And American Express open is here to help. Thats why we are proud to present your business on msnbc. Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg. And welcome to your business. The holidays are a special time of year. With all of the decorations, and the music, its pretty hard not to get into the holiday spirit. Well we met one entrepreneur who is capitalizing on this excitement. But hes figured out a way to do it all year round. Its a happy place. You know, it doesnt matter what kind of day somebodys having, they smile, they walk around and they just it just changes their attitude. Roger lunds new oxford, pennsylvania, Small Business gives customers the chance to be happy and merry all year long. Were a german christmas store. Our specialty is authentic german items. That i get when i go over to germany every year. Roger has been spreading good cheer at the Christmas Haus for about 13 years. And hes been selling christmas almost every day since then. Pretty much 24 7, actually. I never know what im going to have, because each year its something i discover something different. Once people find a store that has the quality goods that we have, they stay very, very loyal. So, it works well for us. But how does he sell things like mouth blown hand painted ornaments and nut crackers and smokers, when december 25th is only one day on the calendar . For him its all about decking the halls, trimming the tree, and celebrating the good times from years gone by. Were in the memory business. Were selling heirlooms. The people that come in here are always dealing with memories. Theyll look at something and talk about grandmas tree. Geographically speaking, roger knows hes at a good spot to get regular foot traffic. We live in a tourist area. Were just outside of gettysburg. So we have people that come and do day trips or weekend trips here all the time. A lot of times one half of a couple really wants to go see gettysburg. Okay. The battlefield. But the tradeoff is the other half of the couple says, well, then, i get to do a little shopping. And so they see our billboard, and theyre like christmas. As a result, the Christmas Haus rarely closes. Were actually closed on easter, thanksgiving, christmas, and new years day. But thats it. If you do the math, rogers doors are open 361 days a year. Because he never knows when a customer will come by. I talk to so many Small Business own ners our area and theyre only open certain days of the week. They say well its because i need a day off and i know that days going to be slow. Its just not true. Its just not. You never, ever know when theres going to be a day, a busy day and if you want to be successful you better be there when your customer wants to come. Staff member linda says customers take advantage of the stores daily schedule. When we say that were open every day, you know, they know that we are and they just can come here. Im always delighted that they say theyve been here before and that they will be back . Once the customers are shopping, roger prides himself on his teams ability to share the stories behind the products. I work with very small companies, primarily a lot of it mom and pop operations. Most of the people we deal with are in what was east germany and we get a big kick out of telling them about how we found things, and where they came from. Those conversations translate into sales. Right now you can barely see it but its outnumbered. Things that are going to be passed on for the next generation. The more somebody knows about it the happier it is to buy it. Afterwards they might look at the price. Usually when they get home. People like linda are another one of rogers secret weapons. She like all of the employees was a customer first. Years ago i came in to see what it was all about. And to buy some ornaments for myself. And i immediately just loved the atmosphere. After linda became a regular shopper she started helping roger out. I didnt know if i wanted to give up my time at home with my family. But i thought, well, you know, it has to be fun. And i would not go back to work if it wasnt something that i enjoyed. Thats exactly why roger makes it a point to hire people who were originally customers. Theyve got what were selling because they came in to buy it. They understood the value of the stories they were told. Because they come in loving the store, the staff is incredibly easy to incorporate into the brand. I would start asking them, do you want to work a few hours a week . They then take very little training to learn these stories and be able to greet other people the same way. The Customer Experience in the store has resulted in more online sales. Its now as high as 26 of total business and growing. You dont always know who youre dealing with online. But when customers come in to the shop, and they see that were a real bricks and mortar operation they feel more comfortable ordering from us online. The only downside to running a business like the Christmas Haus is its nearly impossible to have everything that customers are looking for. Its funny, i have thousands upon thousands of ornaments in here, but somebody will walk in and they just need. And its just like, i dont believe i have that ornament. While specific requests can be tough, telling someone that roger has their special item is incredibly rewarding. When a customer has a specific request when i can say i found that for you, oh, my goodness ive made it for them. Roger says theres always a demand for christmas. And hes happy to support his customers offline and online every day of the year. Theres always a babys first christmas. Theres always somebody thats about to get married. Theres always somebody that they want to send a little gift to at christmastime. I guess after all these years ive stayed true to our vision of what were doing and stayed true to understanding the