uh, no thanks. i have x1 from xfinity so... don't fall for directv. xfinity lets you download your shows from anywhere. i used to like that song. good morning, coming up on "your business." learning to meditate to help your small business. small work space that's help entrepreneurs succeed, and how to make your pitch to customers and clients. we have the information you need to make your small business successful. that is all coming up on "your business." >> american express open can help you take on a new job, fill a big order, or expand your office.

for those who constantly find ways to grow, american express open proudly presents "your business" on msnbc. ♪ hi, everyone, i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business." a few months ago, i started meditati meditating. for any of you out there not into this kind of thing, you may be rolling your eyes wondering why we're talking about it on this show. i tried it because so many entrepreneurs i know said it was helpful to them in running their small business. although it is still new to me, and to be honest with you, i find it very hard because i never sit down, i think there is

something to it. so i wanted to talk about why. and what better way to start than a woman that started a business teaching people how to meditate. >> it is 9:30 on a friday morning in los angeles, and people are streaming into the morning education at unplug meditation. >> who comes to these classes? >> african from a heart surgeon, to the head of a donut business. one guy is doing 12 super bowl commercials. >> susie started the company after her mother-in-law suggested she should start meditating herself. >> i was flying back and forth from new york to los angeles and i was very stressed. she said you should try this

little exercise. susie conjured up the idea for unplugged when she could not find a place to meditate that felt right. a studio focused on someone like her. >> i'm an impatient new yorker. i want it had to be an experience and interesting as opposed to long and boring. >> when people hear mindfulness, meditation, it turns them off. hippie dippy stuff, that's not me, i have too much to do, but you don't have to put these labels on it. what you're talking about it just simply calming down. >> we are plugged in all of the time. we have a lot of things coming at us, we're stressed. you need to shift in that moment of stress, and that is meditation or whatever you want to label it. >> she was a new york fashion

editor working for magazines like "vogue" and "marie claire." i woke up, out of the gate, get it done, do this, do this, and i would come home and i was just like ugh -- i missed being present for the day. it's like when you eat a bag of cookies and then you think where did they go? it's like that. >> let's face it, starting a business, even one that focuses on medication, is certainly no easier and no less stressful than being a fashion editor, she credits meditation with helping her through the tough times. >> natalie bell is one of the teachers at unplugged. she has been hired to work with big corporations.

>> in business we realize there are too many distractions. with distractions come negative thinking. meditation allows us to refocus. science has shown us that meditation retrains your brain, your ability to focus, so shift out of negativity, and to reduce stress in the body. and from that we know we have increased productivity. >> but it's not easy for everybody. i tried out one of her classes. >> that was hard. i feel calmer. >> i find your class very hard. i suspect if you're new like me, it's good to start in small chunks. >> absolutely. we start with a five minute practice. we teach no more than ten minutes with companies. >> the author of "living with intent" says the benefits are abundantly clear. first, it reduces stress.

>> for a small business owner, there is a lot of stress and anxiety. every day you deal with different things. you meditate and you start to decrease the level of cortisol, adrenaline, and hormones that are a result of stress. >> usually our mind is racing one thought to the next to the next thought and we don't take the time to think is this the right reaction. when we meditate we settle down our mind. >> and it increases em paty. >> when you can feel more empathetic to your team, customers, and people in your work space, it helps. >> nancy truman has experienced all of this. meditation has helped her from

dealing with issued throughout the day. >> i'm myopic when i'm not meditating. or i get stuck on one thing. everything else gets blocked out, right? i'm just right here. but when i meditate, i can open it up, strategize, take all of the elements in, and then proceed. >> but like with so many other things that we know are good for us like exercise and eating well, getting started and staying on track with meditation can be hard flp are a lot of options from classes to apps. >> here is the deal, you will never find the time to meditate, you have to make the time to meditation. there are many busy people, they're all making time to do

