Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20150214

Msnbc. Hi there, everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business. It is every entrepreneurs dream, business is doing so well that theres a need to expand in order to meet demand. But scaling is easier said than done. One orthodontist in arkansas found a way to consolidate overhead, plan for growth and keep his patients smiling. Orthodontist ben buress set up his first practice in arkansas, straight out of dental school. Soon several locations followed and arkansas dentistry was born. But as the company grew so did the problems. In a traditional business you have a single location with everything you need in that one location. Then you start to grow and have multiple locations but all you do ve pete your model. We were victims of unsuccess, so everything was getting out of control. They were expanding quickly but didnt build a strong backbone. At the rate they were going, dr. Buress knew the business could implode. So he brought in a ceo to help him thoughtfully scale his practice. When matt wilkins, the new ceo, dove into the details, he was shocked at the inefficiencies. When you come into a service industry, to me you should only have professionals doing what only they should do. Meaning do everything you can to get them at capacity at the work they have to provide. Matt took over the business side so that doctor buress can do what he does best tend to patients. The first thing matt changed was the internal structure. He created a centralized call center so the individual offices would not be bothered with most daily issues like billing and scheduling appointments. What that does is frees up people who are in the clinic seeing patients that day. So when you have patients right in front of you, youre not trying to handle administrative issues of other patients. We are able to focus more on what we do day to day, rubber hits the road patient care in Service Rather than clerical things. Open wide again. And matt centralized inventory from back epts to promotional prizes. Anything the office could need is now kept in one main storage facility. It is much easier for us to monitor the supply consumption when we do it centrally. This way we are able to make sure everyone uses the same consistent supplies so if we move staff or teams around they have the same supplies that they are used to using. Were also able to negotiate Better Vendor deals by concentrating our purchasing. When matt looked into the detail of patient visits, he also found a lot of insufficiency. Turns out each office didnt have the demand to be open every single day. So arkansas braces developed teams to work in multiple offices on different days. In arkansas we are very rural, and its not always ease to get east to west, north to south, to get some of these areas, so we have a couple small planes that we utilize. Once matt understood the business, he set a standard that could apply to every branch. One thing we figured out is its very tough to run a business and scale a business when you have differing expectations on teams. So if i expect this team to see 180 patients a day and im only expecting another team to see 40, it becomes very difficult to manage those. Arkansas dentistry and braces constantly monitors data like how many patients are seen in an hour and how long a patients full treatment plan takes. If we are not seeing enough patients to fill up one day, wont open more than one day. If we are seeing more than one days capacity well open up an additional day. They have checks and balances, though and the ultimate check is dr. Buress himself. One thing we like to do is make sure that ben gets involved in the clinics from day one. If he starts them off, that helps us cultivate the level of expectation we have for our staff and doctors. And then once we do that it becomes much easier for us through our Management Systems to show them those Clinical Results to make sure that were still providing that great care long after hes gone. Having an owners eyes on that, you cant substitute for that. Though he helps in the beginning, the systems meant to work without always having dr. Buress at the helm. It is very difficult to scale without you. So we try to make it about systems and not the open toer. Despite the inefficiencies, theres one thing that hasnt changed about the company. At the core of the growing umpire is an unwavering dedication to never forgetting theres a patient sitting in the chair no matter where that may be. Generally we tell people, first things first. Take care of somebody the way you take care of your own child. If you focus on that then your practice will grow enough to one day be multiple offices. If they dont take care of the first thing and lose track and start thinking i want to grow this practice without doing first things first, theyll never get it. Every business would love to see the growth that dr. Buress practice has experienced, but to do that you have to know how to properly price your product or service. Make things too expensive, youll lose customers. Make them too cheap, youll lose money. As we found out from the owner of an indianapolis hardware store, you have to know your customers. Think about their needs and understand the competition. Everybody in the industry always talks about service, service, service. But really the underlying