business" on msnbc. hi, everyone. i'm jj ramberg and welcome to a special small business saturday version of "your business" here in golden, colorado. six years ago small business saturday, that day in between black friday and cyber monday, got its start. since then communities across the country have banded together to get people to shop local as they kick off the holiday season. here in golden, colorado, nestled at the foot of the rocky mountains and just 15 miles from denver is a community steeped in history and entrepreneurship. from the gold prospectors in the 1850s to the coors brewery which got its start about 150 years ago, we talked to small business owners here on main street to find out what they're doing to get people to shop local. and what the biggest business in town, the coors brewery, is doing to boost traffic on main street. ♪ >> with a large western style sign welcoming visitors with the words, howdy folks, golden, colorado, is a beautiful historic town that's serious about doing the shop local thing right. >> i knew this would be the place to start a business. >> our businesses weren't built by us. they were built by the community. >> main street in golden is dotted by the kinds of businesses you'd expect in this small town. specialty shops, cafes, a hardware store. but it also has something historic and not small at all. the coors brewery. we chatted about the role the company plays. on the way up here we passed a coors bus coming from town. why was it in town? >> we feel really strongly about partnering with the communities where we work and brew beer. we have a strong partnership with golden getting our visitors to see if they can go into town after their tour for lunch, for dinner, to go shopping, to see great museums we have here in golden. >> that's right. this big company does a lot to help all of the small companies right down the street. the small businesses that give golden its hometown feel. tell me about the golden ticket at the end of the tour. >> yes. our tour bus drivers will hand every visitor a golden ticket where the visitor can take that into a business and they can scratch off to win either percentage off of their purchase in a business in downtown golden or they can win up to $500. >> coors does more than send visitors down the block. they also do what they can to directly support the local businesses. ryan hutchison opened one of the small craft breweries in town. the cannon ball brewing company. >> there's really no competition from us for coors. they've been nothing but supportive as well. we've purchased ingredients from them. their employees have come here and had beers after work. it's been a great relationship. >> but there is much more to the local support than the dependence on this company. the people and business owners of golden are focused on making sure to create a community people want to support. kelly is an optometrist. what is it about this community and this place that makes everyone want to shop local and support the local businesses on this street? >> people love it here. they become very fiercely devoted to the town and they support the schools, they support the businesses. because they know if we don't have a vital business community, then that's going to hurt. and we don't want to lose this special place that we have here. >> part of what makes this place so special has nothing to do with the town itself. >> you've got all the incredible things that go on with the outdoors here as far as gateway to the rocky mountains, the foothills are here, kayaking, mountain biking. >> but all of those natural elements contribute to making people so fiercely engaged in ensuring golden retains its small town feeling. deann weber fell so in love with golden she decided to rent a space in the center of town eight years ago to open a coffee shop called the windy saddle cafe. >> if you go to any small shop on the main street, you'll see the owner in the shop. which is fabulous. if you need to speak to the owner, nine chances out of ten they're going to be there. it's unique like that. we stay here, live here, work here. >> steve schaffer is one of those who lived and worked in golden for his entire life. as the third generation owner of this hardware store, they distinguished themselves of having everything and then some. >> canning equipment, lawn and garden, power equipment. >> and even though golden has several big box stores, steve says when a customer can't find what they're looking for, the large stores often refer the customers back to meyer hardware in golden. >> probably not a day that goes by that we don't have a recommendation from home depot or one of the big boxes. >> as small business saturday approaches, the owners on main street are working together to use the day as an opportunity to further the community's engagement with the local businesses. >> small business saturday is a huge deal. we have that morning the elf run. which is 5k through town. we all have the opportunity to give out products and samples and coupons. a lot of people will do the race and then have breakfast in town. >> in addition to the 5k run, david livingston's vital outdoors will be one of the retailers participating in a scavenger hunt. >> people come to downtown, it's a fun thing for