HATTIE: (Voiceover) You haven't tuned to "Wild Kingdom." This show is about business, your business, and doing what you love. That's why we visit a place called the Feather Farm in this broadcast of SMALL BUSINESS TODAY.

Hi. I'm Hattie Bryant. We have all kinds of great information for you if you're interested in starting a business or growing the one you have.

HATTIE: Like lovebirds, this former school teacher and a former construction contractor, met, married and then built a business and a lifestyle around their other love. (Voiceover) Napa Valley. It's harvest time, but we're not picking. We're not tasting. We're here to see birds, not grapes.

JIM BROWN: Oh, it's OK. They're not going to hurt you. It's OK.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Many people tend to view business owners as hard-hearted and tough. But Arlyta and Jim Brown couldn't have softer hearts. I'll let Arlyta pet that one.

(Voiceover) They love people and they love the birds they raise, which in turn, makes the world a more beautiful place.

ARLYTA BROWN: Mornings I come down and check all the animals just to make sure that nobody has been injured during the night.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) The Feather Farm is in Napa, California, on property Arlyta has owned for 20 years. Today, it is nothing like it was when, as a full-time school teacher, she started gathering animals around her.

ARLYTA: (Voiceover) It started with horses, evolved into all kinds of other exotic animals.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) The Feather Farm raises endangered species of birds, and it is one of the first farms in the country to breed emus, which may become the meat of the 21st century. ARLYTA: They're long-lived.They don't have an odor about their droppings. Now they're curious. They're not an intelligent creature. Now if we wanted to really make them active, we could whistle. You want to whistle and see what happens?

ARLYTA: OK. (Whistles) The feathers from emu can be collected, as you can see all over the ground. And they can be used in feather dusters because of their coarseness and their rigidity. They stand up to weather conditions very well. So their--the feathers will eventually be perfect for feather dusters and other types of cleaning things. The feathers can also be used in garment applications instead of fur.

HATTIE: Oh, really?

ARLYTA: So the feather... HATTIE: So we're going to have an emu fur coat?

ARLYTA: I sure hope so. And you don't have to kill an emu for the fur. HATTIE: No. What's that sound?

ARLYTA: That's a female emu. And she is threatening--she's making a threatening noise, or--what can we call it? An alarm.

Now stand still and watch what happens. They're curiosity usually always gets the best of them. Instead of like a cow having one calf a year, this animal can have 60 or better babies in a year, each of which at two years of age is 150 pounds. And as a commercial meat animal, that is worth looking at.

HATTIE: Right. So that's why your spending all this energy to grow the herd?

ARLYTA: More than that. These animals don't have disease problems like cattle do: hoof in mouth, spontaneous abortion, rhiminitis problems. There's multiple problems with commercially raised meat animals that this particular animal does not have.

HATTIE: What does this meat taste like?

ARLYTA: It tastes just like beef. It's less than 4 percent fat. So it's much more--healthwise--health-consciencewise, it's much better for people to consider eating than beef or some other type of meat.

HATTIE: I thought you were going to say, `It tastes just like chicken,' because everything taste like chicken.

ARLYTA: No. Sorry.

HATTIE: Alligator, snake, whatever. `Oh, it tastes just like chicken.'

ARLYTA: No, beef. Beef. And all these birds are also microchipped when they are baby birds. So that with the microchip ID, we can scan them when they grow up and they're older to find out what pair of birds they're from. So that when we pair them up, they are paired up non-related.

HATTIE: Do you put those microchips in the little babies?

ARLYTA: We sure do.

HATTIE: So it's, like, high tech.

ARLYTA: Well, I guess you could say that. We actually have a syringe which has the microchip about a quarter of an inch long embedded in the syringe. And you take the neck muscle behind the neck of the bird and implant it right between the muscle and the layer of skin, which is there for life.

HATTIE: Injected. And so you could scan all of these birds now and....

ARLYTA: And know exactly what their parentage is.
Well, it also tells you other factors such as age, any kind of health problems. Also, their produce record. `How many eggs does this pair produce?' We can tell that simply by checking out our computer. Last year, they had 53 eggs, 25 were fertile, the rest were infertile. This is critical to running an agricultural business and eliminating birds of poor production. While I was teaching school during the spring and summer months, we had horrendous numbers of sparrows that would nest outside the ranch house here on the property that you see now. And always there would be more babies than there was room in the nest, and they would fall out and would be packed around by the dogs. Well, of course, the natural thing would be to rescue them. The next thing was how to see that they could survive. So I would take them to school with me while I was teaching school and raise them. And then together, my class and I would fledge them, turn them loose, and it was so gratifying. The children learned better. They learned how to sustain and care for birds, and that enhanced their reading ability and skills, and so forth. But that also enhanced my interest in birds. And that evolved into hand-feeding parrots and exotic birds worth much more money.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) When Jim and Arlyta married, together they began to expand upon Arlyta's breeder business. And Jim invented what they expect to be the major source of profit for the Feather Farm's future. They own the patent and manufacture the world's only metal nest box.

