Or fill a big order. Hi, earn. Jj and welcome to your business. Show dedicated to helping your growing business. Whether you are a big business or small one, cash is king. How quick lu you get paid for your service is important. If youre a Small Business founder with big business clients, you should know many of the corporations are changing the rules about how fast they pay their bills. A lot of businesses are afraid to speak out. Out of fear theyre going to offend their customers. This week we speak with two Business Owners who say they have had it with these strong arm tactics. Purchasing agents are bullies. Yes, absolutely. Theyre the heavy weight on the block. Its their way or the highway. Ben said you know, my job is to pay you as late as i can, and withhold as much money as i can from you. Emmanuel and katie are both Small Business ventures to fortune 500. Today theyre going public with a widespread concern that many of their biggest and richest clients are now pushing back payment sdej schedules and december destroying profit margins. 50 down. 40 prior to shipment and 10 net 30 days. Today companies are asking for 120 days or 180 days on the last friday of the month that the accountant is in. It makes it very challenging. Many big businesses are changing the rules about how fast they pay their bills. Instead of the usual 30 days, many now are holding back for three or four months or even longer. Instead of having the money in my bank account, the money is in my Customers Bank account. Okay. Which means they can use the money in turn for whatever they want to, but i dont have access to that money. We have payroll to pay. Every two weeks. We have Health Insurance to pay every 30 days. What happens . If i need money, then i have to get a credit line or i have to see a bank. Both emmanuel and kate are speaking out at a time when many of their peers are reluctant to go public. They say theyre scared. Most do not want to come forward. Because theyre afraid to lose that business. Kate is the Second Generation owner of a california based family business. Adco manufacturing. Building factory machinery. Yes. Thats good. Across the country in tampa, florida. Emmanuel is a Second Generation owner of a similar family run customer Design Engineering business. While Small Business owners like these must meet monthly payroll, tax and supplier bills, many of their biggest customers refees to pay promptly. I cant dell my employees sorry youre not going to get a paycheck this week because im not getting paid for 90 days so youre not getting paid for 90 days. Doesnt work like that, but the largest incorporations say it does work like that. These two are saying theyve had it. As much as i hate the word unfair. It seems very unfair. Its completely unfair. Nothing fair about it. Sometimes small to Medium Companies feel like the changes being imposed on them are from bullies. These company haves the power. Theyre willing to exert the power. And that its unfair. And in some circumstances, maybe it is. Sheryl is a Business Services and bankruptcy lawyer. Shes heard this complaint. She said shes sorry, but with big business clients, its simply sink or swim. May not be fair. It may not seem right, but thats the ballpark theyre playing in. Theyre not necessarily going to be able to change the practices of a fortune 500 company to meet their business motto. Emmanuel and kate say its not that simple. They need us and we need them. This isnt just a oneway street. Eventually, purchasing is going to give a little. Were going to give a little. Its a game. If you squeeze us out, youre going to be buying things from a foreign country. There isnt going to be someone that answers the phone at2 in t morning and walk your personnel through fixing whatever problem it might be. With letters like these extending the terms to 60 days, 90 days. Even 120 days. Small vendors are now facing big problems. Although the relationship may be unequal, emmanuel and kate say there are effective ways to fight these harsh changes. Sheryl agreeses and the battlefield is the contract. Im always the one to pick up the phone and call. Say, look, love your contract. Its great. I have a few issues with this. Can we discuss it and heres what i would like. You need to go to their customer when youre negotiating your contract and be forthright. Clarification is the first step. Trouble starts when they need the contract and ignore terms sgls you have to realize what the reality is and denial is not a business plan. You have to decide if that business is worth it or isnt. Were not here because of our good looks. Were here because we produce good equipment. We need to produce that at a prompt. If i do lose this job because of terms, frankly, were willing to do that because its not worth it. You have to set your limits. The second key factor is diversification. Avoid becoming dependent on a single large client. Putting all your eggs is one basket is not a business plan. You may want to diversify Customer Base so youre less dependent. Got to come up with a thought process. Large customers arent that big of a percentage of our business granted they are valuable customer. And we appreciate them very much. The final factor is communication. Its your job to make the client understand why you need prompt Payment Terms sgls the lack of communication often is the reason behind crisis in my experience. I want that open line of communication. I want that relationship. As soon as you see them, you call them. Send an email and call them. Look, we all want the same thing. So we want a great partnership. This is how were going get there. Communication is everything. While kate and emmanuel havent always prevailed. Theyve been most successful when theyve communicated the quality of their goods. The benefits of a longterm relationship and the