we've traveled here to the mile high city of denver colorado, to help one cupcake business in trouble. after nearly ten months of construction that has torn up her neighborhood and a rediagnosis of cancer which shook up her life this business owner needs some help. so, we assembled the "your business" swat team to lend some emergency support. >> this is a part of the store i do so horrible at. i don't understand it. >> that's coming up next on a special edition of "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 everyone i'm j.j. ramberg, and welcome to "your business." where we give you information and advice to help your small business grow and survive. and today, we are going to help a real survivor. recently, a viewer wrote us about her neighborhood bake shop. the company started while the owner was undergoing cancer treatment. and was now in trouble. so much trouble that she feared that the business was on the brink of failure. well, we got our "your business" makeover team together and headed out to the mile high city of denver to try and help save this business.

i'm here in denver with a "your business" makeover team to answer a call for help from a viewer. her neighborhood bakery has been making cupcakes for more than seven years. and now, she says, they need our help. let's go give this business a makeover. you must be kathleen. >> you must be j.j. >> i am. it's so nice to meet you. kathleen is the owner of big fat cupcake in the cherry creek section of denver. this is where it all happens? >> yes. so j.j. this is where we do all of our baking of the cupcakes. >> she and her team make some of the most beautiful and delicious cupcakes i've ever tasted. hmm. right here in the back of their store. she says she opened the business because of a personal crisis. >> i started because i was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and i needed a job. and i was making cupcakes in my kitchen, and it helped me get through treatment. >> it seems like it would be

incredibly hard to find out that you're diagnosed with cancer and start a company at the same time. >> it was a way to deal with the stress of that diagnosis. it really was. it was a way to do something to make people happy and it made me feel good. >> not to mention the country was in the middle of a growing love affair with cupcakes. that kathleen first noticed on a visit to new york city. >> i was in new york in 2007 at christmastime, and saw a line out of crumbs bakery and my entrepreneurial dna went o.m.g. >> things were going well for her business until last april when the company went into a free-fall. the reason she says is that several building construction projects in her neighborhood set up roadblocks and detours. turning the area into an almost impassable obstacle course for her customers. >> people just didn't want to be bothered with all the traffic. there was no place to park.

our business plummeted. and then all of a sudden things just started going down down down. >> you stopped paying your rent. >> i did. >> why? >> because i was too sick to work so by not paying rent i was able to pay my staff and keep the store open. >> with her health failing, her customers vanishing, and her bills mounting kathleen's business was in serious trouble. >> we were closing our doors in december. i got a frightening phone call that -- from somebody we owed money to, and i threw up my hands and thought i can't be optimistic about this anymore. we are really not going to make it. so we were closing our doors. >> that's when she turned to the crowd funding site gofundme for help. and what happened? >> we had $15,000 in donations happen in almost a week. i thought oh, that will get us through and by december we're going to bounce back. but we never bounced back. so it's gotten us out of the hole but it wasn't nearly enough. >> this company got a lifeline but now it needs a makeover.

time to introduce kathleen to the team. does it smell good? kathleen i want to introduce you to the first member of our team chris myers. kathleen nerven. >> nice to meet you. >> chris is the ceo of a financial management tool for small business. chris is going to dive into your business, look at the numbers, what you're doing right and a few things you should be doing better. >> that sounds awesome. >> it should be. looking forward to getting started. chris used his software to connect up her bank account information, tax returns, and other financial data to get the big picture on what's happening. >> in a reasonable month, you do about 700, 800 cupcakes give or take that's about $37,000. from what we talked about, that seemed kind of correct from a gut check perspective. >> yes. >> now the interesting thing, though, is your average monthly expense. so you're running at about

