Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20171007

Hi, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg, and welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your growing business. If you own a business in a creative field, you know managing the daytoday operations while letting ones artistic vision shine through can be tricky. I recently sat down with jennifer, one of the most established artisan florists in los angeles, who has spent her entire career trying to strike that perfect balance. For more than two decades, jennifer, the founder of floral arts, has shown just how enduring the power of flower can be. Known for her distinct approach to design and eyecatching creations, jennifer has become a goto florist for hollywood alisters, global brands, and red carpet events. All of my inspiration really comes from architecture, art, interior design, fashion. Her everevolving creativity has been the driving force behind floral arts continued success, but managing the business side of things has been an ongoing challenge from the start. When you first started, did you know anything about p ls, marketing, and Everything Else you need to know about to run a business successfully . Gosh, no. If someone said, hey, this is what youre in for, honestly, i dont know if i would have done it. Isnt that the beauty of things . Just jump in. Yeah, ive had a lot of trial and error for sure. Ive had to learn to balance the creative with the business. That balance is easier said than done, and jennifer constantly has to rein in her deep desire to create in order to keep her company on track and flourishing. Im obsessed, like, with making things. So, you know, i need to ive got to put myself in check and say, whats the strategy here . Whats the plan . What are we doing . Jennifer finds that creating two separate environments helps keep her focused. One to handle the nuts and bolts of the business, and the other to let her imagination run wild. I do some of my work from my home office, and thats my brain time. Then when im connected into my team and our productions, then im here. Its two different worlds. And when faced with daunting challenges, shes developed a unique way to tackle them. Well, its only taken 20 years, but when i come up against challenges, ive found that if i can turn it into somewhat of like a design challenge, then i become inspired. So you take your Business Issues and somehow turn them into a, hey, this is a design issue. A creative somehow. Then you can tackle it as a business issue. Then it becomes fun. Its not overwhelming. Over the years, jennifer has seen how her artistic passion and creativity can be blinding at times when it comes to important business decisions, like opening her first floral art retail space. It was hilarious. I mean, it took me probably a year and a half to realize i needed a huge sign. I know it seems really, like, of course. It really took me like a hot minute to get my stuff together. I was stressed. I was in over my head. You know, i expanded a little too quickly and really acclimate for sure. In recent years, jennifer and her team have opted for popups over more permanent spaces. Well, i think popup stores are an excellent opportunity to test your market, the demographic, and to experiment without longterm risk, you know, of, say, brick and mortar lease and all the overhead. Although floral art has an ecommerce site that sells arrangements, the online space has not been a primary focus for the company, nor has all the new competition thats sprouted up in the digital age. What about just people ordering flowers for their friends . Now there are these apps that make it incredibly easy. How do you fight that . I dont think its about fighting it. Its a different demographic, i would say. People are going to come to us because they appreciate the artistic quality of the design. Ive noticed a lot of companies that sell flowers, direct to consumer, theyve brought in their rcevenue base y going into chocolates or gifts. You, on the other hand, went into furniture, which doesnt seem as natural an extension. Nobody said it made sense, right. Growing the floral art product line with highend furniture and accessories became more about enhancing the overall brand and less about making money. When you create a new product, like these chairs, which are gorgeous, or these trays, which i also love, do you think through, okay, here are the costs, heres the potential revenue, is this going to be a big moneymaker, or do you think, im creative, i want to make this, and just worry about the rest later . I would say with these particular pieces, im going to make no matter what. And i will build it into my business plan. And while recognizing how instagram and pinterest friendly her exquisite designs are, jennifer has handed the social media reins over to the more savvy. Thats all the more reason for us to outsource it, because its not my favorite thing. Id rather be right here, right now, versus thinking about what something is going think youve so successful . I think it really just comes down to inspiration and my creativity. And somehow finding my way back to that every time. Thats why i do what i do. Sportswear and Fitness Company under armour found itself having to get in