Hi, everyone, im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. Im always interested by Business Owners who launch companies in an already crowded city, even if you have the best pasta sauce or most fabulous boutique how will you get customers to notice you when there are there two boutiques down the road or 16 pasta sauce already on the shelf. If your product is indeed better or serves a particular niche it can work. Just like it did for a couple of entrepreneurs who broke into the egg market and carved out a place for themselves in a very crowded retail space. There could be 10 or 12 different brands. Its a lot. The egg case at your local Grocery Store is a crowded place. Within each of those brands each brand might have a medium egg, a large egg. There could be 30 or 40 different slots. And nationwide the numbers are even more staggering. There are probably hundreds of egg brands out there. Its an intimidating proposition with so many choices. While competition is fierce, sales for Hanson Brooke farm eggs in franklin, new york are soaring. Its about 400 year over year. Betsy and Brian Babcock created a demand for their pasture raised eggs that never existed for retailers before. We are now able to meet a need that they didnt even know they had a couple years ago. In the past four years stores like whole foods, kroger, Harris Teeter and fresh district have signed on. We started locally then we grew to regionally and then grew to nationally. We are in almost 4,000 stores. The hens laying the eggs are free to roam outside before going inside to roost. You go to any Grocery Store and you would never see anything called pasture raised and we had never heard of anything called pasture raised. We made up the term pause it seemed to make sense and described what we were doing. They hatched their Business Plan after guests at their bed and breakfast raved about the eggs coming from their chicken coop in the backyard. People kept saying that our eggs were great and we really thought eggs were eggs. The babcocks took a shot by starting small, they tested sales at a local Farmers Market before turning to a nearby Grocery Store. We leveraged what we knew, they had sold some of our blueberries and jam, we were tickled that they actually said, sure, we will give it a shot. We dont know if it will sell but lets try. It was a first for the location, but customers ended up bypassing bigger names and buying handsome brooke farm eggs inste instead. It is unique. It is a stuff market to break into, but they found that niche. The success at hand ford resulted in a Sales Strategy to introduce the eggs to bigger retailers and penetrate the market. Normally a large egg Company Sends a sales rep, we send my wife and i, and who else owners. The founders believe you have to tell your own story. Before i get into all the details about the difference between pasture raised eggs and every other egg i know pictures of our farm, i tell the story and at that point they are engaged and they are interested. They are always ready to et kate buyers, too. Especially since this is a niche they created. We woulding in with a pasture raised egg and they would say we have a free range egg and i was like its not the same. Their knowledge of the industry had to extend beyond their own brand. The babcocks had to be familiar with the competition. The buyer wants to know if you understand what eggs are selling well and what eggs arent and they are actually really wanting to understand who you think you would replace. As the company has grown theyve used a contract farm model so that they can fulfill all orders. We have the ability to scale up. If your demand is more than we even all expect it to be, we can add more flocks and bring more supply to you. So that gives the grocery chains a sense of security. Keeping costs in check has helped boost their exposure at large chains. It doesnt benefit them to be the highest priced egg in the city so they want to make sure their price right side affordable. The staff is very lean. All operations are handled internally. We have a full time veterinarian on staff now, we have a team of people that go out to the farms and come along side the farmers to give them advice and to make sure that they are compliant. And they vertically integrated certain parts of the business, including buying a feed mill. Yeah, about 70 of the cost of an egg is attributed to the cost of the feed that that chicken is eating and when we can control our feed costs that keeps the price of the egg down and thats helped us gain market share. Of course, once you are on the shelves you have to get customers to notice you. The front edge of the carten is all a lot of them ever see so it has to communicate your message very effectively and even the color of our carton is a color that isnt on most cartons in the case. Betsy monitors the competition to make sure the handsome brooke labels pop. Even in my office i have all of our competitors cartons stacked up and ours placed in there so i can see how our carton looks stacked up against the other cartons. The brand may be in thousands of stores but the Company Still wants to connect with customers. Our home farm phone number is on the inside, the inlet of every carton. And that was really important to us, that if somebody had a comment, positive, negative, however it was, it didnt go to a corporate office, it came to our house. Betsy and brian arent done growing in the Grocery Store channel, either. They know their clients are all watching each other. I think what we