theme for most consumers is really pricing. No matter what anyone says he believes you must always compete on price. The pricing is not there, people are going to say, i like the store and what you have but they will quietly go down the street where they know theres a better price. The owner of this store in indianapolis says understanding your prices is a reality of doing business. People are watching dollars. Because 5 saved here 15 saved here, 20 that adds up. With so many clients doing their research keith and his staff have made it their mission to get the best prices for popular items like paint and hammers. The goal is to keep its pricing competitive. We are not trying to be the cheapest and im not trying to be the most expensive, but we want to have fair pricing thats relative to the industry. What keith has learned is that pricing is more fluid than people may think. Things are erratic. Because pricing fluctuates daily, weekly. And thats why keith knows where his supply is coming from and why. We have fortunately been tied in with very good distributors that have been helpful. Before we started, which has helped set the foundation for us to be competitive on pricing. He even does Comparison Shopping of his own. If youre buying at a higher threshhold, you cant compete. Theres a fluxuation. We may actually call a distributor, wait a minute we see such and such is selling this here so thats how we kind of are able to keep things in check. Unlike big box locations or Hardware Stores affiliated with larger brands keith can exercise some independence in his buying. That freedom always means theres room for negotiation. We can say, hey, you know can you look at this and see if maybe we increase our quantity of what were ordering for this specific person, can we get a better price on it . Being small presents keith with a unique challenge. He cant stock his shelves with too much stuff. He must know what products could be a waste of time and money. We have found the mainstream of what people tend to buy the most. And that mainstream is where we have put the most concentration on being the most competitive. Even after products hit the shelves, keith says he still has to be flexible. His Pricing Strategy isnt perfect. Sometimes shoppers say the prices are too good to be true. They have come and said do you know that such and such is charging 2 more for this . You might want to look at this price. Other times clients are weary to make a purchase. Customers have said hey, your caulk is a little high here. So well look at what competitors are doing. And if we have the room well bring it down just a little bit. The key for north meridian is to know who locally is charging what for certain items. Long before opening its doors, the stores competitors were under the microscope. We studying within a three to five mile geographic area. Some other Small Retail Stores other big boxes. And that trend continues today. Staffers will even walk through their competitors doors to check out the you remember in. Hes just happy customers are taking notice and spreading the word. When i have my shirt on people ask i have seen that store, thats a very cool store. You guys have good pricing. And keith knows the only way to keep those clients coming in is to keep doing what hes doing. Stay competitive. I think people on average will look at that price difference and then judge for themselves time value, and then convenience. Thats where they make an internal decision. These are all quiet things people dont really talk about. Tracking inventory can be a daunting task. And if youre looking for an join line tool to help you and your team do just that check out the website of the week. Skywareinventory skywareinventory. Com is a free webbased inventory tool. It has tickets for inbound and outbound items, stays on top of transfers from moving them between store areas and has a way to track lost and stored goods as well. With things constantly changing, theres an increasing pressure on entrepreneurs to keep up. Here are five great sites dedicated to Online Learning to help you stay ahead courtesy of allbusiness. Com. One, hubspot academy. Geared toward helping professionals reach their marketing goals, the site offered certification, which can be a helpful resume builder. Two, takelessons. Through this site youre connected with a nearby teacher offering short lessons on a variety of subjects from Foreign Languages to how to use powerpoint. You can meet in a public location or take classes via web cam. Three, lynda. Com. For a monthly fee you have access to more than 5,000 Video Tutorials on Software Training and businessoriented classes. Four monkey see, which has more than 11,000 professionally produced videos featuring various topics. And five duolingo. Choose from 18 different languages to learn. The site also provides quizzes to test your knowledge and mobile apps to practice on the go. The National Womens Business Council has issued a new report that says on average women received only 2 of total funding from outside equity. Its interesting because i also report that women are starting businesses at extraordinary rates saying that more than one in four u. S. Companies has owned or led by women and among the most successful firms, men started their businesses with six times as much capital as women did. So why the disparity . Whats happening . Ann shebunko moore is the owner of gmc dynamics and a Council Member of the Womens National council. They make policy recommendations to the white house, congress and the fbi on Economic Issues of importance to Women Business owners. So great to see you. Im so interested in this topic. And in part because i do think that there was a time when a woman would go into adventure capitalist, for instance and just see female and be less interested. From my experience and talking to people who i talk to theres less of that now, right . I agree. You have seen these fastgrowing femalerun companies, you were an investor you were a part of these. Absolutely. But something is going on because if you look at the statistics, women arent getting as much money. So what is happening . Well, i think, absolutely. There are distintive differences, but the important thing to note also about these differences is we are bridging that gap. And i think as more and more women are educated about Financial Literacy they are more adapt to being able to walk into a bank or Angel Investor and talk the proper talk. You know this is my business plan, this is my Revenue Growth that im predicting. This is who im going to hire. This is my product. I think as more and more women, again, are more literate to the financial clock, they will be more respected and hopefully can bridge that gap. Okay, so im a woman. I just spoke to a good friend of mine who sold her Company Recently with her husband, and she said that in those meetings the opposition meetings she was invisible. And i dont know i wasnt there and dont know her in business i dont know if there was a bias against her or because of some of the way she was carrying herself. But for a woman who hears stories like that what do we need to know in order to make sure that doesnt happen to us . Well, some of it is mentoring, exactly what youre doing here with me. We need to mentor some of these young ladies obviously, with more and more young ladies going to stem and the higher level, higher pay rate industry focuses, i think we do have to take on a mentoring role. And teach women about body language and how you handle yourself and prep before a meeting. Where am i going to be sitting, where is the ceo and the Angel Investor going to be sitting . Get familiar with your surroundings when you go in to maximize the effect that you have when youre in there. Its interesting, its all the Little Things right . Again, as we start the conversation, its not always necessarily as a woman im not going to pay attention, but the tiny things we need to think about. Exactly. Well, im very encouraged by your optimism. Thank you. In the study we have to keep plugging. We have to keep plugging and as more women become successful they are the adventure capitalists so the rate of womens success in companies is extraordinary. So to me its a common sense thing if women are showing such great Revenue Growth with the companies with less funding, then they are the ones we should put our money on. And hopefully with greater capital comes a greater revenue and workforce and hire more people and economic impact. So to me its a very common sense thing if you look at the numbers. Well, thank you so much for sharing inside on this report. I think as you can imagine its an infinity interesting topic to me. It is. Thank you very much. When we come back advice on wholesale distributors and the frozen cons of virtual assistance. And todays elevator pitcher wants to soothe our analysts aches and pains with her selfless hodge ball. 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. This week yourbizselfie comes from onsip Cloud Communication Service based in new york city. They have a bunch of their team there, look at the monitor, more than the two people in front. Thank you for sending that. If you want to see your selfie on the show, send a selfie of you and your business and add the yourbizselfie. Tweet it to us or send it to atyourbusiness. Com and tell us the name of your city and the name of your company. Todays elevator pitcher was sitting in a massage chair getting a pedicure and thought only if she could create a tool to recreate the benefits of the chair. Well, she did and lets see what our panel thinks of her idea. Joining us today the founder and ceo of britton hotels larry britton, and business strategist chris brogan. Hi, gentlemen. Did you know that today sitting is as bad as smoking according to the mayor clinic and harvard, but the average american is sitting ten hours a day plus hunched over tech devices. I created the body works ball in an encounter to help go against sitting. Its a selfmassage tool used to counter the illeffects of tech neck, which is now a medical syndrome, and we are looking for 250,000 for a threeyear return of 30 . Well be using the 250,000 for immediate branding packaging, custom point of sale displays as well as to automate our technology so we can handle larger volume. And to use the product, you would simply put it where you need to it is selfdirecting, you move the product around its also good to use on the bottom of your feet. Weve been using it its the only product to be used by two super bowl mvps, an nba mvp, combat medics in afghanistan as well as the Wounded Warriors. Were looking to also set up a fund so from every sale a percentage goes to the Wounded Warriors as well as for cancer research. Congratulations. Im going to give you two these. On a scale of 1 to 10 lets hear what you thought of the pitch while i try to i need Something Like this, right . I am not alone. I spend too much time sitting, so you leap up against the chair a wall. A wall. It wont damage a wall. Because my athletes think fivestar hotels cant have the walls damaged, but fortune 500 companies, for every hour they take to renew with it they are more productive. 