Hi, there. Everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg, and welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. The list of successful entrepreneurs who never received College Degrees is pretty impressive. Bill gates and steve jobs are just a couple of them. Now, dropping out of school is certainly not for everyone, but we met one Texas College freshman who had no doubts at all that for her, college would be a waste of both her time and her money. Two years ago, she quit school and went into business for herself. We wanted to find out if she thinks she made the right decision. Hi, welcome to erbert gerberts. My goal is to own a large successful business. 23yearold aubrey janik of plano, texas, has big dreams. I think at a certain point, you have to say okay, no more algebra, no more calculus. Lets learn what i need to learn. She says she has no time for term papers. Lab reports, or any of that college stuff. Which one have you made . Im learning how to do pay roll, learning how to do schedules, how to run a business. Its average. What are our sales at . A really good lunch. Just over two years ago, aubrey was a 19yearold college freshman. When she decided to tell her father hank that she was dropping out of school and putting her life savings into starting up her own company. I had anxiety about it for weeks. It was something i had nightmares about. Im like, how am i going to tell dad im not going to college. Audrey thought i was going to be disappointed, but i knew from a very early age that school was not just for aubrey. Once he realized college wasnt the route i was going to go down, i laid out my plan. It was simple, take the money paying for college along with the rest of her savings and get started running a business. I thought about making my own business from scratch, but then that comes with a lot of riv. I was relatively inexperienced at that point. So i was very nervous about starting a business from scratch. Her father suggested going with an established franchise concept might be less risky. And aubrey jumped on it. I was trying to find a concept that would accept me as a 20yearold franchisee, but one that was in my cost, my price range. Hank also suggested she avoid taking on anything too complex. You need something as simple as sandwiches or pizza, and you want to limit what your responsibilities are so you can get good at that and then move on to something bigger. I can do this. Its not going to be a big deal, but my dad was the one who was like, youre not ready. Aubrey wouldnt be ready until she got handson experience, learning how franchises operate. I then went to chicago, worked with a franchisee there for six months and thats what it taught me, i have to know restaurant operations. I have to know business. I have to know how to do this, or else im going to fail. After she spent time learning the ropes with others, they both felt it was time for aubrey to get started on her own. Hi, how are you guys . I went for a 250,000 loan. And i went to anybody that i could think of. Aubrey came in to see us, and she was prepared. Looked professional. She brought in her business plan. Jeff backus is chief lending officer at aubreys local bank. He remembers being very impressed. Shes thought about this, thought about where shes wanding to go, how shes wanting to grow and expand. Even though i was incredibly anxious, he had to have respected the fact i was prepared. I knew what i wanted, knew what i needed. Her key advantages were the fact she was going with a franchise, had a down payment suitable for the business she was going into, additional liquidity and some collateral to go up. My bank took a huge leap of faith with me. Im fortunate to find the bank i have found because they have been amazing. Again, that took me going out there and applying to 25 banks before i got an answer yes. Another factor may have been that it was a community bank. They were willing to meet her personally, and factored in assets that Larger National banks might have ignored. She had firsthand knowledge of the area, and had a plan to go out and make her business successful that i dont believe would have come across on paper. Thanks to savings and investments she accumulated in high school, she secured the financing without any contribution from her parents. And so next, she had to find the right location and negotiate a lease. I negotiated this lease for this site for almost a year. It was a really, really long negotiating process. He wanted to make sure he was covered in case i failed and i wanted to get a fair lease. We have been open a little over three months. Its been two and a half years since she left college. The store has only been open a few months, but aubrey is already looking to her next step. My passion is not making sandwiches. I dont have any problem waking up in the orning to come here. I love it, but i want to run just a big business. I want this to turn into something bigger. And i dont know for sure what thats going to be. Its not the sandwich making that thrills her. Its the process. The process of getting everything lined up, the process of starting a business is something i really like. Its something i love. Hank says hes incredibly proud of his daughter. But watching and advising her since those first days when she left college has not been easy. To me, its worked out well, but its been emotionally very hard on me. I dont think i would be able to do what im doing now if i would have wasted money on college. For many of us, radio flyer is brand that makes us think back on childhood adventures and that classic red wagon. Founded in 1917 by an italian m immigra immigrant, radio flyer has become iconic for generations of kids. Next year, the Company Celebrates its 100th anniversary. We sat down with the ceo, robert at their headquarters in chicago to learn how they held on to their brand while continuing to innovate in this learning from the pros. My grandfather started the company in 1917. And he was an italian immigrant who came from a small town near venice. And he was 16 years old when he came here. And eventually, he saved up enough money to open up a little oneroom rkshop where he began making wagons. Once he built up the business and he learned that the worlds fair was coming to chicago in 1933, he decided it would be this once in a lifetime opportunity to introduce his brand and his product to the world. So he took out a loan from the bank that was in the middle of the depression, so times were really tough. And he