Hi, everyone. Welcome to your business. The show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. As many of you know, running a Small Business can be lonely. Youre dealing with so many issues and since youre the one in charge there is usually no one on your team that you can open up to. For three decades, the Entrepreneurs Organization has been organized these groups and providing support. Support that gave help to one owner of a phoenix based glass company. I have to work on branding and marketing and something people, managing money, managing strategy which has been a big maturation process for me, personally. No we, ray has his hands full. The Market Segment for us is growing by the day. His company recycles thousands of used wine bottles by turning them into water glasses like these. We sold 10,000 to one mer. Theyre no longer a start up, but it still has not quite hit the big time, and ray says staying on top of the many details needed to build the business is one of the scariest things he has ever faced. If im not making classes, im not making deals. And the business will not grow as fast as it can if i am having someone to call or bounce ideas off of. I was in a panic mode. Owner of point in time studios in phoenix also understands. He says early on he was overwhelmed by the mistakes he made. It was like look in my closets, look at my mistakes. The mistakes can be crippling to newly minted business owners. People get what what theyre into. We dont call your baby ugly, you know . They survived many of these challenges thanks to a local affiliate. Its called Entrepreneurs Organization. Or e. O. It is to hold them accountable and help them get up over 1 million. Tom says that accountability is a key hurdle for many at ray and rammys level. Business owners like these get together once a month as part of the accelerator. I had a bookkeeper, and the classic entrepreneur way, i decided i was going to do it and he said youre not a bookkeeper, you suck at it, find someone to do it. They say someone is holding me accountle. They end up making big strides. They have to get it done. They dont want to come into this meeting and be embarrassed in front of their careers. They asked me ray, have you ever considered a direct sales model . He was not making a good martin. That is what prompted ray to ask what kinds of products does his company give as corporate gifts. I said how much are you paying for them and i said what if you custom etch the last name of your client on the birthday. And he figure itd out and retooled. I think he will be more successful. This kind of open give and take has a great payoff. They get their names on the classes for them. And we they love it. The exclusive top of the rock restaurant is not only a steady client, but he is a source for his wine bottles. We recycled them and they turned them into our wine and water classes for the restaurant. We feature these right here. I wish i had Something Like that when i was his age, their age, or younger. I think i would have been more successful if i had been able to get touch with those. All of the failures they had that short circuited that process. Have a couple conferences or trade shows coming up this year, break from your usual routine. Ink. Com gives us five ways to kwekt with more relevant content. Get people to informally gather at a local bar or restaurant. Smaller events dont butt as much of a dent in your wall ent and gives more of a chance to connect. Three, scan the hashtags haunt for newby get togethers. This could lead you to more connecting opportunities. Leave your lanyard on. You will be easily identified for a quick chat in the star bucks line or going back to the hotel room. And read nonverbal clues. The 2016 president ial race has been unconventional and tumultuous. Throughout this year, we hope to check in with Small Business owners to gauge how their feeling about the election. We would like to know what they want to hear the candidates address. Career politicians do not understand Small Business, and i would not expect to to as well. There are special interests involved. I think this is why it is so appealing to see different outsiders coming in. They are not be holden, they seem that way, and i think they would have the common Small Business owners desires in mind when theyre making decisions. In this election season, what im looking for from the candidates is which one will foster Small Business lend iing. I think we had to face a lot with obama care in the last few years. As a Small Business at the 50 employee threshold, how do we continue to kbrou . The backbone of the community they work with here is the immigrant community. People that i work with from russia, china, and india come here to pursue the american dream. I feel very strongly that the candidate that i back supports that community. We would lane towards the advocate that would advocate for a better relationship with china because we rely on importing goods from china and not domestically. Our Company Relies on better relations with china. The single biggest one for us has to do with taxation of online trade. We dont have a brick and mortar store of our own. So im curious to see what will happen with the taxation, sales, and transaction. I think it is port that first they recognize it something business. We want to hear the candidates talk about what they do for Small Business, improving the export services of commerce, improving Small Business loetan grant grants. Expanding overseas could be a great opportunity to grow your business, but it is really tough to fwloe to start. It can be incredibly expensive and a big waste of time if you get it wrong. Robert sullivan is a professor of International Management and also author of Global Vision how companies can overcome the pitfalls of globalization. Here is how you can minimize your risk. Thank you for stopping by, we get this question allot. It seems like there is a big opportunity out there. Often when moving overseas you dont know what you dont know. Yeah, es spblly for Small Business thats are growing quickly. Its an achievement to say im in growing markets now. How do you learn. They expanded into, educator the two countries overseas, but all kinds of problems they county realize like getting the materials there, getting stuck in customs, how do you do the story . When i say that, you have to think about political, economic, and cultural differences. They matter quite a bit to how you will perform. They found someone who was in a similar industry so they could ask questions, what didnt you expect . Thats exactly right, thats a good way to start. Another is to compare the political and cultural environment in which you want to do business to your own home country. And you say how difficult is this place . Is it similar . Does the try operate in the same way . I think for example, uber had a tremendously difficult time in europe. It was banned from