the whole family to come in and look for the elf. >> opened one of golden's newest retail shops. with her store located off the main street, she's not worried about customers finding her on small business saturday. she's witnessed first hand the spirit of cooperation that seems to be the hallmark of this tight knit community. >> i had other store owners coming down saying if you have any posters or rap cards or anything like that you would like us to share with ou customers, we'd be happy to do that. i mean, it's just amazing how supportive the businesses are of each other in golden. it's really a great community. fargo, north dakota, is always open for business. that's what small business owners in the state's largest city wants you to know. they decided that the local custom of closing down on sundays just wasn't good for the bottom line. so a group of retailers is now committed to staying open seven days a week to encourage locals and visitors to shop local. to open or not to open. >> a lot of sundays we will do more sales per hour than we would on a regular weekday. >> it's a question a lot of small business owners in fargo, north dakota, are trying to answer as their community becomes more of a destination should they be open for business on sundays? >> as we see the traffic increase, we've increased our hours with it. we just haven't hit that sunday part yet for us. >> josie and kerry are two of the retailers downtown. josie and her team have been opened on fridays. >> sunday is a day for family and friends to get together. sometimes that's the only day people can go out and do their shopg. if we're not open on sundays, where do they have to go other than the mall or the big box stores or our competition? >> just a few doors down, kerry's hours are a little different. she's decided to stick to her monday through saturday schedule. >> when you're in a business that revolves around weekends sometimes, you realize how much the rest of the world revolves around a monday through friday schedule with social life on saturday and sunday. we still wanted a little bit of that normalcy. >> the split between business owners like josie and kerry has helped bring the open sundays campaign to life. >> we just really tried to put together a strong campaign. it's simple. >> the downtown community partnership spearheads the effort to encourage owners and customers alike to shop on sundays. >> we're supporting it with stickers and social media. we're getting involved as far as seeing what to do for sunday events and just advocating them and working in partnership with them to see what we can do to build the sunday hours. >> mike hahn is the president. while saturdays are known for heavy foot traffic and specific events, sundays are quieter. that's why mike believes there's plenty of room for improvement. >> people coming into the community, they want to have more unique shops and places to go on a sunday. we've had about 30-plus stores that have looked at, okay, let's try this. we're at about 30% to 40% open downtown. >> it isn't only targeting residents. it's aimed at tourists as well. so many visitors now consider fargo a regional destination. >> this is an opportunity i think on sundays to capture some of that market share. a good majority of those are coming from manitoba north of the border in canada. they're here sundays. there's more monday holidays in canada. >> tom smith who owns the great northern bike company says he has no regrets about opening up on sundays. >> sundays are oftentimes our busiest days hour-by-hour. >> his wish is his visitors would look at the bigger picture when they stay closed. >> it's important for all the businesses in the downtown community to consider the impact of choosing to be open or not be open on sunday has on the rest of the area. >> she still is surprised that sunday hours aren't more common. >> i get there are road blocks to being open on sundays especially for a small business, but that's sort of what business is. and if you want to own a business, you have to make some of those sacrifices. working every day or finding people to work. you just have to trust that it'll pay off. >> fargo has a unique challenge when it comes to hiring staff to fill those weekend shifts. the city has low unemployment which means some positions actually sit empty. >> we have a tight labor market in the state of north dakota and the fargo region. so it's hard to find people that would want to work on sundays. that's been a concern as well. >> another challenge for sunday retailers is north dakota's blue law. it prevents businesses from opening until noon on sundays. but it's actually less restrictive now than it's been in years passed. >> for a time it was actually not legal for businesses to be open in north dakota on sundays. >> knowing that old habits die hard, the retailers who do open on sundays say it's better than nothing. they also realize they have to commit to their hours for at least two years to get people used to the idea of shopping on sundays. >> if you are interested, this isn't a short-term buy-in. you have to stay committed over the long-term. as least two years to kind of change those consumer perceptions. >> even kerry admits there's no way she can keep her six-day work schedule forever. >> we