the republicans get ready to convene in tampa, as small business takes center stage. small business owners sound off on presidential politics and what it means for them. coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy, and american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to present "your business," on msnbc.

hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business." the show dedicated to giving you tips and advice to help your business grow. small business is a big topic in tampa, where republicans are gathering for their national convention. the gop and their nominees mitt romney and congressman paul ryan feel the obama administration's policies have hurt the country's small businesses. on the stump, ryan has made it clear that they feel the president's handling of the economy and his health care plan have small businesses crying out for a change. >> more than half our jobs come from these small businesses. and what is the president doing? more regulations. more uncertainty. more borrowing. more spending. more taxing.

>> as the convention gets under way we want to continue our series of small biz sounds off with discussions with the people who actually run those small businesses. ef been anderson is the owner of asheville play grounds in asheville, north carolina. she first introduced you to evelyn during one of our makeovers. and joining me here in the studio is brian hamilton the co-founder and ceo of sageworks. gene marks, president of the marks group and small business columnist for "the new york times" and brian cohen the chairman of new york angels and an entrepreneur yourself. thank you for joining me. evelyn, i'd like to start with you. as we head into the conventions or as we're at the conventions, what are you hoping to hear from the candidates? >> well, i don't know if either party really addresses the needs of very small businesses like our own. i think that, you know, we operate at a small scale. but, i really would like to see support for the middle class, the people who buy our products,

if people have more disposable income, i believe that they will be able to purchase more things, and that would support and help small business. >> and so, if i'm hearing you correctly, what you want to hear is what is your plan for helping the economy? >> yes what is your plan for helping to bring the economy back to the way it used to'50s,e was a strong middle class, there was growth, there was real possibility in this country. >> brian, have you heard anything from either side right now that is ringing true to you as a small business owner, this is actually going to help me? >> it's really interesting. it's a great point. it's not just what the plan is, but get the plan out early and stick with it. the big issue right now for small businesses like evelyn's, they don't know what's going to happen. so there's always politics in everything. you know, and the democrats are going to be democrats. republicans, conservatives, we know that. but what's the plan going to be? and give my business or give her business time to plan. that's the big issue. we're surveying these businesses

all the time, it's the uncertainty. the health care debate is over, i'm just glad it's over. maybe it was good policy, maybe not. but do it early. that's the big issue. >> we talked a lot about uncertainty and people don't know what to do in the face of uncertainty -- >> well, very sophisticated people are running these businesses. 27 million of them, right, they know if taxes go up, their costs are going to go up. they know if there's health care legislation that applies to their business, their costs are going to go up. >> but it doesn't matter who wins just let me know what's going to happen? >> well, i would say, look, when you run a company, we're surveying these companies all the time, we have a ton of data, as you know, in what you're doing is it going to increase my sales or decrease my cost? it is simple, if it doesn't increase my sales we hope it doesn't increase my costs. so it's not that the policy can be terrible. but i want to know early, that's what all of our survey results express. >> right. you're shaking your head, gene. >> no, no, no. actually, when we talk about

uncertainty, i just don't know whenever there was not uncertainty, so whenever i hear people saying like, oh, we don't like president obama, and the democrats, because there's so much uncertainty around and you know, how can we do our business, i just think to myself, well, wasn't there uncertainty in the fif'50s, '60 and '70s, too. there's always going to be uv certainty. what brian is saying is right about knowing what to expect in the future. i'm really happy romney chose paul ryan to run with him. why? because he is now really making a statement they're going to focus on the economy. i'm really happy that president obama then came out and said i respect paul ryan and think that he's a good man and he will be able to communicate with governor romney's policies but i don't agree with his policies. at least for the next few months, hopefully, we will be getting the respect for the candidates to give us both sides of what their plan is so that we can make an informed decision as to who we want to see leading the country in the next four years. >> when you talk about plan? what are you specifically talking about, taxes, reducing the deficit? to help small business. >> again, different people have different things that concern