reliability of their service. It isnt about they win or i win. Its about us both winning. They have managed to hold the line with many clients, but they say it has not been easy. We want to build machines. Great machines for customers that they can use forever. We dont want to talk about financial terms and how you buy this equipment. Its a waste of time. Its just a waste of time. I dont want to look at my life every day as a tug of war with a Behemoth Company telling me what to do or what they will or want e wont do. I want to cooperative relationship. Thats the moral temperature at this point in time in american. I dont like it. If youve hit upon a successful Business Model and thinking of franchising, stop, take a second and think about what that really entails. It is going to completely change the nature of what your job is. Now, not only are you going to be marketing and trying to acquire new customers. Youre going to have to what potential franchisees as well. Founder of edible arrangements. Here to talk about what that looks like. Good to see you. Nice to be here. One of the early people of the show here. You had 400 fran cheechisees th 1300 stores. All because of me. It was. Being on the show. You understand more than anyone what it takes. To acquire this sort of double customer. The end user and franchisee. Its a wonderful relationship. If you manage it properly, it could really help you grow your brand. Passion of a store you start. Get somebody that walks in and saying i want to build a franchise or want to buy one of your franchises. Very exciting, but theres a lot of work involved. You do it right, the growth could be amazing. If you do it right. Lets talk about this idea of who your customer is because now you have two customers. Thats right. When you talk about talking to all of your customers, how do you do that . You need different message sgls order of importance. In the beginning its all about the franchisee. Going to represent your brand in the local market. Do the marketing. You engage with the franchisee and dont stop. As you grow you go back to that. You engage and get feedback and that franchisee is not only marketing. We do direct marketing to the consumer. Play a critical role. You dont want to promote something and get a different experience when they get to store. Start with your team at corporate office. Market to everyone about exactly what were about to do. Go to franchisees and make sure its understood and third consumer or let franchisee go out to consumer and build a successful brand and wow yourself with what youve created because youve took care of all your customers. I like what you told me off camera, to the end user, youre marketing your product. To the franchisee youre marketing marketing. You got to get them excited about what you have to sell to end user. Thats right. Theres a great story. We had launched this a cupcake bouquet. Very successful. The reason it was successful is because our franchisees loved that bow bow kwa. Its really that execution that makes you successful. Do you think about it just like margting to the end user. Im going to try this channel and try this channel and test and see what works and what resinates with franchisee. I have a thing called pulse. Every singlingle day the franchisee can set how theyre feeling about the business. According to that were going to franchisee and finding out what were doing wrong and right as they log into app every day. Setting the feeling about the brand that day. About a question. That is so interesting. Someone comes in and says you know, frown face. Someone calls them up. Our grow team call them and get on the phone. This is something i learned the hard way. We always did feedback. We did them late. By then, 30 days had gone by. Were not really excited about the product. Were all about presh. Edible rangerments. We want to know in realtime what youre thinking. Get on the phone or get rid of misunderstanding. Change something we may have done that is not understand or the right thing. To me the most important person in my transaction from the beginning to now is franchisee. They represent my brand. I want them to take care of my customer. I love this. Think this is applicable to sells people too. Use this idea with sales team. Of course. Same thing. Frontline. Not about late feedback. We cant do polling. We want to know realtime whats happening. Were connected to that customer six ways. Cell phone, text message, through the app. Whats app. Theres no reason you should not know exactly what the situation is in realtime now. So nice to talk to you be. So nice so see your success. Congratulations on everything. Back when i was in the business school. A number of people i met had the same idea for a company. Nationwide nail salon. Seemed ripe for a brand name to come in and stand for something. The few people i know failed. We recently met a company doing it successfully. Looked at starbucks and said if it can work for coffee, it can work for nails. What did they do right the others did wrong . We went to find out. It started with a challenge. Whats out there that can still be star buckable. What he did. Thats cool. He took an industry that is mundane, pro se. Cup of joe on every corner and changed what it meant. When tony issued the starbucks challenge a small boston investment firm. Partners didnt have to look far for the answer. One day walking down the street of hometown and i noticed nail salon to the right and one to the left and the lightbulb went off and said nail salons. The 8 billion nail industry was just the kind of business they were looking for. We are doing to the nail industry what starbucks did to the coffee 30 years ago. Taking a huge fragmented market and convincing customers to trade up for a better experience. If these mostly harvard educated men look like an unlikely bunch to start a chain of nail salons, they would be the first to agree. I can tell you for sure, i never thought i would be working at a nail salon. When i left Harvard Business school halfway through to join the company, i remember my mother asking me jour dropping out of harvard to go to a nail salon. In 2007, this group of Management Experts all of whom have extensive resumes growing and starting Companies Set out to build a better nail salon. They called it mini lux. Testing and fine tuning the idea in a worst kcase scenario location. Hometown boston. Where the pedicure season is short. Asked them to share some of their strategies for star bucking a business. They first tip. Let readily accessible data inform decisions. Where to open the first store. I remember the first location sitting out there with a clicker. Counting the number of people walking by the store. Thats data. Following their starbucks manifesto. They wanted to be located where there was a ton of density and traffic. Another tip for finding a prime location, find another store that has the same kind of customers you want. In the case of mini lux. They searched for, you guessed it. Starbucks. And another company they admire and share a Customer Base with. Whole foods. Another priority for the startup. Improving conditions for the customers and employees by tackling lacks hygiene standards. Persistent and widespread problem. And took another page from the rule book. Wanted to elevate the overall client experience. And at manny lux, that means a who bunch of things. Utilizing technology for Online Booking 24 7 and greeting customers differently when they walk in the door. Youre walking by the store. Effectively get a notification. Theres an appointment would you like to come in. Theres an open slot. Same Technology Used on technician side. Allows them to remember what nail polish it was the customer used the last time. Equally important to treating the customer right is treating the employees right. Just like at starbucks, career development, a healthy wage, and benefits are an important part of strategy. I became fulltime and i expressed myself to them that im interested at moving up. I want to make a career out of this. And they listened. Now im a senior brand ambassador. Our fulltime employees partake from health benefits, 401 k . Paid time off. Try to encourage profit sharing. One of the things you want to do is help people understand they are critical part of the overall profitability. I think this is a business thats long overdue. I think others have tried it. I think were going to be the first to nail it. Becoming a go to person in your industry can go a long way in building up your Customer Base and increasing brand awareness. How do you go from being a nobody to being seen as expert in your field. Founder magazine gets us five ways to build authority when youre first starting out. Tell your origin story. Sharing where you and your business come from. Reveals plo s motivations and g potential customer a look why you do what you do. Two, generosity works better than sales pitches. Youll find that when you give away high Quality Content without asking for anything in return, youre audience will generally be more receptive when it comes time to promote your service or product. Three, share where youve learned your information. People are more willing to trust someone connect their device. Include relevant links and references. Four takes expertise offline. Off to speak at events where you can build up status as a credible expert. And five, join established authorities. Carry influence so be active and advertise your connection to them on your site. Im michael and im brendan. How are you. Good. Founders of pedestal footwear. We could give you a competitive advantage. Even if its this much. Youd take it right. You and over 5,000 athletes ditching current sneakers to mitigate injuries. We did 150,000 in first year. Currently seeking 600,000 for eight years. Our products have everything youre looking for at a quarter of the price and proving to be better for the body. Durable. Silver lined to kill all odor and Patent Pending grip design for added traction. Proudly made in the usa. Sold in over 40 countries, all 50 states. Mens health gear award. Recently featured in Huffington Post as a brand to look out for. Retail for 29. 99. Gender neutral Customer Base. Strain at gyms. Yoga. Order yourself today at pedestal footwear. Com. Nice job. Thanks guys. Im going to give you both these two numbers. One through ten. The first one. What do you think of product. The second what do you think of pitch. I think you did a great job. We need to be honest with the audience. How funny it is that eric happened to hear about you last night. Not related to the show and said send me some samples. So im starting with you lauren. This guy is too slow. I say 8 and 8. I think the product was really interesting. You noticed. I literally as you were saying the inside of the sock has this properties to it. I was flipping it in and seeing how durable it was and looking at grips. I think the product is well done. I like both the design and what i think will be functionality in real life. I think you were concise with the pitch. Always hard when you have a team of two to kind of not talk over each other. Seems you have a good rhythm in the ability to give the pitch and back each other up. Did you finish crossing that out. Lets see where you ended. Im going to product is really cool. The innovation is cool. What i saw in the video and instagram. You got to love social media for this stuff. I was able to preeducate myself on the product now by rewatching the video and seeing what happens. The only fear and not a ten my concern would be if youre working with these in an area kaelt bells. Something drops on someones