100 made in the usa. A first of eight products ive designed in the line. Larry, one to ten. Ill give an eight. Why, what was missing . Well, i like the idea that you said that what youre going to be doing with the 250,000. We need to know that as investors, but i would like to think what is the market possibility of this and what is your sales. You have purchase orders on this already, thats becoming the value of the company. Right, thank you. Chris . Im in the same game and say eight. One of the reasons was when i heard some of the requests i was thinking it shouldnt cost that much to do some of that so i wanted to better know where the breakdown was because, for instance, selling in Marketing Online as well is less money, you can do that for 10,000. So my guess is its in the retail part but i think the product itself is at the right time and right place and youre hitting the market just right. So i think its still a really good opportunity. I left out one component is that part of it is going to the prototype two and three. Thats the bigger cost that we have immediately. So well, good luck getting the money. Thank you so much for coming on the program sharing your idea. Good luck with everything. Thank you for your help guys. And if any of you out there have a product or service and you want to have feedback from the elevator pitch panel and your chance of getting interested investors, send us an email as we do this all the time on the show. Yourbusiness msnbc. Com. In that email dont forget to include a short summary of what your company does how much money youre trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. You never know somebody out there watching the show may be interested in helping you. Its time now to answer some of your business questions. Chris and larry are back with us to help us out. The first one is from richard and he writes my company is based on providing all colors all sizes and styles of under garments from the basic size 1 white grandmothers briefs to size 20 things. I need to find wholesale distributors. I have an agreement with hanes but it is not exclusive, i need help all right, where does he start, chris . Wow, distributing underwear. You know its going to require getting types of Retail Prices unless hes got something a little more niche. And that means spending a lot of time getting to know the people. Now, he can use channels like social channels to find who are the buyers and sellers on that but its a question of who do you know whom and really finding those kinds of people. And from there, i mean it sounds like theres a little bit of an education gap that needs to be done how does this get done normally and find a way to make it a better deal. If hes coming in that fresh and clean, theres going to be a little bit of growth to catch up to be the kind of distributor that a big time person is going to be. So hes going to have to understood that. What do you think . I cant get my brain around this thing its so big. I so believe in getting rich on an itch. For me i have never heard that i love that. Narrow this down. But if youre looking for wholesale distributors, for crying out loud, theres a thing called google. You can find who are the wholesale distributors are from underwear garments. But there are websites for wholesalers out there. And its about building a relationship that chris was eluding to earlier. And just narrowing this thing down. Build a relationship with the people that get you into the retailers. It would be hard to do by yourself, but its about contacting diamond for dollars. Started with linkedn, theres a good way to start with no connections. Absolutely. Well move on to the next question about expanding to a new location. Im really curious about opening a Second Office in a second city. And im wondering when is a good time, what factors are involved when you know that youre ready . I love this question. We have a couple stories on it too, about how do you, do you do it somewhere close to go there every day, do it far away how to have the checks and balances . Well, we do this in the business im in. There is no perfect time for this because its very difficult to just expect it because i have profits in the first store, that means my second store is going to be profitable. The truth is you have to be the right people operating the second location. Im a big believer going to the hub and spoke system when it comes to expanding. If you start your first store in new york, i wouldnt be opening my second store in chicago. You have a big enough Consumer Base right here to try to do it where you can actually be involved as a Business Owner in the daytoday operations. Until you have your systems in place at your first store where it is easily replicated and predictable predictable, dont go out to do a second store. I have seen too Many Organizations grow themselves to death because they have not had the systems in