewen is the president and ceo of predictable success, an incubation consulting company. He is also author of the new book do lead share your vision, inspire others, achieve the impossible. Jim placing game is host of the Small Business advocate show. He is also author of the new book the age of the customer prepare for the moment of relevant. So great to see both of you guys. Some of my guests whove been here since the very beginning and new books for both of you so congratulations. Okay. Lets get to the questions. The first one is about social media. My question would be how to deal with social media, and the platform that its giving employees and contractors, even consumers, when they go out and they become emotionally upset. Interesting, right . Because you want to empower your employees to talk. But you kind of want to control what they say. So how do you do that . Dont. People can smell it a mile away when you try to artificially jig that stuff. And my view about social media not just in terms of what employees are going to say, but customers, client says, just do good work. It will work itself out in the end. You know, i see so many people chasing down rabbits. Weve got a local coffee shop close to town and the folks that own that spent forever chasing down two bad reviews. And they had Something Like 780 really good, positive reviews. Just do good work. Nobody cares about small stuff like that. But you have to have a policy for your employees, though . Heres what i kind most Business Owners do. They invoke that type of a clause, because they dont want to hear bad news. To me, if i was running a business where an employee went and put something negative online, thats a massive wakeup call. And im the one who has to go and fix something. Not the employee. But thats where you want them to come to you about that. You do not want employees, nonnew yorkable. Employees dont get to put negative things up about the company. The company the way you solve that, you have to make a lot of good deposits in your social media bank so if there is a negative one its overpowered by the good ones. Neither of you guys are saying that you should have a talk with your employees about here are our guidelines. For the way to use social media. Thats what i said. I mean, talk to your employees but your guideline is dont do it, right . Well, thats the first thing. Nonnegotiable. You dont go post things about the company that are negative. Then you have a conversation about what they have to say. If you have something to say about my company, if you have something to say about the product, then lets talk about that inhouse. If youre taking my paycheck, youre on my side. All right. Otherwise i got a job but some things are nonnegotiable. Lets move on to the next question. This one is about expanding your brand reach. Id like to know some more about how to expand our business from a state business to a regional or national business. We really have been in one area, and wed like to grow, and see how we can constructively move in to other areas without overwhelming ourselves. Good question. Well, first you have to understand, you have to determine whether your business is ready to grow or not. Whether your organization is ready to grow or not. Just because you want to grow doesnt mean youre ready to grow. You have to have the capital. You have to have the people. You have to have the right reasons to grow. So lets say youre at that point. Youve said okay were ready for all those reasons. Then you have to decide okay do i want to capitalize that growth . Or do i want someone else to capitalize that growth . Thats where you have the work in the road where you go and you get investors, you borrow money and when you manage all the operations, the other option is franchise. Lets say money is not an issue they want to do it internally how do you start you have to find a good manager somewhere else you find good sales people do you go yourself and move to a different state for instance for a few months and set it up . I like to have two principles. Try as much as possible to use the ripple effect. Just keep pushing your boundaries. And the second thing is make sure that the market is telling you. I peen the market is a clear beast in the capitalistic world that we live in. And when the markets telling you you should open in chicago, open in chicago. What tends to happen with Small Business owners is this. We need something we say, hey, you could work with us, couldnt you . And they say, sure, and we start something up and six months later, seven months later, were trying to knit this thing to the. So working ripples, rather than chess moves. And listen to the market. Is the market telling you to do it . Customers youll never go wrong listening to customers. Thats what he is saying. Think of it almost like youre starting your company again. Lets move to the next one. Its a question about contacting your customers. I do not want to be one of those irritating people sending their news letter out constantly that you see it deleted. How do i distinguish myself from the pack . My sense about news letters is that we moved some years away from being really any util i of getting new customers. I think thats dead. Were spinning against the wind. I like the way anna put it. Just becoming one more of those things where you scroll through your email list delete delete delete. What i believe customers and clients. Building sales, building in cross sales, just keeping in touch. Making sure that because those people have already put their hand up. They like your stuff. And you were talking so much about customers a minute ago. Maybe just ask your customers is this information valuable . Thats exactly right. You have to do that. Of course they tell you by the way they respond to your newsletter. One thing i would like to point out to the young lady there is dont send your news letter to people who didnt ask for it. Youre not allowed to. Thats when you become one of those irritating people. Dont do that. Make sure youre sending it to the people who actually have asked for i and make sure your content is good. Its all about content. I open the news letters that i know. Its still important. Thank you guys so much for all of this advice. Stick around we need you in the elevator in a little bit. If any of you out there have a question for our experts, go to our website, the address is openforum. Com yourbusiness. And once you get there, hit the ask the show link. You can submit a question right there. Or if youd rather, just send us an email. The address is yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Do you have sensitive material youre sending digitally that you want to keep private. If you want complete control, check out our website of the week. Ditchtrucks. Com is an Online Platform that lets you set selfdestruct timers. They can be on any item you want to share. Upload files. Recipients