JIM: These are nest boxes.

HATTIE: Nest boxes? So the birds go in here and make a nest?

JIM: They go in there and make a nest, lay eggs and raise babies.

HATTIE: All right. Well, why are they shaped this particular way? Is there a reason?

JIM: Each bird has a different set of requirements for nesting. This is a T-box with a baffle in it so the male cannot trap the female inside. If he goes in this way, she can go out that way. We've done birds for 30 years, and this is what works. She has a defendable area. It's very important that a bird has something it can defend or it will not nest.

HATTIE: Is your goal to have the female produce as many eggs as possible?

JIM: No. I just want the eggs that she lays. I want survivability. That's the most important thing. It's a thrill to raise an endangered species and put something back into the wild. I mean, that's what it's all about.

HATTIE: Are you the largest manufacturer of nest boxes in the world?

JIM: The largest--we're the largest metal manufacturer of nest boxes in the world, period. But we make lots of nest boxes. HATTIE: And it makes you lots of profit. JIM: We make a living. HATTIE: All right. JIM: I have a nice lifestyle. HATTIE: You get to go home for lunch. JIM: I get to go home for lunch.

HATTIE: I saw you go home for lunch.

ARLYTA: One thing we've tried to do with everything that we do is cut out the middle man. We're factory direct. You'll see my signs `factory direct.' HATTIE: OK. ARLYTA:

That's because we produce it here, we manufacture it here, the metal goods. We make the baby birds here. The whole thing is inclusive so that we're not losing a profit center to middle men. What we've always tried to do was reinvest our profits in the growth of our business, and for several reasons because that will help our business grow, obviously, number one. But secondly, you're not paying taxes on an income that is doing nothing for anyone except perhaps a lavish lifestyle. And we have tried to go in another direction. Our interests and our lavish lifestyle or whatever fulfills our needs has been fulfilled by the success of our business. So therein lies lots and lots of extra time and vacations you never get. But our rewards are in the success and growth of our business.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) To maximize their buying power and take advantage of volume discounts, Arlyta and Jim got a line of credit from the Wells Fargo branch in Napa.

ARLYTA: We've been very cautious about borrowing money. But Wells Fargo was at least willing to come out and see what we did and consider us for a credit line, actually, that is non-substantiated. So it's basically based on what we have, which is for the most part paid for.

. HATTIE: (Voiceover) Banker Terri Dial came by the Feather Farm to see her customers and tell us about an exciting program Wells Fargo has put into place.

TERRI DIAL: So we've committed to lend a $1 billion to women-owned businesses over the next three years. If someone's looking for a line of credit--and this is a line of credit program by the way, because if you heard Arlyta speak, that's really what most small businesses need.

HATTIE: All right. Just clearly, simply, describe the difference between a loan and a line of credit.

TERRI: Right. A loan is what most of us are familiar with. You get an auto loan, you borrow a specific amount of money. You pay a specific amount every month until the loan is paid off. A line of credit works a lot better for a business because what it allows you to do is use up to the maximum amount of the line of credit anytime you want, pay it back whenever you want and then reuse it. So for most businesses, if you have seasonal needs or if you have the occasional need to purchase inventory, maybe you get an opportunity to get a discount on something if you can buy with cash, you use your line of credit. You repay it from your cash flow. But it's there when you need it again. It doesn't go away like a loan does.

HATTIE: Are you ever going to retire?

ARLYTA: I hope not. Retiring, you die. So the energy that you get from business is--look at you. It's wonderful. It will keep you young for a very long time.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Here's what I learned at the Feather Farm. Reinvesting retained earnings and wise use of credit will increase profits. Don't depend on your old products for your future profits. And happiness is in the work itself.

ARLYTA: This is how you control an emu. You actually walk behind them and you hold their wings. Oops. Hold still. You're all right. These are breeder birds, so they're not so proper. But theoretically...