it, and the reason why is because it changes their life. the maker movement continues to flourish as budding entrepreneurs leave their day jobs to follow their passions and create. and that has lead to maker spaces. one of those is maker haus in seattle where we met entrepreneurs using the space to cheat a wide range of items. >> never before in history has it been easier to create and scale a business as it is today. whether you're coding or looking at making a physical product, you can start something and scale at a pace that have never been seen before. >> you know that product idea you scripbled on a piece of paper and flew a junk drawer because you didn't know how to

make it? listen up, there is a new breed of entrepreneurs called makers at the ending edge of a growing do it yourself movement. they're taking their products from napkin sketch to product faster than ever. wood working, laser cutting, 3-d printing. anyone willing to pay a membership fee can get access to tools like this that can catapult an idea beyond a hobby. >> so it is like a gym with tools. as a member, if you don't need wood or metal shop access, it is $89 a month. if you look for wood working and metal working, it is $189. there are no contracts associated with them.

people may have just one project to work through and it may only take one month. >> they opens makerhaus because they were frustrated with the availability for tools for their own projects. >> so to be able to have access to something like this and compete at that level with those companies, not having that financial restraint, is huge. >> new maker entrepreneurs making physical products at makerhaus include jeremy hanson. and taylor sizemore. >> and also a vintage guitar

company. >> before joining the maker space, it could take 60 plus hours to make just one guitar with his employmented ac limites and space to work. >> i have gotten a lot done here. >> for johnson, access to the community has been a huge help solving design problems. >> sometimes someone just walks up and they say how come you haven't tried doing it this way, and i think,ive never thought of that before. that's awesome. >> kevin loves bouncing ideas over his other makerhaus people.

>> we can basically start with an idea in the morning and have a propototype at night. we will use lathes, mills, the wood shop, and grow parts in the 3-d printers and we can custom design anything we want. >> the ceo of a 3-d printing company is the ultimate maker entrepreneur. now the company is at the hub of the 3-d maker revolution. >> when the prototype worked we quit our jobs. >> now maker bot 3-d printers

are the standard. >> yeah, express your ideas physically. managing a team doesn't come naturally for every small business owner, but it is definite lay necessary part of running a successful company. ink.com put together five resources to help you hone your leadership skills. masterclassmanagement.com offers an online course that will teach you to be a better manager. pay attention, there is a quiz at the end of each section. two, open learn offers lessons from introductory team management to how things work. and alison will teach you things quickly. >> and latitudeu helping you

work with difficult employees offering tips for managing them. and five is mind tools.com. click through to find free articles and helpful nuggets of information. anyone who has a small business has to be able to talk about it in a really compelling well. i don't care if you're trying to raise money, get new customers, land a partner, you need an irresistible pitch. the newest book by our next against is called "the storyteller's secret." he has some ideas on creating this irresistible pitch. >> what is brilliant which is use grade school language. >> of course it's brilliant. >> yes, people think you want to

use confusing or jargon or something that makes you sound smarter. >> in the last ten years we learned more about how the brain processes information that we have learned in all of civilization. we know what words work, and what brain chemicals those words release and how it works. >> so if i read a book i will find those words? >> simple words, back to winston churchill who said short words are the most ancient and they resonate with people. use simple words instead of long c complex words. when people give presentations to the masses, they bring their language this it to simple one

syllabol words. >> i can't tell you how much pitchesive heard, and they leave, and i just don't understand what they explained to me. >> steve jobs said simple is harder than complex. >> idea on the back of a napkin. >> i learn thad from richard branson who said i hear hundreds of pitches every year. he said if your pitch, your idea, cannot fit on the back of a napkin, it's rubbish. specifically an airline cocktail napkin. simple is harder than complex. can i give you an example? one of the great business plans of all time. two men sitting in a bar, one

drinking whisky, one smoking cigars. and they put it on a airplane napkin. they draw a triangle, dallas, houston, san antonio. >> and your business may be complicated, chances are it is, but the pitch has to be simple. the pitch is what has to pit on the napkin. the business itself, the intricacie intricacies, but the pitch has to be on a napkin. finally, show pictures, not words. >> pictures are more persuasive than text or words alone. when i liver information to you verbally, you will remember about 10% of this conversation

