this army veteran wanted to give back by starting a small business that would hire soldiers re-entering civilian life. and this woman used her military background and skills to run a successful franchise. vetrepreneurs tell us why vets are great for small business. that's coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy. american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to present "your business" on msnbc.

hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramburg. welcome to "your business." at a time when veterans' needs are making headlines, we bring you one story of an army veteran turned entrepreneur who's made it his mission to hire troops returning to civilian life. he says hiring our country's finist is a way to give back and a smart way to build up his workforce with dedicated and committed employees. >> my goal was basically to be a commissioned officer, retire and lead the good life. >> in 1987, kevin knight joined the army. fulfilling a dream he had add since he was a kid. but just two years later, that dream was destroyed when he was

injured during a training drill. he was no longer considered fit for duty. rob kurtz talked to him about getting the news. >> that must have been devastating. >> very devastating. it was devastating to hear that your lifelong dream that you've always wanted to do cannot be fulfilled. i recall sitting in the darkest cha -- doctor's chair and i was just crying. just crying. because i didn't know what the next round was going to be. >> after heading home kevin graduated from college and spent some time working under ceos of big corporations. but his fellow soldiers were never far from his thoughts. >> i wanted to serve my country. and basically i said, okay. i want to try to do something that i can do to give back to my fellow veterans. >> so he started knight solutions in 2005. the company specializes in construction and maintenance of v.a. hospitals and cemeteries. >> the v.a., the national cemetery administration, has a focus to bring all of the

cemeteries up to a status. knight solutions wanted to be a part of that. i knew by getting the opportunity to do work at the national cemetery would allow me to also bring on some veterans, wherever we operate throughout the country. >> ricardo daniels is one of the veterans knight solutions has hired to service contracts nationwide. maintaining the winchester national cemetery is a way for ricardo to pay respect to those who came before him. >> it makes me as a veteran feel honored to be able to serve these individuals who have given their lives to us. and i may not -- i don't even know them. >> currently, about a third of the workforce are veterans. and kevin says army strong isn't just a recruiting slogan. it's a way to know that those employees will also be company strong. >> i like hiring veterans because i know, if you lay out the mission, you tell them where we're going to be, at the end of the day we're going to get there. especially working in these cemeteries. they take ownership o f that.

they feel like, hey -- >> kevin starts with calls out to local veteran officers. the organizations help connect knight solutions with people in their networks that may be a good fit. those candidates are then interviewed and some are chosen for the job. >> once they come back home, you know, they're looking not for a hand out, but a hand up. they're looking for someone that's an employer that will understand, you know, i've served my country and now i'm here to try to serve my family. >> kevin's own experience has made him particularly skilled at working with other veterans. >> you're dealing with guys who have seen things that you could never even imagine. they've seen things that may come back to them at any time. >> kevin says that if you offer veterans clear access to the help they need and prepare your management staff to handle these unique situations, these risks are no more than when you add any other new hire to the team. >> you have to be able to have your manager who's on staff, who's equipped to deal with

those type of situations. you have to be compassionate. you also have to be stern with them. you have to let them know, hey, this is no cake walk. you're still a part of the mission. >> for christopher pancoast who served on tours in afghanistan and iraq, having an employer who understands that the transition back into civilian life isn't always easy is especially meaningful. >> my wife was a fellow reservist. and i just recently lost her in combat action. in a combat zone. so i'm still dealing with some personal trauma issues and dealing with my own crisis in my own way. and knight solutions has been very good to me. they understand that i am going through a personal crisis and, you know, even with the personal crisis that i am dealing with, again, they understand and, you know, i mean, i really can't express the gratitude that i have. >> the veteran organizations can also be an additional resource to help employees that are struggling get back on track. >> we have an open line of

communication with a lot of our employees. we're here to help and support them along the way. if there are any difficulties with the veteran, you know, please feel free to call us, contact us. you know, if we need to pull them off the job site, you know, send them back through some courses, then send them back. that's one of our policies. >> and knight solutions has found that hiring these men that have served our country faithfully is both good for the country and good for business. >> i always like to ask people, why not? why not hire someone who's given us americans the opportunity to do what we do every day. why not? the skills that they have are skills that we learn while serving. this gives you that opportunity to complete the cycle of life for these veterans, for these guys who have made a commitment to serve the united states of america, where we all live and eat and breathe every day. >> when kevin knight left the army, he put his skills to work starting his own small business, as we just saw.