know that we're missing a certain sector of business on sundays. and we know that that would help increase our bottom line. we're building up our team to be able to, you know, each of us work our five days wherever they fall during the week. >> she believes she could soon be joining the ranks of the businesses that are open daily. >> about 80% of the businesses understand the need to be open sundays. and we all agree that the more of us that are open, the better it will be. we do want to be open on sundays when we're ready to take that step. dozens of mayors, governors, federal and state officials have been strong proponents of small business saturday and the shop local movement. it goes without saying that the small business administration has been in the forefront of getting the american public to support their community's independent merchants. we're happy to speak to maria contreras about this. great to see you. >> always good to hear your voice, jj. >> it's pretty amazing to watch this take a life of its own over the past six years, small business saturday. why do you think it's gotten so big and really touched a nerve with people? >> there are a couple of things going on. one is i talked to business owners across the country. they express their gratitude about what sba is doing. they're glad we're there to help them start their business, to repair their business, to grow or scale their business. but at the end of the day what they really want is customers. i think communities are embracing that notion to support their local neighbors and also to bring a local flavor to every community. >> have there been any particular towns or small businesses that you think are really doing it right? and if so, what is it that they're doing? >> just yesterday, for example, i was in louisiana in new orleans. and had this beautiful street called magazine. and it's just -- it's about five miles of just small businesses. and on weekends you just see everybody come and the streets are full and brimming with excitement from bakeries to cafes to restaurants to intricate, you know, just items for your home. and it's very exciting to see that taking place. i love what's taking place. last year i spent my time around georgetown and anacostia. it was a similar experience where people are just out supporting local businesses, making a community connection, running into neighbors, and buying unique items they wouldn't find other places. >> you know what i also think? the thing that is most obvious but people don't take the time to think about is you may take that toy store for granted when you need it. if you don't shop there, it's going to be gone. again, it's obvious but i'm not sure everyone makes that connection. >> i'm so delighted that you say that. in my own community, every time i go out to do my walk and walk to the farmers market in the morning, i make an effort to go in and buy a couple of chocolates, to buy some baked goods, to do what i can to support the community. i know that every little sale matters. it's tough for small businesses today. they're competing with globalized companies that are sourcing from all over the world. but the more you shop local, the more you're turning the dollar in your own community and the more you're creating local jobs. but on saturday we want everybody to come out right after thanksgiving on that saturday to come out and shop small and dine small. >> well, we so appreciate you stopping by. and i am with you right there in encouraging everybody to go shop small on small business saturday. it was great to see you. >> jj, if i could just tell you that this saturday i'm going to be out on the west coast at the marvista community. i hope people join me for a cup of green tea at atmosphere cafe or we can go bowling. it'll be a lot of fun. shop small. >> thanks administrator. >> thank you. search engine optimizization may be a strong part of your marketing mix. so here are five seo practices that could help your business. one, claim company profiles. spend some time updating all the places your business appears online. include your current location, your phone number, relevant categories, and any other information that helps customers find you. two, target third party visibility. get on websites like yelp and refer local. they can direct locals to your business. travel sites like trip adviser and orbitz can help you bring in more from tourists and guests. three, capitalize on social media. every time someone likes, shares, or follows a post, you earn viewers. four, improve content quality. stuffing a blog post with key words isn't good enough anymore. offer useful content that will appeal to your local customers. and five, strategize key words. they're extremely important for local seo. but if used poorly, they can hurt your rankings. a few well-placed key words are most helpful in the title tags and met ta descriptions. this special edition of "your business" continues as we ask our viewers what you're doing to get customers to shop local on small business saturday. and get your buzzers ready as our experts duke it out on a special small business saturday biz quiz. this is more than just a town. this is our home. and small business saturday... is more than just a day. it's our day... to shop small at