Hows. This is staying connected with xfinity to make moving. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and twohour appointment windows. Click, call or visit a store today. Good morning. Coming up, we have a Special Edition of msnbcs Your Business, which is focused on Women Entrepreneurs. Swhenlt from providing Handyman Services to selling storage units. What has she learned from running a Service Business that she could run a productoriented one. What this woman learned when she took an airport out of bankruptcy. Plus how to eliminate bias from women in advertising. When we have Your Business, we have your back. Thats all coming up on this
Special Edition of Your Business. Hi, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to Your Business, the show dedicated to helping your growing business. When we first started this program 12 years ago, there was not a lot of attention paid to female founders. The fact is there are many less of them than male founders, but women have built some extraordinary businesses, and theyre starting to get the attention that they, we all deserve. Today were dedicating the whole program to women in business, and we kick it off with one owner here in new york. She started a Service Business
and decided to spin off a second productbased company. She was shocked to discover how different running those two were but figured out a way to make it all work. The handy manman, tasha, buta healthier ware. Brooklynbased women, they couldnt have more different styles. But together they have the chemistry to pull it off. She pulled a check out of her purse that was about a year old. She was like, oh gist found this. I was like really. I cant fathom being ten cents off my reconciliation, let alone losing a check for an entire year. She founded a handyman home
business. Today she runs it and liz has started her own business called city bins. We had a lot of clients that needed Custom Carpentry projects and they were constantly asking for trash enclose eu enclose euros. We decided when we made our own business, with had a lot of experience. Nevertheless, switching from an hourly Home Repair Service to a manufactured Product Business turned out to be a way bigger leap than either of them had anticipated. I did not anticipate how the difference in cash flow would just impact the business. With the Service Business,
the cash flow was very simple and predictable, and there were low startup costs and easy financials. The cost for running the business would get covered as the business runs. Where the Hardware Store purchase maybe costs 50, the inventory purchase may be six figures. She had to stock up inventory all before earning a single penny. This required a tenyear sixfigure sba loan. I needed to put my house on the line to get that loan, soso literally if the business fails, my house fails, which means my house is on the line. She was happily surprised by the simplicity of the logistics. Once someone purchase as product, you take it out of inventory, you put it in the truck, and you deliver it. Each client and each job requested its own simple minefield. When a client says i need plaster repairs, i want to know whats the area of the plaster area. Do you have the paint, do we have to provide that. What size ladders, what tools do we need to bring, what materials do we need to bring. If you dont get those logistics right, it could be bad. Shes amazing. She started as a parttime bookkeeper, became able to run the whole operation. Liz said she made a happy unexpected discovery about herself. For my temperament, the Product Business is better for me. Im very good at Product Development and strategy, but im actually not good at logistics and now i dont have to do a whole lot anymore. While they are two key areas
of difference, liz also says they scale differently too because service is largely confined the local market and product is not. Its much more difficult to scale a Service Business. Theres just a lot more human beings involved. Theres a lot more invariability involved. But its primarily a local business. This means they can have fewer limitations than with a servicebased business, and she likes that. Not only can i scale it in terms of geography, but i can scale it in terms of product. We can expand and add other variations. Liz made just a few tweaks to the original enclose euros and created an entirely new product for what she now sees as a rapidly growing market, outdoor
products to receive packages. This is a Porch Product to help prevent piracy and keep packages safe. Shes discovered her strong suit, and shes running with it. Weve launched two products this year. Were really going to be focusing on marketing and scaling the business. Speeds through Airport Security is a reality thanks to the clear lanes you see at your local airport. But it almost didnt happen. Becker is a big believer in biometrics. She saw an opportunity where others didnt, and she took a big gamble when she took the company out of bankruptcy in 2010. Now shes got several years of smoothly operating the private sector under her belt and shes on a mission to change the way we think about security. We sat down with karen at clear