$32,500 every month, which is about 6800 cupcakes. so the difference between how many cupcakes you have to sell just to stay open and how many you're selling on a good month is actually relatively small. right? >> chris and kathleen agree, foot traffic wasn't going to make up the deficit. >> good morning, kathleen. i'm hugo. this is kim. >> and that's where the founders of one of denver's top restaurants, the kitchen, stepped in to help. hugo matheson and kimball musk brought a plan to sell in bulk. >> you focus very much on the in-store business with some sales to offices, et cetera. just some ideas of maybe like creating more of the wholesale business. >> i realize after going through this it might be i'm putting all my eggs in one basket. it's not going to get me where i need to be. >> we're going to host the tasting at the kitchen in denver today. it's going to be a great

opportunity for event planners and other members of the community a bunch of press for coming. we just heard this morning that 9 news the nbc channel for denver's going to be there. >> really? >> get some great exposure and not just with the event planners, but with press. >> i'm so touched. thank you guys. thank you. i guess i need to make some cupcakes. >> yes. >> while her staff got started baking cupcakes for the event planners to taste, web marketing expert mark mitten ceo of carbon 8 came by. >> hi there. >> mark noticed there is no way to place orders directly on kathleen's website. and if she wants to get those big orders she needs a smooth online ordering process. >> we want to make it easy for them to make that connection of i'm interested, now what do i do next to get this actually done? if that is not absolutely seamless and fluid you lose people. they go elsewhere. they get a different idea. >> mark redesigned her website and presented her with three new design options. >> so this is concept number

one. as you can see we have this whole idea of the cupcakes are good for the soul. so once someone, you know is interested in the cupcake, we want it to be a beautiful and easy and almost fun experience enough to actually order the cupcake. everything's just really easy for them to figure out how they order, pick quantities. and then there's also these teasers over here where they can also start looking right on the same page at all the other cupcakes. >> it's bringing tears to my eyes it looks so good. it really does. this is a part of the store i do so horrible at because i don't understand it. and it's overwhelming, and this looks so amazing. so if that's any indication it looks really great. and clean. >> you're having that reaction we want customers to have that same reaction. >> it just looks so great. and what a -- what a weight off of our shoulders to try to catch

phone calls, and keep up with everything. it is so hard and then i feel horrible when we miss -- we actually missed something. >> right. >> and so -- >> you guys care about those orders. >> i do. i care about our customers. and they are celebrating something and they're choosing us. >> the swat team has now set up two short-term plans for a rapid sales boost. that set the stage for our next adviser. lisa donahue, founder of the watershed communications. lisa's a national branding expert who brought some long-term advice for extending the brand. >> so i know you're looking at a partnership with lick ice cream. >> right. >> and so maybe thinking about bundt cakes, three layer chocolate cakes, really doing a whole a la mode concept to bring people in to the shop. >> cake and ice cream. >> cake and ice cream, yeah. >> with a short-term plan in place, and a long-term growth plan to think about, it's time to get ready for the big fat cupcake tasting party.

and the event planners arrive. >> hi i'm kathleen. >> i'm heather. so nice to meet you. >> so nice to meet you. >> kimball musk of the kitchen introduced kathleen. >> i'd like to introduce you to kathleen. kathleen owns big fat cupcake in cherry creek. >> kathleen offered up the samples. >> these were all baked this morning and i'll cut them up. but you know i eat cupcakes right out of my hand. i say just go for it. >> the event planners sampled the samples. >> really does taste like oreo. >> oh, my gosh that's good. >> you've got to try this sample. >> and local media covered the event. >> big fat cupcake has struggled to stay open. now it's getting a makeover through a show on msnbc, our sister network on cable. >> throughout the afternoon, kathleen made some valuable contacts. >> i think that would be another great venue that we could put something together for that, too. >> that's wonderful. >> red velvet and oreo are my favorites. >> really nice balance between overly fluffy and overly dense.

>> when the planners left and the media was gone kathleen took a moment to reflect. >> i didn't have a whole lot of hope in what was going to happen. i was going through i think it was my fourth chemo. i was really sick. and i wasn't sure how it was all going to play out. it restored my faith in people, and letting people help you. and we're going to be okay. >> kathleen has now finished her chemotherapy and is feeling much stronger. chris has been keeping close track of her finances and he says that things may be turning around. kathleen has reduced her staff to just one other person and she's now doing all of the baking herself. and she's taken lisa's suggestion and added full-size cakes and the response has been fantastic. kathleen got a nice bump in sales from the local news coverage and her new website just went live a couple of days ago. we're going to continue to follow her and wish her the best of luck. spring is right around the corner, which means that it is time for spring cleaning. and in this case i'm talking about your website.