tomorrow. if i were to show you pictures, it goes down to 60%. so why are sales people still giving power points like it is 20 years ago full of text and bullet points. sometimes if you watch the best ted talks and presentations, they're very visual, pictures over words. that applies to power point, or apple keynote. you can take your content and make it visual, but the story has to come first. you can't do that unless you understand the narrative first. >> thank you for coming on the program, i think everyone how old read your book, this is simple, important information that is great for pitches. >> thank you, i appreciate it. people come to pitch in the your business elevator looking for funding for all kinds of

things. some need money for marketing, operations, or to expand their team. today it is a moving crate company he is trying to grow. let's see if he moves our ju judges. >> hi, i'm adam and i'm the founder of value crates. we make moving faster, easier, and more e quo friendly. customers go on our website, they select their package, we deliver, they pack and move and we pick them up from their new location. starting eight months ago we have had hundreds of happy customers. we have major partnerships with moving and management companies and we expect to roll out

storage which looks to be very profitable. washing machine which will lower our largest labor cost. we're going to invest in technology platforms that will allow us to franchise nationwide. and we're going to establish paid marketing campaigns. now i'm a former speechwriter and my partner is a two-tour combat vet so we know how to get our message out and how to -- >> i am bothering because i'm standing right next to you to tell you that your minute is up. you can tell that you are a former speechwriter. very nice job with that pitch. all right. now let's see what the people who count think about the pitch. i want two numbers. one to ten the first one is on the product. the second one is on the pitch. so tell me, you said you're going to buy a washer for these. right now what are you guys doing? >> it's by hand. it's a painful, manual process. >> oh, yeah. >> it's a lot of dog hair and glitter and vacuuming and cleaning. >> i bet. okay. and i'm imagining you have

different sizes, as well, right? >> right now we just have one standard size and that's actually a competitive advantage for us because our customers tell us that when these get full they're too hard to move around. >> and you can stack them easily if they're one size. >> tania, let's start with you. >> so i gave a product pitch 9 is the product and 7 to pitch. what i love about the product, which i actually wanted you like to sell to me a little more. you don't deal with packing tape. you don't have to deal with disposing of boxes and breakage. but it sounds like something that is really easy to use and i would love to use for a a move. that was perriveic. for the pitch what i wanted to hear more of you mentioned that it was a really big i think $33 billion industry. i wanted to understand how much of that could you own, what were the -- were they demographics from people who were moving? how many boxes did people need? just a bit more of the brass tacks of how you were going to scale your operation. >> david. so you know david listens to pitches all day long at new york angels. >> it's a very funny world. because -- i scored it back

backwards. so, i thought that the product was clearly interesting. and i think there is a need for it. and people's moving habits are changing around the country. and this is a very green way of doing things and very convenient and on demand and i think that's great. it is however a very competitive market. there's a lot of stuff happening in this market, not just crate rentals. we rented crates before for our move, all kinds of boxes and moving stuff. not sure it's possible to dominate that entire industry with a franchise globally. that being said it's interesting. as for the presentation, you got a little tight on the time here with j.j. you actually hit all the important points. that was a pretty concease, nice job of telling us what the challenge was, what the solution is, what the business is, and how it makes sense. so i like that. >> and you started this while having a day job, right, which you've since quit? >> i have. two weeks ago started doing this full-time. >> congratulations. >> oh, kwrat lagss. and good luck and thank you for coming in and pitching on our elevator. >> all right, thank you. >> really appreciate it.

of course, thank you for your feedback which is always so helpful. now, if any of you out there have a product or a service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel like you saw here on your chances of getting interested investors, please just send us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. and include in that e-mail a summary of course of what your company does, then also how much money you're trying to raise, and what you intend to do with that money. we look forward to reading your pitches and seeing some of you here in the elevator. we have more advice you need to hear coming up on whether you're wasting money with your direct e-mail marketing. and why you should think about hiring from the bottom up, instead of the top down. our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us.

