Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business where we provide Small Business owners with information and inspiration. Starbucks Ceo Howard Schultz once said in time of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what were made of. Rebecca bar low found that out the hard way. She was running her open company when her husband suddenly died. The hard way. She was running her open company when her husband suddenly died. Then she discovered that his business was falling apart. Her sorry of battling me employee resistance and sexism has lessons we can all learn from. When rebecca launched her child care agency, she had a simple strategy for growth. Started very small. And kind of built it out. I just took on a client or two at a time. I didnt have to invest anything and i really learned the lesson of growing a business organically. Did you log into bella and see the families that havent been called back yet . Rebeccas very personal oneonone Customer Service is what set her apart from the competition. Treated every customer as if they were me looking for my own children. Hes doing good. You have to exceed their expectations at every turn. Within six months, i had more than replaced my corporate income. I said well done, sister, you did it. But triumph of turned to tragedy in 2011 when are a beg cames husband of 13 years died unexpectedly. That was the most unbelievable tragedy that you could imagine. At the time rebeccas husband, steve, had been running his own business, acme flood, a water damage remediation company. The business was tanking. And also on the home front. I found out that my house payment hpt been paid in six months. Giving up wasnt an option. Rebecca knew she had to keep acme of a flet. But when she stepped in and took over, many of her employees balked at the idea. There is this woman telling us what to do . What do you know about this industry . The solution to that problem was simple. I immediately enrolled myself in a water damage remediation technician class just to understand what my business was about and to speak their language. Talking the talk was easy, but beginning her employees respect was a challenge. Getting these men to ultimately trust me as their leader required me to sort of take it down a notch. I tend to be an alpha female. I was doing the same kind of thing that i was doing with bella with my clients. I was getting on their level. And it was meeting tell where they were at. Test came back positive. So those are getting done tomorrow and friday. As she gained her teams trust, rebecca started identifying the key problems across acmes three divisions. Flood, plumbing and reconstruction. The first thing that i noticed was that the Reconstruction Department was taking money from the Flood Department to cover its payroll. We werent making more than 5 profit on those jobs. So rebecca started cleaning up from the roots by making some major and very unexpected changes. I just decided we cant do reconstruction. Its taking our profit away from our most profitable department. So i had to let everyone go. Plumbing was also laced with issues. Fired the lead of that department and i let go of all the plumbers we were working with. We were just left with acme flood. Rebecca felt that scaling back the business and downsizing its head count was the only option for the companys survival. So have you finished the inventory . If you know that something is affecting your business negatively, my best advice is follow your gut and get rid of it. Focus on what youre good at. She drew on her experience and knew that the only way that she could turn acme around was to rebuild it from scratch. I took it down to it a point where i was comfortable and i felt like i had my arms around the entire thing. It was me, one technician, a help her and my bookkeeper working out of my Spare Bedroom in my house. With limited resources, acme could only handle a limited amount of customers. I chose to look at that as an opportunity to hone our Customer Service. How is your house going along . It helped me to create a Company Culture that is focused on fixing your problem in the best way possible. When you wake up at 3 00 in the morning and your house is covered in water, youre freaking out, right . The secret sauce is not water damage. The secret sauce is how youre treating your customers. And when rebecca needed advice in certain area, she was fearless in heranswers. I called owners of other flood companies and everyone was willing to help which really blew my mind. Everyone just wanted to see a single mom make it. Despite the challenges of raising four children and running both acme flood and bella bambino, rebecca has come out on top. Lets go team. When i stepped in, acme was doing around 600,000 a year. Last year we were over 2 million. And this year were looking at 4. I want to show people that if i can do it and i dont have a business degree, i just have a life degree, anyone can do it. Rebeccas story points out how important it is to have a plan in place. Michael timms is founding of a Consulting Firm and author of the book success planning that works. Two ways to think about this. One is what happens if something suddenly happens to me and i cant run my business anymore and the other is the more natural one which is when im ready to retire or sell, move on, what to i do. So do you need to have the same kind of planning in place and when should you start thinking about this sf. Regardless of whether youre planning for that or just planning for growth, you should have effectively the same plan in place. So what does it mean to have succecession plan . Succession planning in general is just developing leaders at the every level of the organization. On a very basic level, Succession Planning is really two things. One is identifying people with leadership potential. And, two, developing that potential. Is it about saying, okay, one day im not going to be here and joe is going to be in charge, is it actually pointing to the person who is going to take over for you . Or is it saying here are