let's roll up our sleeves and look at five ways you can make sure your e-commerce site is in tip top shape. one, open multiple browsers. do a direct comparison of your site against your competitors, and see how they perform similar functions so you know what you can improve. two, gather the devices. survey your team to find owners of various tablets and smartphones. have them participate in some user testing to see where your site and e-mails could be better optimized. three, be a newbie. sign up to receive e-mail messages and create an account on your site. determine if there are ways to streamline the user experience. four, search. type in extremely generic terms that would likely be used by someone who's inexperienced with your product. and five, opt-out. locate all the areas on your site where subscribers can modify preferences. take the time to explore how to use these sections to prevent people from rejecting your updates.

no matter how great your company is it is going to fail if you don't capture the attention of your prospective customers. but that is much easier said than done. so how do you get people to first notice your company and then engage with it. ben paar is the co-founder of dominate fund an early stage venture fund and author of the new book captivology the science of capturing people's attention. great to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> well the cover of your book that you've captivated by attention, right? it's funny, so you do what you say, and it's worked for you so far. but this is hard. i mean lots of people have great companies, great ideas, but they just don't go anywhere because nobody noticed them. >> i mean people don't understand that attention is this fundamental currency that is necessary for doing any kind of business. you know teachers need to get the attention of students. entrepreneurs need to get the attention of users. local business small businesses need to get the attention of

customers. and yet we don't understand all that much about how attention works. and that was kind of the impetus for writing this book. because i went through all the research, 1,000 research studies and interviewed dozens of ph.d.s to understand what is attention and how can that be applied to the real world? >> when you talk about leveraging your credibility, is it saying something quickly so that people then trust you so they want to hear more? >> so the research shows that we have huge amount of deference towards experts, we pay attention to experts. in fact we trust experts among any other types of spokes people. there's a couple different ways to leverage that for capturing attention. one is leading with your credentials. if you have those credentials already. whether you're a p.h.d. whether you're an expert explains why or making sure you build out that expertise through blog posts, social media, or another method just to establish an expertise in a key area. and the last one is just leveraging other experts outside experts for your product or your idea. that's a huge bonus in terms of attention. >> so, don't be modest

basically. like you got to tell someone first this is what i'm good at so that they'll listen more? >> there's a balance. you don't want to obviously go overboard be like i'm the greatest ever. you're just doing matter of factly. this is what i've done. these are the things i've written about. this is why i'm an expert in the area and you start off with that early people pay more attention to you throughout the meetding or the conversation. >> let's move on to the next one which is aesthetics now. high contrast bright colors. >> one of the triggers in my book, and i have a series of tragers that capture attention is colors. we have these unconscious and subconscious associations. and we also graph tight towards high contrast. that's why for example you see companies like amazon use yellow and orange buttons, because those have the highest contrast. but orange is actually not a great color, for example, you were going into a business meeting. orange has the lowest correlation with confidence as an example. >> hmm. got it. okay. good to know. so we need to learn a little bit more about the colors from your

book. use rewards so i do this and you reward me for it after i've done it? >> so most loyalty programs use incentives. you do this i'll give you this. my research showed that that's the least effective of all the types of ways you could give somebody a reward. a post action reward is you not even knowing you're going to get a reward but you take an action that the company wants you to do and suddenly you get a surprise. and the research shows that surprises really capture our attention and really give us joy. and so if you're like having somebody get a high score and then suddenly without even knowing maybe they get a free gift or a free virtual currency. >> that's interesting so instead of a loyalty card buy ten copies get the eleventh one free it's on the third time that you buy a coffee they suddenly surprise you and say here's a gift card for a free coffee? >> exactly. >> and that works better. >> that makes people much happier and makes them come back. they don't know when they're going to get that again. it's a mystery to them. >> and it feels like a gift like surprise it's the same thing but it feels more generous. >> gifting is even another powerful way. >> okay.