shape this year. It restructured, closed some facilities, and with the acquisition of my fitness pal, its the largest Digital Fitness and Health Community in the world. Nbcs willie geist sat down with the founder and ceo kevin plank to talk about company culture, competition, and giving back to the community. This is a topsecret facility. What are they making on this line . So this is something we have called called our air project. Walking the floor of his state of the art Innovation Factory in baltimore, kevin plank is obsessed with whats next. The process can just be better. It can be safer. It can be more efficient, faster. But its got to become a commercial product so the consumer can say, thats something i want to wear to make me a better athlete, make me a better human, makes my butt look thinner. Perhaps the most important quality, makes my butt look thinner. Youre going to run smarter. Now the head of a nearly 5 billion Global Sports empire, the 44yearold plank started his First Business as a freshman at the university of maryland. With the help of his future wife d. J. , plank sold valentines day roses on campus. Grossed about 3,000, cost me about a thousand bucks, pocketed two grand. Not bad spending money for a college kid. See, thats not normal for most college kids. Did you see something ahead for yourself, like this could be the first step in creating Something Else bigger . I learned from roses that i was pretty good at creating a central idea of having a vision of what it could be. It was his next vision that would become americas second largest Sports Performance gear company. A scrappy Football Player at maryland who never missed a practice in five years, plank was bothered by the weight of the sweatsoaked cotton tshirts he wore under his pads. What if we made Something Like out of a Synthetic Material like you wear in a compression short but for the upper body. Working out of his grandmothers basement after graduation in 1996, plank had 500 shirts made and began shopping them around to friends in nfl locker rooms. What was that first year like . Multiple voices answering the phone like, under armour, can i speak to you . Can i speak to your president . Just one moment. This is kevin plank. I used to carry two business cards. One that sale sales manager. Another one that said president. He made his first deal with the Football Program at georgia tech. And the company grew steadily from there. In 1999 under armour had its breakthrough moment when plank got his gear in front of the Costume Designer on an oliver stone movie. We had a big break with the movie any given sunday. Get a call on monday saying this is soandso from olivers office. We want to use this in the movie. I said, great, where do you want me to send the invoice to . Invoice . This is hollywood, we dont do that. No, no, everybody pays a good, fair price for our product. One of the proudest moments of my life is we were paid 42,000 from any given sunday. You guys for your company, for better part of a decade, were growing rocketship to the moon, doubledigit growth every year. Then the Fourth Quarter last year, you hit a little bit of a roadblock that scared wall street. What happened there . I think we found that theres a bit of a shifting market thats happening in the marketplace where, you know, the obligation of brands is to make sure that, first of all, freshness and newness. Whoever makes the best product is going to win. And there was all these sort of things converging at one moment in time. Plank would rather be known for his stand on baltimore, a troubled city others have left for dead. His Development Company has opened a hotel and a distillery there. Combined with public funds, plank will spend 5. 5 billion on a longterm project to completely transform the citys distressed waterfront. I love blowing minds. I love people seeing things and saying, i never could have thought or could have imagined. I hope to believe and hopefully to be some representative that the American Dream is something very much alive and theres a lot of people that dont feel that right now, but hopefully we can be some of that feeling that can happen. So we have to keep it running, keep it going in the right direction. Your booth at a trade show is your opportunity to get the attention of new customers, but how do you get potential buyers to notice you when you are not the newest business on the floor . I went to new york now with Retail Marketing expert to see if we could give one Business Owner whos had a booth at the trade show for years some pointers on how to change things up. Hey, im jj. Terrence. Your booth is lovely. Thanks so much. Yeah, congratulations on this. Its be mighty. Be mighty is our motto. I love that. How long have you been in business . 