we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com we used to do quite a bit with direct e-mail marketing to our -- our retail partners but now we find that they don't get opened. we're wondering, is there more that we should be doing with our e-mail campaign or should we spend those same dollars elsewhere? >> the definition of insanity is keep doing what's not working, and that's not working for you. so you need to change it up. in fact, what you probably need to do is get some new energy back in to the system.

big mouth, be big mouth. i think that's one of the key things you could be doing here. how about videos? your products are funny, they're hilarious. why don't you show those and showcase them, why don't you start running some contests in the target markets you're trying to do? and then infuse those back in to your direct marketing campaign, with e-mails, or again, going back to a contest, and don't forget social media because this is where you can also be funny and you're not taking advantage of it. so you've been trying some things that haven't been working with you, and you keep sticking with it? that's the definition of insanity. and you need to open that big mouth a little bit more and get funny. >> we now have the top two tips you need to know to help your stall business grow. tania and david are back with us again. all right. both of you, you have a so many of them so it's going to be hard for you guys to narrow it down to one. let's start you with, david. >> understand where the value you are creating is. so for example, if you look at a

publication like the village voice newspaper, you might think they're creating value in articles, or in readership. but no, the value they're creating is for advertisers. they are bringing eyeballs to advertisers. so understand where the value is. is it in things you can sell to somebody else? is it in dollars? and it's hoffen not what you think it is. >> how often does someone come to pitch to new york angels and you feel they don't really get the value? >> quite recently. somebody might have a really cool product and they want to use it and say this is a really great product. and you try and figure out who is going to pay for it? and where is the money? on the other hand you often see some very interesting businesses where the money comes from is not at all obvious as to where the value is being created. >> tania? >> my top tip is to hire from the bottom up and not from the top down. it can be really tempting, particularly when you take in outside capital from investors, to bring in a slew of experienced experts to help run your company with you. now that in and of itself is not

a mistake. the mistake comes in because you oftentimes have never hired people with big, fancy titles, and not 100% sure what you want these people to do inside your company. but you figure because they've got this track record, they're just going to figure it out. and that's definitely a recipe for confusion, at best. my best advice is to hire specific roles with specific skill sets for jobs that you need on a day-to-day basis that take up time, so that that can actually free you up as a business owner to think about growing the business, and really drive value. it will also create great opportunities for your team to grow with you as the company grows. and your team's going to become much more organic. it takes a little bit more time but it's well worth it. >> tania and david thank you so much. great advice as always. this week your biz selfie comes from marsha barnes. she's the owner of the not for profit finance bar in charlotte, north carolina. marsha drives that finance bar bus to schools, organizations,

and corporations to teach personal finance. what a really fabulous idea. grat rations on that company. now we want to see your company. so why don't you take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. or tweet it to@msnbc your biz and do not forget to use t the #yourbizselfie. here's what i learned on today's show. we are often as business owners so busy doing, doing, doing, that it really does make sense, and it is helpful to take a second and step back. whether it's meditating, going for a run. something to get you to calm down and after that you're able to look at your company with more perspective. now we'd love to hear from you. if you have any questions or comments about today's show, just send an e-mail to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. or head over to our website, it's openforum.com/yourbusiness.

we've posted all the segments from today's show plus a lot more. and don't forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms, as well. next week, we spend the final high pressure hours before a deadline with a company that makes parade floats. >> everyone here is feeling the pressure. because if we don't make a deadline, are we going to lose the contract? >> we find out all the methods and strategies they use to make sure that doesn't happen. till then, i'm j.j. ramberg, and remember, we make your business, our business. our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express

to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com i simply ask republicans in the senate to give him a fair hearing and then an up or down vote. >> could the gop lose both the white house and the senate. we'll talk about it with senior white house adviser valerie jarrett. also, the plot to stop trump at the convention. could paul ryan be the savior? >> it's not going to be me. it should be somebody running for president. >> and our gotcha. why is the right so upset over the president's trip to cuba? all that, plus a special