Revitalizing the economy. American express is here to help. We are proud to present your business on msnbc. Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to your business, the show that champions entrepreneurship and helps your Small Business grow and survive. When it comes to cars, beyond knowing how to change the tires and check the oil, i dont know that much. Lift up the hood and it looks like a puzzle i cannot solve. A female mechanic in queens, new york saw an opportunity to turn everything around. Its saturday morning at the great bear auto shop in queens, new york. Things look busy. People are pulling in with their cars and awe dra is looking under hoods. Guess how much revenue shes bringing in from all this business. Zero money. Thats right, zero. The people arent paying for anything. They are here for a free workshop called Women Auto Know. Its connecting the dots, bringing women into the auto motive industry to empower them. She started it five years ago in the heart of the recession. She had taken over the auto shop from her father in 1998. The fourth generation to run the business. And things were going well, until the economy took a turn. The world as i knew it was devastated because my customers were not fixing their cars. They had no jobs and they couldnt afford to do auto repair. She would sit outside the shop and watch the boulevard, worried about prospects. The cars were passing by. Itis not many cars. The bus was full. She knew she had to do something to get more customers or she would have to shut down the company that had been in her family for generations. Around the same time, a few things happened that made her rethink her industry. One day, a woman came in needing help. This woman came in frantic that her car was overheating. When i asked her for her records so i could help her, she pulled out four invoices. She was having a major, emotional breakdown. She didnt have a car doctor. She had nobody to turn to. She was taking note of the relationship between women and the auto industry. She tells the story of a customer who called great bear and when she answered the phone, he insisted on being connected to a man. I put him on the phone. I was whispering what he should say. Once in arizona, she was with a girlfriend whose car broke down. The repairman said she needed to pay a bunch of money because the air pump is broken. I was like can you show it to us . He opened the hood and pointed to the alternator. With those stories in the back of her mind, she decided if she was going to save her company, she was going to have to do it by changing an industry. She would make it her mission to teach women about their cars, help them learn the easy things like changing a tire and checking the oil and tutor them on the bigger things so they wouldnt get cheated. This, to me, is great. I could be looking at anything right now. I think im typical. I go to the auto body shop and whatever they tell me, i think all right. I dont know if you are cheating me or not. Here, fix it. Whatever it takes. Is that what you find . I find people are like that a lot. The ones like that, i bring under the hood. Not to sell, but to tell and educate. Now, once a mon on saturdays, she holds her Women Auto Know workshops. Their car is immune, but speaks. If you can understand what your baby is saying, you are okay and you need to name your car so you become personal. Its not that car again. Its i have to take bessey to the shop. Telling, not selling saved her company. Earning trust must be a big issue in the repair industry. Its the hurdle everyone deals with on a regular basis. Even if you are doing the right thing, there are shops doing the right thing, people dont believe it. Through the workshops, shes gained the trust of her community. Workshops. They were a great way to help people struggling in the economy to be able to do things on their own. Small services. Changing a lightbulb. How much is a lightbulb . 5 . Im going to charge you 20 to put it in. Do it yourself. Save your time and money, then when the big things happen and you need a timing belt, suspension or brakes, then come into me and im here for you. Linda has been to a workshop and is now a customer. Shes told her friends who have become students and customers. I think once they came here and saw the trust and her level of excitement and enthusiasm, they felt more comfortable taking a class. The trust was there. She cares deeply about continuing the legacy of her family with great bear. Her mission, the thing that really gets her up in the morning, the thing she will not stop until she completes is teaching people about their cars. How does it make you feel when a group of women leaves your workshop and suddenly they know a bunch of things they didnt know coming in . Im like hot dig itty dog, she got it. It fills me up. It feeds my passion, for real. Invigorating. Many Women Business owners around the country are just like her, trying to succeed in male dominated industries. That includes diane of cleveland who i met awhile back. Shes been in what has traditionally been a mans world. It was her touch that turned this gun store business around. [ gunfire ] your pump action shotguns make a distinct noise. Your gurdlers know that noise. The chances of them walking away from that is another story. Theres no question about whos in charge here, but for some customers of this Cuyahoga County gun shop, diane can be a bit of a surprise. I shock people, you know, from time to time because i am a woman that knows about guns. Diane not only knows about guns, she buys them, sells them and teaches people to use them. Go ahead and put your finger on the trigger. Properly. Thats good trigger control. Shes one of a small number of female Gun