Hi, everyone. I am jj ramberg. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. May is Mental HealthAwareness Month and we have information about a business using technology. The couch and the appointment book are things of the pwas, and unlimited texting which most of us do regularly with our friends is the new way for you to communicate with your therapist and while the company is only a few years old, their number one priority is advancing the conversation about Mental Health care, even if theyre innovative approach is controversial. Just a few years ago, orrin and Ronnie Franks marriage was on the brink of collapse. The crisis was a turning point, in a last ditch effort to save the marriage, they tried couples therapy. It was a great thing for us, and it taught us how to communicate with each other. Therapy saved their marriage. Therapy has some issues. Stigma, shame, and therapy is costly which is a nice word for outrageously expensive. Their idea was to use technology, replacing the office visit for unlimited texting. I am take my phone and im texting when i feel the need, and its so normal because this is how i communicate with everybody in my life. This is what talk space looks like today, but its not what talk space looked like at launch. That version of the company failed miserably. We started with video therapy, actually group therapy, so five people are splitting the costs so that would make the costs much more affordable. We lost a lot of money because we built an entire platform to supply that. Neither of them really knew the industry and they were not sure if the company would survive. Again, orrin and ronnie faced a big crisis, but this time it was with their business. We lost people, and we had no money. They saw a glimmer of hope in a very unlikely place. We had the link called customer support, and obviously i was sitting there because we were just, like, two or three people, you know, and we just started. I think our clients, our members, interpreted the name to clinical support or therapy support and i started getting hundreds of emails telling me about their clinical issues. We said, okay, so we know that people feel very open and very willing to share everything in writing, and why dont we do a forum of two people and we tested it and saw an attraction immediately. Turns out their original ideals about what their customers want were entirely wrong. They rebooted the company and got traction with the oneonone model a. Therapist paired with a single client via text usually on a smartphone. If you were to come into my office and sit down, it would feel probably little bit like formal, and if you are at home in your comfort zone and you dont have to look at me, and see what my reaction is going to be, maybe its a little easier for you to share things. Kate is a licensed clinical social worker, and she finds the flexibility of having clients text her when she is at home much easier and sometimes more effective than the facetoface appointment. If a client has a bad day or a crisis happens they dont have to wait until next week or month to see me and they will get the Immediate Response they are looking for as opposed to holding those feelings which can make people feel worse in the end sometimes. And this is not without controversy, so in order to build a company, they need to build trust in the community, and thats why they launched their future conference. We both fell in this love that is called therapy. This first ever gathering arranged by the startup attracted experts in Mental Health, and clearly facing talk space in the crosshairs about conversation. The conference is inviting people to talk about the advances and disadvantages and having a honest and open conversation about making it better all the time. Therapy is moving online and migrating online and most people involved in the profession will agree with that statement now, and there needs to be a place and an area in which the discussion is being handled from a point of view of volume. Value. They hope that place is stock space. Its how the digital revolution is disrupting our spending habits, and maybe you will find an app. Three startups helping consumers finding bargains with the tap of a finger. A nurse outside chicago struggled to pay for her own 400 Prescription Drug bill. Every month with insurance taking medications for neck pain and high cholesterol and Blood Pressure and was searching for coupons. When i got to the pharmacy with the coupon, they would run the code and it was not real. And then almost everybody takes medications at some point in their life and most people are over paying. Link was found by two brothers to basically bypass insurance companies. Whether you have good insurance or bad insurance or no insurance at all, check the blink price before going to the pharmacy. This is how it works. You go to your Insurance Company and the Insurance Company goes to the drugmaker and prices are made on what kind of insurance you have and blink goes straight to the drug makers and it features over 60,000 pharmacies nationwide, and not the super expensive cutting edge drugs, but this approach could be the future. A lot of people have high deductible plans and you may not realize what is going on until you try to fill the prescription. Back in chicago tammy says her 422 bill has been cut to just 77 a month. What did you think when you saw that as first . I wanted to cheer. Nobody wants to spend their money to medicine if you dont have to. Saving money and time to enjoy lifes precious mow plme. These two buy everything on line. Household goods, furniture, diapers. Like most new parents they are looking for new ways to save. We saved on that, 2. Their latest trick an Online Service that gets you money back when something you already bought goes on sale on average within 20 days. We saved 400 in 30 purchases in about a year. 400. Yeah and they got 350 back on the patio system. It was started nine months ago in response to retailers like amazon are now adjusting prices millions times per day. Heres how it works. Sign up for it on line and then scans your emails for receipts and tracks current sale prices on items you bought, and when a price drops, it gets you the difference and keeps 25 . Currently it supports purchases from 18 major retailers. How do i know its not reading email from my Health Insurance or accountant . We work with a select number of stores, only those stores and those receipts. You can set up an email account just for online shopping. You never see my credit card . Right. And they are stashing their savings for a good cause. College for sophia, so she can get her education. And then ditched his job for computer coding school. Apps to be built and data to be managed and people who can do that will be valuable. But the tuition put him 16,000 more in debt, and he needed to refinance fast, and thats when he found up start. I was able to consaul