them. my biggest concern as a business owner is our national debt and our deficit. it is a concern to me so see that kind of thing and what it will do to our children, what it will do to my expenses going forward, what it will do to my retirement. i have concerns about that. i would like to see a plan to see which candidate is going to reduce the deficit over a period of time. however, no matter what plan that they present, i've got to say i'm not quite sure if they even know if that's going to work or not. >> the only party i belong to is the entrepreneur party. not liberal, not republican, it's nothing more than people wanting to be smart about starting their businesses. that's always been my thought. so i get really tired of hearing that if we change the tax system somehow, this is going to make more money. people change their businesses to make more money. not taxes. the socioeconomic changes that we're going through now are real. they're not easily fixable. you don't snap your fingers and all of a sudden it's going to be great again. these are very serious internet changing issues where the

leverage, the profit in the marketplace has been dragged way, way, way down. so there are new companies finding new ways to create new businesses every day. obama has signed the jobs act. new financial models for companies to get new money where they couldn't get it before. this company that i'm building now, that i started with my son, is driven by changing the dynamics for big companies that were challenging so that they're going to find it hard to succeed because we as a small company are being creative and innovative. so in this country, which is the creative innovation economy, we all have to learn to adapt. and be smarter. >> true. but for the person running a bakery, you know, i run a tech company so i understand what you're saying. i agree. for the person running the bakery, if you increase their taxes, okay, and you don't tell them early in advance or whatever that does have a big effect on their cash flow. they've got mortgages, credit cards and so forth. to gene's point as well, i agree with you there's always been uncertainty. however the political environment in washington right now historically is at the pits.

and it does make a difference. and it does create uncertainty. it is really different now, from 40 years ago or 50 years ago. >> evelyn, is there one candidate right now who speaks to you more? >> well, definitely, i'm a supporter of president obama. i hear a lot about cutting taxes on the republican side. but it would not affect my personal taxes not being in a bracket that would be getting the tax breaks that the romney/ryan plan is proposing. >> so as a small business -- >> what i do see -- >> okay go ahead. as a small business owner i want to know, not on the social policy but for your business, why does obama speak to you? >> among other things, the health care act that he passed will help us as a business be able to afford, through tax credits, to small businesses, that have employees and that provide health care insurance for them, that's one of the things that would benefit our bottom line. it would allow us to offer a

benefit that would be of value to our employees, when we get to have employees again. and that would also save us some money. i am looking forward to the health care exchanges where, as a small business, we'll be able to make purchases that are in line with the costs that very large businesses have. >> brian, you speak to so many businesses across political lines. do you feel like there is a movement towards one side or the other, or no? are small businesses voting as a bloc? >> i don't think so. i think it's going to be largely, not completely, there's going to be people in the middle, no question about it. but it's largely going to go along political lines philosophy. one thing on gene's point, as well, though, i think it's really outstanding on the uncertainty issue. until we get a handle on the deficit and our debt, we are a debtor nation right now, do not think that people like evelyn don't know it. democrats know it. republicans know it. we need discipline on debt.

because what it does, is it creates this umbrella effect on we don't have our house in order. and so that's very different, as well. and frankly, i don't think either political party over the past 50 years has exercised discipline on that. that's a big issue. it really is. >> we had spoken earlier, gene, about this perception that you feel that the perception might be that business -- a business meeting may react better. >> yeah, and i have to say, j.j., that i'm still not, you know, persuaded that any one president makes a difference in the economy. i still don't know that a president can really change the way economy, there's so many factors that impact an economy. when you talk about perception, you know, i speak to a lot of business owners. we have 600 clients in our company. i write a lot about small business. the overall perception, and it's not facts based by the way, it's perception-based is that business owners tend to think that governor romney would be, you know, more amenable to the business environment. more pro-business, than president obama. and i'm not saying that that's

