Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping business Decision Makers grow their companies. For those who watch us every week, you might notice something is different. We have a brandnew set and a brandnew look here and we are very excited about it. What we have that is the same are the great story that is are going to help you run your businesses. We are going to start with this one. When Ellen Bennett was a 19yearold cook working through Culinary School in new mexico, she never imagined in a few years, she would be cooking up something statewide that would change kitchen fashion forever. We caught the attention of hundreds of thousands of fans across the country. Now, shes running a multimillion dollar business. Theres no doubt ellen has made the leap. Its been called the apple of the culinary world. Offering a collection of highend, durable aprons, chef gear and accessories. Hedley and bennett revolutionized the way we look at it. We take it seriously. 29 yield Ellen Bennett is the burst of inspiration. Since 2012, her vibrant, hand crafted designs are a cult favorite in 4,000 kitchens across the country. She was a line cook earning 10 an hour when she cooked up the idea of hedley and bennett. Nobody thought about an apron that looked good and was functional. It was not comfortable, it didnt fit. I really wanlted to make a better uniform and make something people felt proud to wear in the kitchen. The art of the highend apron became ellens daily focus. Lack of design experience didnt hold her back. Dreams and ideas. Let me tell you, we are talking proper bad ass fabrics. Handmade in los angeles. Every pocket corner is reinforced. I put it on their body, tie it on and they love it. The steep price tag wasnt a hard sell. You look at the craftsmanship and go, okay thrks is going to la last forever. It takes 12 people to make one apron. Hedley and bennett brings a bold and durable design and aesttico the culinar wear. Much is driven byellens work ethic. Rooted in her experience as a line cook. Tickets coming in, the chef is yelling, somebody is gluten free and you have to fix it. You have mentality of working with urgency. It really is a game changer. You have to be like hustling, you know, when you have a start up. One item on the management was her fine dining approach to details. Everything is about finding the tiniest error and fixing it. When you take that approach to business, sometimes it can really clash with people because you are trying to get them to be so meticulous on something. They dont think that way. Its like finding that happy medium, recognizing that not everybody is me and being willing to be okay with that. Ellen use zing instagram to celebrate her group of loyal fans, whom she calls the apron squad. They, in turn, celebrate the fashion behind hedley and bennett. We are makers, we are hooligans. You are part of the apron squad, a team of people that believe in it. Get out there and fight. We are huslers, not going to sit. We are going to make something out of ourselves. Thats what we stand for. Mario batali and Martha Stewart are in. Hedley and bennett headquarters e not jus f manufacturing. Shes made the apron factory a placor crent customers to get an emersive brand experience. We give tours. Its like willy wonka and the chocolate factory. Well give you a hug if youll take one. We give coffee. You can try aprons on. Your kid is on a slide. Somebody rides the zip line. We are going to take Old School Ideas and new School Technology and jam them together. The apron factory hosts events shining the spotlight on people and brands throughout the community. I want every touch point to be special. They welcomed shake shack to the west coast. We through 1,000 person party and the apron factory put a deejay in the treehouse. We are growing together and doing something bigger and better for everyone. That sentiment rings true in packaging. With every shipment, they receive a gift, highlighting another brand. Its connecting the community and being willing to share that platform. Hey, what do you have thats cool . Lets include it. I think its awesome and i want to help my community grow. She transformed an overall feeling in the culinary space. One hedley and bennett apron at a time. Teams are looking better, feeling better. Put it on and hold your head up high and do a damn good job today. Over the last 13 years, tory burch turned her Fashion Company into a billion dollar enterprise. Today, while shes best known for her recognizable clothing, she, herself, is equally, if not more proud of the work she is doing to help empower other Women Entrepreneurs through the Tory Burch Foundation. We sat down with her to talk about her journey building both ventures. Tory burch built her Fashion Company on a simple premise, making clothes that fit her own aesthetic. Colorful, classic and a little bohemian. I certainly would never want to business school, never went to design school. I had an idea. It struck a cord. It is something that was missing in the market. Its something i was missing. It was a simple idea, clothes that were beautifully made that didnt cost a fortune. When you are missing something, its another good way to think about the business you are launching or working on building. Her style resinated with women almost immediately. There were naysayers who discouraged her almost every step of the way. Think of negativity as noise. You know, really believe in yourself. There were so many times people said, i dont like your logo. Why are you launching online. People will never buy online. This was 12 years ago. We launched with one retail store and ecommerce. They said that was the wrong way to do it. I think if you have conviction and go with your gut and you really believe you are answering a need thats when it works. In 2015, forbes listed burch as the 73rd most