have behind us right now is the fact that we have sales experience. So i can tell them how our eggs are doing at other chains and say these guys have tried us, this has been our success. Any reservations they once had about expanding are a thing of the past. We have found that the customers have been receptive, the grocery buyers have been receptive and it seems to be working. What makes their job easier is that theyve succeeded in carving out a place for themselves in a crowded market with a quality product. At first the bigger brands thought we were just sort of a fad and that we would go away. It was like, there, there go aw away. Now they are taking us more seriously and that we are here to stay. Business owners across the country are sending a simple message that everyone is welcome at their place of business regardless of religion, country of origin, Sexual Orientation or immigration status. By simply hanging a sign that says all are welcome here more than 10,000 Small Businesses are sending the larger message that everyone is a valued part of the community. Amanda ballantyne is the Network Director at main street alliance. Also joining us are the Business Owners who started it all by putting their own sign up that sparked the idea. Alana and Danny Schwartz man are coowners of a cafe in minneapolis, minnesota. Alana and danny, what made you do this . Well, you know, we were seeing in the news a lot of rhetoric and targeting of certain communities that we feel were part and parcel of the common roots community, specifically muslims and immigrants were the target of a lot of hateful rhetoric in the president ial campaigns and in the news and we really feel like we had to make a statement and not be silent and just take a simple gesture to make sure everyone knew theyre welcome in our place of business. I imagine last year when a lot of news came out as well about companies that were not serving gay people, you probably had a little bit of the same reaction. No . Sure. I mean, we feel really strongly that everyone should be welcome in our business, its good for our business but more importantly its good for our community. As a business that since opening in 2007 you want to be a Friendly Community meeting place, regardless of what people look like or what Community People come from or where people came and when they emigrated from the country. We want people to actively feel welcome. Weve been hearing that in more and more communities have been targeted over time. Minneapolis is a pretty welcoming place and were happy to be a part of that and to not be silent and actually voice a tolerant like everyone is welcome here message that says no to hate. What was the reaction of people in your town and your customers . Weve been really pleased at how overwhelmingly positive the reaction has been. Weve had many people come up and thank us personally when were serving them at the counter and online and over social media because this sort of with all of the negative feedback that weve been seeing in the news, is a positive message and it helps both for our Muslim Community members to feel like they can really come and not feel threatened, but also it makes everyone feel more welcome and glad that a business is living its values and making it clear. Amanda, at what point did you see this sign and hear what was happening with their cafe and say, oh, wait, there is a campaign here. Lets make this more than just in minnesota . Yeah, you know, the main street lines works closely with danny and alana in minneapolis on a number much issues. They called our staff and said we are putting up this poster do you want to help us spread it around . When i heard about the story i knew it was a tool that we needed to put in the hands of all of our Business Owners across our network and its been successful. People are grateful to have this tool, to express their leadership in their communities and they are getting a lot of positive feedback from their Community Members and their employees and their customers. Its interesting because a lot of work that main street alliances do is talk about how do you build your business whereas this i imagine you are not going out and say, hey, do this you will get more customers because of this. Exactly. There is a bigger goal here. Right. This isnt a Customer Acquisition strategy so much it is an opportunity for Small Business owners who are already leaders in their communities to stand up and say, no matter whats happening in our political dialogue and discourse we are leaders in this community and we are saying no, that hate has no business here and everyone is welcome. 10,000 Small Businesses have participated and put signs up like this. That we know of. We launched the campaign and we put the tools out there and contacted friends and allies who also work with businesses and it spread, it went viral. It has picked up and so weve seen it popping up in places where we dont have members, where, you know, in states where we didnt even, you know, know that there would be folks interested. So its been great. Are there clusters . Do you see it in particular cities, more people putting them up . Sure. I think, you know, there is a heavy you know, a heavy density on the east coast, on the west coast and in the midwest. We have light coverage in the sort of rural western states but thats because they are smaller towns out there. I mean, this poster is really everywhere and were getting a lot of feedback both from Business Owners but also from regular Community People writing us