"At the beginning keep your overhead low. Rent before you buy, borrow before you rent and beg before you borrow." - AT&T Resources for New Business

Question: Let's say you're married. You have the best of intentions, but your business goes under. Well, who's liable for paying the debt? That can be a tough question, one that calls for our legal expert John Patrick Dolan.

JOHN PATRICK DOLAN: Well, that depends. If the husband and wife go into business together as partners and they've both signed on the dotted line to pay the debt, they're both going to have to pay, even to the extent of their own separate, personal property. However, if you have a situation where one spouse goes into the business and the other has different employment, but the bank requires both of you to sign, you may be able to protect the personal property of the spouse who's not involved in the business because of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act says that when a person presents themself at a bank and requests credit, they cannot be discriminated against because of several things, including marital status. So if the bank requires because of marital status one of the spouses to sign on the dotted line even though they're not involved in the business, they may be prevented from going against that spouse.

Question: Well, what's the best way to protect yourself?

JOHN: Make sure that when the bank requires both spouses to sign, if one spouse isn't involved in the business, you assert your rights under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act because the bank can't make the spouse who's not involved in the business take on the liability. Otherwise, that would be discrimination on the basis of marital status.

HATTIE: It's obvious the way we get in touch with each other is changing. But how will the way I do business be different 10 years from now? Loren Smith tells us how in the future you'll Deliver Your Message.

LOREN SMITH: In running a small business, imagine if you could reach any of the 125 million addresses when you wanted to. Imagine when those customers could get something from you when they wanted to, perhaps in different forms. It could come to them electronically and they could get hard copies later on. Imagine if remittances were coming back to you in a way that you didn't have to wait as long to get the check in the mail, that it was handled electronically through a trusted third party called the post office.

Imagine if all your communications over your PC were done with a postal indicia that not only got it there--because there'll be others that will get it there--not only authenticated it, but brought a body of law along that said if people mess around with it, it it's a felony. And therefore, postal electronic commerce services will set up a whole array of communications opportunities, which will carry the same kind of protections that first-class mail has carried for 220 years. Now in the remittance area, you can start getting information through imaging, the check being in the mail. So you can start planning what your cash flow is as a small-business person.

HATTIE: Now wait a minute. What I just heard you say is that when my customer sends me a check in a reply card that I provided, in a reply envelope that I provided, you can track that and you can tell me ahead of time that I'm getting the check?

LOREN: Sure. Right. We're actually testing that today with a large remittance mailer. And eventually, we'll be able to--because we're the post office and can legally, today, open that envelope and run a giant lock box system, we'll be able to actually get that check deposited for you a lot faster. So if you're doing business from the Hamptons with someone in the Florida Keys or East Lizard Slick, Idaho, rather than having that check moving through even with fast mail, we'll be able to pick it up where the person deposited it in the local area, turn that into an information piece and turn that into something that's sent to your bank and to you, and gives you added information on how to run your business.

DAN SCHULMAN: One of the ways for a small-business person to save money is to join an association. Many firms offer associations, like the National Association of Women-Owned Businesses, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce discounts for their members. For example, you can often receive an additional 5 percent discount on your phone bill even after you negotiate your best price, that goes with technology products, and even entertainment.

HATTIE: Do those associations really promote those benefits? Because I'm a member of a couple of associations and I've never seen long-distance service as one of the benefits that are offered.

DAN: You've got to ask. Sometimes the regional association does not know about all the benefits from their national associations. Sometimes you have to recommend it to them, to form a partnership, so that they can share technology trends including more aggressive discounts on things like phone bills.

HATTIE: Well, other than those tangible benefits to association membership, why do you think being a member of an association would be good for a small-business owner?

DAN: One benefit -- you're not alone. You have people to talk to, people who are in the same industry as you, who have probably gone through the same issues that you're wrestling with today. So it's not just you against the world. It's you and other people that are working on similar issues that can be united.

HATTIE: It's kind of the idea of two heads are better than one. DAN: Yeah, exactly.

(Voiceover) And putting your heads together is the subject of this week's Business Basics: Networking. When I started in business, I immediately joined my local chamber of commerce. I'm also a member of my town's largest Rotary Club, I belong to my trade association and I go to church in my community.

The Chamber of Commerce is made up of businesspeople. Some are executives in large companies, but most are small-business owners who are interested in growing the economy of the town and their own business as well. From Lewiston, Maine, Chamber executive Laurie Winsor talks about the value of a chamber membership.

