this psychologist was stunned when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. she created a bag for fellow diabetics to carry their supplies. but her entrepreneurial efforts hit some roadblocks. see how our team helped make her business healthy, 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. welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. have you ever met someone that leaves you with an unforgettable first impression? that's the way we felt about janet goodman. we met her at an entrepreneurial conference back in 2014 where she was seeking advice for her start-up called yada bags. her product was a purse with special pockets designed to help a person with a chronic disease like type 1 diabetes carry those supplies. janet had a lot invested in the company, but she was hitting some roadblocks that were causing her fledgling business to stagnate. we decided to give her a helping hand with a "your business"

makeover to see if we could get her small business headed in the right direction. meet janet goodman. she's the one with the multi-colored specs and the enormous smile. she's 66 years old and winding down a 25-year career as a psychologist in beach wood ohio. to concentrate her efforts on starting her second act as an entrepreneur. it's an unexpected road that started the day she woke up with blurry vision and an unquenchable thirst. >> i've always eaten well. i work out. i'm not overweight. and it hit me out of the clear blue. it's like, where did this come from? >> at age 61 janet was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes which requires constant blood sugar monitoring and insulin injections to regulate the disease. if not carefully controlled, the condition can easily land you in the hospital or be fatal. >> and it was just devastating

to me. i think i walked around for a month just near tears the whole time not knowing even what to do or how to do it. >> we first met janet a year ago at a conference for entrepreneurs in nashville. >> my business is yada bags. it's a purse that's designed to carry medical equipment for people with chronic disease. so people with diabetes can put all their per fer nailaraphernalia in it and actually find it. >> she came to us with a question. >> i'm really interested in how to go out and go ahead funding if i don't want to go into any more debt than i've already gone into. >> it was inspiring. here's a woman at retirement age. but instead of heading out to the golf course she wanted to start a new career helping herself and others with diabetes. >> i couldn't retire, truthfully, and sit around and

just play bridge or sit by a pool. i get antsy. i like to be busier. >> when we met janet, she'd already invested $60,000 of her own savings, but she was a little lost. she believed wholeheartedly that there was a market for her business. but didn't quite know what to do next. so, we enlisted a team to try and help her out. could yada bags really be a successful company? or should she end it here and not throw good money after bad? our first call was to marketing expert denise from the s3 agency. denise and i had a heart-to-heart. we had both been a little skeptical that the company could work. i want your honest opinion. when you saw the yada bag, the first time you thought, not a bag for me. >> so did i. >> we were just a focus group of two and not the target market. so we decided that if we really wanted to know if this bag had a customer base we'd have to take it on the road to get more feedback. >> thank you very much for your

help. >> denise traveled to austin, texas, the hand out surveys and conduct a focus group at the taking control of your diabetes conference where janet, her husband fred and daughter karen had a booth with a pretty steady crowd. >> i was surprised, because when i went down to austin there were a lot of people who reacted very positively to the bag and a lot of people liked the name. i didn't expect that. >> i didn't expect it either. >> and the catch phrase yada yada yada was made legendary in one of the best known tv shows of all time. >> the popular culture came from "seinfeld," where wasn't it elaine that i think first said it? >> i met this lawyer we went out to dinner i had thewe went back to my place, yada yada yada i never heard from him again. >> and it just popped in my head. i said let's call them yada bags. >> with our hunch about changing the name of the business wrong, we wondered what else we had to learn from the yada bags target

at the conference. the results were mixed. 45% of the respondents thought the bag was attractive and solved the difficult problem of carrying supplies. but when asked what they thought the price should be the average answer was $43. that was a big problem for a bag that was costing more than double that to produce. >> we came back from that research and it wasn't a ton of research. it wasn't expensive research. but it was research. and we came back and they're going new plan new strategy. >> there's a market out there for this bag? >> yeah. >> armed with this new information, we rolled up our sleeves and started to think about solutions that could get yada bags off and running. >> she has a lot vested in this and she has a great place that she's coming from but there are a lot of people that have tried to do this and failed. so we honed in on how do we make this different and capture what's special so that we have a critical mass that will make it a viable business. >> janet has a lot invested in yada bags. but does she have what it takes to make this business work? stick around to see what our makeover team recommends.