to tell us that they are so happy to see this up in their communities. Alana and danny, do you feel like its making a difference and did you expect it to grow this quickly . We certainly wouldnt have anticipated this. Its a really simple gesture in our minds and we werent thinking about a national campaign, we were thinking about making people in our neighborhood feel more welcome and not be silent in the face of whats happening nationally, not feel like we are powerless. We wouldnt have expected this but we are very happy to see it spread in this kind of way. Well, to amandas point, right, Small Businesspeople are often the leaders in their community and its up to us to speak out against things or for things that we believe in. So congratulations to both of you for taking a stand on something you care so deeply about. And eamon dpa for you to helping them to spread this campaign. Thanks very much for having us. Thank you. Shes best known as the loveable star of the tv show serena the teenage witch, but actress melissa joan heart is also an entrepreneur. She launched king of hearts, a Boys Clothing line. We sat down with her in new york to find out how this small biz star is learning to maneuver through the challenges of the fashion industry and how her acting career has helped her along the way. I was being asked once i had children to come out and represent other brands and my husband and i, we both love dressing our kids but we were finding there was a lack of options for little boys. We were like why dont we just start our own clothing line. Making these decisions in the beginning we found other businesses we wanted to model ourselves after. So it was all these different, you know, little pieces of the puzzle coming together. Figuring out what is our Business Model going to be, how are we going to do this and be different. I think that my career thus far has fed into this company in so many different ways. The pr angle, with he knew we were going to get good press on this, i could put it on my celebrity friends kids. I was so overjoyed when i looked at the red carpet and i was taking pictures and i had my king of hearts tshirt, i wore a little tshirt and i looked to my right and i saw other kids in my clothes and i was like, oh, my gosh, all these little boys are wearing my close. I made sure if i didnt understand something i asked what does that mean. My whole thing is going to visit the factories. We have a jacket thats like a military inspired spring jacket. When the people looked at it they went this must be an expensive jacket. I didnt get why it was expensive until i went to the factory and saw all the pieces that were made and sitting on each different sewing machine table and i was like that makes sense now why its so expensive because theres so much involved. I have a hard time with being confrontational but i have gotten better about shutting down the personal side of things and saying you can be nice about things but you have to be tough about them, too. You have to know what you want, know what youre saying and get through t every day we have new views, some days we will have 5,000 people come to the website but not that many sales. We wanted to survey them and find out why are people coming to the site and not following through. Our shipping fee was too high. Our warehouse never weighed in the clothing so the prices were off. So we were able to adjust that. We have this great email list so it was nice to reach out to people and say, hey, whats the reason you are not, you know, buying . Youre coming. And i welcome people to email me and give me their suggestions about what theyd like to see. My sisterinlaw said im so sick of jeans that tear at the knee, we did a double reinforced knee on our jeans. I want this to be something i can do every day and then go off and do a movie, direct something, do a tv show for a few seasons and not have to run off and do a movie, but, you know, be able to be at home with my kids and run this business and grow it so maybe they can take it over some day and really make it a Family Business. I want to bring the Garment Industry back to the u. S. And be at the forefront of all that stuff going on. Many entrepreneurs think of Silicon Valley as the best place to build a startup, but is it . Small biz trends. Com says before you settle on california you should consider one of these five cities for your headquarters. One, austin, texas. The citys open and collaborative Business Climate has helped it quickly become a hub for innovation. Two, new york city. With its access to strong talent pipe lyons, wealthy investors and a diverse micro economy. The city that never sleeps is booming with entrepreneurial activity. Three, nashville, tennessee. The grass roots feeling of the city has helped foster the diversity of this growing technology scene. Four, boulder, colorado has the highest start up density in the country at six times the national average. And five, seattle, washington. The Mega Companies in the region plus accelerators like tech stars and nine mile lab have helped the city develop into a great place to start a new business. When we come back you will get some great advice from our experts on leadership skills, cash flow and setting goals for this year. And are you nervous about giving a toast at an upcoming wedding . There is a Small Business for that. Our cosmetics line was a hit. The orders were rushing in. I could feel our deadlines racing towards us. We didnt need a loan. We needed shortterm funding fast. Building 18 homes in 4 ½ months . That was a leap. But i knew i could rely on American Express to help me buy those building materials. Amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. Our amex helped us fill the orders. Just like that. Another step on the journey. Will you be ready when growth presents itself . Realize your buying power at open. Com how do i learn, identify, develop the right leadership traits . Leadership is a very personal thing. I dont think there is a one size fits all when it comes to leadership. If i had to frame it in any way it would be saying that a leader is one that has a vision, has confidence and inspires action. But how that actually plays out, whether you are a leader that is more like a dictator versus someone who really fosters a democracy depends upon your environment, are you dealing with chaos, are you dealing with a more stable environment where youre really just trying to plow the field and make the most cash to cow make the most of what you have. So in order to foster leadership skills i think the best thing you can do is his or her learn about yourself. There is a great Personality Test you can take online absolutely free, the big five Personality Test what psychologists have found studying personality traits is that your personality does not change over time. You are the same person. So once you know who you are then i think the way you lead in an environment is by being your authentic self and then offering what that environment needs. So if its chaos, you may need to be more structured. If it is a more stable environment you need to be more compassionate and foster people to take action. Its really up to you, but learn yourself first. Focus on a problem, offer a solution and chances are you have a good idea for a business. A group of resourceful entrepreneurs keyed in on one big issue, the stress that comes with having to give a wedding toast. It seems simple to some people but for others it can cause weeks of sleepless sniets. Have a nel jones found a couple of companies that do it all for you. Until i met craig. If the thought of giving a speech makes you tremble in your tux. Best man, everybody. Best man. The better man. Help may be just a phone call away in the form of a growing number of businesses that promise not to leave you speechless. Grows writers have a specialty. Half of all of our clients have been wedding vows. Their Company Based in california is called vow muse and business is big. Every other aspect of your wedding or of an event is like planned out. Why not plan this out, too . They will also make sure your Wedding Party isnt at a loss for words for a fee. Prices stards at 300 for vows, 350 for best man and the father of the bride pace 450 for his speech. Were trying to steer people towards the really good if at all possible. In new york Victoria Well man does the same, wedding toasts start at 500. All i want to do is challenge peoples perceptions of what a great speech is. Her client, Kevin Harrington hit it big as of founder of as seen on tv. Kevin says even entrepreneurs can use a little help choosing their words. He recently hired victoria to put the finishing touches on speeches he and his son would deliver at his older sons we hadding. As a professional and as the father of my son i want to look good in front of the other side of the family, many of who i have not met yet. First impressions kind of thing are very important. The critics who would say, do you know what, come on, this is your son for gotness sake, this is not a business deal, this is not strategy, this is just dad to his son and ultimately they are helping me craft my talk and my speech, but its going to end up in my words, in my delivery and my pacing. Were you surprised because, wow, you know, like we are ten years apart and sessions begin with an initial interview followed by a detailed questionnaire, then victoria goes after each draft, fine tuning delivery. Do this he have to trust you . Yes. Absolutely. That is really at the core of this whole process, kind of like a marriage. You have to you have to trust that i know what im doing. The key to winning over any audience, she says a little bit of heart and a whole lot of humor. Your job is also to entertain and make people laugh and merry. But what if im not funny. So you call us and you tell me all the Amazing Stories that you have about your friend and all the things that you want to say and i will make them funny. Thats how these ghost writers take your stories from chatter to tears. I love you both. And lets give them both a toast. God bless you. We now have the top two tips that you need to know who help your Small Business grow. Lets introduce our panel and get their advice. Gene marks is the president and founder of the marks group, also a communist with the Washington Post and entrepreneur jen gruber is the founder of a lifestyle brand. Im going to put on my accounting hat, im a cpa, just to make sure im clear, we talk about improving our cash flow. As we head into the new year and throughout the entire year there are things that Business Owners should be doing to improve their cash flow. I have the most boring advice in the world for you but something that i see many of my successful clients to and its to read and read something really boring. What you want to read is your general ledger. Who reads their general ledger every day . The guys that i know that are following their cash. Your general ledger is the diary of what is going on in your business, it has every single transaction thats in it, cash coming