an accurate perception or not or that's true or not. but president obama has just, by some of their rhetoric that he said and some of the things he's done in the past four years, has just created that sort of level of uncertainty and that level of sort of fear in the business community. i just get the perception that if romney was president, the business community would react more favorably to him than obama. whether that makes a difference over the next four years, not really sure. but that's what i'm seeing. >> brian, you got the last word. >> it's just that, you know, the issue of uncertainty has never been greater now than ever before in his nation's history. and obama inherited so much of that uncertainty that no one knew how to react to. so, getting how many, 28, 29 months of increased growth, getting all of these new jobs acts passed, 18 tax cuts so far as i remember, i'm told. i think he's doing extraordinary job under the circumstances. >> well, we will all be watching very carefully to see if we get some really concrete plans coming out of these conventions and over the next few months. thank all of you for joining me

so much and we will talk to you many more times in the next couple months. thanks so much. >> thank you. this is a problem a lot of us founders tend to make. we get so excited about our company that when we're talking to potential customers or partners or funders, it's like we can't stop talking. their eyes may glaze over but we're in our own founder trance talking about every single what we find fascinating detail. well, today we meet someone who learned the hard way that when trying to market your business, bring your cliff notes, not your novel. ♪ did you get my message >> it wasn't long after he launched his company zingle that ford blakeley knew he had gotten his messaging all wrong. >> it wroek my heart. it really did. i sat here and i was like how can somebody not understand what this product is about? and i kept asking myself what is it about our materials that

people aren't understanding. >> what zingle does is simple. it created a texting technology that allows people to message their orders into restaurants and let garages know they're ready to pick up their car. the companies then print the texts and have everything ready and waiting once the customer arrives. easy, right? well the way ford's marketing material described it, it seemed anything but. this was the first piece of material you had in subway, right? >> right. >> it's confusing. i mean, that font is so small, who would get to that point. >> i'm looking at it now, it's somewhat embarrassing. >> that was one of the first flyers ford put in the restaurants to get people to use zingle. the one he used to entice companies to install the zingle in the first place was even more confusing. >> i put so much time into all this words that's underneath each one of these bullet points that i was so excited they were going to sit here and read it, and they didn't. >> ford made the mistake so many other founders make. >> as a founder you are completely in love with your idea. you think everything that you do

is the greatest. and so, there's so much that i know about our product and service that i want to basically just spill it out in one big voice and tell them every single thing that it's going to do. >> the problem is giving a lot of information is akin to giving no information. >> basically dilutes the whole message and you're not winning the day. you're not getting your point across. >> jeff zucker is the owner of this subway sandwich shop. here's what he thought of those first posters and flyers. >> too busy. a lot of information. i think the focus was more on how to do it. than what the message was. >> that focus on how, instead of what, was ford's second mistake. his early flyers highlighted the idea that you can text your order in. ford thought that clearly explained the service. but it didn't. >> when you talk to people that are seeing it for the first time, they didn't know what texting order really meant for them. they didn't know they didn't have to wait in line. they didn't know they could do it from their cell phone without

paying a fee. >> so ford changed the message to lead with the benefit of the service. >> keep it simple. >> and this is what you have now. avoid delays. >> yes. >> and so now when you walk in, and you see people see the sign that says avoid the wait, what do you see? >> they respond to it. it basically fills that need of what they're thinking about. they're thinking about what is it that i'm annoyed with right now. am i looking for a sign that says text your order? no they're looking for a sign that explains i don't have to wait in this line. avoid the wait, hate 2 wait? i want to learn more about it. >> that one little change has big results. case in point, julie is a current zingle user. she walked by the zingle sign for a year before she started using the service. >> i guess i had been here for awhile and i started talking to the guy but i hadn't really, i don't know, whatever they had didn't really register. then it was on the flat screen, and it just said, something like you don't have to wait anymore and that kind of caught my eye. because that was always my