create a cliff-hanger. give me an example of that. >> so, i think about with cliff-hangers things like what j.j. abrams did for the lost for both lost and clover field when they put clover field out he didn't immediately show like when they did the trailer you didn't even see that this is a j.j. abrams promo even what the name of it is created a lot of speculation. we have this thing i have called compulsion for completion. we need to complete a story line and when we don't have that completion we keep paying attention. we kept paying attention. >> you have to be creative enough to actually create a cliff-hanger that people care about in the first place. >> yeah. absolutely. you got to have that emotional resonance and characters that people actually care about. you could do it in advertising too. >> and finally bake validation into your product. explain that to me. >> the most powerful type of attention i call acknowledgment which is that we pay attention to the people who acknowledge us or validate us in some way. and so what i mean by baking validation into your product is making it so that people can peel that positivity when they're using a product.

facebook and twitter do this greatly through likes, tweets retweets. you get a little high that the little high whenever you like get a like and your status goes viral. whether it's from the product or friends is a powerful tool for capturing attention within a product and just in general. >> thank you very much. it was great to see you. when we come back made in the usa is great. but how do you remain competitive from a pricing standpoint? and her bags are all the rage with some celebrities. but let's see if her elevator pitch has our panel seeing stars in their eyes. american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don't leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it's a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets, traveler's cheques, a lost card.

really? that worked? american express' timeless safety and security are now available on apple pay. the next evolution of membership is here. this week your biz selfie comes from jane who makes tastefully done venison marinade in waynesville, missouri. now if your biz is deer to your heart, get it deer venison, send us your selfie to yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet it to us@msnbc your biz. and please do not forget to use the #yourbizselfie. i can't wait to see them. it is time now to answer some of your business questions. let's get our board of directors in here to help us out. genevieve thiers is the founder of sitter city dotcom an online

care giving service with millions of users worldwide. and jenny lefcourt is a and jen if iny lefcort co-founded wedding picture.com and bella pictures. the first one is about keeping manufacturing local. >> i want to keep producing my product locally to keep giving jobs to local people. on the other hand i'm not as competitive with my prices because of that. do you have any suggestions? >> it's a good question and a tough one because unless people are willing to pay for that you'll fail what do you think? >> i think that customers want to do more than just buy goods. it's a mission driven marketing. it works well. if she can make sure her customers understand she's supporting local jobs i think people are willing to pay more and are part of a solution.

>> that means she needs to explain this in rer marher marketing. >> there's plenty of reasons to go local. wage control. it's actually getting a lot more expensive to produce overseas quality control. you don't have as many rip-offs of your product. we have better control on our energy costs here. we even have better transportation costs. it's not as hard -- >> except it's not as cheap for her. >> no. that's true. >> should she put something in the packaging maybe, a story explaining -- >> absolutely. look atom's tom's shoes, when you buy a pair someone else gets a pair. so you're helping the world. i think she can do that and people can feel good. i'm paying a little more but also helping others. >> yeah. i think if she wants to become a commodity, still go overseas. if you are okay with a slightly

smaller business that you know has a few less headaches, to be frank, i think, i would go local. >> less headaches. may not be cheaper but it may be less headaches. the next question from a business consultant who work with retailers. >> how do i best show potential clients that my services are an investment and not an expense? like how do i show them return on investment calculations? >> it's a great question. because it's all in the way you present your service. >> it is. i'm a huge fan of case studies. i think they're excellent. to get a case study you have to start with a consumer. you have to start at a baseline and set a goal. there can be things that happen in between those two dates, big pr hit or something that can change the metrics. if you can just get them to agree that we're here we'll go here. if we reach the goal you'll do a case study for me that's

great. just get a lot of those. they're great sales tools. >> i totally agree. i think that if she already has clients, if she can prove the investment pays out and saves someone in the long run, she's set. if not, i would do it for free so she can have the data to say listen, this is what i've done for other companies like yours, this is what you can expect by spending this much with me. >> also the way you frame it. people go in and say this is what i can do instead of solving a problem. speak in their language. here's the problem you have. i will fix it and it will save you money along the way. >> totally agree. >> let's move to the last question about getting international attention. >> i would be curious to know what the best way is to network on an international level. >> any ideas? >> i guess i have the reaction of thinking it's similar to networking on domestic level. we have linkedin google hang outs there is so much to do