in, cash going out. Every single month at the end of the month you print out your general ledger. You are not ibm or ge, trust me, it is not that large a printout, you sit there with a pen, take an hour out and go through it and every single month when you read your general ledger you will find something new that will raise your antenna. You will be like why are we paying this guy twice, i dont recognize this person. You will have questions. Hopefully they will get answered satisfactorily, sometimes they may not be answered satisfactorily. If you want to keep track of your cash you have to keep track of all the transactions going through your business. It is amazing how few people or how many people do not look to see whats going on with their financials. Correct. And we had someone on the other day who said and i thought this was important look, if this is you, dont hide from it. You are not alone. A lot of people dont want to admit it because they feel stupid that they dont really understand their financials, they dont understand where their cash is going in and out. So if you know that youre not there are other people in the boat with you, then at least you can get over the shame of it. So many people are saying thats an accounting thing, i dont understand that, its all about numbers. Thats such baloney. Its your business, man. Right . Its your transactions going through there and its really not that hard. You print out your general ledger and read the transactions going through it. Really its not very difficult to do. I promise you it will have an impact on your cash flow. Jen. Well, as everyone is setting new years goals i think its important to remember to hit your goals that your network is your net worth. So as youre setting those goals Pay Attention to the amount of networking youre doing to grow your business. So setting goals like two new high quality Networking Events a week, making sure when you attend them that youre going with a mindset of making friends and making relationships, not thinking what can i get out of this person, but what can i give this person, what can i offer . Also set a goal of how many high quality conversations youre going to have. Really forces you out of your comfort zone so that you make that in the relationship so you can leave feeling like youve really expanded your network and as youre growing your business and they are growing their businesses you can communicate and help each other along with the journey into i think Business Owners go through ups and downs where im going out and meeting a lot of people and suddenly you think that is a waste of time, i need to be working on my business so suddenly you hole up and dont meet anyone new. To your point its much easier to talk to someone or pitch them when youre not pitching them, when you are friends with them already. Correct. It makes the relationship so much more valuable and it iks ma the other person feel so much more comfortable. Im we have all been at events where we feel like people are coming at us. This allows of a more natural what do you do, here is what i do and you file it away for later how you can help that person or how that person may help you. Do you go to events freque frequently . I go to a lot events. How often . Four events a week at minimum. Clearly you do not. No. Not anywhere near that, but thats good. I admire that. This counts as your high subtropical lieu network. Were networking here. Thanks both of you for your advice. Its really helpful. Thank you. This weeks your biz selfie comes from da me tree comparison the owner of the sweet pea pet spa in colorado. You can never go wrong with a picture with cute dogs and a baby in it. In dont you pick up your cellphone and send it to us at your businesyourbusiness msnbc it to us and please use the hashtag yourbizselfie yourbizs thank you for joining us today. If you have any questions or comments about todays show send us an email to your business msnbc. Com. You can also go to our website open forum. Com your business. Dont forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms as well. Next week the story of a survivor who has beaten the odds and kept his Family Business going in an industry thats been ravaged by the internet. If i can get every customer within within ten miles to buy their pham ra here and have their pictures printed here to take a photo class with us, thats enough for me. Im not greedy. His secret is simple and it works. Until then, im j. J. Ramberg and remember, we made your business our business. Our cosmetics line was a hit. The orders were rushing in. I could feel our deadlines racing towards us. We didnt need a loan. We needed shortterm funding fast. Building 18 homes in 4 ½ months . That was a leap. But i knew i could rely on American Express to help me buy those building materials. Amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. Our amex helped us fill the orders. Just like that. Another step on the journey. Will you be ready when growth presents itself . Realize your buying power at open. Com good morning, im al sharpton and this is politics nation. We begin this sunday with breaking news. Nbc news received word just a short time ago from a senior u. S. Official saying that those former american prisoners who wished to depart iran have left the country. Iran released five americans yesterday. Well go live to eye riran in a moment for more on all that. The surprise release came as the u. S. And europe lifted some economic sanctions on iran. The sanctions were removed after the u. N