saeud 22,000 of Credit Card Debt and accelerate my timeline for getting out of debt in three years. Brought his Interest Rate to 8 saving him more than 5,000, and its the brainchild of this man. We are in the business of seeing signals that others dont see. Up start bets on your future. Fico is backward looking. What you have done with credit in the past, and we like to do it as somebodys potential. They ask where did you go to school . What did you study . How much will you make in the future . Is this a reliable career. Its one of a number of growing companies shaking up the lending industry, but these new Business Models are not proven. The jury will be out until defaults go up and then you can see what form of lending was worth the risk and what was not. Your onboarding process for new customers is one of the first chances you get to build loyalty. Intrapreneur magazine has come up with five ways you can revamp the early interactions to make sure you keep your clients business. One a personalized welcome. Customized messages that incorporate somebodys name or mention a specific detail about your business they would be interested in shows the user that you volume their business. Two, demonstrate the product. Create short videos that walk through the different features your company provides, and step by step instruction may help your customer see the greater benefit of your service. Three, offer assistance. Give ongoing support by adding a live chat feature to your site or 24 Hour Customer Service by phone. Four, showcase Success Stories and have satisfied users share their past experiences working with you and this will help others feel confident you can deliver for them, and five, followup. Engage with your clients regularly after they made their first purchase so you will stay top of mind when they may need your services again. The best way to get new customers or clients is through a referral and thats the cheapest way often as well so how do you get people to refer you. Ivan is the founder of bni, business networking and Referral Organization and coauthor of a new book avoiding the networking disconnect, the three rs to reconnect. Thank you for having me on the show. We love having you, and this is an important topic because getting customers to recruit new ones for you could be the cheapest way to have an acquisition for a new customer. Absolutely. The most inexpensive form of advertising is word of mouth. For some products i use them and love them so much i am automatically talking about them, but other things i may not think to tell my friends. How do i get my clients to Start Talking about me . You are absolutely right, we often dont talk about the products that we love, and people are more likely to talk about their business when they are mad at your business than if they are happy with your business so its important to teach people how to refer you. One of the first things i recommend, though, and this is counterintuitive to almost anything you will hear, dont ask right away. What tends to happen, they will meet somebody and go, my name is ivan and maybe we can do business or you refer other people to me. And its a huge mistake to do that. Its important for to invest in the social capital. Its premature saw list taeugs, where you ask for business too early. Dont say that three times fast, it will get you in trouble. You are not talking about current clients or customers, you are just talking about somebody you met who you feel can be helpful for you and you talk about building a power team which is like i am guessing an advisory board, though informal, people who you can ask stuff of . Yeah, and thats different than an advisory board, and there could be similarities but its different, and this is a team where its a context fear. A lawyer, a banker, a Financial Planner and cpa, and put them in a room for an hour they will do business because they have clients with similar needs, and the caterer, the floorest, and the travel agent, and the wedding mafia, you want to surround yourself with those kinds of professions, those that are like yours, combatable and noncompetitive, and you can refer business to each other at a much more dramatic ratio than the average person you might have a relationship with, so build out your power teams. You talk about getting visible and if you are visible people know you are out and about and they know the name of your company and they will automatically trust you a little more and want to help you . Yeah, the foundation of everything that i teach is the concept of vcp, visibility, profitability. You have to be visible, and establish creditability, and then you can get the profitabili profitability, where people know who you are and what you do and you are good at it and willing to give you referrals on an ongoing basis, and networking is a contact sport and you have to get out there. You should give referrals for other people, and dont just expect other people to do stuff for you. Dont do it because you expect something back, do it because as a nice person, you know this person needs something and connect them and doesnt take much . You nailed it on the head. Exactly right. If networking and referral marketing become a transactional process, if you do it like that its all wrong. You have to do it with the idea that you are trying to build a relesionship and one of the best ways to build a relationship is to help someone that you like and trust, and we practice this philosophy, i call it a givers game, and you have to give business to people and help and support people and have a relational process and if you do that, you will get business in return. Thank you for coming on, and networking is so important, and referrals, cant buy them, and its great and thank you for stopping by. And his mission to hire troops returning to civilian life. He says hiring our countrys finest is an important way to give back and a smart way to build up his workforce with dedicated and committed employees. In 1987, kevin knight joined the army, fulfilling a dream he had since he was a kid but just two years later that dream was destroyed when he was injured during a training drill. He was no longer considered fit for duty. Rod kurts talked to him about getting the news. Must have been devastating. Very devastating. Very devastating to hear that your lifelong stredreams that y always wanted to do was no longer something you could do. I was just crying. After heading home, kevin graduated from college and spent time working under ceos of big corporations but his fellow soldiers were never far from his thoughts. I wanted to serve my country and i wanted to do something that i could do to give back to my fellow veterans. So he started Knight Solutions in 2005, and it specializes in construction and maintenance of va hospitals and sepl tearies. I knew by getting the work at the cemetery would allow me to bring on veterans. It makes