a while back, we met another inspiring veteran who fulfilled her dreams of owning a company by buying into a franchise. >> i grew up so much in the navy. i think it's just only helped me now. >> amanda crow thrived in the structured culture of military life. >> and it's not for everyone. and i didn't think it was for me initially. but it really taught me so much. >> amanda had spent her entire career in the navy. where she was told where to go, what to do, and when to do it. she loved her job as a special ops parachute rigger. but she also had an sbe preneural streak in her. >> i didn't want to work for anybody else. i feel i am a leader and that i could manage a business on my own. >> these two personality traits may seem at odds. entrepreneurs are risk taking mavericks, making it up as they go along, right? well, not always. amanda found a way to perfectly marry her two sides. running a franchise.

>> you are your own boss. but you still have the backing of an entire company behind you. >> dennis alard is another navy vet turned entrepreneur. he was her inspiration. he opened up one of about 400 post net franchises. specializing in copies, mailings and business services. as a retired military officer like amanda, he was looking for some order and found it in the post net online manual describing how to run the companies. >> we are used to having systems in place and following those systems to the letter. then when you bring someone in, you bring a new person in, that person is taught that system. >> after visiting dennis at his store, amanda decided to sign up. >> i looked at dennis, you know, straight in the face and i said, put my hands on my hips, and i said, how do you start one of these? >> steve greenbalm is wub of the co-founders of postnet. >> you are recently capturing every e-mail you can at the point of sales. >> absolutely. >> he finds that people like amanda and dennis have ideal backgrounds for becoming franchisees. people who are team players, but

who also want to be their own boss. >> veterans have innate qualities and a respect for systems and following processes. and are very driven people that understand that results at the end of the day are what matters. >> we don't compete against each other. we work together. and that's something that was instilled in me in the military, is everybody is family. >> of course, all this sharing of resources and information isn't free. franchisees pay significant fees and royalties, which go right to the postnet founders, or chan chizers, steve greenbalm and brian spindle. >> the initial investment is 200,000. breaks down of an initial franchise fee of around $30,000. a store development fee which is just under $100,000 to build out the store. >> i think you also need to accept the fact that you aren't always going to be giving money to your franchisor. so -- forever. not all entrepreneurs want to do that.

and that's why people don't franchise. >> the right reason to become a franchisee is recognizing that there's strength in numbers. and that joining a large organization with a brain trust in resources creates a tremendous amount of opportunity. >> helpful advice and operations manuals can make a big difference. but they can only take you so far. according to the sba, buying a franchise alone is no better guarantee of success than starting up a business from scratch. and greenbalm agrees. >> at the end of the day, the execution is really at the store level or with the owner themselves and their ability. >> for people like amanda and dennis, that's where the entrepreneurial drive kicks in. to make the real difference between failure and success. >> oh, i wish i could have been making money on day one. but i know that that takes time and as much energy as i put into it is what i definitely see come out. on weeks that i don't get out of the store as much and do as much marketing, that's the weeks that i don't see my sales where i

wanted them to be. so i know that it is a direct reflection of how hard i work. and i completely understand that. >> when dealing with a growing workforce, managing staff and their shifts can be hard. so if you are looking for a simpler way to handle your small business's scheduling needs, check out our website of the week. wheniwork.com is a platform that allows small businesses an easy way to manage staff schedules. whether you rely on remote freelancers or hourly workers, manage employee timetables and payroll all from the same web-based calendar. also you can use the site to message your employees through twitter, facebook or text messages so that you can guarantee they get it. a complete and professional linkedin profile is a good practice. but to be an effective networking tool, there are a bunch of things you need to think about. here now are five ways you can take advantage of linkedin to get noticed by top industry players and potential leads,

