Hi, everyone. Im jj ramberg and welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. Heres the problem with running a Small Business. Nobody pays your paycheck except for you. And that means if there is no money left over after youve paid for your inventory and paid your employees and your rent and other expenses, you personally get nothing. Now, that can be a sign that your business is in trouble or that you need to look at your company differently. Thats why this week were kicking off the new year with a special your business makeover which we did for a retail boutique and Ecommerce Store in houston whose hardworking owner sent out a frantic call for help. This must be it. I guess so. Dirt road divas. Southern chic boutique. Love it. Yuan and paco with about to shake things up here at dirt road divas southern chic boutique. Hey, jody. There she is. This is my friend dawn. Jody robinson is the owner of this cowgirls store where pistols meet pearls texas style. Things might look good at the store from the outside. Shoppers are shopping, bills are getting paid, but the end of the month guess what jody has left to pay herself. Nothing. And thats just plain bad business. So dawn, owner of powerful accounting and paco founder of enviro sell are going to jump in and give a your business makeover. Dawns job, dive into jodys financials and fix whats broken. Meanwhile, pacos going to help increase sales. At the end of this makeover, theyre going to get jody paid. The team started by getting a tour. This is the little shoe nook that we had built out. Perfect for ladies to look at themselves in the mirror to try on shoes. Western you know, western themed without being a western store. So we do a lot for rodeos. This is almost too small. It didnt take long for paco to see things to improve. You have done a wonderful job of buying. But theres almost too much stuff out there. Really . Part of what it is is having five great things is better than having 25 fabulous things. Basically paco is telling her showing your customers too many products overloads them. And as surprising as it seems, giving that many choices sells less, not more. What you want to display is a tickle, something that peaks their interest. That starts with whats in the window. And tough look at it from your customers point of view. Often we sort of think about windows as if somebody is viewing them like this. Right . Right. Rather than viewing at them from an angle. So if i were to do a gentle adjustment here, i would adjust those mannequins so both of them were facing me as im walking in the door. Shift it just a little bit so that the actual focus of the window is this way rather than this way. Okay. Make sense . It does. Then that tickle should continue as the customer walks through the door. In jodys case, the store is cluttered with so many colorful decorations that many are hidden. I dont see a price tag on this or this. That is simply a missed opportunity. I am also concerned about what i see in that corner. What do you see . And that what im seeing in that corner is a gas tank. Im seeing drd. And i want to see the product. At this point, i want us to put the tickle of handbags and shoes. I can put something up there that says shoes, but if i actually had a boot and a bag up there, it might even signal what im going to find in that corner back there. To help make you some money. Right. And make you feel even better about the business than you feel now. Meanwhile, as paco continued checking out the store, dawn started diving into the financials. And what she finds is that the systems are a mess. This isnt uncommon at all for someone in jodys position. But it is definitely keeping her back. When we came in, i have no quickbooks, no background in business or business degree or anything like that. We had to learn it by reading the manual. You know how that goes. You didnt go into business to do quickbooks. Right. So theres that. Its very detailed, very good, but its confusing. Sure. It turns out jodys got several systems each tracking different parts of her business. Things like inventory, sales, and payroll are not integrated. And this means jody cant see all of her financials in one place at the same time. She has no idea not because shes not a smart person, she doesnt know because the numbers arent there for her because she hadnt had the systems in place to be able to look at them and make an educated decision. She has an Inventory System thats talking her website. Wonderful. But that Inventory System and that website are not talking to her accounting. Thats one of the things well walk through today making sure your systems are integrating. Right now all you can do is look at your Bank Account Balance saying it looks like i can pay people friday. Right . With consolidated systems, jody can analyze her numbers and get a deep understanding about where all the money is going and when. With that information, she can start to make educated decisions about how to run her company. The key for this is shes not looking at her numbers to see how much shes spending on. How much of that inventory is dead inventory. Looking at that and saying lets get rid of it and sell whats selling. Dawn and ann start to consolidate all those reports. But before they even look at the details, dawn has another simple question. We need to know the terms of your vendors. When are you having to pay those vendors . Is money coming in and when is it coming in . And when is the last day you have to pay it . We pay for everything up front. Okay. So we have a pay up front due on receipt inventory that you are personally carrying. Thats right. Theres no way she can pay herself if shes fronting the money for inventory. So if she has high inventory, lets just use a number 75,000, well just throw a number out there. She has 75,000 of inventory, shes just tied up 75,000 of her cash. Hanging on hangers in there. And thats not working for her until she sells it. Bingo. Dawn has already found a source of funds for jody to start paying