frustration with this location. is it's so busy. >> now, simplifying the message has become so core to zingle that ford and his team have coined a new phrase. what does zingle it mean? >> zingle it means to bring it down to its very basic form. and communicate a simple message as possible. >> and they use it all the time. i sat through a staff meeting, and it wasn't long until i heard the term used as ford was talking about training some new sales reps. >> if you give these sales reps too much information on the technology they're going to gobble it up and make the same mistakes i made. so from the technology side, zingle it, from a marketing side, simplify that process. >> and they have poster around the office, reminding themselves to keep things as they call it zinple. and even a special one for ford to remind him not to fall off the simplicity wagon. >> i definitely get charged up with ideas and i think as i noticed early on, you sometimes get carried away. and this team here does a

phenomenal job of staying focused on the big mission for zingle. >> how hard is it to make something simple? >> the toughest part of it is seeing it from the perspective that you want it to be viewed from. you have to think of it from i've never seen this before and how am i going to perceive it as a customer? and that's a hard thing to step out of your role. >> ford says this focus on simplicity is most easily illustrated by zingle's marketing materials. but it really pervades everything they do. how they talk to each other. how they develop products. and how they speak to clients. in the end, he says, less really is more. >> our motto is simplicity through and through. >> is it sometimes a struggle to get through your workday without constant interruptions? if so here are five tasks you should try to eliminate from your daily routine. one, stop overloading your to-do list. don't make an impossible list of

daily tasks. instead, just write down the things you can actually finish on a given day, and save the rest for later. two, stop eating lunch at your desk. a short break away from your office will help you clear your mind, and boost productivity. three, stop making piles. eliminating clutter can help you stay on task. organize papers using a systematic filing system instead of just stacking them on your desk. four, stop making regular visits to the post office. instead, schedule mail pickups from your business or home office. and number five, stop signing every check. you can have your signature preprinted to avoid signing each one. designating a specific time to write out checks will ensure your work flow isn't constantly interrupted. when we come back, the future of onshoring. and how do you get people to return your phone calls in a timely fashion? plus, an elevator pitch for a product that's causing quite the racket on the tennis court.

you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen.... for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. the u.s. open is coming up, and you know how all those players got there, right? practice, practice, practice.

well, today's elevator pitcher has a tool to improve your swing that tennis players should love. >> hello. my name is j.l. calderon. i am the founder and ceo of new tennis dotcom. i specialize in teaching tennis without the use of tennis courts. this is a memory board, a tennis player can learn to do a forehand, a backhand, a serve. in fact he can learn to do any stroke in tennis, anywhere in the world. over the years i have sold some 3,000 memory boards. my teaching has been featured on cnn, new york, abc news and the tennis channel. i am looking for $1.1 million. my goal, to sell 1 million memory boards over the next five to seven years. it allows you to play tennis everywhere in the world.

>> having just played a terrible game of tennis the other day i couldn't get my eyes off of this. i miss a lot of the pitch but hopefully you guys are good. >> i think you need a partner is what you need. i mean you are out like 1 in a million people out there like 1.1 million people out there looking to grow your business. if i was acting all alone i would talk to the big manufacturers in the tennis industry or anyone that might have a name or some credibility. you know, it would get more attention for you and might help you raise some money and that's what i think i'll be doing. >> ryan, what do you think? >> i started graduate school by starting new england tennis journal. i spent a lot of time on tennis courts. this is something i would use. i'm interested in playing it and trying it. the issue i have is it a gadget

i'm investing in or a business i'm investing in. what are other technologies that you're going to be innovating that will come after this. >> xavier did you learn on this or on a court? >> i learned exactly how you see it. >> see if it can take another meeting and you guys can chat afterwards. would you take another meeting? >> absolutely. >> good luck with your game. thanks for being our model out there. if any of you guys have a product or a service and you want feedback on your chances to getting interested in investors, send us an e-mail. please include a short summary of what your company does, how much money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. you never know, somebody out there watching the show might be interested in helping you. time to answer some of your