courtesy of entrepreneur.com. one, take advantage of notifications. see what other linkedin users are doing in their careers and use this feature as a chance to congratulate them. two, connect with related brands. watch for new opportunities in the invitation section and use linkedin to easily map out who to contact and reach out to. three, share valuable and expert content. comment and share articles that create meaningful conversations and increase connections. four, pay attention to profile views. while many users keep their profiles private, a lot still show up on linkedin when they have viewed a brand's page. so keep an eye out for these people, because it's common for them to contact you for an opportunity, especially after visiting several times. and five, give out endorsements. you may have noticed your contacts endorsing your brand skills. returning the favor is just one more way to build out your own contact web.

for those of you who feel there's only one way to operate in the business world, fit in or get out, well, listen up. being different is a powerful force if you know how to make the most of it. so here to talk about using your differences to attract opportunities is chris brogan. he is the publisher of "owner" magazine. a business magazine designed to develop your connections. he's author of several best selling books. the newest is called "the freaks shall inherit the earth: entrepreneurship for weirdos, misfits and world dominators." >> so happy to be here. >> i think of entrepreneurship as often for the weirdos and misfits. so of i can't go work for anyone else so i've got to go work for myself. >> i think that's where we start. i think along the way the advice we get comes from mbas and others with a lot of experience. they say you've got to shave off those rough edges. along the way everything that made the person weird is

probably going to make them succeed. it gets pulled back aways. we hear that over and over again. for every richard branson who just kept going as weird as he wanted to be, there's a lot more people who got throttled back a bit. >> talk about this idea of business is about belonging. >> so we're in a really interesting time. so as everyone's trying to cover social media in different ways and they're saying it's this great opportunity to engage and connect, what it also is is a great deal of data on what people really want and what they really believe in. it used to be that whatever was around you is what you got. and so, for instance, there are companies, reebok, for instance, goes after cross-fitters and says we will make shoes for you, cross-fit people. it goes spartan race with joe disena's company. we will make shoes for spartan racers. different than other companies like nike who says, we'll make shoes and i hope yo u like them. it's not a big versus small company kind of story. it's a story about how you choose to actually work with the tribe that you believe is part of your community. >> yeah. i love this idea of tribes also. share the passion, not the product. because products oftentimes a dime a dozen.

right. ky buy this cup. i can buy this cup. but i might buy this one because of some connection that i have. >> well, sure. same example as the last one. i can say with reebok that the people who are spartan racers can recognize those shoes. i was at the gym. i saw the guy all the way across the gym had the same kind of shoe. oh, are you training for a spartan race. instant connection. passion is what drives the people to do what they're doing. there's that in all other kinds of parts of business. people who love to identify as i'm the type of person who are the easiest and best people to sell to if that's the project that you're working on. >> right. exactly. you know, they've already self-identified. this also has to do with your next point of let the buyer be the hero. i'm not telling you what to do. you're telling me zpl right. you make the buyer the hero. steve jobs said it. it fits 1,000 jobs in your pocket. you can be the deejay. making the buyer the hero. always tell the story about them. if you're making any kind of a product or service, make it about how successful they are. don't add that jerky sentence

that says, well, you know, because we helped you. that's assumed. that's why you're telling this story. just make it about them. >> so tell their story, not yours. back to the weirdos, misfits, et cetera. if you are a true weirdo, right, you are a true misfit, you are the one who didn't really get along with any group in school, do you need to have someone by your side who's a little bit more socialized, maybe? i say. to go into the investor meetings? to go into the partner meetings? or no. can you just celebrate your weirdness? >> i think that there's time for both. i think it's really interesting, some of the people who have identified to me as freaks are the california's leading trial attorney. a dentist who changes the way he does dentistry that's much more personalized service. a bunch of cpas. one of which who travels the world in his rv giving out advice for accounting. so i think that you can be a weirdo and still have a business sense. if you know you don't have a business sense, that's kind of why i wrote the book. but if you know you don't have a business sense, then do ask some questions. but just always if your heart

and your gut and your belly say this is is a bad idea, try it your way first. if you fail, learn from the failure. the book is full of how to learn from failure because i think that's one of our best teachers. >> all right. chris, congratulations on your new book. thank you so much for stopping by and talking to us about it. >> thanks, j.j. when we come back, brad harrison and chris brogan answer your small business questions about things like the best time of day to send e-mails and whether you should bypass the easy clients in favor of ones that may bring you more of a profit. and today's elevator picture has a socially conscience running apparel company that gives back to people in need of food and clean water in developing nations. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions.