instagram isn't the only social media that depends on visuals to catch the attention of your customer base. check out these five ways you can utilize images on twitter courtesy of smallbiztrends.com. one, bright colors get attention. they stand out and make your post pop. two, horizontal images are best. long vertical up loads get cut off in certain views and can be difficult to see if fully expanded. three, share images directly. click on the little camera icon below the twitter update box to up load straight to the site. image tweets get double the interaction of a standard link tweet. four, put words on your images to convey meaning in a glance. factoids and motivational quotes on images do well for a business audience. and five, tag people or companies in your images. you'll get their attention and if it's a positive tweet, they may retweet it. this can be a great way to tap into a larger business's

following and convert them into customers. when we come back how to manage when you're not a good manager. and can this business be saved? find out how the "your business" makeover team worked to rebrand and lower the manufacturing cost for the yada bag. 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's selfie comes from betsy of handsome brook farms in franklin new york. she's here in a bit of an american gothic motif with her husband. we'd love to see your selfie now, so please take one of you and your business and send to us you can tweet it to @msnbcyourbiz. janet goodman started her business, yada bags, after solving a problem for herself the need for a pocketbook to hold and organize her medical supplies, plus her everyday stuff. that bag then became a business fueled in part by janet's savings and enthusiasm for the product. but janet's not making money because her costs are too high. in part two of our makeover, our team of experts go to work finding solutions to get yada bags on the road to profitability.

janet goodman believes she has the makings of a successful business with her yada bags, and when you talk to her, it's hard to not be taken in by her enthusiasm. >> all the bags have colorful lining, because the lining is the pick me up. >> i love it. >> like my outfit. exactly. i don't like dull. >> right now, the fledgling company is little more than a few steps beyond the age stage. there is an actual product. but the numbers don't add up. and there isn't a clear plan on how to turn that around. >> so you know we have an unusual situation right now. every bag we sell we lose money on because it costs us more to produce it than that. >> this is not terribly unusual at this stage, especially for a business that started at the dining room table with janet sewing the first prototypes one by one. >> i just kept cutting up different linings, to see what it would look like.

the first one took about two months to sew and create. >> once she felt she got the design right, she hired someone to do a small, but costly production run to see if people would actually buy the bags. after getting some sales, she was optimistic and ready to produce more. but when she looked into manufacturing in china, which she thought would be cheap, she found that she'd have to make a thousand bags to get the right price. that put her in a chicken and egg situation. >> i'm not willing to risk retirement. if i can get orders and i have to put money in to get product that i know is going to sell i would do that in a minute. >> with an order for a thousand bags unlikely at this point, we set out to find a solution for her chicken or egg problem, by doing what she thought was impossible finding a domestic small batch manufacturer that was cost effective. and we found just the people to help us out. janet, i want to introduce you to matthew and tanya. >> hi. >> they are the founders of maker's row. >> maker's row is an online

marketplace. we connect small businesses and big businesses with american manufacturers to produce products here in the united states. >> you didn't know about banker's row. >> no i had no idea. >> but we did. >> so we contacted tanya and matthew and they were a great help to us. you will learn about that in a moment. but they're going to be a help to you going forward, too. once somebody finds a factory, that's not it right? >> that's just the first step. this is a process. you're choosing a partner that you want to be able to develop a product that's never been built before. >> maker's row did a little homework for us with an introduction to mitch kahn the president of union ware. they helped us surprise janet and fred with a tour of the newark new jersey based factory, where the order minimum is 300 pieces a much easier pill to swallow than a thousand units being made overseas. >> mitch. >> hi, nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you also, mitch. this is quite a place you have. >> tell us what it cost to make this one. >> putting it together, it was