herself. But dawns suggestions go hand in hand with what paco is working on. Lets shut this chapter for now and bring in paco, our secret sauce. He needs to help make changes in how quickly shes turning over inventory. For paco, some of that has to do with upselling. Once ive got them in the door and looking at stuff, how can i take and sell them not an item but a set so im not just selling them a top, but im selling them a top, im selling a bottom, im selling a bralet, im selling some other piece of accessory to go along with it. How do you get people to think full outfit instead of one item. I want to show you something simple here. Yeah . Yes. Part of what i want to do is to connect this to this. Any time i have an up and down rack, i want to think about how can i connect whats here and whats here. And i just want to take this little zone and talk about what might work better. Okay. Part of what the problem is here this is a lovely garment. Right. And its one of the more expensive ones inside the store. Yes. You might even also want to have the underwear that goes with it. Because wearing this blouse and making it look good isnt just about wearing this blouse. Its what i wear underneath it that makes me look good in this blouse. Right. Okay. And i think this is one of the issues about a store like this is that more than a nordstroms, more than a target, more than a whatever, you can do the consultative sale. To make sure what theyre actually walking out the door with is 200 worth of stuff. And if they walk out the door with that 200 worth of stuff and theyre really happy and their friends tell them how great they look, i think theyll come back. I think so too. Lets go into a dressing room. While i love the color of this, inside the dressing room, part of the problem is it competes with the tryon process. Right. And i think if this were a more neutral color, it would work a little better. This might be the place, also, to Start Talking about social media. What do you suggest . I might say this is a great place for a selfie. Or, you know, send us pictures of us wearing your clothes and we will post them on our social media site. Good idea. And it is so effective. Particularly for a business like yours. The next day paco suggested connecting the boots with an entire outfit as a way of boosting sales. What were going to try to do is bring a mannequin here and see if we can do a shoe, leg, boot focal point. Our purpose here is to be able to sell the idea not the item. So one of the themes is to get to sell the idea. This plus this plus this plus this actually means a happier customer walks out the door. And its clear you have all the pieces here. Lets go. Hey. Looks pretty good, doesnt it . Do you like it . I do. Ties it all together. After two days of mixing through the numbers and changing things in the store, everyone was a bit worn out. But jody was thrilled with the lessons she learned. Dawn, i learned that the technology is available now. That all the pieces can pay together. And its simple. Doesnt have to be confusing. With paco, its the customers perception from when they come in from what they smell, see, having gift Items Available for them. So, you know, all those things together make for profits. I feel hopeful and i think that its going to lead to a paycheck. All right, lady. Rock on. Hopefully with the advice from paco and dawn, jody will finally start to bring home a paycheck. Well check back with her later this year to see how things are going. What do the experts think 2016 will hold for Small Businesses . Business news daily. Com lists five key trends to stay on top of this year. One, tighten cyber security. Experts say well see an increase in Cyber Attacks targeting Small Businesses in 2016, so make sure your company isnt vulnerable to predators. Two, focus on the mobile experience. More people are making buying decisions using their mobile devices. So youll need to adapt or youll be left behind. Three, collaboration and social responsibility will be even bigger in 2016. Being a part of something greater than yourself will ensure that everyone regardless of stock in your company has a sense of ownership in the brand. Four, value personal relationships. Digital marketing clutter makes standing out from the crowds difficult. So the Small Businesses that remember traditional Marketing Methods like facetoface relationships and word of mouth will succeed. And phi wit five, be aware of adblocking software. Big established brands often have lots of things many Small Businesses dont. Things like small budgets and lots of customers. But as a Small Business, what you can do is leverage all of that if youre about to enter into a partnership with these brands in some way. Denise albert and melissa are founders of the mom. They built relationships with companies from stouffers to samsung. Thank you for being here. Im happy to talk to you about this. You started this company out of nothing and now you have brands coming to you saying we want to partner with you. We want to be part of this. Which is really congratulations to both of you. Thank you. So lets talk about it. Youve walked into meetings and come out with yeses. We dont take no. I can see that. Lets go through the advice you have. The first point you talk about is making the pitch about them, not you. Thats right. So a lot of times i think brands like our brand you want to tell them everything about what youre doing and you want to give them that massive elevator pitch. But the most important thing is to understand who youre pitching. Youve got to do your homework. You have to understand who theyre marketing to, what their current goals are, what their initiatives are, what their programs are. And then its very important after you have this conversation, listen. Listen, listen, listen. Because youre constantly thinking im going to give them this pitch and youre anxious and excited. Listen to them and their goals. And then you really want to live their brand as your brand. So you can make them shine and learn things about themselves. A lot of times we go in and say what kind of things are you trying to even when we pitch. Youre in a pitch meeting but give them as much as well talk times for them to tell you. And then change your pitch on the fly if you need to. If you can, yes. Because youve just learned something new about their business or the direction theyre going in. Even though youve had your own concepts for them, it might change, and you have to be flexible. All right. You talk about knowing who you are. You have to know who you are and you have to know what youre good at. Were lucky. We call each other work wives. We have an amazing partnership. And melissa was just talking about the brands. Thats what shes really good at. Im really good at other things. But really know who you are. We know who we are. We are the moms. There is really, you know, to our knowledge nobody doing what were doing. Because were on so many levels doing so many Different Things on the small scale and working with brands. We have different media platforms. Thats what it is for is its easy to explain. So you are a thing. Youre not going to a brand and explaining something complicated. Its this is what we are. Question bring you to live within the mom community. Thats what we do. We are moms and we are part of the mom parenthood community and we reach moms in a lot of different ways. Heres what we can do. And we have the ability to be creative. So the more flexible you can be like you said you want to be able to change it on the fly, the more flexible you can be the better chances. Also the more they can understand. You have this is who i am. Its very clear. Whether im someone who goes after moms or im doing something else, it is clear. You dont want to be all over the map. It is not complicated. No. We market to moms. Many say we want to reach women fresh out of college, not what we do. Thats part of knowing what your demo is. When you go in to pitch these brands, you say this is who you can reach. Period. Period. Thats right. But the thing you must know is your demo. Do you reach a large audience. Where are the moms buying. Engage them on social. And our town hall events. We see what theyre buying, what they like, what they dont like. And that will tailor our pitch to the brands we go to. So great to see you. Congratulations on your success so far. Thank you. When we come back, one viewer tweeted us to ask how much reserve capital do you need for a startup . We give them an answer coming up. And a gluten free frozen food line. Well see if the panel has an appetite for their product pitch. 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 a viewer tweets us, how much reserve capital would you recommend be available for a startup i. T. Recruiting firm. Money is the tool by which youre going to fuel your business six months out. Thats my recognition of the value of being a strategydriven i. T. Recruiting firm. Pay a team, a staff, whatever it is thats required. You need to have the cash flow to sustain the company after six months of support. Depending upon how much youre growing, maybe the opportunities are clear and definitive. Youre going to have more money available because you want to keep moving forward as a company. Particularly in a space like i. T. Where there seems to be no limit of the kinds of people particularly in the Software Arena that need to be hired. And it is competitive firm, you should run your businesses six months out and you should have enough money to be able to built it at the same time, so that may add another extra cash reserve. If you love asian cuisine but you cant handle the gluten, youre going to like todays elevator pitch. The pitchers came one a tasty solution with their line called feel good foods. Now lets see if our judges feel good about their pitch. Monica meta is managing principal of seventh capital and amos winbush iii is founder and ceo of woes. Hi, im trig severson. Im vanessa phillips, ceo of feel good foods a brooklyn based food Company Launched in 2011. Trained chef insisted on cooking delicious free gluten free when i told him we had silliac disease. We started the gluten free dumpling and Egg Roll Company as well as asian meals. We offer convenient chef inspired meal options. The Gluten Free Food industry is booming, an 11. 6 billion in 2015. Currently were in over 3,000 Stores Nationwide including sprouts, whole foods and sams club. With my culinary and food science background i created proprietary formulas that make our food uniquely delicious. In the last three years weve grown triple dinlg identityities. 500,000, give you a stake in our Company Hiring more personnel, sales and marketing as well as future product launches. For both of you guys, good job both of you. Looks like that was well rehearsed the two of you. Maybe you live together. Okay, two numbers, the first one, one through ten, what did you think of the product . I saw you both tasted it. The second, what did you think of the pitch . I will tell you guys, personally, while youre writing, you can give your scores, one through ten for me, the product i snuck and tasted before, brilliant. Its so good. Thank you. Congratulations to both of you guys on that. Okay, monica, lets start with you. Product i would give it a 20 if i could. Im not missing the gluten and it was phenomenal. Im going to buy this for sure for my own family. I would say the pitch an eight. It was very clear, it was very, the need, how you got here, how you explained hoar here was clear. The product is a ten. Really, really, good. I can say that the casing is super light, with i is good for me. The pitch nine and a half. Ive seen a lot of pitches. I can say that it was really dense and packed, so kind of work on that. Evaluation im having a little issue with, but valuation is what valuation is. Congratulations. I think these are the first tens weve ever seen on products. Oh, wow been. Youve done a great job. Great way to start the new year. . We wish you the best of luck with ever