built this giant 45foot tall exhibit of a boy riding a wagon. My grandma said it was the only time she really saw him stressed out because so much was at risk. It was really a waltershed event in the history because its when my grandfather introduced radio flyer to the world. Everyone says why radio flyer . Because radio was the hightech cool buzz word at the time, and also lindbergh had crossed the atlantic, so the two words, radio and flyer, were really exciting, cool words he put on the wagon, but it had nothing to do with the product. I became the president of the company in 1997. And my dad was an incredibly generous and gracious dad and let me make a lot of mistakes. One of the first things he said to me is my dad let me make a lot of mistakes. Youre going to make a lot of mistakes. Just dont go out of business making them. 90 of Consumer Products that are launched fail. And so inherent in coming out with new products, theres going to be failure. You talk about a thing called intelligent fail. Basically, its that we dont want to bet the farm on any one product. We want to take a lot of different shots with different products. We want to get them to market as quickly as possible. Because we have learned that we never know whats really going to sell until we get it in consumers hands in a real form. On the shelf or online for sale. When i came into the business in the 1990s, the business was struggling. And we had some Big Questions and challenges that we needed to answer. What did the radio flyer brand mean to people . How could we grow while staying true to our heritage . So there was always some inherent tension between this Heritage Brand that Everybody Knows and loves, and how can you innovate without messing up the great thing we have going. So we decided instead of fighting the nostalgia, lets just use that as a guardrail and focus in on products that can hit nostalgia and also can be new. For example, recently, we came out with tricycles you can customize on radioflyer. Com. The tricycles start out as a stroller. Theres a push handle. You can add canopies. Fabric. You can put your child name on the product. Its still true to the essence of the brand, but its connecting with all of the things Consumers Want today. We dont want to be the biggest toy company in the world. We want to be the best. And one of the ways we talk about ourselves is we want to be the navy s. E. A. L. S of wheels. We use some of these shorthand slogans of we want to be really focus focused. We want the best quality, the best Customer Service in our category. I think the way were able to keep it entrepreneurial here at radio flyer is because were very focused on mastery of always Getting Better and being the best in our category. And when you do that, it unlocks a lot of opportunities when youre really focused in on how to make something great. tis the season to bring out all the stop whz it comes to marketing your Small Business. Smallbiz. Com gives us five things to keep in mind to make your quarter as profitable as possible. One, respect differences in beliefs. Make sure any decorations or symbols you use during the season are sensitive to your customers values and traditions. Two, go where the people are. Choose the right outlet for your message, and make sure youre on their mind as theyre gift shopping this season. Three, mix the old with the new. Include traditional holiday themes in your Marketing Efforts but also be open to thinking outside the box for new ways you can bring exposure to your Small Business. Four, dont overspend. As people get together, they talk. So create campaigns that will tap into this great opportunity for some word of mouth marketing. And five, note what works and what doesnt. Your efforts wont always resonate, so experiment and just keep the successful ones. As Small Business owners, were ultimately all sales people. Whether youre selling a new product or selling the idea of your companyinvestor,s you have to be good at getting someone interested enough to put their money down. Anthony is an entrepreneur and sales expert. Also author of the new book the only sales guide youll ever need. And hes here to give us tips on what we need to do to close the sale. Thanks for having me. I think, as so many people do, selling is hard. Selling is easy. You have children . I have three. You were born a natural closer. And you know this because you have children, right . And they ask you for what they want. I thought you were going to say because i closed the deal with my husband or something. That might have been a bigger close, but your children know how to come and ask you for what they want. If they dont get what they want, what do they do . Change approaches and try again. Theyre relentless. Because of their ages, you cave in, right . I do. Because they continue to ask. You were born to do this. We make it harder than it has to be. Lets go through your points. Earn the right to ask. They earned it by being my kids. Right, by being cute. Youre not going to do that, but youre going to look at your buyer where they are and say how do i help them . Do they need more information. Do they have concerns . Is there something they need from me that would create value for them so that i earn the right to get to the yes . Thats the first, most important point. We always talk about it as what problem do they have that im solving . Not what can i offer them that i want to offer them . Its not about you, not about your product. Its always about the client. Lets go to the next one, know what youre asking for. I think this is important because its subtle, but that difference makes all the difference. We sometimes start trying to sell too soon. So im going to ask you to buy, but youre not ready to buy. What if i really just need an appointment . I need to know im asking you for another meeting or im asking for you to share with me your concerns so i can resolve them for you or maybe you need more information. What we do when we go too fast, we leave the buyer behind. You need to know whats the real next commitment you need and then you need to ask just for that commitment. And what do you think, if you have a meeting with someone, you pitch them the first time, they dont get back to you. Emailing them and saying do you need any more information . Is there anything your team needs to understand, any questions i can answer . I hate email. An email i can just ignore. A phone call, i get a chance to say im thinking about you and im not sure if youre struggling with