foot. Does that become a problem. Even in a controlled area like the gym. Presentation was awesome. Gift of gab. I think its neat. I dont know the industry nearly as well as you do. Doesnt feel like ive heard as a layperson a lot of innovation in this area. Immediately for me that gets me interested instead trying it. Clearly have one new customer here. Hopefully throughout. I work out all the time. I will try them. Two new customers. Thanks so much. Dpla congratulations on everything. It feeled like souped up socks. We hope to see them everywhere. Thank you. Thank you. Not done yet. Stick around. And if any of you would like to come and pitch your product or your service here on your business, there is one way to do that. Just send us a video of you doing your one minute el elevator pitch. Make it either mp 4 or post it to you tube and end us the link. To us at your business msnbc. Com. Police include a short summary of what your company does. How much money and what you intend to do with the money. When we come back. Wanting to expand is great. It can be perilous if you do it too soon. Why it may be a good idea to turn inward and reevaluate goals and missions. 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. Im always thinking of a new product to offer customers or a way to expand business. Sometimes im thinking of too many ideas. When do you know if you should keep it on the back burner. You are an idea engine. What to do is come up with ideas. You have to be careful. If you lose focus, youll start to create wear and tear on organization. Listen to ideas and pivot and move with it. Come up with another idea. That becomes an old idea. Drive people crazy. Create gates for it. If you get to first gate, then go to second gate or third gate. If you dont get to right gate. Cut the idea off. Be ruthless in how you look at ideas and how you judge them. In that way you can keep organization focussed and committed and be consistent in the messages you give to your people. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your kbroing business. Lauren is the founder and ceo of lmb group. Strategic marketing and advisory firm. And founder and ceo of retro t fitness. Thank you for the elevator advice. Now opening the floor to you anything you think can help a business in the audience. Lauren start with you. Thank you for having me on. I think that some things really important for entrepreneurs is to make sure they are hiring competing counterweights. Oftentimes when an entrepreneur is starting company or growing team, they tend to hire who they know. Right, you go first to inner circle and end up with a lot of duplicative skill sets. Make sure youre hiring, you know, diverse perspective. Experience, skills that can actually be really meaningful and competing counterweights to business and things that you need to evolve and grow into success. You dont want a lot of people saying i gastro with that too. Yes, which is tempts in the beginning. Xavier cedeno exciting to be around people who believe in what yo dough. People start and grow within support system. Sometimes we have to reach outside of comfort zone to make sure were making the right hires. Especially in early stages. You have people so violate to growth of business. Make sure everyone is bringing different skill set to the table. Eric. When i deal with entrepreneurs. I always tell them check up from the neck up. That really means being able to on a daily basis, not just goal setting once a year on january 1. I tell them to do it nightly. Weekly set goals for the week. Nightly go through goals. Morning look at book and say what do i have to do to accomplish today. You become an entrepreneur. It gets busy. Million miles an hour things flying at you. Get overwhelmed quickly and lose sight and balance goes out of business and life. Check up, heres my goal, destination. Math for the day. Forget about the budget. Im talking about you. Check frup the neck up. Have to have your mind right in business otherwise you become the disaster. You become the choke hold on the business. Youre so overwhelmed you start focusing on the easy stuff. Right. I can get this done. I can get this done. You just keep pushing away. Swallowing the frog in the book. Deal with that stuff right away and most entrepreneurs as spirited as we are, have a tendency sometimes to lean toward let me just get done what i can. Yes, because at least kk kkyn do that. Owns b elegant mens wear. That is a perfect selfie of your business. Thank you for sending that in. We love featuring your business heres on the show. Let us highlight what you do. Pick up your cell phone. Take a selfie of you and your business. Send it to us at your business msnbc. Com. Tweet it to us. Include your name, name of business. And the location dont forget to use the hashtag your business selfie. Thanks for joins us today. We love hearing from you. If you want the get in touch with us, just email us at your business at msnbc. Com. We read every single email that comes in to us. You can also go to website. Open forum. Com. We posted all of the segments from todays show plus a whole lot more and please dont forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, 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. So the wheels are coming off a little bit. If the wheels are not yet off you are starting to hear the start of lug nuts stripping their threads and pinging across lanes of traffic while the wheels start to wobble. Theres a bit of a freakout in washington and were seeing it on two big stories developing tonight. Why is it always friday night . One of these two stories tonight, developing tonight that shows this freakout, one of them is about the administration itself, the other one breaking tonight appears to be about the prospect of investigation into the administration