$60. not including material. that was labor only. >> let's see the bag. >> okay here's our bag. >> oh! very nice. >> and the total cost? >> it would be around $47. the materials should cost no more than about $7 or $8. >> total? everything? >> yes. >> oh i could love him. >> would you like to give him a hug? >> totally. >> mitch explained that the approach to manufacturing in china where labor is inexpensive, is less efficient than the way they tackle a bag like janet's here in america. >> we took about almost 60 steps in manufacturing the bag and that's how we were able to lower the cost. >> once we tackled manufacturing, we moved over to marketing. denise thought the yada bag messaging was not telling the right story. >> looking at our positioning, where we are right now, yada bags is a purse or pockets

competing against all others. we'd like our tag line to be your diabetes your supplies, your yada. brings a smile. >> and it tells you what we're doing. >> what was the old one? >> organize with style. >> organize with style, i could be at the container style. >> although janet liked the new tag line at first, she decided later to change it to or organize your diabetes supplies with style. the research in austin indicated people would only pay about $43 for the bag, so even at the cheaper cost the retail price would be nowhere near that. so denise wanted to expand the target. and to do that she focused on creating not just a product, but an entire line. something janet had been thinking about before but hadn't yet realized. >> so we want to call the yada bags, the ones that you have now, the classic purse. it's got a very classic style. >> i like that.

>> it also makes it feel like the company is big. >> the idea from denise have janet design a cheaper insert bag called the insider. >> this is when we can reach men, we can reach children we can reach people who have type 2 diabetes and we can still appeal to the women who have type 1 diabetes who are our core market who might not have the money for this bag or might not want that style. >> denise also had some ideas to revamp janet's website. >> we want to have a happy feeling, nice colors that appeal equally to men and women and kids. and then this here would be a slider. so whatever is featured up here can be featured down here for direct click-through. >> with the plan for marketing and manufacturing in the works i wanted to turn back to the original question at hand. should janet spend more money to see if she can get this company going, or should she call it quits? what did she need to see that would convince her that it's worth it to invest more? she told me if she could sell out the bag she currently has,

she'd feel confident about dipping back into her savings. and that means you've got to throw spaghetti at the wall. you have to think of every single place that you can sell them. marketing is great. but it's not great if nobody's seeing it. >> right. got to get them out there. >> so your homework is think through where you would find a bag like this. go introduce yourself. give them some bags to put on their shelves to sell. you could give it to them on consignment consignment. prove to them that there's a market out there. >> to help janet find her marketing, get her bags into the hands of customers, we introduced her to several key players that would serve as an informal advisory board. people like suzanne loans who also started a company making bags for diabetic supplies. her business didn't make it but she wanted to make sure that janet's does. >> hi. >> hi janet, how are you? >> okay, suzanne, how are you? >> and we introduced her to the director of bad girl ventures in

nearby cleveland, ohio. they let janet sit in on some of their saturday entrepreneurship classes, opening up a whole new group of small business owners like herself to bounce ideas off of and network with. and last but not least, janet hit it off with christina castillo wright, the founder and ceo of bestrokepoke accessories group. >> i'm out here in portland oregon, and i am a handbag designer. >> with all of these resources at hand we gave janet a challenge. pull this all together to relaunch yada bags by november. just in time for american diabetes month. >> this was a big day. >> oh, wow. really big. >> do you have the business you think it could be or thought it would be? >> i think it's really moving in the direction that i envisioned. >> what did you learn? >> oh wow. i think the biggest piece for me is feeling like i have some support in developing it.

and somebody to think with as opposed to trying to figure all of this stuff out myself. which i can't do because i don't know a lot of it. >> but by the way, you've done an amazing job. no manufacturing experience. no design experience. >> right. >> and you created a bag. >> i did. right. i got there. >> but you didn't create a business. >> well, i sort of got there, but i didn't get there. >> you've got a bag, not a business yet. >> i've got a bag. >> denise you just saw in that piece, is here with us now. >> hi there. >> thank you so much for all of your help with that piece. >> it was really a pleasure. she is such a good cause. >> it was great. but i want to get your opinion. you spent so much time with her. what the you think? will the company survive? is it worth her spending more money? >> any new business is a big risk. i think her industry others have tried and failed. so her very best chance is to listen exactly to all of the experts that you guys compiled for her. i think if she does that she has a really good fighting