if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. everything i do is intimate. everything i do i take so personally. and my clients, some of them have been with me for generations. their children come to me. even their grandchildren. to me, my client tells me what my next step is. because i look at her to see what her needs are. and i listen to her to hear not only what she's saying that's positive, but what she feels, you know, her challenges are. >> it's time now to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help us out.

brad harrison is an entrepreneur as well as the founder and managing partner of scout ventures. a venture capital firm focusing on entertainment, media and technology. and chris brogan joins us once again as well. great to see both of you guys. >> thanks, j.j. >> let's get to the first question. it is about finding the right customers. >> how can you switch from chasing the low hanging fruit and actually focus on the clients that might be easier to work with and more profitable. >> gosh, chris, i was just talking to a friend of mine who owns a small business. and he said, he sees this opportunity out here. but he can't -- he doesn't have time for it because he knows all this low hanging fruit will pay the bills. >> you know, i think sometimes it's good to continue nurturing the low hanging fruit because that is sometimes where you find the people who develop into something bigger. but you do have to sort of divide that. to me it would maybe by a two-thirds, one-third. you have to have some sort of r & d case. in his case his would be for sales and to go after that other person or other opportunities is great. the other thing is to keep remembering you need to let those big guys be never more

than 15% of the mix. because if you lose them, then you lose a substantial amount of your revenue at one spot. i think it's not bad to keep the low hanging fruit but to take a percentage towards it. >> so, you know, i think we've talked on the show over and over about social media and driving engagement and building up your user base of people that are actually interested in engaging with your brand. and i think that's how you identify these more committed, more dedicated customers. right? you have to start a dialogue, start engagement in other channels where your brand starts to resonate with them. and you have a little bit more of a brand identity rather than the buy/sell relationship. i think it's just about trying to find how to own the conversation that will attract the people that can be long-term customers. >> okay. let's move on to the next question. it's about paying advisers.

>> what's the d-- >> a great question. there's something very different between a board of advisers and board of directors. let's talk about advisers first. >> i've been on several boards of advisories and one board of directors. the thing about advisory usually there's a promise of shares. we were joking before the segment they're never worst anything. the compensation package -- it really what the adviser is looking for were how much of my time do you really want. it's those kind of things you want to look for. you want to really understand how you can best work with that person in a way that helps grow them but also that you actually leverage what they're best as. that you can get thecompany, an

value they create by actually spending time working on tangible initiatives for the company. so it's important to define what role you want that adviser to play in terms of what do you expect them to dorks how many hours a week do you expect them to do it and, you know, it's okay to give them a little something just for being part of the team, but i think as you start to get integrator and greater equity grants, it's really important to have defined metrics around what they're going to do. >> you certainly don't want to get advisers especially early on and start giving out equity and find out they're worth nothing, not that helpful. >> there's a lot of circumstance wheres that happens for different reasons. one is the adviser isn't right for the opportunity and sometimes the organization is spinning in so many directions that it's not really the adviser's role at that level to fix that for them. there's a lot of challenges that can go with that.