Shop Owners in the country. Theres more than you know but they are behind the scenes. Im out front here. Most of the gun shops, they are family businesses. The men are out front, but the women are in the back running it. Diane, who runs the whole show from stock room to showroom never planned to have a career dealing in firearms. It was her husband who got her into it. Tell me about the first time you shot a gun. Oh, my god. Lets see. The flame went that way, the casing that way, hit me in the head. I set the gun down and said this is not for me. I was just it was just totally freaked me out. She didnt stay freaked out for long. In fact, she discovered she has a knack for the business and a taste for the sport. [ gunfire ] its like with anything that any woman gets into, if you are going to runny type of business, you have to know what you are doing. You have to know your product. You have to be able to sell it. I can tell you, firsthand, she certainly knows what shes doing when it comes to operating firearms. Drop your side. Okay, that thumb up. All right. Okay. Forward. Whew i told you youre going to get it. After 17 years in the business, she rarely takes her eye off the target. When we took over, the old owners were doing about 300,000 a year. We are at over 2 million. Some of that increase comes from cultivating a new class of customers, women. The majority of women feel more comfortable talking to another woman about firearms. Do you attract more female customers . I believe yes we do. But, its not only just because im here. Its because my guys. I have a great staff here. They have their days when i would like to ring their necks, but i have a great staff and they listen to the women. Bringing in women isnt the only reason her store thrived. She credits savvy investors choosing to put profits back into the business. I have a lot of different guns here and all the different calibers. I feel like you do not take no for an answer. You will bargain somebody down. By the time somebody walks out the door, they will have boughten what you want. Most of the time, yeah. Breaking into the Good Old Boys Club can be difficult, but there are many successful female executives dedicated to helping other Women Entrepreneurs follow their lead. Here are five National Womens business groups worth looking into. The National Association of Women Business owners representing 10 million Women Businesses, there are 70 local chapters nationwide. Two, american businesswomens association. This network hosts an annual womens Leadership Conference where you can network with women who could become future customers. Three, 85 broads founded by women who held senior positions at goldman sachs, they host lecture events in new york city and regional outputs. Four, ladies who lawn. This website is for female entrepreneurs that offer press on tuneties, Networking Opportunities and more. Five, womens Business Development center. If you want to get certified as a womens business, this Group Provides valuable information and resources with a focus on government contracting, they also host web nars and in person courses. These are challenging times for some Small Business owners who, like everyone else, are reeling from the events taking place in washington. The impasse over passing a budget has led to a Government Shutdown which has far reaching effects on the community. The Small BusinessAdministration Closed down and stopped processing loan applications. Refinancing on mortgages, on commercial property is affected. This is just the begin. This is because of political fighting over the Affordable Care act as Health Care Exchange enrollment started causing more anxiety and confusion for Small Businesses that want to participate. How are owners dealing with all of this and what do they need to know about navigating the Health Exchanges . Katie sleet stra is with the National Association for the selfemployed and david ickert is director of finance with is an Employee Owned business. Great to see you guys. Theres a lot for us here. Katie, i want to start with you. How are your members feeling right now with whats going on in washington and whats going on with health care, the aca, how are they feeling . I think as it relates to the Government Shutdown, our members are just exacerbated. In advance of the deadline that is keep on creeping up on us. Its not a short term hit for them. There are going to be weeks of delays, even if the government started running tomorrow or god forbid, it takes until the 17th for a plan to be in place. I understand the idea of not feeling like theres an advocate but when its impacting Small Business. Its obvious how it affects people baiting for sba loans but how is it impacting the average Business Owner . They are importers and exporters of goods. Where are the materials right now . They are probably stuck in the baltimore dock or the new york dock waiting for inspectors to come back on the job to, you know, certify the materials can make it safely into the united states. I want to move into the Health Care Exchange. You talked about how your members are interested in this and the confusion. David, i want to get down to logistics. For people out there, Small Businesses who are interested in this, but dont know where to start, if you could take me through a step by step, heres j. J. Ramberg company, i have 25 employees, i dont provide them insurance right now, but i would like to. I think theres an opportunity out for there me, what do i do . If you are under 50 employees, it comes back to the individuals. Then it goes back to the exchanges. Contacting the exchanges and getting signed up is the step to do right now. Do i tell my employees to go contact the exchange or do i contact the exchange . Either one. You as the employer can contact the exchange and see what help you can get from there. You know, im a selfemployed. I see an opportunity, where do i start . The last couple weeks we have been telling our members, go to healthcare. Gov. Its the portal if you have Internet Connection which some americans dont and there are well publicized phone numbers and center hard locations to go to. Healthcare. Gov is a great place to get started. You can preregister and walk through the process. You dont need to transact the purchase of Health Insurance right there and then. You need to get the last tax return. Please have that ready. They are going to ask you for your adjusted gross income level. That will help the system verify if you are able to get premium assistance. Make sure you have any relevant medical documents that if you have a preexisting condition or the names of your doctors. I want to ask, i want to turn to david for a second. As a Business Owner, what do i need to evaluate as a Small Business person . Should i be going to one of these exchanges or should i talk to a broker and go through more traditional experience of Getting Health Care if i want to provide it for my employees. What questions should i ask myself . From a Small Business perspective, Small Businesses are unique and resourceful. Gathering as much information as they can at first, then make the evaluation for their particular circumstances is the best way to proceed. Katie and david, thank you for starting to help us parse this out and understand how it works. Appreciate you coming on the show. When we come back, we answer your Small Business questions, including when the time is right to hire a cfo. And, well tell you what you need to know about effective text message marketing. Has its ups and downs. Seasonal. Doesnt begin to describe it. My cashflow can literally change with the weather. Anything that gives me some breathing room makes a big difference. The plum card from American Express gives your business flexibility. Get 1. 5 discount for paying early, or up to 60 days to pay without interest, or both each month. Im Nelson Gutierrez and im a member of the smarter money. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. If you live with a teenager, you probably already know this. Email is passat. Just the other day, i was talking with a Business Owner trying to reach college students. After a survey, she realized her email marketing is ineffective. She needed to be texting. Its not just that demographic. 90 of all American Adults own cell phones. I wanted to take time to dig into text message marketing. James citron is from a mobile and online payment company. He founded an mms and sms text Message Company that was bought earlier this year. Great to see you, james. Great to see you as well. I find this fascinating. I love email. I use text but i get annoyed at text message marketing. I know there are lots of people that thats where they get their information, where they want to get their information. The challenge is 90 of emails today go unread. Right. 70 of facebook posts and 80 of tweets are missed by consumers. Most consumers go, i want to get my messaging on the one device i have with me 24 7. Its text messaging. Start from the basics. If im a company and want to get people signed up to my text messaging marketing plan, what do i do . Get a short code and promote it. You want someone to opt into the loyalty program, text join to 51515 to get texts. Where do i get the shortcode . You can use pavea service. There is a few sites where you buy the short code. The short code is replacing the domain name. Instead of your website address everywhere, you see Small Businesses put their short code everywhere. On signage you walk into a retail store, you see it on bus ads, print ads. What kind of things do i give . Is it the same kind of marketing i would use on email. Do i give coupon codes. I see 10 off 30 when you spend 30. Is that the kind of messaging you want to put snoout . Text is how we communicate with our loved ones. Youre delivering text marketing, you want to do something valuable. Exclusive content, cool coupons and personalize it so the message you might get from j. J. Is based on something you might have bought before, or something that is catered to your interests. It is interesting, because when we talk about marketing, and social sites, we talk a lot about dont give them offers. What you really want to do is start a conversation. Where as do you think of text as very transactional, actually give them an offer. This is not a conversation this is give them something they want . You can actually deliver much different information than just coupon. The brands that do the best job are delivering videos, pictures, multimedia, and then theyre following it up with a coupon. I see this, you also have a message from rick ojeda here, enjoy this 39second teaser video. It is still short enough to fit in a text, click through, you get the video. In this example this is a company by the name of partners trust. When youre buying a home today, you want to have a relationship with your broker this is maybe the biggest purchase you ever made in your life. To get a 30 second video from the agent telling you, this is who i am, these are properties that might be of interest to you actually bridges the gap between it is not just a transaction, youre building a relationship with the consumer. There are opt out rates the same as in the email. Forget the spam part. People who actively opted into an email newsletter, offers letter versus someone who actively opted in it is usually much less on text. When you say i want to get a text message from this brand or picture or video or coupon, youre really youre