Hi, everyone, im jj ramberg and welcome to your business, the show that is dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. As many of you know, running a Small Business can be lonely. Youre dealing with so many issues and since youre the one in charge, there is often nobody on your team you can actually open up to. Thats why peer groups of Business Owners can be so important. For almost three decades, the entrepreneurs organization, eo, has been organizing these groups as well as providing other support, support that gave a needed boost for the owner of a phoenixbased glass company. I have to work on branding and marketing, managing money, manage manage people, managing strategy. Which has been a big maturation process for me, personally. No we, ray has his hands full. Owner of refreshed glass. The percentage of the Market Segment for us is growing by the day. His company recycles thousands of wine bottles by turning emthat into sparkling water glasses like these. We sold 10,000 glasses to one unit as a corporate christmas gift. After six successful years, his company is no longer a startup but it still hasnt quit hit the big time and ray says, staying on top of the many details needed to build the business is one of the scariest things hes ever faced. Im making glasses, then im not making sales. Im not making strategic alliances with other people in the wine or the waste industry. You know, the business isnt going to grow as fast as it can if i am knee deep. A lot of times you dont have somebody to call or bounce ideas off, not even your spouse, doesnt have the time to listen. Roy understands. He says early on he used to be overwhelmed by the miss tos he made. It was like opening that closet. The skeletons, you know, look in my closet, look at my numbers, mistakes that i made. These concerns can be crippling to newly minted Small Business owners. I think people start businesses because theyre passionate in the thing theyre getting into. You make what you enjoy. Its your baby. We dont want to call your baby ug ugly. Ray and rommy have survived cheese challenges because of entrepreneurs organization, or eo for short. The real goal of accelerator is to hold the mentees accountable and help them get up over 1 million. Tom cuffler is one of the eo advisers, the owner of civic asset management, a successful real estate and commercial firm. Ple to says accountability is the key hurdle for many at ray and rommys level. We call him tough love tom. Business owners like ray, rommy and tom get together once a month as part of what they call the eo accelerator they focus on the sometimes daunting details of running a business. I had a bookkeeper. In the classic entrepreneurial way i decided i was going to take over the books. He said youre not a bookkeeper. You suck at it. Stop doing it. Go hire somebody. Hell told you to it. Next month i want to hear you hired somebody. You sure as hell better hire somebody. Once they realize, okay, someone is holing me accountable, they end up making big strides. Because they have to get it done. They dont want to come into this meeting and be embarrassed in front of their peers and me. One of the very first questions tom asked me was, ray, have you ever thought about a direct sales mod as opposed to wholesale model . He was selling to wholesale clients and wasnt making a very good margin for the effort. I left that meeting thinking about it. Thats what prompted ray to ask another member what turned out to be a pivotal question. I was asking how much hes paying for corporate gifts. What if i custom etched the last name of your customer on the glasses. To raise credit he took that in, thought about it, figured it out and has retooled. I think hell be imminently more successful. This kind of open give and take within the group has a direct payoff. Wedding sales when we have them up here, they get their names engraved on the glasses for them, a product Refresh Glass offers. They love it. I think its a huge selling point. Chef Gregory Weiner at top of the rock restaurant is not only one of rays steady b2b clients, hes one of rays sores for used wine bottles. We recycle our used wine bottles and they turn them into our wine glasses and water glasses for the restaurant. We feature these right here. I wish i would have had Something Like that when i was his age or their age or younger. I think i would have been far more successful had i been able to get in touch with those with that type of person that was willing to share their experience and all the failures that they had. To kind of shortcircuit that process. Have a couple of conferences or trade shows lined up this year . Break from your usual routine and really capitalize on these networking opportunities. Ink. Com. One, host a meetup. Get people to informally gather at a local bar or restaurant. Smaller events wont put a den in your wallet and will give you a chance to make solid kecks in a more intimate setting. Two, hit the hotel bar. As attendees come and go, youll have an easy opportunity to strike up a conversation. Three, scan the conference hash tags often during the event to search for nearby gettogethers. This cowl lead you to more connecting opportunities and unpublicized events. Four, leave your lanyard on. This way youll be easily identifiable by other Conference Participants for a quick chat in the starbucks line or an exchange on your way back to your hotel room. And five, read nonverbal cues. Looking at posture and body language can lead you to people who are also looking to make a business connection. The 2016 president ial race has been unconventional and tumultuous. While there have been Many Republican and democrat debates, the need to support our nations Small Businesses has rarely come up. Throughout this year we hope to check in with Small Business owners to gauge how theyre feeling about the election. We recently spoke to a number of them to find out what issues affected them most and what theyd like to hear the candidates address. Many of the candidates, especially career politicians, they dont understand Small Business. I wouldnt expect them to put it as a priority as well. Theres special interests, lobbyists that are involved with these guys who need the big donations. One