are not able to print, save or even screen capture them. If the file is forwarded you can control if any other people can view it. The site also tracks how many times your file is viewed and by whom. Millions of online websites and mobile apps promise you to be efficient with your time and money. Which ones are actually helpful. We ask some of our Small Business viewers which online tools theyre using to help them stay ahead of the pact. One of my favorite online tools i love to use is zero which is an online accounting tool that managing your incoming and outgoing expend didntexpend didnt. Reporter expenditures. Its great for Small Businesses when theyre just starting out and dont have a lot of funds for accounting services. We use a free app called cloud app. Send attachments to our client and make it easy within an email to access that content without using an attachment. One of the apps i use all the time is called text expander. It allows you to type a few characters and expands it to something larger. So, instead of typing my phone number i type hph and it types my phone number. Instead of typing the whole email response i type a few letters, and it pops out my whole email and goes right out. The app for me that runs my life is ever note. It allows me as i start to get ideas that get into my head. I have all my notebooks organized by how i organize my life. As i have ideas, i can just get them out of my head and directly into an application so i dont have to try to remember everything in my head. Then i can come back and find them because its organized. My recommendation for a free or cheap website app is use rescue time. The basic version is free or the upgraded version is a little bit more. Rescue time is fantastic to help you figure out what your most productive hours are and what your biggest time wasters are. That way you use your most productive hours to get the most important things done. Everything that is not critical to your business or your Core Competencies you can outsource or push on to someone elses plate. The app or website we use is called time trade. I was struggling with emailing people to schedule phone calls and emails together. Wed spend half the time just trying to connect on a time. Using time afraid it synchs with my calendar. They can go ahead and schedule the meeting right away. My favorite app right now is workflowy. I use it every day. Its an amazing app. It just simplifies your thinking and it eliminates the distractions by helping you creating a list that you can move around easily. The other day i went on a long run and i had no place to put my keys and my i. D. If only i had seen this elevator pitch before then. The product solves a problem but does it solve it well . And will that make a Good Business . Lets see what our panel thinks. Hi, im brenda. Im earl her husband and business partner. Im a marathon runner who was desperate for pockets in my running wear to keep my things so i wouldnt have to wear a fanny pack around my waist. The roo sport has two strong magnets. It allows me to carry my cell phone, energy gels, et cetera. It wont bounce or chafe when you wear it. Its very comfortable to wear. You can also use it for hiking, biking, running, walking or shopping. We have found a market in the travel industry as it discretely carries a passport. The running apparel industry is a billion dollar a year industry. Weve been reaching the running world by attending marathon expos around the world the past two years, such as the Boston Marathon or marine corps. At that time we sold 50,000 units and at that time were looking for, as well, we gathered 20,000 emails. Wed like to find 250,000 to help us go into Retail Stores as well as develop a new line of colored pockets and you can reach us at roosport. Com. All right, guys. Congratulations on your success so far. Thank you. Ill hand these to each of you. Scale of one to ten, how well do you think they did on their pitch. You know, i, when i saw it, great product. I didnt think of it for your passport, great idea. Very popular. Okay, lets see what these guys think of the business. Les, lets start with you. I gave it a european seven. A seven, okay. One thing they did well and one thing they could work on. One thing they did well is they really explained the product very, very well. The thing they could work on. I think they should pitch to someone who is much more their target demographic. I think the product is a great idea. I would like to see it more tactile. Tactile. It felt just a little flimsy. I would like to feel a little bit more solidity. I gave it 8. 5. Our first 0. 5 on the show. I like the fact that its what youre passionate about. Its what you like. You guys use this stuff. People are attracted to that. Im concerned about the money. If youre going to do what you want to do, youll be under capitalized for 250,000. If you go after money, go smaller and grow your way into it or go bigger because anybody who is going to give that you money is probably if they know what theyre doing, theyll be concerned that youre undercapitalized. Dont give your company away for 250,000. You think they should be asking for more. More if theyre going after investors especially. Absolutely. Thats the biggest thing i saw. But otherwise, i liked it. Fantastic. Congratulations on all of your success. Again, i wish i had it last week and good luck with everything you guys are doing in the future. Thank you, guys, for everything today. Really appreciate it. To learn more about todays show, just click on our website, openforum. Com yourbusiness. Youll find all of todays segments plus web exclusive content to help your business grow. You can also follow us on twitter msnbc. Com yourbusiness. We are on facebook and instagram as well. Coming up next week, we take you to the community of stewart, florida. The city has not one, but two main streets. We want to bring everyone into our area. Because its the city of stewart. I dont think were at the point yet where were saying its too much of anything. Well tell you why no one is giving up on the double main street concept, even though one has been a lot more successful than the other. This is all part of our continuing series, main street usa. Until then, im jj 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. Breaking news in paris. A new search for clues at the site where one of two deadly sieges ended in frances deadliest terror attack in decades. This morning, new information about what led to the decision to launch simultaneous attacks. Plus, more details about the weapons used in those attacks. How did the suspects get their hands on them in a country known for strict gun laws . Also the tributes in paris and beyond to remember the 17 lives lost in those attacks. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to a special edition of weekends with alex witt. The shooting rampage that had terrorized the french capital