Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramburg and welcome to your business. The show dedicated to helping your Small Business survive, thrive and grow. The Hardware Stores and soda shops that many of us associate with small town main streets have all largely disappeared. This has often left rows of empty sfoer fronts. Willmar, minnesota. The answer begins with the population itself. I grew up in kenya. Went to refugee camp and finally came to the united states. I grew up in south texas. I grew up here. Graduated from high school here. Ive been in willmar since 2007. Been here since 1985. There are the new comers and the old timers and they are mixing together here on main street to help grow their businesses. I have three businesses right now. If it doesnt fit my agenda in a year, maybe i sell one, maybe i sell both of them. Im flexible. The cando spirit of Business Owners like row bert ter valdez jr. Is fueled largely by the regions billion dollar agriculture community. The local corn, dairy, poultry production has attracted immigrant job seekers and entrepreneurs. When i started managing these buildings six years ago downtown had a lot of buildings for sale. Downtown had some empty store fronts. Tom amburg said new immigrants have kept his properties occupied. Working with the somalis, some of the hispanics, we were able to help them move into some of these locations to provide some more retail. Willmar is very cosmopolitan now and i really like that because every new culture brings new things and new ideas and new skills. Mr. Olo started his first business, a specialized car shuttle, just a few months ago. After saving up for seven years, he and his partners launched southwest transportation. They drive people to and from medical appointments as a service covered by medical insurance. The business is owned by myself and two of my other coowners and we had to raise the money among ourselves and we havent used any financing from any source. There was a demand for basically hispanic products. There was no way to find it. Albertogaska first opened la fiesta foot in 2000. Today la fiesta food feeds the growing latino customers but it attracts people from the surrounding regions. We serve an area around 60 miles from willmar. The only place they can find what they need. Its good to see business coming into town. Vickie davis is the owner of the goodness coffee shop. Shes lived here 25 years, raised 11 children here and remembers a time when this building wasnt a coffee shop. This building used to be a bank. Like most everyone we met, vicky says her key concern is staying on top of the business and hopefully growing it to the next level. I hope well be here five years from now and my dream is to have the whole building and just have more goodness. I think about this small town feel and Community Type sense and the school system, thats my daughter. She used to be a Soccer Player at willmar high and my son used to be also a socker player. This gentleman goes by the name of zach is the owner of west central interpreting. He owns the whole building which stands next door to the goodness cafe. He, too, has big dreams for his space. I want to have a salon for the hair for the ladies, want to have grocery store, want to have not a cafe but what they call deli. We want to make it a place where all the cultures can intersect. Working out of the second floor, zach has more than 30 employees. We try to help the newcomers to this country to understand the mainstream businesses and communities so that they can be part of the mainstream society. Were doers. Were doers, you know . Were people of action, people that actually have made it and actually have a successful business. You know, nothing stops them. Its for me. Row berto valdez jr. Grew up on the texas border. Hes become so much a part of willmar that he was surprised when someone laughed at him. He said he never heard of a latino with minnesota accent. Like many of the immigrant entrepreneurs, he said he had to take a partner to finance his party supply business, fiesta time rental. They combined their savings to avoid taking a loan. Now hes got a total of three businesses and hes looking to open more. I always say that immigrants are risk takers by nature. They might not exlink, but theyre excellent business people. They might not know how to navigate the system, but theyll get there if they want to. Yes, the economy is good for everyone right now. So lets just go 62 on it. Buckwheat honey, native to the midwest. Youre a good guy, doug. The economy has been good to douglas small. I bought the old pizza place, thats when i took the plunge into the financial and Business World serious. Its that seriousness that has kept potpourri health foods alive and well. The language was a barrier to start with. Many of them have learned a little better english. Ive learned a few words in their language. We can communicate if theyre trying to find a product. As for the future of his business, hes working that out now. I am looking at possible retirement down the road here. I have people that are possibly interested in the business. Like anything else, you know, youre on the wings of time. In the future i want to move to a bigger place. Mr. Omar runs an east African Grocery and coffee shop called light of the sun. Right now the coffee shop is squeezed between the front door and the grocery aisle, but thats soon going to change. Next year maybe i will expand into a larger place. Its a lot of challenges. We have Small Business, little bit growing. His niche is serving delicacies. Camel meat. We sell it. You cannot get it anywhere except us. Somali cooking oil and east african flat bread. Just around the corner youll find all of these ingredients come together at the somali star restaurant. I see it as the spot that starts the whole revolution here. Perhaps the biggest dreamer of them all is Beverly Dougherty who bought this vacant main Street Building which she fondly remembers from her childhood. They have already invested nearly half a million to create what she calls a food hub. We just walked in this door right here. It will be a combination of retail, wholesale, and a Food Processing facility all to promote locally grown produce, dairy and meat. Our first tenant is