need of my customer, so that im taking care of them. 2014 turned out to be a pretty good year for Small Business. At least relative to recent history. The National Federation of independent businesses optimism index rose at the end of the year to its highest level since february of 2007. So, what does the new year hold for americas Small Business owners . Bill dunkelberg is chief economist for the nfib and j. D. Harrison reports on Small Business and entrepreneurship for the washington post. Great to see both of you guys. Hi, j. J. Thanks for having me. Bill i think you have been here every year at the end of the year for this show, at least in recent oh, thank you. So, these are your numbers bill coming out of the nfib it sounds good, theyve theyve optimism index jumped two points but, how excited should we be. Give us some perspective. That means we had a 20 percentage point increase in positive answers to the ten questions in the index. Thats a pretty significant jump. The caveat here is that the total jump is really accountable by just two of the questions in the index. That is expectations for Business Conditions six months from now. Those got a lot better. 16point gain. Thats really a big one. And a fivepoint gain in expected real sales. So thats nice but what we didnt see in the index was any change in the job creation plans, or inventory investment plans or Capital Spending plans, things that would generate, you know, gdp, which is what were really looking for. But its really nice to see the index up. The sad thing is, of course, that we usually approach the average, which is 98 is the average for 42 years. We usually approach it from the top down you know, after having a really good time, and we havent done that yet. We just crawled up to the average. You know, does it make sense that there is a slight lag as you see in history of doing these surveys, so that you think things are going to get better, you think and sales are Getting Better well then youll start hiring soon after . Sure. The first thing is you have to believe in the future. Then, of course, you have to act on that belief, and then thats when the hiring and the Capital Spending and inventory investment takes place. And thats what were looking for now. So we hope this translates, and translates soon. All right. Okay. Well j. D. Weve got the numbers. You talked to Small Business owners every day. What are you seeing . What kind of the word on the street from people youre talking to . The conversations im having match up pretty closely with what bill and his group are hearing. That sales are up, that the outlook for Business Conditions is pretty strong or at least relative to where we were at this point like he said the last couple years. Everything is relative. But i think it is going to take at least a few more months, you know, a strong start to next year to give Business Owners the confidence to turn that that positive outlook into creating jobs, and expanding, and looking in to new opportunities to grow. Its interesting so much of this is about psychology, right, bill . I mean, its, you look at your numbers and that tells one story but the other part is just as you said how confident are you. Well, thats it. We need good things to happen in order to get people a little more optimistic. There are two good things that are really important for Business Owners. One, of course, would be the appearance of more customers. I mean, as bad as other things might be, your costs, regulations and everything else, you know, if youve got a lot of customers you can deal with that. Mmhmm. But absent strong growth in Consumer Spending and consumers are still kind of suffering from the debt, you know, problem they still have debt equal to 100 of their income when it used to be like 65 . But the other thing is policy from washington, d. C. Their top business problems are uncertain fwi the economy, and taxes, and so on. The cost of health care, energy costs are coming down, so thats a happy deal. And the cost of regulation and red tape and the tax code. Well, will we make any progress on any of those in 2015 . If we do, that will increase their optimism, and theyll be more willing to bet on a future and make the spending decisions we like to see them make. J. D. When you talk to Business Owners are these the thing you hear regulation health carat set ra or is it something sort of a little bit more that were just not exactly sure where things are going . I think bills touching on some of the key ones that i hear, as well. The health care uncertainty. I dont know if its so much uncertainty at this point. I think the law stands when youre talking about the Affordable Care act. I think its misinformation and things like that that are still kind of rampant. And i think once we clear up what the rules are, when theyre going in to place, theres some things that have been postponed that i think if those things actually the deadline continues, things like employer mandate and certain rules for employers, i think just knowing the rules, and having a sense of certainty areally what these folks are looking for. Got it. All right, well i hope to have both of you guys back in six months from now, and i want to have the same conversation, and lets see if these numbers, the optimism that were seeing, translates into more jobs, et cetera. Sounds great. Lets hope so. Great to see both of you guys. Keep up the great work j. J. Happy new year, merry christmas. You, too. The Holiday Season can mean a lot of traveling, but, unfortunately, for all of us, the workload of a Small Business owner rarely slows down. So, to help you stay on top of your todo pile, even when youre on the road, check out our app of the week. Speedspot app locates free hot spots to plug in to no matter where you are. You can test the speed of Internet Connections so whether youre heading over