without being face-to-face. whatever you do to network domestically do it internationally. ask the people who know the right people. ask for introductions. google hangout with them if it makes sense make the trip overseas to meet a lot of people at once. that makes sense. >> networking events is a great points. business networks international. even look global. i think the people are fascinating. also, if you're looking to start in a particular region reaching out to the chamber of commerce or the consulate, they can tell you where the action is. they might be older school models, but they have all the data. it's just getting the data on where everyone is. >> genevieve, jenny, thank you very much. there are more and more women entrepreneurs, but still not enough, it's great to have a panel of two of you guys. if any of you out there have a question for our experts, send

us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. . the difference between success and failure for an entrepreneur can often ride on the power of their pitch. let's see how today's elevator pitcher does. >> my name is jacqueline morris founder and designer of free endear endearment handbags. i spoke to so many women who can't afford to buy a new hand bag every season because it goes out of style. i decided to start this company of fashion forward handbags that are affordably priced they are leather, high quality. we use the same shape season after season so they never go out of style. >> how much money are you looking for? >> to raise $100,000. >> you've been featured in "glamour" magazine people style watch, and in style.

>> and one last question. how long have you been around? >> for about four five years. >> got it. i will give you two of these. >> thank you. >> i want you guys -- i want one from one to ten the product. one to ten the pitch. i will give you a chance to say one other thing about your company if we missed anything. genevieve? i will tell you a quick story about genevieve. genevieve went and pitched her company and got no no no a thousand times. >> i did. >> now is an incredibly successful business owner. genevieve? >> okay. i gave you a 10 for product. >> thank you. >> i love it. in fact i find that most of my purses are often killed by sippy cups. diapers or something. so i need something a little bit lower quality, that's high quality but at a lower price. i really love the product idea. i think it's brilliant. i give you an 8 on the pitch. i thought you were great. but i would say is i prefer

pitches to start with sense of the market. so i am bombarded with ads for prada bags, burrerbury bags i know you're not targeting the high-end consumer but there's some market share you can connect with. so i want to know what is the side of the market underneath the high profile market and what percentage of that high profile market can you turn to your product. >> i gave you a 9 on your product. i think the bag and the wallet are beautiful. i gave you a 7.5 on the pitch. you did a great job explaining about this gap in the market and how you were addressing it as an investor i want to understand by taking in this money what kind of growth or revenue will you see from it. >> okay. >> great. thank you very much for coming on the program. good luck with everything. five years in seems like you're

doing well. >> yes. >> thank you guys for giving advice. >> i'm going to buy a bag. >> she might take that from you before you leave. >> if any of you out there have a product or service and you want feedback on your chances of getting interested investors, just send us an e-mail. thanks for joining us today. if you want to learn more about the show just click on our website. it is openforum.com/your business. you will find all of today's segment the and web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. it's @msnbcyourbiz. coming up next week we see how a boston-based business is

reimagining the nail salon. >> we are doing to the nail industry what starbucks did to the coffee industry 30 years ago. taking a huge fragment of the market and asking customers to trade up for a better experience. >> applying the game-changing principles that transformed the way we order a cup of coffee to the way we experience a manicure. until them, i'm jj ramberg, remember, we make your business our business. american express for travel and entertainment worldwide. just show them this - the american express card. don't leave home without it! and someday, i may even use it on the moon. it's a marvelous thing! oh! haha! so you can replace plane tickets, traveler's cheques, a lost card. really? that worked?

american express' timeless safety and security are now available on apple pay. the next evolution of membership is here. the new culture war. good morning. thanks for getting up with us. i'm jonathan capehart in for steve kornacki. we have breaking news on the deteriorating situation in yemen. the u.s. military ordered the evacuation of 100 troops and special forces and there is an emergency meeting of the security council this afternoon to discuss the situation. shiite rebels took hold of the country's third largest city and after 137 people were killed in two suicide