operating for a year and a half, thats foxhole brew house. A craft brew house. She expects the rest of the buildout to cost another half million. The overall goal is to create an incubator. Its a very great idea. I dont know if the return is going to be there with what shes looking at doing and i dont know if its going to be feasible. I know thats the word on the street that this will never succeed, but my whole life has been that kind of comment and ive succeeded. I think people dont understand the depth of it. Its going to be very different. I would say it hopefully will be a catalyst for other development in the downtown. It will bring other business in. Aaron backman is executive director of the Countywide Economic Development commission. He says beverlys food hub plan is part of a new wave of Business Growth thats disrupting and rebuilding the town. Hes optimistic that these entrepreneurs, both the old timers and the newcomers together are giving willmar the push it needs to keep growing. Willmar is getting bigger, more solid and more diverse. Thats a good thing. This Holiday Season big brands will pump tons of advertising dollars into Marketing Strategies to get Online Customers into their stores to start shopping. Small businesses just dont have that type of budget so as a small retailer what can you do to get your Online Customers to hop offline, march through your doors, and get those cash registers ringing . Evelyn northway is the owner of selling career wear for working women. She tries to get her Online Customers into her store and stacy riska is a consultant and owner of multiple businesses. She helps entrepreneurs implement successful Marketing Strategies. Thanks for having us. Thank you both for joining us today. I want to ask the question you do a good job getting people to buy online. Why are you trying to market to those people to get them to the store . Why not just sell to them online . Its a great question. A lot of customers are doing their Research Online and wanting to buy in store. So theyre figuring out their styles and they want to make that purchase. You have their interest. You dont want them to forget about you . Exactly. Once they will theyre there, theyre ready to buy. Stacy, now that we have got that down. What is something you can do . I am online at of mercer. How do i then get inspired to get in my car or stop by, what have you, to go into the store . Thats a great question and its really interesting because i saw a statistic that 71 of people will shop online because they think that they can get a better deal yet 94 of consumers will go to a brick and mortar to spend their money. So weve got to bridge the gap. How do you get those Online Customers into the store . So i what i see a lot of Small Businesses do is they throw these coupons up online, but what ive found that works better is by using something unique or a freemium. So you can get this special thing in our store, you cant buy it online which is funny because when the internet first sort of began you can get this online but you cant get it in our store. Now were taking that same playbook and doing the opposite. What else do you do . I think thats a great point. I think one of the things that it sounds very simple but we do offer the opportunity to do returns in the store. And i think thats a really important point because people dont like doing returns online. Theyre a pain. You dont want to go to fedex. They hate doing it. Its a great way to get it in the store. Then they eye something else. All of a sudden theyre making an exchange instead of a return and theyll come back to your store. Its so true. How many times have you returned something and you think youll get a credit and you spend double. What about events . Other kinds of things that you can do in a store that you cant do online . Well, its such a great question because this is somewhere small, local retailers can really differentiate themselves. Its all about creating an experience. Something that people are just so excited that they want to come and be part of your story and you can even expand that more is with social media. You know, taking pictures of people in your store and showing what the experience of your brand is all about. And i think you do a great job with that at of mercer. You have events that arent just about shopping. Completely. We are not afraid to have an event that doesnt have shopping in the title. What weve found is events that generate content, great experiences that show we understand them. For us its a businesswoman. How to network or how do you dress for success . Those are the twhauns build brand loyalty and allow us to connect with our brand in a way thats not salesy. Were not pushing products. Were just showing them that we understand them. To staceys part, theyre becoming part of your story. Theyre buying into here are these two young women who started this company, were growing it together. So true. And those are the ones where they go back the next day to work and they tell all their colleagues about this awesome event they went to and its word of mouth, organic and natural. Its easy to do. Whats one last thing that you do in your store to get people in there . One of the things we do to tap into the organizations of our customer base. So for us if law firms, banks, Womens Networks but any group thats really in need of an event and content and a space for their members. And its great for them because we offer them a prepackaged event and great for us because were only marketing to one group as opposed to marketing to individuals to come to an event. Those are the ones that are most attended. Those are the ones people get excited about because they have their friends and colleagues. You can host events and make sure theyre well done. You hold your own events but people are always looking for a space to do something. Exactly. Make it a beautiful, interesting place theyre going to want to use you as their free event space . Exactly. Thank you both. Thank you for your tips, stacey. Good luck for you. Appreciate tnchts thanks so much. A birthday, a wedding, an anniversary. All of these send you right to the card shop and often straight to hallmark. Founded in 1910, hallmark is the largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the