Hi everyone. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your Small Business survive, thrive and go. I went to my friend sam with a business problem i was having. She suggested getting a group of women. I bought a couple of bottles of wine and we sat around and came up with solutions. It was great not only for me but for everyone that came to help. We decided to make this a regular thing. With the hope it may inspire you to help each others i wanted to show you what our dinners look like. Running late. Thats me rushing home from what looked like to be a busy day at work. Its 5 45 and typical, im running incredibly late. Im having ten women come over in about 45 minutes and well have dinner and our brainstorming seg brainstorming session. We invite one entrepreneur and a group of women we think could help solve it. We asked connie to be in the hot seat tonight. She makes affordable face, lip and eye masks. We are at the point where we can go from a Smaller Company to a bigger company. It would be mostly online, how do we get it to the right hands . Nugg is already in target and whole foots. She was the former c. E. O. Of tweezer man. She decided to set out on her own and launch nugg. While she has retail strategy she is trying to fug yur out how to let more people find out. I am cindy and im the ceo of envelope. I am head of marketing. I am the founder and ceo of tyrec media. A lot of grthrowing ideas around. How many months ago . A year ago actually. Because we thought it is incredibly helpful to get advice from women in a casual setting. All of us have big issues we are facing at work. She talked about how she used retailers to find these ambassadors. They have their own influencers. They have hair own network of moms, travelers, hotels that they work with. They became a really incredible Marketing Tool while i didnt have smart people in my company back then to have these very strategic and thinking and also didnt have a budget th. Then we move into the digital pace. They will only work with brands they love. It is great to have an Image Library to have different use cases. We talked about whether she should use an agency. The beauty of the evening was that we had the brain power right there in the room. I would recommend going directly to this kind of group. You have a lot of different people who have a lot of different influencers. Go. I dont know if anybody is doing this but the ultimate distributi distribution, can you do that . Imagine if like i dont say here. You guys are talking about hotels. If i could walk in and these were here it would have changed my life. The whole everybodying lasted a few hours. I was a true brainstorm. It wasnt only great for connie. It was great for the rest of us as well. Thats another best interest. One interior designer is more than happy to answer any questions her customers have as long as they are willing to answer hers as well. It is an approach to business that has had a colorful effect. Really, i believe she listened to what we had to say and did exactly what we needed. I could tell from the first time we met her she and i were a good match. I think she has a good way of matching her client. They make it her business to ask a lot of questions. I always say hire people that know more than i do. Liz went with it. I think she was in zing to make sure its in the own are for me. She discovered early on she needed to dig deeper and learn more about her clients wants and knees. I didnt think i needed a science degree to decorate someones home but i did. You have to understand somebody. She understood every when it comes to connecting with the right person for her country. Company. You realize it was really some kwone that wasnt a great. We need to get deeper in the beginning and not get half way through. Which is why she started interviewing the homes, offices. They may catch on that its an interview process but its natural questions that pertain. W who is using the space and we need to know about budget. Liz knows who she can with and what she can. They cannot have their ernl design but they have exnumber of dollars. If someone is unsure we are not ready to help them. A phone call is usually the irs step. We have to figure that out before we go meet with them she schedules a time to ask in person. Typically the questions get the apps that we need. People if will be more forthcoming. You can feel the chemistry if its working or not. She knows everyones style is different. Usually from seeing the space and coming up with a plan, thats maybe two or three weeks time. It is very important that we are clicking and that we understand each other fully in the beginning and we know what we are getting ourselves into. Liz can come up with a game plan. We have to ask colors they like, patterns they like. Her primary concern is giving client what is they want and not what she thinks they night want. We want their input. It is something that is historically not what the industry is known for. We do not take a project if we are the only voice. Liz tries to identify the ke sigs maker. Some times its a balances act. So those an is going to win out . It doesnt happen but they will purn out jobs based ton outcome of her interview. A little bit of after gut reaction. She refuses to take on a kline. No matter, there would have ban lot of added stress. It could have ended in a bad leadership and relationship. Just because you take three new clients, if they not a good fit you may be missing out on one really glaet customer. It has actually made her a better listener you want to others to understand. I dont remember the day they came to the office with everything to show us. It was exactly on. I think she took it and translates it into something pretty phenomenal. She says she will continue to ask, listen and learn from her customers. She believes it is the best way to give her clients topnotch service they wont forget. I want to leave them with a good feeling. I work hard to be able to do that. It keeps going and that was just the foundation for it. As we just saw, knowing what your customers want is essential to your businesss success. It is not knowing who exactly that customer is. The