to grandmas house or flying across the world you can still hold that lastminute video call or send over those crucial signed documents. Social Networks Connect people who can be great contacts in both life and work. And twitter can be the start of a business relationship or could provide you the inspiration for your next possible idea. Here now are five criteria you should keep in mind when choosing who to follow on twitter courtesy of inc. Com. One, the profile picture. You want to see either a logo of a company or a somewhat professional photo of the person youre about to follow. Two, the description. What the person includes will tell you a little bit about themselves. It will give you a glimpse into what you can expect from their future tweets. Three, their followers. Who they choose to stay in the know about, and who cares to see what theyre up to can be a good clue into whether or not this person is worth your time. Four, their activity. How many tweets do they have . If they have a ton of followers and a large following but publish a low number of tweets you may want to think twice. And five the date they joined. If theyve been around for awhile and have no activity you should probably choose not to follow them. When we come back, we look at how to maintain cash flow, Professor Robert cialdini tells us how to influence customers through what he calls social proof. And the man who disrupted gift giving. Celebrity ceo kriss kringle on his approach to marketing and distribution. If i can impart one lesson to a new Business Owner, it would be one thing ive learned is my philosophy is real simple American Express open forum is an online community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make Smart Business decisions. If you mess up, fess up. Be your partners best partner. We built it for our members, but its open for everyone. Theres not one way to do something. No details too small. American express open forum. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. Saying thank you to me is such an important part of our business. And i think people dont do it enough. I want to see thank you notes going out to people to tell them that you really recognize and appreciate their business, and thats the way youre going to get them to come back. I want people to say thank you. And i want to thank our staff for working as hard as they do. I want to thank them for showing up when they dont feel like showing up, for putting a smile on their face when they dont feel like it. Throughout the past nine seasons weve called on some of the greatest entrepreneurial minds in the nation to give you advice on running your Small Business. Well, somewhere north of here there is a jolly man who runs a big operation that involves marketing, motivation and personnel management. His name is santa. And he has some tips that can make your Small Business merrier in this learning from the pros. Ho, ho, ho, merry christmas. I have a little secret. I dont market heavily. Just once a year i come out. Thats it. If i was there every day, bam boarding them with stories, and marketing messages, they would stop paying attention. But because im only here once a year they do pay attention. I do have a marketing strategy. And i learned this one from my friend seth godin. He wrote a book called all marketers are liers. The thing he said in the book was that good marketers arent lawyers, theyre great story tellers. And thats what i am. So if you look at the tv, they tell stories about santa. If you read books, they tell stories about santa. All the kids know the stories about me. And thats how i get my message out there. In the old days it was very difficult. We had a long list. And i had thousands of elves trying to keep track of all these children. Now, social media we can find out what people are doing. I have the twitter account and they write in what they want and the same thing on facebook. The adults do it through linked in. So yes, through social media is a wonderful way to stay in contact and keep in touch with the people that i serve. I dont understand how ceos just can abdicate talking to their customers. Who should be talking to your customers . More than you, of course i have people who answer lots of questions. But i get in there, too. So all Business Owners need to talk to the people that they serve. We used to make all the toys. A lot of work, a lot of work. Let me tell you. What i realized over time is that my core competency wasnt manufacturing. It was distribution. I had the best sleigh in the world. So i could get to everybodys house in one evening. But, manufacturing, let that to the best, so i outsource it. It took a good 75 years, but because i had such a strong brand, we were able to take the time to make those changes. And in the process, we got much more lean. I cant say same thing about myself. But our Distribution Process is leaner, and we even have our elves have been going off and becoming black belts. Everybody finds that a laugh. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Its time now to answer some of your business questions so lets get our board of directors in here to help us out. Shama hyder is the ceo of the marketing zen group, a digital Public Relations firm and cori lathan is the cofounder of anthrotronix, a firm specializing in human computer interface design and Health Care RelatedProduct Development for mobile platforms and renotic business accepts. An email from fay writes how do you ensure that a Small Business has the cash flow that it needs . Okay lets start with you shama. First of all, this is a great question. Every Small Business owner should be asking themselves this. How do i protect character flow . And the answer is really simple. That it takes a little effort and execution and that is watch your net terms for payment with your customers or because a lo times cli