me as a veteran honored to be able to serve these individuals who have given their lives to us and i may i dont even know them. Currently about a third of the workforce are veterans and kevin says army strong isnt just a recruiting slogan. Its a way to know that those employees will always be company strong. Like hiring veterans because i know if you layout the mission and tell them where were going to be, at the end of the day, were going to get there. Especially working in the cemeteries, they take ownership of that. They feel im taking care of my brother or sister i served with. Kevin starts with calls to local veteran offices. The organizations help connect Knight Solutions with people in their networks that may be a good fit. Those candidates are then interviewed and some are chosen for the job. Once they come back home, they are looking not for a handout but a handdown, a someone thats an employer that will understand ive served my country and now im here to try to serve my family. Kevins own experience has made him particularly skilled at working with other veterans. Youre dealing with guys who have seen things that you could never even imagine they have seen sings that may come back to them at other times. If you prepare your management staff to handle these situations these risks are no more than when you hire any other to the team. For christopher pankos who served in afghanistan and iraq, having an employer who understands that the transition back into civilian life isnt always easy is especially meaningful. My wife was a fellow reservist and i just recently lost her in combat action. And in a combat zone, im still dealing with personal trauma issues and my own crisis in my own way. And Knight Solutions has been very good to me. The veteran organizations can be an additional resource to help employees that are struggling get back on track. We have an open line of communications with a lot of our employers. Were here to help and support them along the way. And Knight Solutions has found that hiring these men that have serveside our country faithfully is both good for the country and good for business. I always like to ask people why not, why not hire someone who is giving us americans, the opportunity to do what we do every day. This gives you that opportunity to complete the cycle of life for these veterans, for these guys who have made a commitment to serve the United States of america where we all live and eat and breathe every day. More great advice to help you fulfill your entrepreneurial dreams, including how to juggle your social media and have time left to run your business. How the popup Retail Business model may be one that could work for you. Our cosmetics line was a hit. The orders were rushing in. I could feel our deadlines racing towards us. We didnt need a loan. 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 katherine writes, id like to know tips on how to make sure i get to everything as a special business owner. Theres so much to do, website design, blogging, facebook, instagram. Catherine, the good news you dont have to get to everything. You just vhave to get to things that are important and have the most impact for your Small Business. Everyone is really busy, focus on things that will give you the highest roi. Start with your website, thats where youre going to convert visitors into potential customers or clients. Invest in that and couple of key platforms where you feel youre getting a lot of traffic and where your audience is at. We now have the top two tips you need to help your Small Business grow. Lets introduce our panel and get their advice. Jen grubber of lifestyle brand empowered by jen grubber and a facial recognition company. Jen, you always have some new venture bubbling up. What have you learned . The biggest thing im focused on is popup retail and how it helps scale their business quickly and get product recognition, touch base with their customers and get marketing by being out there. It creates a low risk point of entry into retail distribution, gives visibility to other stores that might want to carry the product in the long term and helps you in getting media. Sometimes media doesnt want to cover product lines that are just online. They want to feel they are more legitimate. Theres a place people can go and touch and feel. Popup retail is a short term low risk way to enter the market space and get distribution being a mall or shopping center. Brian, whats one tip that you have that youve learned from building your business . I think social media is really important. How you execute is really important. The words themselves, you have to write on a level everyone can understand and easy to digest. Dont do your College Thesis on social media. You can use products like ibm watts what grade level its being written on, to slim it down. Tell us, youve put your text in there and what happens . It gives you personality insight and the feeling and emotions around what youre writing and how it will be taken in and the grade level, things of that nature. What grade level do you want to be . In the single grades, you dont want three and nine. I think actually, just the idea of speaking in normal language is how we should think about everything. If someone comes in and speaks in jargon, i think the world is different now. Youre not seen as smarter as maybe perhaps you were many years ago. People are just thinking i dont understand what youre saying. Speak in english. Absolutely. Make it relatable. Whether youre pitching to an investor or customers . A complex concept and make it simple, thats a skill now. Great advice from both of you who built successful companies. Congratulations on your careers also. Thank you. Dana rader owns and runs the dana rader golf school, considered one of the top golf schools in the u. S. According to golf magazine. Why dont you put down the putter and take a selfie of you and your business. Send it to us here at yourbusiness at msnbc. Com. Please dont forget to use yourbizselfie. No professional photos. We want selfies. Wed love to hear from you, if you have questions or comments, email us or head over to our website at openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all of the segments from todays show plus a lot more. Dont forget to connect with all of our digital and social media platforms as well. Next week we head over to napa valley where a latino millennial is growing a family wine business. Its hard when the younger brother is telling the older brother what to do or the father but we work so well together that we understand the adults at the end and see the vision all together all three of us. Well see how this family with deep roots in the Wine Industry is learning to adapt to changing times and working together towards a common goal. Until then, remember, we make 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 itlf . Realize your buying power at open. Com