a group of people and any one of then could take charge . Yeah, i think that is a mistake that lot of companies make, they look to one person to be their successor and that can be a problem if something happens to that successor. So its selecting and grooming and developing a group of individuals who could step in at various times. What are the biggest mistakes people make . I think the most obvious mistake businesses make is not having a Succession Plan that weve just seen. But i think another mistake that businesses make when they start to think about Succession Planning they say, well, im just going to i need to promote some people and get some people kind of my next level of management ready here and so im just going to promote people and they do that based on technical at only and they dont consider their leadership ability. And that is promoting people to their level of incompetence and its not fair to the individual to set them up for failure, nor is it fair to the business. When somebody is thinking about Succession Planning, should they talk about this with the team . The worst thing that can possibly happen when you have a Succession Plan and youre working with individuals and developing people and getting them ready, the worst thing that can possible happen is to have those individuals say im leaving because i dont see any Career Opportunity for me here. Im going to somewhere where i can have more opportunity to advance. And youre saying, no, no, no, wait, i was thinking about promoting you the whole time. Its too late, right . So you need to be telling people ahead of time. So be very obvious and very fort right about, hey, one day im going to leave and so thats why were doing this. Right abou im going to leave and so thats why were doing this. You got it. Mimichael, thank you so much for coming on the program. Ive worked in two kinds of startups. Venture backed companies with tons of money and boot strapped ones where every dollar counts. And though you would think that canning things with lots of money is easier, sometimes the better ideas come when funding is scarce. As the owners of a handmade home goods come found out, when youre forced to make do with less, you on which come up wiofp with the best strategy. Everything i have seen as a limitation previouslywhich ofte with the best strategy. Everything i have seen as a limitation previously has helped define who we are and ultimately been one of our greatest strength. When ron morris and his husband ren jones jr. Started their business mercantile homes which is now a mix between a home goods manufacturer and art gallery, they pretty much had nothing more than an idea. This was a dream that did not have any sort of financing. We never took out loans. Probably because we couldnt get them if we had asked. Ron and ken were in a situation familiar to many, they had what they thought was a xwlat idea, but no obvious resources to see it through. So they were forced to be innovative. And every money saving decision they made became a part of the tab ri fact rick fabric of what the brs today. We had the one Natural Resource that we know we had which is our creativity. Ashd that start when the entire baunlg et cetera was a 500 loan from kens parents. It bought us some fabric, the basic supplies. They started looking around. We had tons of fabric that had been collected and all of a sudden i had reasons to turn it into things. Because they didnt have ream smt of the same fabric, everything they made was one of a kind before today even though they can afford more, they stick to their roots because items part of their identity and why people love their products. Almost all the fabric goods have either been given to us or we bought secondary excess, but again, if all has to be low cost because what were doing is not a high end thing. 100 and under is where we like to live. Their lack of funds also meant they didnt have a marketing budget. The Company Start in brooklyn, new rk but moved to easton, pennsylvania where they opened their store. They took every opportunity they got to bring customers in. You say hi to everyone who walks by your door. That was the first thing. But that wasnt enough. Especially since easton had fallen on hard times. We were very aware of the challenges. People wouldnt come down town. We had to become a destination. Thats howtown. We had to become a destination. Thats how Community Oriented activities became part of the plan to get people to shop local. We wanted to get people talking about us however they could. Whether theyre taking a class or come to a concert, if todays how they connect and get to know us, they will learn about all the other stuff. They regionally created six collections to give customers reasons to come back to the store. If we only sold candles, we wouldnt have been able to attract the diversity of customers that we needed. So you had to give them note cards and handbags and scarves and all the other stuff. While the number of seasonal launches is now four, the nearly santa reinvention has become a trademark of the brand and a reason for customers to return. Everyone who i think evidently is in this town, five people at the time, how do we make it interesting for those five people again. Lets change it over and have a new collection. Start changing the shop every couple of months and those five become 10, 20, 40. Ron and ken addremit that th was another frustration. They didnt know how to best explain their brand. Ken and i often saw it as one of you are biggest limitations, trying to get people to understand everything that we did. Like all of their other challenges, they have overcome this one, too. They dont need to explain anything now. Thats because their customers do most of the talking for them. Folks will walk into the store and you overhear them plaining what we are to the person they brought in. Oh, yeah, they make everything here and its always changing and they have classes. We dont have to do the work anymore. Time to cash in on a digital phenomenon. In case you havent noticed or if your head