15 years. Show me what you do. It looks like paper wallets. Our core product is mighty wallet. Its made of tyvek. I came up with this wallet thats all origami. Its recycleable, sustainable. These are great. Show me your booth a little bit. How many times have you been to this show . Ive been in business 15 years. Probably 12 years of doing these shows, at least. Wow. And more than one a year, im guessing. Yeah, were doing it twice a year. Got it. So 24 of these shows under your belt. You must be an expert by now. I feel like ive got it down, but every show theres always some surprise that you didnt expect. You have your new products out in front. Yeah, so the mighty stash pack is sort of its my reinvention of the lunch bag. Your idea is put the new stuff in front. People kind of know you already for the wallets. Yeah, so people can look up and see us as the wallet, but i think it like you have three to five seconds to grab peoples attention as theyre walking past. I try to create little anchor points. Were going to bring someone in today whos an expert in trade show booths to tell you what youre doing well and where you can make some improvements. Okay, great. This is lindsay. Thank you so much for doing this. Im excited. On a scale from one to ten, how do you think terrence did . I think hes at a nine. Whats great about what hes done on the bookends of the booth is that hes got consumer creative content. His instagram wall is here. No matter which side im coming from as a buyer, im captivated because i see dynamic pictures. I see colorful things. The other thing you want to do in merchandising is convey Product Knowledge when the consumer when the vendor isnt there. So if terrence is with another buyer and i walk up, maybe i dont like all the pa patterns i see there, but i can see theres so many different possibilities. That for me could be a Tipping Point as a buyer. What else in here do you think terrance has done well . Well, i was definitely drawn to this wall because of the stickers. If im a buyer and ive bought from him previously, id want to know whats new. So how come you decided to put stickers on there . Have you done it before . Thats exactly it. Sometimes, you are right, were busy, buyers thats the first thing theyre going to ask, whats new. So highlighting that, highlighting it on the podiums is something that i do automatically. Then telling the next important thing, which is best sellers. You like the new, the best seller. Great job. Is there something he could have done differently . I would just say to make the text bigger. Maybe you have a big sign that says new and best seller. If theyre walking by and maybe theyre on the other side of the aisle, thatll captivate them. If theyve already been here and missed the sign, theyll definitely get it with some bigger signage. Totally agree. So lets talk about the new products. This is what you want to highlight this year, right . How did he do . You know, i think this is more of a seven. Whats great about it is that he does have some signage that says its new, but it needs to be bigger. Also, his booth is so colorful. Hes an artist. The products and are all made from 800 different artists, right. So hes a colorful booth. These pictures are nothing colorful. Hes missing out on either like putting your instagram feed on the sides of these or having just these in big, bold colors. I also think that you do a better job with the wallets of conveying some of the things that the product can do. You do it a little bit over here but not as much on these stands. So id have maybe signage that says washable, something fun, playful that fits in with your brand. Ultimately, whats more important, what your booth looks like or how good you are at reeling people in and having an effusive personality and being able to engage them in a conversation . I mean, i think that the first step with merchandising is getting them in the booth. But then you have to convey Product Knowledge, which i think youve done a really great job of. Then youve got a great product. Those three things really are the recipe for success. We wish you the best of luck. Its a beautiful booth. I love your product, and i hope everything goes well. Thank you for all of your advice. Thanks for the advice. Im here in the hallway with this weeks elevator pitcher. So nice to see you here. Welcome. Thank you so much for having us. And you brought a model. This is my son. Is this your summer job . No, im just helping her out today. Well, what is the name of your company . My company is 131. We make one of a kind rain jackets using nasa developed technology. I will admit to you when i heard about this company first, and inside youll tell why its special, i thought they werent going to be great looking because of how you make it. Im incredibly impressed. I think they look fantastic. Oh, thank you. Im so excited. Now youre going to get a chance to tell the panel why sther special and what makes them different. Lets go in and talk to them. Youre going to be talking to two people. Alisha is tan adviser and investor in women entrepreneurs. And then a very successful entrepreneur, many times over. His latest company is ub, and he knows a lot about consumer products. Thats great. So this will be great. Lets go see them. Okay. Hi. Im the founder of 131. This is my son wearing our jackets that are made from nasa developed technology. I learned about this Cool Technology when i was wrapped in a heat sheet after my first half marathon. Did you know that we are the only Company Using this fabric to make outerwear . Each jacket has a silver lining, literally, that retains 0i9d of your body heat, keeping you warm. Our jackets are water repellant, packable, and they weigh less than one pound, making them the perfect item to take on your adventure. Were asking for your help to get these jackets in the hands of travelers and outdoor enthusiasts. In 2016, the outdoor Apparel Market was 7 billion and growing, which is great for us. We launched our jackets in june, and weve sold over 300 units through our Kick Starter Campaign and our website. Wed retail the jackets for 145 to 175. But now we need your help to grow our business, so were asking for 200,000 loan to increase marketing and sales and staff. Thank you. Thank you. Nice modeling there. Good job. Thank you. You look like youve had some practice. Okay. You two, i need two numbers. One to ten, what do you think of the product . And what did you think of the pitch . You can throw in something for the model as well if youd like. You know what i think is amazing . Weve had a lot of mother son teams here for the elevator pitch. Its really great. I love seeing that. Thank you. When you have zero budget for models, you got to get the families in. I feel like im going shopping at this elevator pitch because i want one. But what i think doesnt matter. Its what you think counts. Alisha, lets start with you. Okay. I gave you a nine on the product. I love it. I think it looks super sharp. I loved hearing about the nasa technology. I loved hearing about your personal story behind it. You talked about price. Really great. Now, on the pitch side, i felt like there was a lot of great information, too. Everything from where i buy it, who your target market is, how big the market it. But i really want to hear more about your brouackground. I dont know if you were a consultant or banker. What are you bringing to the table in terms of Product Knowledge and who are you surrounding yourself with. But overall, i thought it was excellent. And i also love the mother son team. Its great. Thank you. Thanks. Well, i gave you an eight for product and a seven for pitch. The product im going to be a customer. I love it. This is exactly the type of thing i love, especially when you travel. I love the fact you thought about the pouch. And really, you couldnt have asked for a better model in your son. I just might need a little bit of a smaller size. As far as pitch goes, the one big thing that was missing for me was your intellectual property. You said you were the only Company Using this, but it would have been great to hear that property. It would have been great to hear you have sphraousi ivexclusive this material. You are the only people in the world that can use it for a period of time. For us that is really important especially when you go into such a competitive market and retail landscape. Great. Thank you both very much for your advice. It was very helpful. Good luck to both of you. Youre going off to college. Good luck while youre mom is home toiling away to pay for that college. We have an exciting announcement to make about the elevator pump. We will offer five people the chance to come on the program and give an elevator pitch in hopes of getting their product into sams club. Two buyers from sams club will be judging the pitches and will skwro vote on on who will be coming to make a sales pitch. The address is yourbusines yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Be sure to include a short summary about your product. We look forward to seeing some of those pitches and eventually seeing some of you in sams club. When we come back, how you grow your business while maintaining the integrity of your brand and culture. And great insights on how to get retailers to say yes. 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. How you scale a business and how you grow it while keeping consistency and keeping the integrity of the original brand as well as keeping the culture the way it is is currently . If youre looking to scale, first you have to determine what youre ready to let go of in order to grow. For example, you wouldnt buy a larger house and try to take all the furniture from our old house and squeeze it in. What are you willing to let go of in terms of processes, systems, and attitudes in order to grow. Second, let your team know your growth plans to determine who is on board and who is not on board. That will help you either get to the next level or keep you stagnant where you are. Furthermore, you have to do one thing a day to scale. Whether its making one additional call, whether its waking up one hour earlier a day, calling one or prospect or attending a networking event. You have to do that one extra thing that will set you apart from your competitors. So determine what youre going to let go of, understand how to let your team on board, and do that one extra thing that will set you apart from the competition. Thats how you scale. Its time now for the brain trust where we get to ask real business decisionmakers how they get things done. We have jamie kern lima. So nice to have you on the show. Thank you. Its wonderful to be here. It cosmetics you started out of your bedroom and then sold to loreal. And your company was started by your mom. It was. We are continuing everything. Two family businesses. You cofounded yours with your husband. Today we will talk about getting retailers to say yes. You had retailers say no to you for many years. Obviously now it is is successful. Yeah. One of the toughest things to get. You have to stay persistent. I want to hear tips how you got from no to yes. My biggest tip is be ready to hear no. So many entrepreneurs hear no and that equates to doubt in your own head. We heard no from everyone for years. And the biggest thing is just literally being persistent and believing in yourself. And i think half the battle is retailers seeing that you are that person and youre willing to stick it out. Once you get in their stores or on their sites, then, you know, the journey has just begun. When people keep saying no, how do you keep the confidence that, hey, theyre wrong and im right . When it comes down to it, it really is all about product. It has to start with product first. If you dont have product thats unique, differentiated is and that customers can appreciate, it is tough to get them to say yes. The way retail is played out now, it is a much different ball game. It is really all about shortterm results. It used to be about longterm partnerships, patience. Retailers would be okay. Now if youre not producing results right away, it is is a very difficult mandate. It really does come down to product and partnering with retailers. They are more willing to work with you, more willing to take a chance on you if you can partner and really Work Together to come up with a winning product. What does that mean, partner with retailers . Are you changing your product . We can. Sometimes you present something and they want it to be a little bit different. Today you have to be a little bit more flexible in terms of meeting those needs. And from a financial perspective. Brands are being asked more and more to take some of that financial risk off the table. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. Given the way the retail environment is changing, being flexible in terms of how you work with these retailers is really important. I want to know an example of how you have been flexible. Well, kwfs for qvs is multip. It is about delivering every platform. We will do Facebook Live talking directly to customers. We two live on air, it is live 24 7. We give them unique bundles of products that you cant find anywhere else. Its all sort of about meeting the customers where theyre at on every is single platform that the retailer operates in also. Are you having to work harder for the retailers now than companies had to, you know, 15 years ago . Absolutely. It used to be we could come out with one set of products and you could see the same stuff. Now the calls are for us to make things that are more exclusive. So many brands are trying to get into so few doors. We operate at the high end. We used to be able to sell to 100 department stores. Now its about four or five. To really have a Meaningful Partnership you have to Work Together and maybe be more flexible than you had to 15 years ago. Also, unck the retailers are on the flip side working harder for us in the sense that when you look at these disruptive platforms, whether digital or you two on television. Qvs is in 100 million homes, that is instant live access. Getting promoted on their channels, thats a gift. It goes both way. There is so much pressure for instant results because you are getting live feedback, live data on sell jut whether its online or on television. Everything is moving so quickly. So quickly. When youre building a brand or launching a new product, you dont necessarily get those instant results. How do you deal with that with your retailers . Its tough. You have to really prepare them sometimes to say if something doesnt work right out of the gate, maybe the sell through wasnt as high as we expected in the first month but look at the engagement were doing. Thank you very much for your advice. All right. Hands down this is the best your biz selfie. It comes from david stephenson. He owns kastle pigeon in lexington, kentucky. His company that he runs with his wife angie sells pigeon Nutritional Supplements and prints of his pigeon photographs. Now all of you out there, try to beat him for the best selfie. Get out your smartphone, take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us at your business msnbc. Com. Or tweet it msnbcyourbiz. Thank you so much for joining us today. We love hearing from you. Please email us if you have anything to say at your business at msnbc. Com. Go to open for up. Com your business. We posted all segments from todays show plus a lot more for you. We put stuff on digital and social media platforms as well. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im j. J. Ram berg. And remember, we make your business our business. 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 we got a yes start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Let us help with money and knowhow, so you can get business done. American express open. Morning, glory, america. Im hugh hue et. A monster unleashed hundreds, if not thousands of rounds, on 22,000 americans. Suddenly we were again back in a news cycle that includes familiar geographical names like sandy hook, orlando, ft. Hood, columbine. Each of these massacres has unique facts and their own awful villains and tragic heartbreaking stories, as well as sheer rows and inspiring acts of courage