powerful woman in the world. Behind the scenes, she knew her company was started to suffer from growing pains. Almost every ceo i had spoken with told me about this point. I didnt really buy into it until, in retro spect, i definily had that point at ten years. I just had this feeng things were different, things were happening, technology was taking hold. We needed to really address the next ten years of our business. It was about putting in the right infrastructure, the right systems, looking at our team, which was hard because im a loyal person. Some people are great at different parts of your business and we need to look at and pivot into different areas. It was probably the hardest thing i have ever done. You have to be a leader. You have to have your team believe in what we are doing and its not always easy. I think, if you are not nimble and you are not reactionary, thats when businesses really have longterm problems. From the day she launched her business, she knew she wanted to do something as well. Help other women develop their companies. We just want to help more and more women. We want to be the goto source for Women Entrepreneurs. I think our website is that. People are writing Business Plans off the website and hopefully we are giving them a ton of information. The Tory Burch Foundation empowers Women Entrepreneurs providing access to capital, education and resources. We are disrupting business as usual for the boutique industry. The Foundation Offers a Fellowship Program where ten finalists pitch their companies for investment in front of burch. There were 800 applicants. We narrowed it down to 200, then 35. From the 35 incredible businesses, it was tough. The winner is paris sabo. A former cancer surgeon started with her sister, a dentist. They created natural, nontoxic toothpaste. Her pitch convinced them her business was the one they wanted to help boost. Paris is going to get 100,000, 50,000 outright and 50,000 no interest loan for his business, education. Its the beginning of a wonderful relationship. Finding great employees is hard. In my experience, its one of the most difficult things you have to do. It starts with making sure you are getting the right people into the interview process in the first place. If you dont have a good pool, you are not going to end up with a good result. Forbes gives five ways to attract great candidates. One, use interactive video. A game version for their job search, the result was greater candidate engagement and a better sense of what people were looking for. Two, invite candidates behind the scenes. Host open houses where potential employees can experience your culture firsthand. This will help you weed out people who arent the right fit. Three, integrate Artificial Intelligence and data. Tools like maya and lisa reduce the add min work to have human recruiters like personality and character. Four, be optimized for mobile. Google ranks companies that are mobile friendly higher in searches. Dont ignore word of mouth. Employees are the biggest brand of ambassadors. Spread the word when you have open positions. Earlier this week, i went to washingt washington, d. C. Here is a fun fact for you. The u. S. Government is the Largest Consumer of products and services in the world. The entire world. So, if you are looking for a new customer, dont count them out. Its not easy to get those contracts. Managing director of red carrot wondered if she could sell the government on use zing her company in 2011. Six years later, its her biggest client, making up 80 of her business. I caught up with her to find out how she did it. Getting the federal contract is a dream come true. We were a smaller firm, we got our first government contract two years ago. It helped us hire more people and deliver events all over the country and grew to the next level. You are advertising and marketing. When people think government contracts, they think airplane parts. What got you thinking about this . Government works like a business. They purchase everything you wouldnt think of. I started looking into the government to see what they procure on their website. How hard was it . Its a common thought that its not worth the red tape going through the beaurocracy. Everything in life is hard. If you want something, you have to stay focused. Its not easy to land a federal government contract. If you stay focused and persevere, you will get one if you are good at what you do. What tips do you have . I think the most important thing with federal Government Contracting is stay true to your core and focus on what you do. Dont try to do it all. Establish the right team. Sometimes you may be good at something and another compa that is goodn ather area and you can Team Together and Work Together to get the goverent contract. Did dwrou that sfl. I have before. In what way . We can handle the advertising and someone can do something else. Exactly. We handle the advertising and they do the logistics. Theres Great Companies you can work with. They have great past performance that you can use to make your proposal stronger. Did you use consultants to get through the paperwork . I did not. I know theres a lot of consultants out there. Luckily, i have not had the chance to work with them. Why not . You felt like you can do it on your own . I like to do things on my own. I like to try it first and if i need extra resources tap into a different consultant. What mistake did you make for other people to watch out for . Theres so many mistakes with Government Contracting. I read a lot. I attended a lot of conferences. The first proposal we did we won. Its because we did our homework. That really, really helps. It was just reading and talking to people. And you beat out an incumbent. You took the job from somebody else that had been doing it. A lot of people think once you are in, you are in. Thats not the case. Not in this case. We offered Innovative Solutions and the client really liked our proposal. 