thing im looking for, its so appealing to see different outsiders because they arent beholden, they seem that way, to the big special interests and big lobbyists. I think they would have common Small Business owners desires in mind when theyre making decisions as a candidate for president. In this election season, what im looking for from the candidates is which one will foster Small Business lending that will allow our Small Businesses to grow and power the american economy. I think weve had to face a lot over the last few years with obamacare. As a Small Business thats grown, looking at a threshold, how do we eclipse that and continue to grow when there are certain things that happen when you do cross that line. The backbone of the community i work with here in new york to make my pieces is the immigrant community. People that i work with guyana, from russia, china, india, who have come here to pursue the american dream. For a better life. I feel really strongly that the candidate that i back supports that immigrant community. Going in this election year, our company would probably lean towards the candidate that would advocate towards better relations with china. Considering the fact that we rely on importing goods from china and not domestically, our Company Relies on better relations with china. Single biggest one for us has to do with taxation of online trade. We dont have a brick and mortar store of our own. Everything we do is online. Real curious so see whats going to happen with taxation of the Internet Sales and transactions. That could have an impact for us. I think its important that first they recognize that the job engine of america is the Small Businessman and women. We want to hear the candidates talk about what they will do for Small Businesses, whether its improving the export services of the department of commerce, improve Small Business loans from the sba and grants, perhaps its a Taxation Program that recognizes that you can snuff out a Small Business with taxes, whether theyre state or federal. Expanding overseas could be a great opportunity to grow your business but its really tough to know where to start and it can be incredibly expensive and a big waste of time if you get it wrong. Robert solomon is a professor of International Management at Nyu Stern School of business. And also author of the new book Global Vision how companies can overcome the pitfalls of globalization. Hes here to give us tips on how to minimize your risk when moving into other countries. Great to see you, same company, different country. Thanks for having many he, jj. Thank you for stopping by. We get this question a lot. It seems like theres a big opportunity out there. Its tricky. Often when moving overseas you dont know what you dont know. Its absolutely true. Growing overseas provides a sense of accomplishment, special for Small Businesses that are growing quickly. Its an achievement to say, hey, i can reach foreign markets now but what a lot of people overlook is just how risky it is. So how do you learn . We did a story on a kids club here in new york. And they expanded into i forget the two countries overseas. All kinds of problems they didnt realize, getting the materials over there, they got stuck in customs for three months and there was a law they didnt know about how do you figure this stuff out . How do you pick the country. Those are the stories i hear all the time. I think the best thing to do is do your research beforehand. The first thing you want to do is look into and understand each country in which you want to do business. When i say that, you have to think about political, economic and cultural differences, because those matter quite a bit to how youre going to per firm and what the end result will be for your company. Yes. What these people did, which i thought was smart, they found someone who was in a similar industry, not competitive, similar, so they could ask questions. What are the things you didnt expect . Thats exactly right. Thats a good way to start. Another, again, is to compare the political environment, the cultural environment and the economic environment of the country in which you want to do business to your own, your home country and say how different is this place i want to do business . Is it similar . Does the industry operate in the same way . And turning to other businesses that have experience is a good way to go. I think, for example, about uber, uber has had a tremendously difficult time in europe. Its been banned from france, banned from several cities in spain and ubers fatal mistake was it didnt understand how different politically and legally European Countries are than the united states. You need people on the ground there. Absolutely. To really understand. When you talk about pricing, what works here is not going to work somewhere else necessarily. Absolutely. Just because you price something a certain way in the united states, doesnt mean youll be able to do that in foreign markets. You need to be very careful about that. You need to take into account the risks youll face. Sometimes you need to raise the prices to cover you for the risks you face. These are the costs, right . Thats right. To the point of what i was saying, those people stuck in customs. They might have been able to pay someone to expedite it through. Suddenly the cost of goods are so much more expensive. You have to build in the margins that will cover the additional costs you face in foreign markets. How you deal with those costs and respond to them is the key. We talk all the time about culture and bulling your team and getting the best people. It is entirely different in some countries, the idea of culture and the idea of what work means and how people work, the hours, et cetera, than it is here. Absolutely. There are two issues you raise. The first one is about culture, organizational culture. What kind of people do i want to have in this company that can handle foreign business . So you want to hire the right people, people who have some experience doing experience in particular countries. Thats one. But then the second is national culture. Which you also raised which is, hey, some countries just do treat businesses differently, they operate