united states. The business is also expanded into other ventures. We met don hall jr. , current ceo and grandson of joyce hall at hallmark headquarters in kansas city, missouri. He gave us his secrets of success in this weeks segment of learning from the pros. I think youre starting to drift when you go back to formula. When you are satisfied with where you are. Results may be okay at that point, but if theyre okay and it doesnt propel you to try to find out whats next, i think those are the early signs that youre not focusing enough, that youre not driving hard enough, that youre not moving quickly enough and youre not creating enough accountability for people to stretch themselves further. Every great business sees those signs and constantly looks for a way to change them. Obviously if you dont catch those signs early enough they become much more apparent in the marketplace and your consumers and your customers start telling you that youre falling behind. Its so important for a company to be a good collaborator, to be open to the sense of possibilities. Weve challenged all of our creative people to take five days out of the office, this isnt their vacation time, this is work time, where we want them to get out of their routine and immerse themselves in things that fuel their creativity because we know that external inspiration is so important, but weve also done that with partnerships of other creative people. Weve done that throughout time. We were the first people to license the disney property. Walt disney started a studio just a couple of blocks away from where were sitting right now, and before he moved out to hollywood and began mickey mouse and my grandfather and walt were great friends and had great correspondence. My grandfather convinced walt to let us use mickey in greeting cards. My brother and i still to this day sit down with every hallmarker whos new to the company and talk about our beliefs and values. I think the beliefs and values are critically important in terms of defining what our north star is. It defines very clearly the expectations we have about how we go about doing our work and who we are. So for us its been a really important component to ensuring our success in the marketplace but also for painting a picture of what our future can be and how we ought to approach that future in a consistent, thoughtful way. It is football season and Stadium Parking lots are packed with partying tailgaters. Todays elevator pitcher has a clever product to help you party in style at the game or the beach. Lets see if he scores with our panel. The founder of new york angels, the chairman and ceo of gus and the author of the book startup checklist. And paul lewis has founded Six Companies and counting. Hi. My name is mark lieto and im the founder of chaise. Heading to the beach or tailgate ive been increasingly annoyed by the amount of products id have to bring. After months of developing we have come out with the perfect product for beach goers, campers and tailgaters. Meet chaise, the ultimate lounge chair. At 11 pounds its light weight and durable. Two waterproof speakers. We have a cooler to cool off the drink on the beach. Usb charging, towel holder and a bunch of other amazing features. Right now we are selling the product at 79. 99. We have gotten a lot of interest and we are seeking a 500,000 investment to grow our marketing team, to bria wearness. We expect our investors to have a huge return on their money. All right. I feel like i need to sit here for my part in this. Congratulations. My nice job. Im going to trade you water for this and here is a pen. So two numbers. The first one is a lot of passing here. A number for the product one through ten and a number for the pitch one through ten, how you thought he did. Im assuming this comes in lots of colors . Yes. Right now were launching four colors. You know what i like, the backpack . Yes. I have these big beach kit chairs with the backpack. It doesnt do nearly everything this does. One product and good to go. Paul, you look ready. Im ready. You never know who youre going to bump into on a beach. This is a cool idea. I like this idea. I gave you a 10 on the product and i gave you a 7 on the pitch. Im going to buy one of these chairs. I will buy one of these chairs. The pitch was a little bit rough i thought. Maybe you can clean it up a little bit. Id like to know a little bit more about pricing, costs, how do i get it, when is it going to be available. Nice job. Nice job. Weve got a 10. David . I might also get this but im not quite as sanguin as an investable product. These are things that are available, cooler and something to hold your towel, battery, so on, so forth. Im not sure its a totally compelling product but that being said i thought you did a decent job of telling it what it is. You can use a little practice at smoothing out the pitch. That means youre going to have to get good at talking and showing at the same time. Exactly. Nice job because he gave you a six. He started out with, im going to buy it, and so i need to bump that six up for you. Perhaps not as an investor but as a shopper. Which is a very interesting difference. There are many things that i would love to get as a product that i think i would personally use but not investable as a business. This is absolutely one of them. I might actually buy this. Thats great. Fantastic. Thank you both so much. Good luck with everything. On indy go go right now . Whats the name of the product. Shaze. Thank you so much. Thank you again. Lets get in the water. Yeah, exactly. Were here in our fancy clothes. We can bring this with us. Its waterproof. If any of you out there have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel, your chances of getting interested investors or consumers, send us an email. The address is your business msnbc. Com. Tell us what your company does, how much money youre trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. We look forward to reading all of those pitches and seeing some of you here on the show. When we come back, if you want funding from a bank you better get those financials in order and what you need to know to stop cyber criminals from hacking your business. Small business saturday is our day to get out and