LAURIE WINSOR: Well, Chambers of Commerce are one of the best ways for businesspeople to give voice to the issues that are important to businesspeople. Plus there are the networking-contacts-leads opportunities, and there are common problem solving opportunities. Plus we are always sharing new techniques in business marketing and issues around growth. We are an information resource.

We bring in specialists for our monthly breakfast program to talk about important need-to-know business information; we're doing a skills-oriented professional development seminar through our "Lunch and Learn Series," and we do a member-to-member brown bag roundtable seminars on marketing and media-oriented techniques, customer service -- what is it and how do you measure it, job costing and analysis, and professional development skills -- communications, especially writing and speaking skills. The chamber is a voice for business on public policy issues. We are always marching together towards improving economic conditions. You stand in the community as a business person.

Question: Are you a member of your chamber? Of your trade association?

JIM RHODE: What works for one... (Voiceover) Our Smart Practice experts, Jim and Naomi Rhode, are professional speakers who also operate a highly successful direct marketing company.

NAOMI RHODE: Jim and I are involved in several networking, or MasterMind groups. We go twice a year to a resort area and are involved with the CEOs and marketing directors of 30 direct mail marketing companies. We sit in a hollow square and we talk about our problems and our challenges. And we ask questions. Then, if you have a question during the year, these are people whom you can pick up the phone and call.

There are many other similar groups. For example, the Young Entrepreneurs Organization gather in small forums that meet once a month to discuss problems.

As my schedule gets very tight, I make appointments with my existing clients. I also have appointments with potentially new clients. And invariably, I'm all set--my schedule's set. And my existing client will call and want to change my appointment. So now my appointment that he wants to change overlaps right over my appointment with a potentially new client. I really don't know how to approach this.

Do you feel awkward about saying, `Do you have something penned in for that day?'

My position has always been that my existing client base is my bread and butter.

The way that I would deal with that is--typically, it's more difficult for us to get an appointment with a new client. And they are, to me--would be typically less likely to feel good about changing an appointment, whereas, hopefully, you have a decent relationship with your existing client.

I'm in this group because it gives me the opportunity to build relationships with other business owners who are experiencing some of the same issues that I'm going through on a day-to-day basis.

The best part is the feedback, and knowing that you're not alone in owning a business and having this particular problem.

I'm in the software business. He sells insurance. He's a travel agent. A very, very unusual mix of different kinds of industries. And when you present problems to a group like this, you often get solutions that are from a completely different perspective, that you had no conception of and they sometimes are rather shocking. You're like, `Wow, that's a great idea!'

I always feel that the weight has been taken off my shoulders after we have a meeting because other people's problems seem a lot worse then mine a lot of the time.

Comments: Don't work in a vacuum. Find groups made up of other business owners, join, volunteer to help and you'll get more out of your membership than it could ever cost you. So in a word, `join.'

(Voiceover) Each week, we bring you Business Basics. We have a complete one-hour video of all of these segments for $29.95, plus shipping and handling. If you'd like a video, call us at area code (504) 737-0089.

"Your involvement in even one established business network could make the difference between success or failure... nvolvement in several could double, triple or even quadruple your chances for success." - Barbara Brabek, Homemade Money

HATTIE: Have you made improvements to your business, but you think nobody's noticing? Street fighter Jeff Slutsky tells us about a technique called `the blowout.'
JEFF SLUTSKY: You know, when you've had new management, you take over a store that doesn't have a very good reputation, you need to do something really exceptional to get people in the front door. Now this is a very risky kind of promotion. We call it the blowout, and here's what you do. You pick one day and you take your main item and you discount it really low. For like a pizza restaurant, it'd be all the pizza you can eat for 99 cents. Something crazy like that. A car wash for a quarter. It could be a hamburger for a nickel. Just one item. Now you've got to be very careful about this because they're going to come out of the woodworks for this promotion. So you have to be very careful to make sure you have enough labor, enough product and you give everybody good, quality stuff. It doesn't take a lot of advertising to get the thing going. But believe me, once you do this thing right, everybody comes in, they see how wonderful you are and you got one last shot at getting them back as regular customers. Now that's some real street fighting. Question: Have you ever wanted to move to the place of your dreams, but you can't figure out how you'd make a living? We've profiled a group of entrepreneurs who did just that. They put their lifestyle first, and are running successful businesses. Plus, advice on going global. More and more business owners are doing it.

HATTIE: Remember, this show is about your business and your life. So what are you waiting for? Take the leap.