differently, the way they respond to work is very, very different. You have to know how to motivate people in different cultural environments. That is the trickiest. You might be able to call your employees here at 2 00 in the morning and get a response. Somewhere else thats bad form. Its not going to work. So good to see you. Thank you. Congratulations on your book and good luck with it. Thanks so much. As we reported recently, the camera industry has gone through major upheaval in a digital age where cell phones have replaced cameras. But as nbcs joe fryar reports, forwardthinking entrepreneurs are finding new ways to appeal to photographers and proving that everything old can be new again. For a while, it seemed our prized photographs were destined to hang not on real walls but on facebook walls. Now a Las Vegas Business is bringing those images back to life. I thought it might be a way to get picks off of my iphone. At photo and go, instant photography is having a renaissance. Not only does the store sell refurbished polaroids and other instant cameras, but they can also present them. What if we can create an experiential destination. This puts the old school onehour photo to shame. Step one, take a picture. From there, send it to one of the companys computers. There it is. Within minutes you have a picture on paper. Of course instant photography is nothing new. For decades polaroids were a pop culture phenomena. What have i done . Taken your first picture with a polaroid 1000. As the focus shifted to digital cameras, the company had to declare bankruptcy twice. This is the polaroid snap. Today polaroid is back with new products and new customers, millennials. To them, instant photography is something thats magical, something they did not grow up with. For the under 30 crowd, reallife photos are trending. Weve had kids, millennials come into the store and for the First Time Ever in their lives hold a physical photo. Its incredible. Proof an image doesnt have to go viral to be memorable. Joe fryar, nbc news, las vegas. Marvin windows is one of the Top Manufacturers of windows in the united states. Its a fourth generation Family Business. Recently the job of leading the company passed from susan marvin to the next generation. Her nephew, paul. We sat down with both of them at their headquarters in war road, minnesota to get two generations of wisdom in the Family Business edition of learning from the pros. To be an owner in the company you have to work full time in the business. What that means is we do not have passive investors. Though every person, every adult thats working in that is an owner in the business is working full time. It is their day job. It keeps every Family Member focused on the health of the business. And not the Quarterly Dividend or the annual dividend. If you dont want to work at the company, we respect that, too. But then youre not going to be an owner in the company. The higher up you go in the organization, i think the more threatening it is for people to tell you their truth. They often dont. It seems like once you really need to know the information, you stop getting it. So you do need to be very deliberate about cultivating that pipeline. So susan mentored me to develop those relationships, seek the information from whatever corners of the organization, to make sure youre getting it. Bring in about 20 employees that are randomly selected. And theyre able to submit their most burning question ahead of time, anonymously and ask me directly about it. And what i have found in these discussions, that initially they might be quiet and people might be reserved but by the end of the hour, theres a lot of discussion and i am hearing a lot of things, sometimes im like, ooh, we have to get on that. So its been very valuable. I thinklying people know that their opinions are valued and that its safe to offer them and safe to disagree is really important. One thing ive learned from the generation before me is they always put the business first. You must put the health of the business long term over your own personal interest and desires at that moment. How does the family come together to make the right decisions for the longterm viability of the business. I have found myself, i know my brothers have, on occasion, in a room where what were deciding to do might be personally to our disadvantage, whether it be financially or because of our career, but you know in your heart of hearts that the best thing for the business is to do it. And if youve made that commitment, and we all did, it might be uncomfortable but its really clear what you have to do. It doesnt mean that we dont have different ideas on how to get to the end game. Good, healthy debate is good for the business. But at some point you have to land on that decision that you believe will keep the company healthy. And if its a business decision, sometime the ceo just plain has to make it. And then you line up behind them and you support it. When we come back, how to deal with delinquent invoices without coming as too aggressive. And trying to find the balance between being a maker and a manager. 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 the questions that i have the experts would be how to handle collecting on delinquent invoices without being a jerk. Its always tough to collect on people that dont want to pay you. I think the most important part, though, you have to get the right person on the phone, whether its the Business Owner or the person who can actually write the check. What i always seen work is you appeal to their humanity. Right . We all have a sense of fairness. So i think when you call somebody on the phone and say, i have employees to pay, i have bills myself to pay and i dont think its fair that ive done a dael or a job for you and i havent been paid. I found if you always appeal to that sense of fairness, when youre owed a debt, that goes a long way. One of the things nobody ever likes to be perceived as is being unfair. The more that you can do that to get the right decisionmaker on the phone and appeal to their sense of fairs in, the more successful weyoull be in collecting the debt. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. Lets introduce our board of directors and get their advice. Carolyn ross is the founder and ceo of circular board. And reva is back with us, the founder and ceo of grow biz media, a custom content and Media Company that connects National Marketers with Small Business owners and helps entrepreneurs grow and start their companies. Good to see you both. Youve started and sold one business. Youve been through it and are helping others go through the same journey. Lets start with you since you see so many Small Business owners. My top tip for entrepreneurs is to maintain clarity and that longterm vision and not be limited by the resources you have on hand today. Thinking through things like bringing in the right expertise, if that requires hiring the right person and you dont have the money going out and seeking that funding, if that means giving them equity or thinking about other instincts to bring them on board. Making sure you have the right team and resources in place to get to that vision as quickly as possible. How do you get, reva, you can chime in here, too, a lot of it in those beginning days rest on your own personality, people believing in you because it can be hard to attract people if you dont have the money and if youre giving them equity in something that may or may not work. Any ideas, reva . How you get those people . I think it is about your prior reputation maybe before you were an entrepreneur. Call on people who you worked with in your previous life and people who know you, because youre asking people really to take a risk on your business because you dont have that business. Its basically taking the risk on you. And also advisers, perhaps. Building out a team of advisers, making sure youre getting people excited about what you were doing. This is something you were so committed to and put everything on the line for. Share that enthusiasm and get people fired up about what you are going. The gist of what youre saying is think big. Dont be limited by what you dont have. Exactly. Think beyond what you dont have. Reva, youre up. I wanted to talk about the struggle between when youre an entrepreneur, between what they call being a maker and a manager. As a Business Owner, right, as a leader, you have to manage your people and manage your business. But as, again, the Business Owner, you have to be a maker. Youre the one responsible for building out your business and creating ideas. That can be a struggle sometimes. So three main tips to figure out how to do that balance is one, track your activities for about two weeks and see when youre most interrupted. Do your people come to you in the afternoon . Then dont try to set that time aside to be creative when youre constantly getting interrupted. Once you look at what that schedule is, you cant change other peoples habits. Youll have to change your own. If you find out youre being interrupted in the afternoon, maybe youll have to do your creative thinking in the morning orred amidnight, 5 00 a. M. You have to accommodate the schedule. Two, create what we call a Knowledge Base of information about your company, whether its online or in written format, something your employees can go and look at so they done the have to constantly ask you every little thing. The third thing is easy to say but so hard for entrepreneurs to do, thats delegate. If you try to do it all and know it all, youre never going to grow your business. Hire people you trust and let them do it. I think also you have to look into yourself and say what do you want to do . Do you want to be this maker . And if so, do you want to bring someone on, a partner, youll have to give away equity and pay they will. If it is not your skill, if youre not going to be good at growing this company and you want to work on product itself, do you find this a lot with the people youre working with . Definitely. People have a strong skill set in one area and sometimes that visionary is not necessarily the greatest at operating. Recognizing where are you strong and where do you need to bring in other talent. I definitely agree. Putting the systems in place to help that delegation is really important. The more you can build up the processes and make that a little bit easier so its not so hard every time to reexplain what you need and where you need help. And empowering. Its not only delegating the work but being okay with that delegation and knowing that if joe is going to mary instead of you, you trust that. Let mary do her job. Which means getting the right team on board. It means getting the right team. Let go. Let go. Its not your baby. A business. And let go of the process and let everybody collaborate and Work Together to make it happen. To your point, easier said than done. Incredibly important as you grow your business. Thank you so much, rieva and carolyn. Great advice. Thank you, j. J. This weeks incredible your biz selfie comes from jeff paul, owner of isp management in alma, michigan. He took this spectacular selfie 260 feet up in the air while servicing a wifi tower. You are welcome to keep your feet on the ground, pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you in your business and send it to us at yourbusiness msnbc. Com or tweet it to msnbc your biz. Use msnbc yourselfie. You cannot underestimate how helpful it is to have a group of Small Business owners around you. This can be formal or informal. Its into is to have people around who hold you accountable and ask questions of. You have to trust these people. You want to be honest with them. Wed love to hear what you thought of the show. If you have an idea or if you have questions or comments, just send us on email to your business at business msnbc. Com or go to openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all of the segments from today there plus a lot more. Dont forget to connect with us on our digital and social platforms as well. Next week, there are plenty of ways to market your brand. Heres a new one. The owners of a Clothing Company thought that launching a coffee bar was the best way to connect with customers. How these two brands live side by side and why sales of coffee and clothing are climbing. Until then, im jj ramberg. Remember, we make your business our business. 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