place. I love that you have to codify everything you need your handbook like youre a franchise. Thats where i was going. Its a franchise mindset. If you cant put it in a blue bookbinder kind of thing, train the magic into another location then you dont really have a second store. You have a nightmare waiting to happen. Theres a lot of stories of people saying we just had this thing really nailed down and they couldnt replicate it because they didnt have andre or some human that was the magic, not the process. And also if you have the person, i mean youre saying andre, right . So is there someone from your first store to move to the second place, or is it run by itself so well you can move to the second place . Theres got to be something to build the culture that you can create next door. Lets move on to the next question about virtual assistance. Im looking for more help to help list inventory, help with bookkeeping, social media marketing. Can you tell me how i can best use Virtual Assistant tools like odesk, et cetera, to help me achieve those goals . Im a big fan of these kind of sites, like mechanical terk et cetera. How should she start and which ones to go to . Its interesting because this applies to the last question. If you have enough process and procedure down, you can work with a Virtual Assistant from any space. If you dont and youre looking for them to add in expertise, thats where you start to get sketchier and may need an odesk, what youre looking for then is some sense of who else can validate that this person has done what they say they have done. Thats the only problem with these systems, whatever you type is what you say youve done. You need a few more reference points to that. You dont have to go to linkedn but you need a person to validate. The question is, what do you need . Right . If you need some i needed some research, very easy Research Done but it was a lot of it and needed it done quickly, then go to Something Like that right . It wasnt highly skilled what i need, i just needed manpower. But if you want someone who is truly your Virtual Assistant who is working with you all the time and you can really trust, how do you find someone like that . It is very difficult. Ill be honest with you, i have used Virtual Assistants, some degree of success, most are difficult to work with. First you have to make sure you have the system down and really understood what it is youre looking for. A Virtual Assistant is great at marketing but may not be good at doing the research side. So understand what it is you need. On the front end of this thing, do a video call video interview with them. I dont care whether they are in pittsburgh or in the philippines, do a video interview with them. And start to do a projectbased work first, something thats shortterm. Do you work with them do they take direction well and how quickly did they turn things around . Like managing anybody, set the expectations up front. Youre managing its on you as much as it is on them. And you have to date them before you take them home to mom. Right, to your point of doing a project first and checking it out. Thank you, guys very much. This was great insight, incredibly helpful for all of us out there. And if any of you out there have a question for our experts, go to our website. The address is openforum. Com yourbusiness. Once you get there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. Or if its easier for you, just send us an email the address is yourbusiness msnbc. Com. We like to keep an eye on twitter to see whats trending about small business. And here are some of the latest tweets. Business and sales expert Harvey Mackay writes, nothing motivates a team like trust placed in them by management to solve a problem. Small business influencer Carrie Wilkerson Tweets Companies that are effective online are listening and responding quickly. And frequent your business guests, scott belsky has inspiration, shaking things up keeps things going. Always surprised by the way apparent losses become opportunities. How ups are born from downs. To learn more about todays show, head over to our website, its openforum. Com yourbusiness. Youll find all of todaysing is segments plus a lot more information to help your business grow. And you can follow us on twitter, msnbcyourbiz. We are on facebook as well as instagram. Coming up next week the owner of a local Printing Company who encourages his smaller customers to save money on things like business cards and brochures. I dont buy so many. You dont need that many somethings going to change youre going to throw half of them away its silly to buy that many. Lets figure out a way to make it easy to buy just a few. Well tell you how his clients get to keep some cash on hand and why this strategy has helped him save his own business. Until then im jj ramberg. And 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. Rachel has the night off. And some big news on the west coast in the state of oregon. Something weve been watching for and something the oregon press has been waiting for. John hits baber announcing just hours ago we will resign from Office Effective next wednesday. Kitzhaber didnt make this announcement on camera. In fact, he made no public appearances at all today. His office instead putting out a written statement as well as audiophile of the governor reading that statement aloud