shop small. A day to support our community and show some love for the people we love. And the places we love. The stuff we cant get anywhere else and food that tastes like home. Because the money we spend here can help keep our town growing. On Small Business saturday, lets shop small for our neighborhood, our town, our home. On november 26th, get up, all get together and shop small. How do i present my financials in the best way to be able to raise money from bankers rather than taking on dilutetive investment sources . So theres a joke out there that banks only want to lend money to people who dont need it and that is absolutely true. And why i say that is because you really have to be prepared to show that youre in a strong position regardless of the loan. Now that starts with having all of your Financial Statements in order and up to date. Balance sheet, cash flow, income statement and pay particular attention to the cash flow statement because you want to show that you have enough cash to easily service the debt. You also want to make sure that all of your Tax Obligations are in line and with all of that basic information aside, you have to have your arms around the trends. Are sales growing . Are sales growing faster than costs . Are your forecasts realistic and finally you may need to demonstrate that you have collateral, maybe in the form of home equity to pay back the loan no matter what. If you do all these things, you know your numbers and youre prepared, youll likely be in the position to be a great borrower and not have to give up equity in your business. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. David and paul are back with us once again. When i introduced you before paul i said six businesses and counting. I feel like every time you come on the show you have started another company. There are so many opportunities out there. My latest company has to do with security in the cloud and putting data in the cloud and keeping that free from hackers. So my top tip that i have for all companies is understand your cyber risks. Understand and talk to your employees about what the problems are. The hackers are not only going after large, global companies, theyre going after Small Companies as well. If you talk to your employees, let them know do easy things, dont use the same password on two different accounts. We all do that. We have to change that. We have to make a point to do that right away. Dont use the same passwords. If you get an email that tells you to set a password, close your email. Go to the website. Go to the site, see if they really want you to. Unless youve clicked reset password on the website. Unless you know to expect it. If it comes in randomly. Of course, if you get a wire request, somebody sends an email, they want you to wire funds, even if you know the person, even if youre expecting that person, call them and verify the exact amount and account it has to go to. Always be very, very cautious and make sure that you teach employees to be just as cautious. The different passwords for different accounts, its so simple. People arent doing it. Everybody has the same three or four passwords for everything. I have a system for my passwords. Its annoying and you get used to it. It has to be done. David, youre up. When you start a business, know what kind of business youre starting. We all think of starting a business as single spectrum from beginning to end. I start a business and end up with google. The only question is where do you get off . Smaller company, big company, do you get bought . You could be a small, not looking to grow, not looking to give options or Fast Growth Company . Absolutely. Neither is right or wrong. The typical small independent American Business accounts for 95 of all businesses in america. This is everything from the local yoga studio, restaurants, professional services. Absolutely great businesses. But you think of them different lip. But theyre not designed to be a scaleable high Growth Business and if youre doing that kind of company, you want to think about how you incorporate. An llc probably in your home state. Youre going to have employees. Pay them on salary. On the other hand, if youre a high growth startup, where youre looking from the very beginning either go public, be acquired. Youll have options, try and raise money from Angel Investors or capital funds. Do it differently . Very different. In delaware youll be a c corporation. Employee stock option plan. Youll have all kinds of things that i wrote about in my book which are designed for the high growth path but not the other paths. Fantastic. Its a little soul searching and looking at the kind of company youre starting. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. This weeks your biz selfie comes from bruce klein from steel city chess. They are the pieces are structured from the philadelphia architecture. Why dont you pick up your smartphone, take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us at your business msnbc. Com so we can feature it here on the show or tweet it msnbcyourbiz. Name, location and use yourbizselfie. Thank you so much for joining us today. We would love to hear from you. If you have questions or comments about the show, send us an email to your busines business msnbc. Com. You can also visit our website its openforum. Com yourbusiness. We posted all the segments from today 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. Till them, im j. J. Ramburg. And remember, we make your business our business. Small business saturday is our day to get out and shop small. A day to support our community and show some love for the people we love. And the places we love. The stuff we cant get anywhere else and food that tastes like home. Because the money we spend here can help keep our town growing. On Small Business saturday, lets shop small for our neighborhood, our town, our home. On november 26th, get up, all get together and shop small. That was his whole time in the senate. In march before the people of North Carolina had gotten used to the idea that they had a senator named joseph bratten, it was time to replace him. The voters didnt get to replace him. The governor of jake got to replace him because it was an unexpectedly open seat. And the governor