80 f your businessomes from the government. It does. Thanks for stopping by. Rose mayry knows it when she sees it. When she started gorilla stationers she had her eye on the prize. She wanted to make it as easy as possible for the government to work with her. The government is the worlds biggest procurer of product, right . Thats a huge opportunity for someone like us. Rose mary czopek is a rock star in Government Contracting. We were able to do business with the government within 60 days of starting the business. She bid on government contracts and filling out piles of paperwork. When she launched gorilla stationers in california, she was bound and determined to get her Small Business a slice of uncle sams pie. We started the company knowing we would go after government and diversity business. That was always our plan, to become a diversity supplier. I think thats a niche in the market thats not 100 fulfilled at this point. Its hard to get that first contract. So, how did she do it . Actually, for her, it was just about experience. Rosemarys knack for the Office Supply business and fearless approach to Government Contracting is something she learned in his first job. When i moved to california at 18, i learned about office and doing business with the government. With 500 billion available for purchasing, rosemary couldnt afford to let an opportunity as big as this pass her by. She had to go out on her own and start a business. Hope you are having a great week. Working with the government can be daunting. Thats why we asked rosemary to share tips on how to approach the task of landing a government contract. Her first piece of advice, get a diversity supplier certification. Rosemary has six of them. A diversity supplier is a Small Business, a womanowned business, a hispanicowned business, asian business z. Now they have the gay and lesbian designation. That is a percentage of sales that the government has to spend with these designations. For instance, women owned businesses get 5 . If your head is spinning, rosemary recommends contacting the local Small Business to figure out ut. Thats how she got connected. Look at a date to come over. I would love that. Im dying to meetchlie. People experienced in doing business with the government, like linda, can guide you there the process. You need to understand who your target markets are. Its not just getting government contracts, who is going to buy the products . How are they going to buy and understanding that process z. That led rosemary to buy out two Small Companies to diversify. Our first acquisition was gizmo. It was fun, hip, Technology Based company. In may of 2015, we purchased a Company Based in van nuys called inc. For all. It just sold toner and ink, whereas gorilla stationer sells toner, ink, office products, paper products. Michael stone, one of the founders of ink for all has stayed on at gorilla to better integrate his company with rosemarys. So far, its working as planned. Rosemary approached us about acquiring ink for all, and it turned out to be a great thing. Helping our section of the company grow. Prior to the accusation, michael had no Government Customers. Now, the ink and toner portion of the business is a big seller at gorilla, especially for the Government Customer looking for those special recycled products. Theres so much opportunity in the government sector. So were also looking for new contracts, new segments of business we can get involved with. Another way to find out if indeed you want to work with a Government Agency and if youre qualified to is to go to a howto class run by the organization. If you dont understand how to do business with an agency, they have classes, how to do business with this agency, what paperwork they require. Theres the dreaded word, paperwork. Its government, so it is going to be its all about the paper. Unfortunately. She had some experience, so she knew what she was up against. And she understood the system. For somebody thats starting out, totally new, it takes a while. Linda says once all that paperwork is figured out and that first government contract is snagged, getting other to follow becomes easier. Rosemary now has customers at the federal, state, and local level, and as she guessed when she started the process, they turned out to be some of the best customers she has. They pay their billed on time. So with the federal government in some cases its net 10. So before they pay big businesses, they pay our invoice. Stay with us. Coming up on your business, we have expert advice on how to scale your company, and then we go to our braintrust to find out where to go to fund that growth. So thats the idea. What do you think . Hate to play devils advocate but. I kind of feel like its a game changer. I wouldnt go that far. Are you there . Hes probably on mute. Yeah. Gary wont like it. Why . Because hes gary. phone ringing what . Keep going yeah. laughs voice on phone its not millennial enough. There are a lot of ways to say no. Thank you so much. Thank you so were doing it. Yes start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Let us help wi money and knhow, so you can get business done. American express open. Challenges you face when scaling a medium sized business to a Large Business . The biggest unexpected challenge you face when scaling from medium to large is just because youre the Business Leader and say it doesnt make it so. You have to start scaling yourdition making which means you like all the other leaders in your company need to sell through great new priorities. You need to create checkpoints to make sure theyre getting done. Otherwise, youll come back in five weeks later and realize nothing has gotten started. But trust me, the reverse is far worse, which is you have mumbled something under your breath in a meeting and everyone has taken that as the net new priority. Making sure getting things done is something that can scale, and youre really stating your priorities to everyone so they know whats most important is one of the biggest unexpected challenges youll face. This is the brain trust where i get to take the really complicated, sticky, messy questions we all deal with in business and ask it of some of the smartest minds in the business today. Cindy wrighthead, you took the female viagra, pushed it through the fda, and sold your company for a billion dollars. And sams company has grown three times as you have been there, one of the top five womens Media Companies online, also the biggest conference for female bloggers. Congratulations to both of you. I want to talk to you about funding. You decided not to take any vc funding for your company. How much did you raise for sprout . Ultimately, 100 million. Azing. No venture capitalists. I wt to know why. What was behind that . I had been in a number of different operating roles in Venture Companies and i felt that short term perspective and the lack of appreciation of the fabric of building the company was missing. When i was going to do it, i was doing it on my own terms. I wanted people who believed in what i was trying to do. Sam, you have been in vc backed companies, private, public, and one of the things i hear from people on the good side of getting venture money is suddenly youre part of a club. So you get this Automatic Network and this group of people who can help you. Yeah, no doubt. I think that, and i have had good experiences and all of the above, whether its public, private equity backed, vc backed, angel backed, and i had terrible experiences with all of the above also. Being vcbacked gives you a polish, a feeling of being validated, endorsed, and im so impressed by those who choose not to go that bay because it gives you confidence in a moment where you might be struggling for confidence. And it gives you a network. Well, one of the things that i always get sort of, i think is crazy, is when you say how is their company doing . Theyre so successful, they just raised 40 million in venture money. Venture is littered with unsuccessful companies. Its weird that we celebrate that metric. For me, that was the moment of abject terror. I had peoples money. I had their kids college tuition. It became very personal to me because of raising it through angel, so i really knew their family, what this money was earmarked for and why i had to deliver it back and then some. One of my fears is, and i h good experiences, as well, of course, in Venture Backed Companies is a little like the other peoples money syndrome of they made it, they can lose it. I think were nonchalant about that today. You think founders are . Yes. And Venture Companies. Theyre expecting to lose it, so if it happens, no big deal. If you look at the odds, youre more likely not to succeed as a vc. I think we celebrate these funding rounds because were looking at five companies who got a lot of funding early on and pluit out of the water. Were not usually i think more and more, were starting to look at the hugely Venture Backed Companies who failed miserably. I think that thats going to change a little bit and there will be more due diligence, i hope. That is a Perfect Place to leave it. Thank you both. This weeks your biz selfie comes from kingsley gardener, owner of kgm entertainment in florida. He runs a Talent Management agency and looks like hes pretty good at his job because, look, he just got a picture of some of his clients on national television. Come on our Facebook Page and let us know who those women are. We would love to know. All of you out there, do what kingsley did and pick up your smartphone and take a selfie of your and your business. No professional shots, please, and send it to your biz. Include your name, the name of your business, the location, and dont forget to use th the yourbizselfie. Thank you, everyone, so much for joining us today. We hope you like our new look, and running a show is just like running a business. An when you make a big change like this, you have to have process and leadership and all kinds of things like you need when you make a change in your company. So i want to personally thank every Single Person at msnbc who touched this project, and there are a lot of you, because i think it looks great. Now, we would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or you have any comments about todays show, just email us at yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Also, please go to our website, openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all of the segments from todays show plus a whole lot more. Dont forget to connect with us on our digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im j. J. Ramberg, and remember, we make your business our business. Thank you so much. Thank you so were a go . Yes we got a yes what does that mean for purchasing . Purchase. Lets do this. Got it. Book the flights hai si si ya ya ya what does that mean for us . We can get stuff. Whats it mean for shipping . Ship the goods. Youre a go you got the green light. That means go oh, yeah. Start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Were gonna hit our launch date scream thank you goodbye let us help with money and knowhow, so you can get business done. American express open. Good morning, and welcome to politics nation. On friday, a jury has acquitted a Minnesota Police officer in the shooting of philando castile. Once again, raising the National Debate over Police Conduct toward black people. I will address this painful issue later in the show. But we start today with a white house under investigation. This week, one thing stood out. For the first time