france and cities in spain, they didnt understand how different politically and legally European Countries are than the united states. You need people on the ground there to really understand. And when you talk about pricing, what works here will not work somewhere else necessarily. Absolutely, just because you price something in a certain way, doesnt mean you can do that in foreign markets. You need to take into account the risk that you will face. These are the costs, right . Those people were stuck in customs, right . So what would normally expedite them through, they have additional costs. Yeah, those additional costs are inevitable, how you respond to them is key. We talk all of the time about building your team, culture, and people. The idea of culture, what it means. Absolutely, there is two things they said. You want to hire the right people. People who have experience doing business in foreign countries. Also national culture. Some countries just treat this deferently, they operate differently. And you have to know how to motivate people in different environments. Yeah, you might be able to call your employees here at 5 00 in the morning and get a response, but in other countries, its bad form. Thank you, fwlagss on your book and good luck with it. As we reported recently, the camera industry went through major upheaval. But some forward thinking entrepreneurs is finding ways to prove that everything old can be new again. For awhile, our prized photos were more likely to hang on facebook walls than on our home walls. I thought it was a way to get pictures off of my iphone. At photo and go, there is a renaissance. Customers can liberate their picks. Create an apple meets starbucks for photos. It puts the old one hour photo to shame. Take a picture, send it to a company computer, and within minutes you have a picture on paper. Of course instant photography is nothing new. For decades, polaroids were a pop culture phenomenon. As the focusshiped to dij kal came digital cameras. They had to file bankruptcy twice. Now theyre back with more products and more customers. Photography is magical to them. For the under 30 crowd. Real life photos are trending. We have had kids and millennials come in and for the first time hold a actual photo in their hands. Nbc news, las vegas. Marvin windows is one of the top in the united states. Recently it passed from susan marvin. We sat down to talk about it and learn from pros. To be a oneowner company, you have to work fulltime. Every person, every adult that is working, that is an owner in business is working fulltime. It keeps every Family Member focused on the health of the business, and not if you dont want to work at the company, we respect that, too, but theyre youre not going to be an owner in the company. The higher up you go in the organization, the more of a threat you are to people. And is teams like once you really need to know the information, you stop getting it. So you need to be very deliberate. So they receive the situation from whatever corners of the organization to make sure youre getting it. They are able to submit their question ahead of time. What i found is that initially it might be a little quiet or reserved. By the ent of the hour, there is a lot of discussion and im hearing a lot of things. And i think we have to get on that. I think letting people know theyre valued, offering it to them is very important. One thing is they always put the business first. You must put the health of the business, long term, over your own personal interests and desires in that moment. Bringing the family together for long term i have found myself, and my brothers have as well in a room where what we are career, but y know in your heart of heart that the best thing for the business is to do it. And if you made that commitment, and we all did, it might be uncomfortable, but its just really clear what you have to do. It doesnt mean that we dont have different ideas on how to get to the end game. Good, healthy debate is good for the business. But, at some point you have to land on that decision that you believe will keep the company healthy. And, if its a business decision, sometimes the ceo just plain has to make it. And then you line up behind them, and you support it. When we come back, how to deal with delinquent invoices without coming off as too aggressive. And trying to find the balance between being a maker, and a manager. Our cosmetics line was a hit. The orders were rushing in. I could feel our deadlines racing towards us. We didnt need a loan. We needed shortterm funding fast. Building 18 homes in 4 ½ months . That was a leap. But i knew i could rely on American Express to help me buy those building materials. Amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. Our amex helped us fill the orders. Just like that. Another step on the journey. Will you be ready when growth presents itself . Realize your buying power at open. Com the questions that i have for experts would be how to handle collecting on delinquent invoices, without being a jerk. Its always tough to collect on people that dont want to pay you. I think the most important part, though, is you have to get the right person on the phones, whether its a business owner, or its the person who can actually write the check and what ive always seen work is that you appeal to their humanity. Right . We all have a sense of fairness, and so i think when you call somebody on the phone and say, hey, i have employees to pay, i have bills myself to pay, and i dont think its fair that, you know, ive done a deal or a job for you, and i havent been paid. And so i found that if you always appeal to that sense of fairness, when youre owed a debt, that goes a very long way. Bus one of the things that nobody ever likes to be perceived as is being unfair. So i think the more that you can do that, to get the right decisionmaker on the phone and appeal to their sense of fairness, the more successful youll be in collecting the debt. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. Lets introduce our board of directors and get their advice. Carolyn rodz is the founder and ceo of circular board, a virtual axccelerator for Women Entrepreneurs with high Growth Business models and riev Rieva Lesonsky is back with us. She connects National Markets with Small Business owners and helps entrepreneurs start and grow their companies. Good to see you both. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Carolyn you also started and already sold one business so youve been through it and now youre helping others go through the same journey. Lets start with you. Since you see so many Small Business owners. Certainly. My top tip for entrepreneurs is to maintain clarity and hat longterm vision and not to be limited by the resources that you have on hand today. Thinking through things like bringing in the right expertise, if that requires hiring the right person, and you dont have the money going out and seeking that funding. If that means giving them equity, or thinking about other incentives to bring them on board, making sure that you have the right team and resources in place to get to that vision as quickly as possible. How do you get, and rieva, you can chime in, too, a lot of it in the beginning days rests on your own personality and people believing in you, because it can be hard to attract people if you dont have the money, and if youre giving them equity in something that may or may not work. So any ideas, rieva, how you get those people . Well, i think it is about your prior representation, maybe before you were an entrepreneur. You know, call on the people who you worked with in your previous life, and people who know you. Because youre asking people, really, to take a risk on your business, but you dont have that business, so its basically taking a risk on you. And also, advisers, perhaps . Definitely. Building out advisers, making sure that youre getting people excited about what youre doing. This is something that you were so committed to, and that you put everything on the line for. And so sell that enthusiasm and get people fired up about what youre doing and youll be amazed the type of talent that you can attract. I think the gist of what the youre saying is think big. Exactly. Dont be limited by what you dont have. Just think beyond what you have. All right, rieva, youre up. So i wanted to talk about the struggle between when youre an entrepreneur, between what they call being a maker, and a manager. As a business owner, right, and as a leader, you have to manage your people and manage your business, but as, again, the business owner, you have to be a maker. Youre the one responsible for building out your business, and creating ideas. And that can be a struggle sometimes. So three main tips to figure out how to do that balance is, one, track your activities for about two weeks and see when youre most interrupted. Do your people come to you in the afternoon . Well then dont try to set that time aside to be creative when youre constantly getting interrupted. Once you look at what that schedule is, you cant change other peoples habits, so youre going to have to change your own. If youre finding out that youre being interrupted a lot in the afternoon maybe youre going to have to do your creative thinking in the morning. Or maybe at midnight or at 5 00 a. M. You just have to accommodate the schedule. Two, create what we call like a Knowledge Base of information about your company. Whether its online, or in written format. Something that your employees can go and look at so they dont have to constantly ask you every single little thing. And then the third thing is, easy to say, but so hard for entrepreneurs to do, and thats delegate. Right . If you try to do it all and know it all youre never going to grow your business. So hire people you trust and let them do it. Well, i think, also, you have to look in to yourself and say what do you want to do . Right . Do you want to be this maker . And if so, do you want to bring someone on, a partner, and youll have to give away equity and youre going to have to pay them but if it not your skill, if youre not going to be good at growing this company and you just want to work on the product itself, do you find this a lot with the people that youre working with . Definitely. People have a really, really strong skill set in one area and sometimes that visionary is not necessarily the greatest at operating. So recognizing where are you strong, and where do you need to bring another talent, i definitely agree. And also i think putting the systems in place to help that delegation is really important. And the more you can develop those processes and make that a little bit easier, so that its not so hard every time to reexplain what you need and where you need help. Right. And people youering. Its not only delegating the work but being okay with that delegation. And knowing that joe is going to mary instead of you, you trust that, let mary do her job. Which means getting the right team on board. Getting the right team, all right. And let go. Let go, you know, its not your baby, its a business. And let go of the process and let everybody collaborate and Work Together to make it happen. To your point. Easier said than done. But incredibly important as you grow your business. Thank you so much, great advice. Thank you. Thank you, j. J. This weeks incredible your biz selfie comes from jeff hall owner of Internet Service voyeur isp management in michigan. Jeff took this spectacular selfie 260 feet up in the air while servicing a wifi tower. You are welcome to keep your feet on the ground. Pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us your business your business mbs. Com. We cant wait to see them. Thank you so much for joining us today. Heres something that i learned on todays show, you cannot underestimate how helpful it is to have a group of Small Business owners around you. I have a formal group that i meet with once a month. But this can be formal like we showed in the piece, or informal. Its just nice to have people around who hold you accountable, and who you can ask questions of. And you have to trust these people. You want to be honest with them. Now, wed love to hear what you thought of the show. If you have an idea, or if you have questions or comments, just send us an email to your b yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Or our website, open forum. Com your business. We posted all of the segments from today there plus a lot more. Dont forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms, as well. Next week there are plenty of ways to market your brand. Heres a new one, the owners of a Clothing Company thought that launching a coffee bar was the best way to connect with customers. Well tell you how these two brands live side by side and why sales of coffee and clothing are climbing. Till then, im j. J. Ramberg. And remember, we make your business, our business. Our cosmetics line was a hit. The orders were rushing in. I could feel our deadlines racing towards us. We didnt need a loan. We needed shortterm funding fast. Building 18 homes in 4 ½ months . That was a leap. But i knew i could rely on American Express to help me buy those building materials. Amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. Our amex helped us fill the orders. Just like that. Another step on the journey. Will you be ready when growth presents itself . Realize your buying power at open. Com good morning. Im al sharpton. Live from los angeles. On a special edition of politics nation. Its just two days from super tuesday. The biggest moment of the campaign so far. For the democrats, Hillary Clinton is looking to cement her frontrunner status after a resounding victory in the North Carolina primary. She beat Bernie Sanders by nearly 50 points. And in her victory