chance. >> all right. we hope so. we want to hear from you, though. do you have any ideas for janet and her company? should she invest more to keep it going, or should she just stop now? let us know what you think on our facebook page, or on twitter. we are @msnbcyourbiz. it's time now to answer some of your business questions. denise is sticking around. and ben parr is now joining us the co-founder of dominic fund and author of the book "captivology", the science of capturing people's attention. so good to sighee you. the first one is about being a manager. >> how do you build a strong management team when you yourself are not a great or experienced manager. >> i love this question. because it is the problem -- you know, the key problem in so many start-ups. so let's start with you, denise. >> it is a key problem. so many people don't realize the value of having one and don't get to the point where they need

one. so i commend this gentleman for saying i need to do this. so where do you go from there? to me, the biggest thing, whether or not you use a recruiting team or do things on your own or go boot strap, you want to make sure you get the right people first time out. if you bring the wrong people in as management team first time around the rest of the company will wonder and you probably will, too, am i ready for this is this the right decision. so top grading. i don't know if you've heard of it, but topgrading.com. it's a whole system that was developed by a gentleman called dr. bradford smart. it's all about interviewing. we don't learn how to interview as entrepreneurs and business people. we learn how to do what we do in our regular jobs. this takes the intering process to a completely different place. it's a little bit more uncomfortable. you get a lot more insight. it takes longer. someone has to really want to work for your company to get through this process and you get a lot more insights before they can be part of your team. >> i think that's a good point. and also ben, you have to hire

people who you're willing to learn from. he's taken the first step, which is admitting he's not a good manager himself. but is he open-minded enough to listen to what others have to say. >> which leads exactly to my point, which is you have to hire people who are smarter than you. and that is number one. and there's a second point to that. you have to be able to check your ego at the door once you do hire people smarter than you. the greatest entrepreneurs are able to recruit smart people people who have experience and knowledge better than that and allow them to do their thing. allow them to do the work that they do best and if you're not an experienced manager, you hire these people and you listen to them and learn from them and you check your ego at the door you will become a better manager. but you have to start with hiring those smart people. >> okay. great advice. let's move on to the next question about extending your brand. >> i'd like to know more about how to strengthen my core business while still focusing on expanding and diversifying. i found that my core business is not very scaleable.

but i want to maintain it. because that's my bread and butter. >> what do you think? >> so there's a couple ways to go about it. you can spin it off or you can have a small team that are really dedicated to it. but i think she is showing great foresight in thinking pout how to make the business move forward faster by looking at growth strategies. so figure out a core group of people to focus on the business and then go and build the other side of the business. you want to bring in the revenue and turn it into a new and better business. so i think it's a smart thought that she's having right now. >> right. the core business is like the angel funding for these other ideas. what do you think, denise? how can she do both at the same time? >> so you'll pardon my driving analogy, but i've worked with bmw for 20 years. i know you can't drive two cars at once. so very important to decide am i going to be spearheading the bread and butter operations that she's talking about, or am i going to be the one who takes this leap and does the new

stuff. whichever one is the one you think you're best suited for, got to find someone to head up the other one. just no question. >> so you think it's a hiring issue. >> i do. >> so you concentrate on one. >> it's a leadership issue. you might have someone that can do it. but it is definitely a leadership issue. >> she talks about her brand here. you focus on brand. so how do you maintain the brand of the core business while trying out some other things? >> well, if she is talking about something that is something that can be a brand extension, that's pretty easy. if she's discussing something that's completely different business, i don't know that the brand is really relevant to make a new brand. >> and to your point, ben, maybe spin it off. >> absolutely. if it's part of trouble, in her case, then making that extension doesn't matter. it's harder when it's a completely different business. >> let's move on to the next question an e-mail about marketing, which says i'd like to market myself as clergy to take advantage of the things i've learned and to share with more people. but a lot of people find it an