the idea, but i want to serve you the best i can. Were here to serve. The more we do the role of serving, the better we do. Okay. Then dont use old tired techniques. What are those . Which works better for you, 10 00 or 2 00 . Thats the alternative choice, which means im not really giving you a choice meeting with me. People resist that because its selforiented and pushy. We dont need to do that. What do you do instead . Say, listen, we have done all this work together. And i think it just makes sense for us to go ahead and begin, unless theres Something Else you think we should do first. Just ask directly. And thats a better approach than trying to come up with some tricky close from an old closing book. I mean, people still say things like, if i could do this for you, would you buy . Or am i the kind of person you want to buy from . Is my company the company you want to buy from . Thats avoiding asking the question. You have to ask. It becomes too salies. It ruffles their feathers . It makes them chafe. You dont want to be treated that way. Were human beings and having that conversation. The only thing i would say to that is someone was trying to sell me something recently. She was relentless for a year. She used every old sales trick in the book. Because she did it all, i fell for it at some point and finally listened to her. I canceled 1,000 times and finally because i felt badly, it worked. Persistence. You can persist with good language and good approaches as easily. We talked about asking directly, and resolving concerns. Every buyer starts to think, is this too much many. Is this a person i can really trust, am i getting the benefit theyre promising. If youre not there to resolve the concerns, they resolve them on their own or liston to somebody who doesnt know enough to help them. If you want to serve them, they always have fear at the end, they always have questions that need addressed and take care of that. I always think if theyre talking to you and a competitor, what i always say is please, if they offer you something that im not, ask me because you may not be comparing apples to apples. You always want the last bite. If theres something you didnt address but its important, you want to take care of it. Thank you so much for coming on the program, again. So many people think selling is hard, but you can absolutely learn how to do it better. Absolutely. Thank you, j. J. Thank you. Are you looking for a scrumptious gift to give clients or employees this Holiday Season . Todays elevator pitcher has created small treats perfect for Small Business owners looking to say thanks. The lucky judges who get to try them, serial entrepreneur labore broughton, the founder of broughton hotels, and nathalie molina. Hi, im melanie, the founder of mini melanie. Our two signature deserts are mini chocolate truffles and mini cakes which are just as beautiful as they are delicious. I started after working as a pastry chef in two of the citys top restaurants. Since getting started, over the past two years, each year we have more than doubled our sales, and we have attracted clients like the citys top hotel groups, Event Planning firms, and caterers, and we have even partnered with Luxury Brands like tiffany and company and estee lauder. Were learning to raise 250,000 for a 10 stake in our company. And that would allow us to grow our Sales Platform on our website, minimelanie. Com, and hire additional kitchen and packaging staff, and to establish our first retail location. Weve just moved into our very own kitchen space in williamsburg, a thriving neighborhood. And our goal is to become the very next godiva for a mobile first generation, which loves our minis and they fit the modern lifestyle. Good job. Thank you. And i got to taste these, too, i must admit, before we came on air. I thought they tasted very good. And you know, one thing you didnt talk about, the packages is beautiful. I think when youre thinking about a gift, this is important. Okay. From you both, two numbers. You dont have to talk yet. Between 1 and 10, what do you think of the product . I can already tell the answer to that, and number two, what did you think of the pitch . And its interesting that you say, for a mobilefirst generation, because that, to me, perksup. But i didnt know why. But thats what i think. Lets get to what you guys think. Larry, youre up. 10 on the product. Awesome. The packaging, i really love. Just want to go to the next one . Go for it. The pitch is an 8 plus, a little canned for my only personal taste, one thing i would like to hear is what are your investors going to get from this. You did a good job of what it is used for, but i want to know whats in it for me. All right, natalie. All right, i feel like i want to change mine to a 10, but im going to say 9, simply because i know that all good things can still be improved. But i love it. I love it. And it makes me curious about what other products you have, it makes me curious about other products you plan to develop. 9 for the product because i think it is amazing, has a l of potential. 7 for the pitch, only because and maybe it mirrors a little bit what larry was saying, in addition to knowing whats in it for the entrepreneur, for the investors, there is the sense of what is the big dream. Right . How are you going to take over the world with this product . What are the big, big goals over the course of the next four or five years and beyond. And i love a pitch that makes me dream, and i think thats the one thing that was perhaps missing. If i were to add, go back to what i said, the mobile first generation, Companies Like bloom that have are reinventing the flower industry. You think why do we need another flower delivered, but thats mobile first. I would love to hear what makes you different, how are you going to take over godiva with this new mobile first mind set. Congratulations. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for letting us try your chocolates. Thank you. Thank you, both, for your advice. I bet you can have another one of these on your way out, if you want. If any of you have a product or service and want feedback on your chances of getting interested investors, just send us an email. The address is yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Include a short summary of what your company does, how much money youre trying to raise and then, of course, what you intend to do with that money. We look forward to reading the pitches and seeing some of you here in our elevator. When we come back, we have more great advice for you, including what you need to do to build your personal brand. And finding an untapped market when starting a Small Business after you retire. John writes to us with this question, i am newly retired. I want to start a business, but how do i find a need i can fill . I think thats a great question given were having longer life spans and many of us will have second and third careers, starting a company can be difficult, we know a lot of them dont work out. My first advice would be to start with what you know, whatever it was that you were doing as a career, perhaps there is something you can glean on to what you saw was missing that you can invent or find a way to make that available. That gives you a brand a great story, you have credibility of what youve done before and now you saw this need and invented it. If it cant come from that, maybe it is something you really like and have a passion for. A hobby, or some other pursuit that you have some expertise that you can find a need in there and then bring that brand story in since you would be the expert. But, third, if you want to go completely to the other end, i would look at areas where there is tremendous growth right now. Theyre saying the Health Care Field is where there is the most job growth in the next five to ten years. Doing some research, seeing what is missing, that can be difficult, but if you can find it, then clearly there is going to be a lot of opportunity. Just make sure you protect yourself so that some big conglomerate doesnt say thats a big idea, thanks a lot, and steal your thunder. We now have the top tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. Larry and natalie are back with us once again. Both of you again. Larry, lets start with you. My top tip, i think that we need to build our personal brand at the same time were building our professional brand when were business owners. What happens to most businesses, they fail, right . We spend a couple of years building this brand for our business, and then if we havent spent any time letting the world know who we are, thats like starting all over again. And clearly the higher our personal profile is, the easier it is to get investments, the easier to attract top talent. Build your personal brand while youre building your professional brand. It is a lot of work. It is a lot of work to do that. And i always look at companies that are very successful, you dont know who the founders are. And i think for someone who just isnt doesnt want to be famous themselves, doesnt want to build their personal brand, they might look at one of those companies and say cant i be them . You can be one of them. However, took a lot of struggle for them to get there. It is hard, no doubt about it. Entrepreneurship is not for the feint of heart. All right. Narcotic natalie, youre up. I love that advice. So i have recently been thinking a lot about a study that the World Economic forum released about how it will take 170 years to get to gender parity at the pace were currently at. I stay up at night worrying about how to accelerate the pace of change. And one of the things ive been thinking about is this concept of leapfrog, leapfrogging over obstacles and skipping steps not sore the sake of cheating or getting there fast, but as a source of innovation. I would encourage especially new entrepreneurs to think about the ways they have been told to do things. People who have done them before, who say step one, step two, step three, step four and throw it out the window and think how can i leapfrog over some of the steps as a way of innovating. Latin america where i partly grew up, you have farmers who never had a land line who are Walking Around with two smartphones in their pockets. It is, like, maybe the proper way of doing it was to go through this sort of technology, you know, chain, but they dont care what the proper way they just skip those steps and go straight to the lattest innovation, faster and more efficiently than anyone else. Thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it. With so many online tools out there, it can be daunting to figure out which ones will actually help you and your Small Business. Thats why we asked our viewers to share some of their favorites. Well, one tool we are using is Progressive Grocer and were doing that to see sort of the markets that were reaching and what sort of anan v anner have ive used some of their advice and it has proven to be very successful. One tool i use is rig central. It is a remote phone system. And it is great because it gives you the look and feel of a big Company Without having to have an office or have land lines. So as a Family Business, one resource i really rely on is the Family Business consulting group, which is their website is fbcg. Com. They are a group of leading consultants on Family Business and do a lot of online webinars and newsletters they send out weekly, all articles and education helping specifically Family Businesses on topics such as reception planning, strategic planning, growth, things like that, hr and organizational change. This weeks your biz selfie comes from brandy hightower who lives olivias dollhouse tea room. They host adorable princess parties. If you want your dreams to come true, pick up a cell phone and take a selfie and send it to yourbizselfie. Thanks so much for joining us today. We would love to hear from you. So if you have any questions or comments about the show, email us at yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Or go to our website, openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all of the segments from todays show and a whole lot more. And dont forget to connect with us on all of our digital and socialia media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im j. J. Ramberg, remember, 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. Extreme measures. Donald trumps new cabinet picks alarming democrats who like clean water and fair pay. Well talk to a man who faced off against trump world in court, new York Attorney general eric snyderman. Also, ben carson once called poverty a choice. But now he may oversee americas housing. Well talk to urban League President mark morial. And, whats next in the Walter Scott Shooting . Will a Trump Justice Department pursue the federal case . And, part three of our series on a man set free by president obama after two decades in prison. I believe that anybody that gets a Second Chance at life, they need to come out and move