is in the sand, pokemon go has become the most talked about game of the summer. For good or for bad. And im not sure which yet. My kids just hit level nine yesterday. The free app uses your phone to gps as you move through the real world searching for virtual monsters. To gps as you move through the real world searching for virtual monsters. Its also driving sales. We have five ways savvy Small Business owners are catching customers with pokemon go. One, find out if your business is a pokestop or a gym. These are real world players that players congregate around to search for rewards. If youre theyre one, get creative with marketing, product discounts and instore promotions that will help you capture customers. Two, keep score. If you have a gym close by, put up a sign offering discounts and incentives to players who are in control. Three, three down the lure. Powerful inapp purchases at track pokemons to hot spots. Oe. Powerful inapp purchases at track pokemons to hot spots. We. Powerful inapp purchases at track pokemons to hot spots. Do. Powerful inapp purchases at track pokemons to hot spots. Ow. Powerful inapp purchases at track pokemons to hot spots. Four, go with the pokemon roam. Take your business on the road. Set up a pop up shop or give out marketing terms theynear gyms. And last, market through social media. Get people excited about the rare pokemon that keeps popping up near your business. Have follow irs tag your business on facebook and instragram. The word sargento and cheese go handinhand. Now worth more than a billion dollars youd be hard pressed to find a supermarket or Grocery Store that doesnt carry the shredded cheese or the cheese cubes made by the family owned business. 63 years after it was started, brand now ran by his grandson. We talked with him about hiring good people, treating them like family and finding a Work Life Balance in this training from the pros. Hiring people and treating them like family was a philosophy that my grandfather started over 63 years ago and it really speaks to the culture at sargento. It means how you would free throw treat your own family. You want to have fun with them, hold them accountable, treat themthrow treat your own family. You want to have fun with them, hold them accountable, treat them with trust and respect. Make them feel welcome, have ownership. You want them to embody the spirit of the culture and have that same passion that you as an owner may have. Innovation is absolutely essential. Companies need to be looking at how they can innovate really on a dwaaily basis. You cant make innovation in a vent. You need to follow great practices and procedures to create great products for the consumer. A huge part of our success and it would continue to be a huge part of our success going forward. Innovation, however, goes beyond just creating new keez products for consumers. Its also about doing Different Things differently, new processes, new procedures. So we are innovating every day. Listening to the consumer is actually very important. If companies and individuals arent looking at who the consumer is that theyre trying to deliver great products to, i think you risk your brand having recomme rely advance with trelevance wi. Whether it be through facebook or instragram or twitter, they have multiple ways of speaker acting with us. Intact they can call our 1800 number and listen to a live person and share their ideas on a new product or how great a product is that they have in the marketplace. Balance in life i think is something that everybody tries to do and its very hard to do. But i really think its important for people to make a conscious effort to make sure to find that they is grais great b in life. If your life is all about work, you wont be successful. You have to make sure you have time to spend with your family being friends, celebrate your family and just have fun. I love driving my tractor on the weekends. Friends, celebrate you family and just have fun. I love driving my tractor on the weekends. I like to move dirt around and i find my tractor time to be just great time where i can find peace and just kind of think about nothing and focus on the immediate task at hand. But i also encourage sargento family to make sure theyre having fun outside of work, as well. Wn we come back, strategies for marketing an innovative product that could be the first of its time. And why you need to be constantly reinvesting in your business. Will your business be ready when growth presents itself . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out how American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. If you have a truly innovative product that does require a little bit of demonstration, what is the best way to market your product to a company . So the most important thing whenever i hear the word demo, important thing to think about, are you trying to educate the marketplace or actually trying to sell the product. If youre trying to educate, youre in for a long haul. Be very careful with that. Put the demo at the end of the pitch, not at the beginning. With a most folks want to is start with that demo and then talk about the value. Begin with the value, talk about why its creating value for me and then it the demo. Dont try to educate the market place. Sell the value, sell the experience, get folks to understand the benefit to them and then to the demo. If you do it the other way around, its much too long. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. So lets introduce our panel and get their advice. Founder of retrofitness and also founder of lets yo. And Elizabeth Gore focuses on small and medium businesses around the world. So good to see both of you. Thanks for having us. So one tip for the audience. My one tip for the audience would be if youre growing a Small Business would be reinvest and do it consistently. And the reason i say that is because so often people start a business, like planting a garden, you spend all this time and energy and put the garden in and then you walk away and neff water again an expect it to