the places we love... with the people we love. for stuff we can't get anywhere else. and food that tastes like home. because the money we spend here... can help keep our town growing. on small business saturday, let's all shop small. for the neighborhood, the town, the home we love. on november 28th, shop small. what we add is value. what we add is entertainment. what we add is personal services, high level of customer service, those kind of added value. we wrap, we provide shipping services. but it's not just the messaging is definitely about buying local. the message is about shopping small every day and what those local dollars really mean to keeping your communities vibrant, to keeping your small businesses in your communities. and so every purchase really contributes to the greater good. >> as we've seen from here in golden, colorado, to fargo, north dakota, communities are coming up with ways to get customers to avoid the big box stores and shop local. the creativity behind so many of these promotions and events is a testament to the power of entrepreneurial ingenuity. small business saturday, started six years ago as a way to draw customers way from big box stores the day after black friday has spawned a movement that transcends the holiday shopping season. it made consumers the importance of shopping at and supporting their locally independently owned business on main street and online year round. the movement has grown to a year long effort by communities motivating local businesses to develop ways to get customers way from malls and on to main streets. in mountain brook, alabama, they created live local saturday, an effort to encourage residents to shop, dine and play locally. the initiative to get customers to shop small on saturdays reinforces the importance of supporting family, friends and neighbors. >> the need has increased due to the amount and greater options for people to shop on the internet, increase in mall traffic, and it really just has become harder to be a local shop. >> when you do have a united front and people are thinking outside the box, and they are looking at ways that they can promote their business and maybe their neighbor's business it will be a great thing for everybody involved. >> washington, d.c., small businesses got together and created an event called art all night by offering entertainment, artwork and demonstrations, they're able to draw residents to the downtown area, which helps increase foot traffic and awareness about merchants shoppers may not have been familiar with. >> it's a great opportunity for a lot of foot traffic, a lot of people in the neighborhood, a lot of people passing by. >> it brings people in the neighborhood, introduces them to our businesses, you know, maybe it's just because they walk by, maybe they don't walk in that night but now that they see there's something here and they'll come back. >> in portland, oregon, a group of owners started a loyalty program called supportland, customers use a card while making a purchase that gives them points they can exchange for rewards. >> the rewards are important as more of like a hook, you know, like a game, it makes it fun, but our customers are not in it for the rewards. they just want an excuse to get out there and support local. >> another effective campaign has been local first arizona. it's a statewide effort to get customers to shift 10% of their shopping dollars from chains to local businesses. the message there is simple. when you spend local, your money stays local, and improves the quality of life for your community. >> what we're saying is let's all be mindful of where our money goes when we spend it, and understand the local business then in turn is going to have a local accountant or graphic designer or web developer and that money stays and recirculates in our local economy and creates additional jobs. >> so whether it's for small business saturday or year round, people are understanding. shopping local is important. >> you should definitely shop local. this is where you want to be, and you want to keep us in business. >> those are some of the ways small businesses are attracting customers for small business saturday. we got more ideas from viewers just like you. >> for small business saturday we do a promotion like buy one get one and on our website we offer some shipping deal because we ship nationwide. >> they are co-hosting a breakfast on that day right down the street so we'll have a sidewalk sale out in front of the business to make sure that people know that we're here and feel welcome coming in and then a certain portion of our profit is going to go to a local charity. >> for small business saturday we'll have more hyperfocus at our retail location our small part of the business. in our retail store we'll do 10% bonuses when people sell their products to us or 10% discounts when they're trading, actually buying in the store. >> we will be participating in small business saturday. we're going to give away free class for all new members, potential members. so one of our promotions we're going to be run something a $39 deal for unlimited classes for a month. >> for small biz saturday we're actually, we worked on our process to the point where we can, even though we're a bulk order company we