ownerer learned th learned way. He learned it was the parents, not the kids, who he should be catering to. Bouncey castles, pizza. It looks like heaven to your average kid and thats exactly what gene was banking on when he opened bookoo bounce. After attending party after party where children were the one and only priority. It was not geared around the parents so it was hot or uncomfortable or unclean bathrooms or for that matter safety. Gene knew they werent the ones making the decision on a party place. A child can request where they want to have it, what kind of theme. Ultimately the financial decision comes to what sort of experience they might have. He looked to learn. Parent rs the companys top priority. It was not just a fun place for kids but also a haven for adults looking for a little down time as well. Get work done. You kind of watch a tv and football game. He has comfortable seating and applies coffee and drinks for the parents too. The staff has made it their mission. When you hold a Party Everything will be taken care of. I love i didnt have to get ready. I brought a cake and some pizza and i got to chat with the other parents. The kids had a great time. They werent the only one. Every team member is trained to look out for what the adults want. The goal carries over into the interviewing process. When hiring new staff gene thinks about who will interact, not just who will have the most fun playing with. There are life guards out there. They are out there to service the parents experience. Attention to the details that will keep his customer happy has also opened up field trips for day ka day cares and afternoon centers. During the summer camp a visit to boo koo bounce is always on the calendar. Being a priority in his business you get that feeling as a parent myself and also as the Business Owner, im not care of other peoples kids. Im bringing them somewhere i dont have to worry about them. Paying attention also brings new foot traffic all of the time. It is huge. Your reputation in a city like new orleans, its a small town, people talk and supreme an impression and type of experience based on what people tell them about it as tl is one thing he knows he will be keeping the same. As we branch out and try to expand business, parents are definitely going to be our primary focus. If you want to have a Successful Company i cannot stress the importance of building and maintaining trust with your customers, employees abdom and all of your business associates. It becomes easy to sell vat you. Joel peterson is coauthor of the new book the ten laws of trust, building the bonds that make a business great. So good to see you. He is also professor at my alma mater. It really extends down to everyone else. The first one is invegs and respect. What do you mean by invest in it . People want to be a respected member of a winning team doing something peeningful. They can tell if youre not reflectabl if you bash people theres a disrespectful atmosphere that starts to develop. And its interesting because it could get tense depending on your personal. You may disagree with one of your managers or something and youre talking about something and its tense but its respectful. Yes. What makes it respectful is you give honor to somebody. You talk to somebody who interrupts they never capture what you just said. Thats disrespectful. And measure what you want to achieve. Yes. People think people dont need to be checked up on or measured. Its just the opposite. Imagine if you dont know how youre being measured, if you dont know what the time frames are, if you dont know what the deliverables are. You cant be trusted and youre not really being shown trust for the people youre working with. Yes. The whole thing is easier. Here are your goals. If we need to come back talk to me. I trust you to be the manager of your own dust any here. If you dont know what they are doipg and doing it. Okay. Keep everyone informed. So this is one that isnt that hard to do but not very many people do a good job of it. I call it communicating lavishly. That means communicating before, during and after events, bad news as well as good news. The reason is people are smart. Right. If they lose all of the information at the water cooler or newspaper they learn to you almost cant overcommunicate. I think People Struggle with how much should i share with the whole staff. They dont need to know every z. I think people in leadership positions need to be transparent and often what that means is i really cant talk about this or it wouldnt be appropriate to talk about this. You let people know. You dont need to tell them everything but you need to tell them i cant talk about this right now. Or if they know anyway its better to just bring it up. Yeah. This almost goes back to something we were talking about before which is embrace respectful conflict. You can have conflict. Yes. You want different point of view. You want to be in an organization where the best idea wins. So you can tell an organization has gone off the tracks when its politics that wins. The highest office gets whatever their way is so you want to have people that bring up their points of view as long as its respective and once the decision is made Everybody Needs to get behind it. That goes right back to the top which is listen. So good to see you. Congratulations on the book. Thank you for stopping by. Nice to see you. How to be not aggressive when it comes to getting potential employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement and the need for Small Business owners to look at the bigger picture. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . Our new cocktail bitters were doing well, but after one tradeshow, we took off. All i could think about was our deadlines racing towards us. A loan would take too long. We needed money, now. My amex card helped me buy the ingredients to fill the orders. Opportunities dont wait around, so you have to be ready for them. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. When you have employees that are very new to the company how do you go about making sure that they feel secure and make sure that they dont feel trapped into staying with your company for a long period of time . This is such an important question because nondisclosure agreement are such an important part of doing Business Today. What she is referring to is a contract that employees enter into where they agree not to share the information that you consider confidential. You have a lot of information that you wouldnt want your employees posting on book or walking out the door with in the event that they leave you. So its common to ask them to sign an agreement so that theyre clear about the kind of information they can share and how they can share it. Thats an offensive move. On the defensive side if you have an employee that does something inappropriate you have a very clear legal basis for taking action. In materials of making them feel comfortable its very much part of doing Business Today and as a Business Owner if you have a potential employee concerned about signing one think again and have a discussion with them before you hire. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. Lets get in our board of directors and get their advice. Howard love is an Angel Investor and author of the start up jcurve. The six steps to entrepreneurial success and grant is a sales expert, Real Estate Investor and consultant. Good to see both of you. My tip is its a marathon and not a sprint. Start ups take a long time. Small businesses take a long time. The average length of time that im expecting when i make an investment is 10 to 15 years so thats a very long time. The tough part of that is about five years. So you have to treat it you dont want to treat it like a sprint, sprinting here and sprinting there and running around, that sort of drama and burn out. You want to play for the longterms and take great care of your health. Exercise, outside activities, relationship, sleep, all of those things so you can show up for work and work hard for 10 plus years. A agree with you but its hard to to that at least in the very beginning. I get maybe your processes are in place but in the very beginning when youre getting something out there its hard to tell people hey take care of yourself. 95 job. Yeah and im not imlying its a 95. Youll have to work hard thats great. Youll need it to get you through the top part. Whether youre selling customers or trying to get other team members to join you or pitching other investors that energy is fantastic. If at year 5 it hasnt been an amazing success youre not a failure. Youre not a failure. You have unrealistic e expectations out there. We always heard about these overnight 15 year Success Stories or overnight 30 year Success Stories. You always forget about the 25 or so years of all of these companies. How about your tip. Different than howard. Howard is going to be healthier than me but im going to get richer than faster. You look Pretty Healthy there. The biggest mistake i made in business is in the beginning i tried to be a boutique thinking i would better serve few you are customers and i meant that i didnt make money for the first three years when i could have been making money in the first 12 months. You need to go big from the getgo. 60 of companies in america break even or lose money. If youre going to start a business to break even dont start a business, work for somebody else. Its not worth it and anybody that tells you youre going to do a 95 and have balance, if youre not willing to do 95 hours a week. Thats what i think 9 to 5 is. If youre not going to do it and if youre not going to go pig or spend big or hire big dont do it because staying small takes as much energy as going big and theres no pay off. Put you talk about spending big, i understand the spending your hours it might be bad for your health but i get where youre able to do that. Spending big suddenly becomes very risky, right . So how do you decide . Its risky to stand on the break. If youre not going to dont do it. Youre not going to get there. Nobody is winning staying small today. The solo entrepreneur doesnt make it. You have to go big today. You have to go really big from the getgo. If youre going to think small and tiny youll get con sewelled by the monsters that can move fast. You need to be agyle and nimble and thinking with monster volumes and margins in your pricing and product or service. Got it. Big risks, big rewards. Because heres the deal. If you stay small, youre going to get punished. The entire middle class of america is getting punished because it tries to play everything safe. Got it. All right. Two very, very different tips for the first time. Greg, so good to see you both. Thank you very much. Thanks. We love this weeks your business selfie. It comes from 9yearold twins from orlando whose business is called the little cupcake girls. They make cupcakes for events, sell accessories like a problems and donate their sells to no kid hungry. An organization that helps children in need. Congratulations to both of you guys. Ill very proud. Very excited when i see little kids starting businesses like this. The twins say they are big fans of the show and they learn a lot from us so thank you for watching. Now why dont you pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us at your biz msnbc. Com or tweet us and dont forget to use the your biz selfie. Thank you for joining us today. Wed love to hear from you. If you have any questions or come mens just send us an email at yourbusiness msnbc. Com. You can also go to your website open forum. Com your business. We posted all the segments from todays show plus more. Dont forget to connect with us on our digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next week. We make your business our business. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. What happens after this. America is great. America is already great. They have people that arent telling the truth about where our country is. Dont let anyone ever tell you that this country isnt great. We are america. Second to none. Theyre giving it rose colored glasses. He wants to divide us. President obama has been the most ignorant president in our history. Hillary clinton is the woman in the arena. Hillary clinton has never quit on anything in her