issue for clergy people to be marking. so i'd like to hear your wisdom about that. you have a marketing company. interesting question. >> it is a very interesting question. and at first, you kind of get stopped up on the word clergy. but really you can replace that with doctor or any kind of professional and think about does marketing yourself as that professional take away from the efficacy of what you do and people's opinions. the question is do you want core or do you want more? they know you, they love you hopefully, and that's all the people you can reach without marketing, without getting bigger. so you have to decide what you want to do. joel osteen is in clergy, it's worked for him. but there are examples where you can go oh that person doesn't know what they're talking about, i don't believe they are that kind of professional, they're just a marketer. so it's a very careful balance. >> we talk all the time on the show about authenticity. it's a big buzz word in the business world right now. but i think it gets to that. if you're authentic to who you are and it's not just cheesy marketing, it might be okay. >> if you don't make it cheesy

marketing, so my advice is to really focus on content marketing. on you know on promoting what you're doing and talking about what you know. in this case maybe having a personal blog or having a blog for your clergy worker, going on medium.com. instead of being like here i am i'm clergy just talking about the things that you know about faith, family building reputation that way. content marketing doesn't feel like marketing at all. it feels like you're giving advice and insight and that's a perfect way to go. >> i agree with that. that's fantastic. >> you don't need to send direct mail. you can do it all different other kinds of ways. great, ben and denise thank you both for your advice. really appreciate it. >> thanks so much. >> if any of you out there have a question for our experts, please just head on on over to our website, openforum.com/yourbusiness. if it's easier, just send an e-mail to yourbusiness@msnbc.com.

we'd like to check out twitter to see what small business influencers have to say. recent guest and co-author of the new one minute manager kim blanchard tweets when working with somebody on a performance challenge, address it early with an open mind. the vice president of home improvement company porch.com writes, don't be easy. saying yes to every task meet-up or request can hold you back from success. and one of our favorite guests nfl great and entrepreneur fran tarkenton says i've learned in football and business, teams win, individuals lose. with phone in hand and a computer readily accessible entrepreneurs like you and me are relying more and more on online tools to organize our life and our companies, and that's why we went to our viewers to ask them which ones they swear by. >> an app that i really like is toodldo. it's a very simple app that enables you to plan and

prioritize the things that you have going on in your business. and in your day. so you can organize it according to is this a high priority and what is my goal for this task as well as when is it due. >> so an app that i really love is winstreak. it's an app that allows you to implement every single morning some goals that you have for the day. so each morning i implement the goals and this is how i manage my wins for today. as an entrepreneur motivation is so important, and so when i go to my winstreak app and see how i'm producing that day, it really keeps me excited and motivated. >> if you just go to google.com and type in mobile friendly you come up to this google mobile friendly analyzer. all you do is type in your website, or i type in all my clients' websites and it will just tell you right there, is it mobile friendly or not? the new rules of google are, pretty soon if it's not mobile friendly, they're just not going

to list it in the rankings and you're going to disappear. so you've got to test out your site. it's beginning to tell you what parts of it look good. what parts don't. you've just got to go to google.com, type in mobile friendlying and then type your website address into that test make sure you get it done and make sure you get it fixed. >> am app i use is cozi. it blends between our family and our business. it's a life management tool. it is a scheduling tool. it allows us to put everything that's going on in our lives and coordinating that. and it sends us reminders. so that has just been a god send for us. >> thanks, everyone for joining us today. please check out our website for more. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segments and some web exclusive pieces that will help your business grow. you can also follow us on twitter. it's @msnbcyourbiz.

we are on facebook and instagram, too. next week we meet one entrepreneur who decided the best way to help the animals she loved was to start a company introducing people to them. >> can't go diving with a shark to find out how amazing they are and not want to try and do something to help save them. and i see that change in people every single day. the switch from fear to fascination. >> we go swimming with the sharks in hawaii. until then 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. this is a news day that is basically impossible to summarize. i will not try. but in terms of what has just happened, just in the last few minutes the new york state police and new york governor gave a public briefing on the prison escapees. the bottom line one of those two was found by police today and shot and killed by police today. richard matt police say was armed with a .20 gauge shot gun. when he was confronted in the woods near the town of malone new york so richard matt the man on the left here he tonight is dead. david sweat, the man on the right, is still on the loose. police say the search for the second man continues tonight. we'll keep you posted as