can support single piece orders that, will be ready for small biz saturday. >> the main street has a series of events and lots of merchants are always participating. what i do is have a santa's sleigh with lots of goodies for the children to choose from, so mom and dad are perusing the gallery, and the children are taking their time. sometimes a long time finding the perfect gift from santa. >> we're doing a free early check-in for guests who mention that, get in their property three hours early. >> it's time now for a special shop local edition of your favorite game show, the "your business" biz quiz. we pit jeffrey haslett against mike mckalowitz. stop boxing and put your hands on the buzzers. are you ready? >> oh, yes. >> absolutely. we were born for this. >> you were a little slow with that answer. see if you can get these. number one, according to a survey of marketing experts by "entrepreneur" magazine, what is the number one thing you should do to attract customers -- mike? >> hold on. siri, what's the answer to finding the most -- can you show the answers again on the screen? >> oh! >> come on! >> no, no way. >> it was b. >> it was b. i'm with you. >> b. >> nope. mike i'm going with your b, enh, wrong. jeffrey? >> i'll go with c. >> c, precisely define your ideal client. you win. >> yes! >> they pop it down. >> i love playing him. >> number two, according to seattle good business network how much more money do small businesses donate to charities and nonprofits than larger enterprises? 10%, 240, had, 50%, 35%? >> i'm going to go with c again. >> c, 50%. >> 50% more. >> no, mike? >> d, 35%. >> no. it's 240%. >> wow. >> that's what i said. >> nice try, nice try. that's why we're not good at math but we're great at marketing. >> i want to see how they calculate the numbers. the next one, according to the small business saturday consumer insight survey, how much money was spent at small business on small business saturday last year? jeff? >> i'm going to go with d, $32 billion. >> no. mike? >> $14 billion, we all know it. >> we all know it, come on, jeffrey, what are you thinking? mike, you have tied it. >> boom, boom! he's back! >> 1-1. this is for the win. according to a survey conducted by small business marketing software company yodel, that's a hint, what is the number one thing local customers want from small businesses over the next 12 months out of the next four, not the number one thing in general, out of the next four. loyalty rewards, lower prices, better quality -- >> i'm going for a big win, loyalty rewards even though it doesn't make sense i think that's what they want, a. >> high risk in this case not high rewards. >> oh! thanks for gaming me like that. >> jeff can you answer this question correctly? >> i'm going to go with lower prices. >> you know i would have guessed that also, but this game is ending, tied 1-1. it was d, website improvements. >> wow. nicely done. nicely done. >> nice job. thank you for taking part in the "your business" biz quiz. thanks everyone so much for joining us today. if you missed anything from today's show, just head on over to our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find everything we have on the show today, plus a lot more to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter, it's @msnbcyourbiz and on facebook and instagram as well. next time we meet a ropemaker whose outlook on innovation has gotten cowboys and rodeo performers from across the country to become loyal customers. >> business is pretty much business. i don't care if you're selling widgets or ropes or whatever. it's the business model is the same but i try to look and say you know, how could we adapt that to what we're doing? what would be different? what could we add to our product lines. >> we'll see how he's lassoing up business. remember, we make your business our business, and have a great small business saturday. this is more than just a town. this is our home. and small business saturday... is more than just a day. it's our day... to shop small at the places we love... with the people we love. for stuff we can't get anywhere else. and food that tastes like home. because the money we spend here... can help keep our town growing. on small business saturday, let's all shop small. for the neighborhood, the town, the home we love. on november 28th, shop small. in the capital city of brussels, belgium, at this hour, officials still believe there is a "serious and imminent threat of attack." good morning, i'm chris jansing in paris and we are continuing our coverage of the escalating terror threat and ongoing urgent manhunt and how the fight against isis is shaping the political landscape back in the u.s. let's start with that extremely high level of concern, tied to the ongoing manhunt for a native son, belgian born salah abdeslam, the only one of the suspected paris attackers

Related Keywords

Louisiana , United States , Canada , Alabama , Mountain Brook , Anacostia , District Of Columbia , Oregon , Brussels , Bruxelles Capitale , Belgium , Washington , Denver , Colorado , Arizona , New Orleans , North Dakota , Paris , Rhôalpes , France , Belgian , American , Mike Hahn , Maria Contreras , David Livingston , Jeffrey Haslett , Ryan Hutchison , Steve Schaffer , Deann Weber , Tom Smith ,