>> the other thing is how you view your entire board of advisors as a whole. one of the thing that entrepreneurs do is they never put their entire group of advisors in the same room at the same time which creates two problems. one is they don't know each other. two, you have advisors giving you different conflicting pieces of advice because they've never sat down and talked. >> it all depends what kind of advisers do you have, particular people you go to for different things, there are lots of ways you can skin this cat. >> let's get to the last question. it's about the right time to connect with your contacts. >> what time should we send e-mails? should we send it at a certain time or should we localize it for local time zones or how else to figure out how to send an e-mail. >> the science of e-mail. do you have any advice? >> i would say don't send important e-mails late in the afternoon or ever on a friday, and i also don't like to send important e-mails early on a monday. primarily when i look at my own

schedule, fridays can chaotic and people are trying to get out of the office and mondays people are trying to get caught up. you want to try to find windows, breaks in the action where people are actually going to be able to get your e-mail and interact with it. >> if you're sending individual e-mails, you can pick what time. if he's talking, for instance e-mail newsletter, it's hard to set your software up to go at a certain time. my weekly newsletter comes out on a isn't people like it because when they're done with their family stuff or in between certain religious obligations, they can choose to look at that mail in anticipation of the week ahead. but you can pick a tuesday. you can pick some of these other things ahead. what brad said, late on friday and early on monday is never good. i think the hottest spot for productivity and/or non-work related are between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. it depends on the you're hitting

a bunch of people and one and how targeted you can be. >> to chris's point, if you're sending it to a mass group of people, if you're using constant contact or male chimp, look at the data and look at the open rates and try a couple different times. when you get the highest level of engagement, that's what you should go with. >> the beauty of the internet, it's all testable. >> all data. >> chris and brad, so good to see you both. appreciate your advice here. i need you guys for the elevator pitch a little later in the show. if any of you have a question for our experts, we answer them every week on the show. just go over to our website. the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness. hit the "ask the show" link to submit a question for the panel or you can e-mail us your questions. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. tom's shoes and other companies have shown us you can have a successful business that also gives back to make this

world a better place to live in. that's the goal of today's elevator pitcher as well. >> my name is dave spandorfer. runners race for a cause. historically there's no company that has allowed runners to give back outside of the race. every piece of john g. apparel is inspired but a country. when a runner buys a tanzania shorts, they give one year of water to a tanzanian family. we're growing at 150% annually. to get to next level, we're raising $300,000 to do three thing, bring along independent sales rep, improve our e-commerce site and hire people in marketing and operations. we believe by doing what we're doing we become the next under armour and change the lives in tens of millions of people and

get a return for our investors. we hope you'll take another meeting with us. >> you come in full uniform. to me, i think that's one of the best elevator pitchers we've heard. chris and brad, i want to hear not how good the product is but how good the pitch is. i like the color very much. >> thank you. appreciate it. >> brad, you're looking at chris. you are cheating. now i'm going to start with you. came of one to ten. >> i gave a nine because i always think there's a little room for improvement to add a little bit more. i thought he made great eye contact. i thought he covered all the salient points and gave a relative growth trajectory compared to something we know which is under armour and he did a great job. >> where is the room for improvement? >> i think the room for improvement is a little crisper on some of the messaging. that's basically it. >> chris? >> i think -- i'll give him a

ten. i can understand the improvement but i think you can get a ten and still improve. i think the pitch was crisp, the information was really good. i'd take out words soy would have room for the impact of what i need. what was interesting, i just need bodies, the product is all handled. that's a rare thing to hear. the fact that you need the extra money for bodies is cool. >> congratulations, you got one new customer, about to go online and buy one. good luck with what you're doing and thank you for what you're doing with the world. thank you so much for joining us today. if you missed anything from today's show, head to our website, it is openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments plus web exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. follow us at twitter and facebook and instagram as well.

next week from lady gaga to the president, a long list of celebrity clients rely on this nashville tennessee bus company to get them from point a to point b. >> being able to go out on a tour and do it successfully and know that when the tour was over, that client said i want you guys back next year. >> we'll see how this business has been going the extra mile for customers for more than 30 years. till then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.

there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. good morning. thank you for getting up with us on this, the first official sunday of summer. i am crystal ball in for steve kornacki who has the day off. it's been another night of fast moving developments on the ground in iraq. we want to get right to them. u.s. secretary of state john kerry arrived in the middle east earlier this morning in egypt for meetings over the shaky state of the government there. sham trials, imprisoned journalists and a violent crackdown on political enemies. secretary kerry plans to stay in