headquarters in new york where your wallet may be obsolete. Clear uses biometrics, fingerprints, iris, face, we hope one day voice, to create fingerless securities. Our idea is you enroll once and once your identity or health card or insurance card or frequency card are connected to you. You can use them in your wallet and so many more places. I think this is the most awesome opportunity. My view is this is where the world is going. Theres no way you a going have a wallet full of cards in a decade. I didnt think it was right to buy clear. Ignorance is bliss. It just felt like such a nobrainer that when you believe in something so much, you for
it. So the Nailure Didnt Scare us off. It was an opportunity to leadership. So digging in and understanding why it failed made us more confident that it could be successful. Restarting clear was hard, but if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Had an idea and a vision of where we were ult maltdly going be. If you do the right thing, you delight commerce, strengthen security, create jobs. The technology was ahead of its time to the credit of the company who came before us. B biometrics are not what they were. We had to go to airports where they were quite angry over having been shut down. Now theyre our best partners because weve done what we said we were going to do. Some say, why did you keep your same name. We talk about transparency, clear the way. I always thought of biometrics as bringing you safer, easier experience. Airports were the best place to start for a few reasons. If you can conquer airports and air travel, then you can bring clear to so many dimple locations. So about 50 of fans were using it to get into a Baseball Game or people who are using it to travel. So thats really exciting because the more value you can add, the better it is for our customers. People who are using it at Baseball Stadiums are learning about it and some are upgragd to the airport. And so we love that. I do envision a world over the next decade where youre leashing home without your wall e and being able to transact in so many places. You are your ticket. If you get stuck in a foreign country and they wont let you
back, you are your passport. What do you mean . Im me. You should absolutely use biometrics. One of the things when you buy a bankrupt company is to rebuild the integrity. Weve been out since day one. We do not share data. We protect your privacy 100 optin. Very transparent on a privacy policy. I think that was crucial to rebuilding this company and crucial to our future. And so it is the foundation of everything that we do. Were in the middle of a cultural shift. The association of National Advertisers along with a group of major brands are trying to eliminate bias. The initiative is calle called seeher. It calls for 20 of them. Here to talk more about the role of women and adds is jennifer da silva. Shes a marketer with experience working in fortune 500 brands. Thank you so much for having me. This is so interesting whats happening now. I remember when dove came out with the real women campaign. It was such a great deal and a lot of great brands have followed. Ultimately brands are only going to keep doing this if it increases their sales because i dont care how much you care about social responsibility, et cetera. If youre not selling because your advertising is not working, its irrelevant. Cromat. Tell us what that is. Cromat wanted to get rid of all of Those Preconceived Notions Of What Individual Beauty is. We put in a babe forward and they were policing those stereo types. We redefined the rules. It was all about everything. Cellulite allowed. Intolerance not aloud. It worked. We saw an exception to the ad. They loved it. They saw a tremendous increase in following. And this campaign was picked up in over 50 publications globally at got 90 million impressions with no paid media at all. Interesting. But the 25 sales is the keenum ber here. Absolutely. Just say im a brand, right . And im thinking about launching a campaign. In the past i would take the most stunning dme man stunn man and woman and put them in a situation we wouldnt be in. Is that not as good as, hey, heres the reality . No, i dont think its the reality. 85 of women are offended at how theyre depicted in advertising. People are dying to see realness and authenticity in advertising. You talk about the seeher movement. Theres another part of that movement, if you see her, you can be her. People see that. They wain. Lets put that up here today pause this is the if you can see her, you can be her. Absolutely. Women are often said theyre too different, too confident, too vulnerable. They wanted to eliminate that. This is where you see all of them, but in the ones it crosses out the two. Its really incredible because what theyre saying to women is own it. You can face anything. Be your bold self. Beshamelessly you. And thats pretty wonderful. It feels like it makes perfect sense in the moment of social media where actually what we really want to here is about yourself. I saw my friend who is not perfect looking and i know her for these flaws, but i see shes wearing this lipstick and i really like it on her. Absolutely. You want to see yourself connected to those who are doing that. We see that with gen z. I talk to that in girl up, a group im part of. They see the authenticity. Thats the company they want to buy from and support and put their monday behind. Its a great initiative. Glad that i dont have to be so perfect. Nice to see you. Thank you so much. Nice stee you too. The association of National Advertisers launched the see h her campaign. In celebration of Women Entrepreneurs. Here are five programs to help women start their businesses. One is bumblefund. Its commented to invest more than a Million Dollars that primarily help women, primarily female founders with diverse backgrounds. Fight, the Financial Independent plan is available through determine logical. It promost b promotes funds. 3, female fund. 4, the tory burch foundation. Its about women helping women. 5, boss. Bringing out successful sisters. A network of primarily africanamerican women. Im here with this weeks
elevator pitcher whos here to tell her panel about cucina safe lid. How are you . Im a little nervous. Youll be great. You know Your Business. Have you gotten any money . Selffunded. Which means what . Line of credit, shaking days. Its nervous when you do that. You ooh going to do fantastic. Let me tell you whou youre going to be talking to. Two people. She invests in people like you. Shell be great at giving advice. The second is jennifer young, the cofounder of outdoorsy. Shes look like you. She saw a problem, solved it, and shes grown over the past few years left. s see what they think. Hi. Im susan and e im a Breast Cancer survivor. While i was undergoing treatment, my daughter suggested maybe it was all the plastic i used in the mike rocrowave. I invetted the cucina glass lids. When you steam your food, you use less water. Glass is eco friendly and it Doesnt Harbor back near ya like plastics can. Im looking for 500 to take me above my current online sales of amazon, grommet, hsn, and qvc. Id like to get into Big Box Stores and grow my social media. If you want to see them in my own recipe, go to cucina. Com. That was i love how you
sound so storytelling. Im italian. Fantastic. Im going to give you guys this, each a pen. Two numbers. One is what do you think of the product. And the second is what think of . One to ten. You could tell that you have been on television pitching your product before. With the theatrics of throwing that bag. It was really nice job. Are you done . Alecia, start with you. Youre shaking a little. Okay. Product. So on the product i liked a lot of what i heard. Youre clearly on trend with being ecofriendly and health conscious. What i want to know more about, because its glass, theres a Product Liability angle. I need to know it doesnt crack and also would probably want to feel it and use it to make sure its okay for elderly consumers, too. Im positively inclined but need to know more because of the nature of the product. The pitch front i gave you more points, because you of an old
hat at public speaking and i can tell and i loved hearing your personal story. I loved hearing about the patents, i loved hearing about the distribution, and you were very clear with your funding ask. The only reason i was a little unsure is because im not clear yet whether this is kind of a onewoman business thats lifestyle or whether you have a big vision and theres a big market and lots of revenues that youre gunning towards. Okay rmts i. Id love to hear more. Overall, positively inclined. Nice job. I also thought you did a fantastic job. Nine or pitch and nine on product. On the product side, it was great. Thought you did a fantastic job starting with the strand story, such a truth in your life and why the product could be so successful. Pausing and making that a pnk
chewati Punctuation Point when you started. I thought you could have spent a little more time bringing it to life, the women, in all houses, not just one product and one time pup do sizes and shapes. Talking about the use cases. Whether popcorn, quick meals, or by the way, i can naught into life by just going into my microwave and seeing the splatters everywhere. Yeah. Exactly. Theres just so many uses. What it does, helps highlight how large the Totalable Addressable stock market. Wet the wessel a little there. On the pitch side, a great job. Upbeat, personable. I felt you could connect with your customers and audience, which is really important for all entrepreneurs has to be authentic and feel that way and that was very consistent. I thought did you a great job. I agree with all of it. Congratulations. Good luck with everything. Thanks to both of you for all of
your advice. Cant wait to see where this goes. Thank you so much. I want to thank all of you that had the chance to listen to our podcast, called been there, built that. We continue to commemorate women in business. I sit down with the ceo of livway food. The company that makes a lot of things. The age of 26, jills 26, became the youngest ceo of a publicly held firm when he father died. It is an incredible story. I hope you get a chance to listen to it. When we come back, why you need to do your homework both on the business and the person you are pitching, and thoughts about the sacrifices entrepreneurs have to make. Announcer sponsored by the meeting of the Executive Finance Committee is now in session. And. Adjourned. Business loans for eligible card members up to Fifty Thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. The powerful backing of american express. Dont do business without it. For the last ten years i have devoted so much of my time, energy, and familys time on building and growing my business, and ive had to sacrifice a lot. So what are the things youve had to sacrifice that you regret . So this is a great question, but i tend to look at the world in a different way. I tend to not have those regrets, because i think if you make a decision and its right for you at the time, then its the right decision. And if youre making a tradeoff for Your Business and you really love Your Business, then thats the right tradeoff. However, where i have failed horribly at certain times is
prioritizing certain things. So, for example, for me i love to exercise. Its really important to me mentally and physically, and there are sometimes when people said, oh, well, you sacrificed exercise for Your Business. Really i didnt make a sacrifice, justpry or job prioritizing. Dont have regrets, focus on the art and science of making priorities really important to you and getting those done and not worrying about the things that are sacrifices. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help you grow Your Business. Alisha and jennifer are back once again. Start with you, alisha. Youve been helping so many Women Entrepreneurs with your. 2 initiatives, gets women advisers, mernt mentors, someti investors. My top tip, make sure you do your homework on both the businessyoure pitching. I mean, how do we get them to buy the products, the pros and cons, how do i get the message across . And forget to do research on the person were pitching. Call it people diligence. Search the web. Go to their linkedin, what are they proud are . Where have you worked . Because end of the day relationships matter. If you get to know the person first and have a connection with them, then doing Business Next is so much easier. Its so incredibly true. We say, even going into someone cold, didnt know who it was, quickly scan their office. Right . They might have a diploma up and you went to the same school or a picture of them at a Baseball Game and you also love baseball. Just connect on anything. Exactly. It makes it easier. You started your company from nothing, incredibly successful,
sort of matchmaking rv owners with rv wenters. Yep. Outdoorsy, congratulations to all you have done. Thank you. Whats one thing youve learned . Go with your customers are. Thats how we started at the inception. We knew to be able to figure how to build the large e, most trusted rv rental and experience in the marketplace we had to understand what was important to rv owners, to renters. Whether the camper van, Travel Trail Big class a or an suv with a rooftop tent. My partner and i spent 8. 5 months living in an rv. Bought a truck and airstream and went to all the rv parks before or after . While we launched it. Sort of like building an airplane while youre flying off the grand canyon. The point, get in there. Get right in there. Get in their shoes. Nobody will tell you anything more important than the people youre actually trying to market the products to. We spent thousands of hours
listening to all of the stakeholders within the market, renters and owners. That informed what was going to make a Great CustomerUser Experience for us online and offline. Thats in the beginning. Right . Once you have an established company, launching a new product, youre lucky, because you dont have to go seek those people. You have them right there in your database. Congratulations to you both on all your success. Again, thank you for all youve done as a role model and practically for women especially as we talked about it throughout the show. You, too, j. J. Thank you. This weeks selfie is from roxane smith who owns alpha custom clothiers in virginia. I love the picture. Looks like someone is missing a head. A concierges tailor business making custom shirts. Take a selfie of you and Your Business. Send it to us yourbusiness, or tweet to msnbc your biz. We love seeing pictures. Include your name, name of Your Business and where you are. Thank you for joining us. We love hearing from you. So if you have questions or want to just say hi, email us, and check out our website. We put up all the segments from todays show plus a lot more and dont forget to connect on all digital and social media platforms too, and check out our pad caste called been there, built that. Down it throwed for free from Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, im j. J. Ramberg, and remember, we make Your Business our business. Announcer sponsored by