business questions, gene and brian are back to help out. the first one is a question about the future of outsourcing. >> as an onshore outsourcing company, of course, i'm very interested to learn more about what you think the future of onshore outsourcing is as compared to offshore? >> as far as i hear, a lot of people are bringing stuff to the united states right now. >> they are. >> i can speak from personal experience that i outsource a lot. i am an outsource ahholic. having said that. we have been doing more overseas than domestic because we outsource development work and every guy and his cousin in the ukraine do develop work. so many tools to manage them nowadays, it just makes it easier to do. >> as far as the future of outsourcing, easier to reach out to the people with technology today and i don't care where

they are as long as they are skilled. >> i certainly care about the skills but the cultural issues are important and the proximity. people i actually can have a conversation with, i want to sort of look into their eyes. i have outsourced it to long island, which is that other sort of continent on the other side of manhattan and i find that being able to be with them and talk with them and hang with them is a critical component of getting things done the right way the first time. >> brian, you've never seen some of the developers you worked with. you wouldn't want to be hugging these guys. >> do you find the ones that are outsourcing are outsourcing domestically? >> that was just a trend and it didn't work for them. >> let's move on to the next question. this is from an entrepreneur who wants to know how to get people to call you back. >> does the panel have any advice or assistance in encouraging people to return their phone calls in a more

timely manner. >> good question. can you say something in a message to get someone to call you back faster? >> from my vantage point, if i have a benefit to call them back, i'll do it. if it is something that will give me added value, i want them to call them back. reach to this unknown stranger that is calling me. so, i try my best, but we're all over e-mailed and over called, so it's pretty difficult to define which one you'll call. >> i can't put a gun to somebody's head and say, do this. people will do it based on their desire to do it. it's our job, it's his job and all of their jobs as business owners to make sure we're touching the people often enough so that when it comes time for people to reach back out to us, they're thinking of us first. >> no, no, just touching electronically. let's move on to the next one.

i have a provisional patent for a new auto sunshade product. i have hit a stone wall trying to develop the commercial. i am frustrated and wonder what my next step should be. this is a great question. i just went through this with my 12-year-old nephew. you have a great idea, what do you do with it? how do you turn an idea into a company. >> brian, i bet you have great ideas on this. from where i live in philadelphia, i would immediately reach out to the academic institutions in our area. for example, university of pennsylvania and they're tied in with the ben franklin center. inventors and investors and all that kind of stuff. if i had that idea i would reach out and say, i've got this idea, i would like to work with somebody and get somebody to help me develop this filing patents or whatever requirements there are. that's one of the best steps i

would take. >> talk to the lawyers in the patent business. they are the ones that have the eco system around them that know all about these products who to go to, who to talk to so you don't waste your time what may be a mu knowledge rr rr rry of . >> there's just a community of people who do this. >> you can license your identify. if you're not the guy to create the whole business around this, you can go create a presentation, it's hard. you have to knock on a lot of doors and get someone to call you back and listen to you. >> j.j., remember, you're not in the business of doing this. the key thing is to find somebody who is in the business of doing this like a really good attorney that can guide you along. if some of the attorneys like, they might want to take a little equity. >> thank you so much for everything today. appreciate having your guys around. if any of you have a question for our experts, just

go to our website. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. there, hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. again, the question is openforum.com/yourbusiness. if you would rather, you can e-mail your questions. yourbusiness@msnbc.com. want to keep track of employees and stay on top of what's going on in your company. then check out our website of the week. a 15.5.com generates report that take your employees less than five minutes to complete fill out on everything from their current project to office morale. questions can be customized to be as general or as specific as needed and the site automatically e-mails employees a direct link to the online forum every week. to learn more about today's show, just click on our website, it's openforum.com/yourbusiness.

you'll find all of today's segments plus web exclusive content with information it help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. @msnbcyourbusiness. next week, how do you move on when sales for your business go from $3 million a year to a tenth of that. that's the challenge this entrepreneur faced. she knew she needed to make a change, but did she succeed? we'll tell you. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and, remember, we make your business, our business. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement...