good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business," how learning to meditate can actually help you run your small business. a look at work spaces that help entrepreneurs succeed in the maker economy. plus, that and how to make your sales pitch irresistible 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 ep, i'm jj ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. a few months ago i started meditating. i know for any of you out there who are not into this kind of thing you may be rolling your eyes and wondering why are we talking about it on this show. give me a second. 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 think it is very hard because i'm the kind of person who never sits down, i do think there's something to it. so i wanted to talk about why. and what better way to start than a woman that started a

company around teaching people to meditate. ♪ >> it is 9:30 on a friday morning in los angeles, and people are streaming into the morning session at unplugged meditation. >> who comes to these classes? anyone from a heart surgeon to the head of a small business that makes doughnuts. this guy, mark, who's doing 12 super bowl commercials. >> susie olive schwartz is the owner of unplugged. she started the company in 2014 after her mother-in-law suggested she should start meditating herself. >> i was flying back and forth between new york and los angeles. i was very stressed. she said to me, you should try this little exercise. in three minutes i shifted from stress to calm and i thought, why is everybody not doing this?

>> susie conjured up the idea for unplugged when she could not find a place to meditate that felt right. a studio geared toward someone like her, high energy, busy and efficient. >> i have to admit i'm an impatient new yorker. i wanted it to be an experience and interesting as opposed to long and boring which sometimes it can often be. >> often times when people hear mindf mindfulness, meditation, it turns them off. that's some hippie dippy stuff. that's not me. i have too much stuff to do. >> right. >> you don't have to put labels on it. what you're talking about is simply calming down. >> right. i think here's the deal. we are plugged in all the time. we have a lot of things coming at us. we're stressed. what you need to do is shift in that moment of stress. and that's meditation. or whatever you want to label it. >> in susie's previous life she was a new york fashion editor working for magazines like "vogue" and "marie claire" and

doing tv appearances all the time. her life was hectic. >> i would wake up and be out of the gate, get it done, get it done, get it done, do this, do this, do this. i would come home and i'd be like, uh. i missed being present for the day. it's kind of like when you eat a bag of cookies and afterwards you say where did they go? that's how i was living my life when i was a fashion editor. >> let's face it. starting a business, even if it's one that focuses on meditation is certainly no easier and no less stressful than being a fashion editor. susie credits meditation with helping her get through all the tough times of launching a company. >> my husband always says thank god you have a meditation studio in here because you would be a disaster without it. >> natalie bell is one of the teachers at unplug. >> as you breathe in -- >> she's been hired to work with teams at big corporations like merrill lynch, chipotle, merrill lynch and bloomingdale's. >> in business we realize there

are too many distractions. with distractions come negative thinking. meditation allows us to refocus. the sign has shown us is retrains your brain, your ability to focus, to shift out of negativity, to reduce stress in the body and we know from that that we have increased productivity. >> but meditating is not easy for everyone. i tried out one of natalie's classes. >> i think that's hard. >> yes. >> i definitely feel calmer. >> i have to admit i find your class really hard. >> i suspect for somebody new like me it's good to start in small chunks. >> absolutely. we start with a five-minute practice. teach maybe no more than ten minutes with companies. >> malika chopra is the author of "living with intent." she says the benefits of meditation for entrepreneurs are abundantly clear. first as natalie said, it reduces stress. >> for a small business owner, there's a lot of stress and a

lot of anxiety. every day you're dealing with different things. when you meditate, you start to decrease the level of cortisol. >> it teaches you to be pro-active instead of reactive. >> our mind is usually racing from one thought to the next thought to the next thought. often we don't take the time to think is this the right reaction? when we meditate we settle down our mind's thoughts. >> third, it helps increase empathy. >> when you can feel more empathetic to others, your team, your customers, to people in your work space, it improves with communication. that helps with team work. >> nancy truman has experienced all of this. she's the founder of fonuts, a los angeles-based bakery. she says meditation has helped her with everything, dealing with small issues throughout the day to coming up with bigger picture strategic plans for her company. >> i become very myopic when i'm

not meditating or i get stuck on one thing. i ka uhl call it going down the slippery slope or going down the rabbit hole. everything else gets blocked out. i'm right here. when i meditate it helps me to open it up, i see everything. i'm able to strategize, take all 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. there are a lot of options from classes at studios like unplugged to apps like head space and calm. the key is just giving it a shot. >> here's the deal. you are never going to find the time to meditate. you have to make the time to meditate. there are a lot of very busy people like oprah, arianna huffington, deepak chopra, president of american airlines, they're all making the time to do it. the reason why, it changes your life.

>> the maker movement continues to flourish in the u.s. as budding entrepreneurs leave their day jobs to pursue their passions and creigh yates. that movement has helped spur another phenomenon. maker spaces that give those creators access to tools, education and collaborators all under one roof. one of those is maker house in seattle where we met a bunch of entrepreneurs using the space to make everything from portable hydroponic gardens to extension cords, custom bikes and guitars. ♪ >> never before in history has it been easier to create and scale a business as it is today. whether you're coding or whether you're looking at making a physical product, you can start something and scale at a pace that's never been seen before. >> you know that product idea you scribbled on a piece of paper and then threw in a junk drawer because you didn't know how to make it? well then listen up. there's a new breed of highly innovative entrepreneurs called makers, who are at the leading

edge of a growing do it yourself movement. they are taking their ideas from napkin sketch to product, fast every than ever. using a place called a maker space. woodworking, welding, laser cutting, 3-d printing. now anyone willing to pay a small membership fee can gain access to sophisticated tools like these. that can quickly catapult an idea beyond a hobby, taking people out of the isolation of their garages and into the collaborative atmosphere of a maker space. >> we describe it as a gym with tools. as a member, if you don't need wood or metal shop access, it's $89 a month. if you're looking to do woodworking and metal working it's $189 per month. none of these memberships have any contracts associated with them because we realize that people may just have one project they're really trying to work through. it may only take a month for them. >> designers ellie and mike

khemry opened maker house in seattle, washington. they were frustrated by the lack of actre access to prototypes a tools. they realized this was a barrier to entry for smaller firms and entrepreneurs that had great ideas. >> to be able to have access to something like this and compete at that level with those companies without having financial constraint on their business is huge. ♪ >> new maker entrepreneurs actually making physical products at maker house include jeremy hanson and his own grown gardens.com. a hydroponic greenhouse intended to grow foods in homes and restaurants. and taylor sizemore, and his custom bicycle company. and this handcrafted vintage inspired wallingford guitar

company. ♪ before joining the maker space, it used to take 60 plus hours to make just one guitar with his limited access to tools and a decent space to work. now with everything he needs under one roof, he has a lot more time to spend on building his startup guitar brand. >> i've actually gotten a lot done here. >> for johnson, access to the maker community has been a huge help solving design problems. >> sometimes someone walks up and they're like, why haven't you tried doing it this way? it's like, i never thought about it before. that's awesome. it's part of the proximity and part of it is the type of person that maker house attracts. >> kevin fall loves bouncing ideas off fellow maker house members to see which of his conway electric products resonates the most with them. f re-imagining the extension cord. he's free to design without worrying how he's going to tackle each step. >> we can basically start with an idea in the morning and have

a prototype at night. we do everything in here. we'll use lathes, mills, we'll use the wood shop. and then we'll grow parts using the 3-d printers so we can custom design just about anything we need. >> i think of this one like magnum p.i.'s ferrari. >> absolutely. >> brie pettis is the ultimate maker/entrepreneur success story. he and a couple of gear head friends got together at a hacker space they created in brooklyn, new york and cobbled together a 3-d printer. now the company is at the hub of the 3-d maker revolution. >> we got our prototype to work, we quit our jobs and started the company. our goal was to change the game and bring 3-d printing to people. >> now makerbot printers are part of the standard equipment at most maker spaces. pettis is the maker they all want to be. >> you can become an

entrepreneur, express your ideas physically. if they catch on in the world, you've got a business. managing a team doesn't come naturally for every small business owner but it is definitely a necessary part of running a successful company. ink.com put together five free online resources that will help you hone your leadership skills. one, master class management.com offers a free online course that covers a range of topics that will teach you to be a better manager. pay attention because there's a quiz at the end of each section. two, open learn offers lessons ranging from introductory operations management to how teams work. three, alison.com has classes for the entrepreneur who needs to learn quickly. about topics like selecting your team, business assessment and ethics. four, latitudeu has a course that helps you manage difficult

employees. and five, mindtools.com. the site lists 57 techniques to improve your leadership abilities. click through to find helpful information. anyone who has a small business has to be able to talk about it in a really compelling way. i don't care if you're trying to raise money or get new customers or land a new partner, you need to reel them in with what our next guest calls an irresistible pitch. carmine galloway is a communication adviser and best-selling author. his newest book is "the storyteller's secret." he's here to give us ideas on how to create the irresistible pitch. i love it. >> thank you. >> your first point is brilliant, which is grade school language. >> i like you already. of course it's brilliant. >> use grade school language. >> people think they want to use confusing jargon, it makes you

sound smarter. >> what's amazing is that in the last ten years we have learned more about how the brain processes information than we've learned in all of civilization. so we know what words work and what brain chemicals those words release. and we know how this works. >> if i read your book i'm going to find those words? what are the words that work. >> simple words. simple words. this goes back to winston churchill who said short words are the most ancient, which means they resonate with people. one of the first tips you mentioned is use simple words instead of long convoluted words. use sixth grade language. bill gates, elon musk, richard branson. whenever they deliver presentations that are meant for the masses, meant to reach the widest number of people, they bring down their language. one syllable words, simple words that actually are in a textbook tool, shown to be appropriate for the sixth grade. >> by the way, i wouldn't think

of this as talking down to people, because when you say sixth grade, it's just explaining simply what you do. i can't tell you how many pitches i've heard and they leave and i don't understand what you do. just explain it to me in simple language. don't fancy is up. explain what you do. >> simple, steve jobs said, simple is harder than complex. >> it is. okay. next one. idea on the back of a napkin. >> i actually learned that from richard branson who said, carmine, i hear hundreds of pitches every year. if your pitch, your idea, cannot fit on the back of a napkin it's rubbish. specifically, an airline cocktail napkin, not just any napkin. >> can you write tiny with a really thin pen? >> simpler is harder than complex. it's really important to see the whole picture. can i give you an example of one of the great business plans of all time. >> please do. >> two men sitting in a bar, one drinking whiskey, one smoking cigars.

this was in the '60s when they could do that. they decide to create an airline and put it on an airplane napkin, draw a dry angle. we have dallas, san antonio, houston. that is the original business plan for southwest airlines, originally on a napkin. that democratized travel. >> the pitch has to be simple. the pitch is the thing that has to fit on the napkin. the business itself, the intricacies of it is a level down. the pitch has to be on a napkin. finally, this goes to the napkin you just showed, show pictures, not words. >> pictures are much more persuasive than text or words alone. if i were to deliver information verbally, again, this is one of the things we've learned in neuroscience, when i deliver information to you verbally, you'll remember about 10% of this conversation tomorrow. but if i were to show you pictures, like that napkin,

retention soars to 65%. very well established in the neuroscience literature. why is it that sales people especially are still giving powerpoints like 20 years ago, full of text and bullet points. instead, if you watch some of the best ted talks and best presentations, they're very visual, pictures over words. >> yes. >> that applies to whether you're using powerpoint or one of my favorites is prezzie or apple keynote. take your content and make it visual. the story has to come first. you can't do that unless you understand the narrative first. >> carmine, thank you for coming on the program. i suggest that everyone read your book. this is very simple, important information that you're giving us for our irresistible pitches. so good to see you. >> 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 sales team. today's elevator pitcher has a moving crate company he's trying to grow and has specific needs. let's see if he moves our judges. david s. rose is the ceo of gust and the founder of new york angels and tanya yuki is the founder and ceo of sharably. >> hi. my name is adam and i'm the founder of value crates. we make moving easier, faster and eco friendly. customers go on our website, select the package, we deliver, they pack and move and we pick them up from their new location. since starting 18 months ago in washington, d.c. we've had hundreds of happy customers who have raved about us and told their friends. we've secured five figgs in equipment financing to purchase our crates. we formed major partnerships with moving companies and property management companies and we'll roll out storage here soon. which we expect to be highly profitable. in order to dominate the $33 billion storage and crate moving

market we need your help. we're asking for $200,000 in seed investment in exchange for 10% of our company. we're going to use that money to buy a crate cashing machine which will lower our largest labor cost. we will invest in technology platforms that will allow us to franchise nationwide and establish paid marketing campaigns. i'm a former speech writer and my partner is a two-tour combat vet. we know how to get our message out. >> i am bothering you because i'm standing right next to you to tell you your minute is up. let's see what the people who count think about the pitch. i want two numbers, the first is on the product, the second on the pitch. tell me, you said you're going to buy a washer for these. right now what are you doing? >> it's by hand. it's a painful, manual process. it's dog hair and glitter and vacuuming and cleaning. >> i bet. i imagine you have different sizes as well. >> right now we have one

standard size. that's a competitive advantage for us because our customers tell us when these get full, they're too hard to move around. >> you can stack them easily if they're one size. >> correct. >> tanya, let's start with you. >> product pitch, 9 for product and 7 for pitch. what i love about the product which i actually wanted you to sell to me a little more. you don't have to deal with packing tape, disposing of boxes and all of that great stuff and breakage. it sounds like something that is easy to use and i would love to use for a move. that was terrific. for the pitch what i would have 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 demographics on people who were moving, how many boxes did people need? a bit more of the brass tacks of how you were going to scale your operations. >> david, let's hear what you thought. >> it's a funny world because i

scored them exactly backwards. i thought that the product was clearly interesting. 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. i think that's great. it is, however, a competitive market. there's a lot of stuff happening in this mark, not just crate rentals. we rented crates before. all kinds of boxes and moving stuff. i'm not sure it's possible to dominate that entire industry with a franchise globally. that being said, it's interesting. for the presentation, you got tight on the time with jj. you actually hit all the important points. that was a pretty concise, nice job of telling us what the challenge was, the solution, what the business was and how it makes sense. i like that. >> you started this while having a day job which you have since quit? >> i have. two weeks ago i started doing this full time. >> good luck with it. >> congratulations. >> good luck and thank you for coming in and pitching on our elevator. >> thank you. >> and thank you for your

feedback, which is always so helpful. if any of you have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel like you saw here on your chances of getting interested investors, please send us an e-mail, yourbusiness@msnbc.com. and include in that e-mail a summary 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. 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 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 self? realize your buying power at open.com we used to do quite a bit with direct e-mail marketing to our retail partners but now we find that they don't get opened. we're wondering, is there more we should be doing with our e-mail campaign or should we just spend those same dollars elsewhere? >> the definition of insanity is keep doing what's not working and that's not working for you. you need to change it up. in fact, what you probably need to do is get new energy back into the system. hey, 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, hilarious. show those and showcase them. why don't you start running contests in the target markets you're trying to do. infuse those back into your direct marketing campaign with e-mails or, again, going back to a contest and don't forget social media. this is where you can also be funny and you're not taking advantage of it. 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. 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 small business grow. tanya and david are back with us again. all right, both of you, you'll have so many of them. it's going to be hard for you to narrow it down to one. let's start with you, 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. no. the value they're creating is for advertisers, they are bringing eye balls to advertisers. understand where the value is, is it in bodies that you can sell to somebody else, is it in dollars somebody pays you? it's often not what you think it is. >> how often does someone come to pitch the new york angels and you feel they don't get the value? >> quite frequently. somebody might have a cool product and they want to use it. they say this is a great product. you try and figure out, okay, who's going to pay for it and where is the money? on the other hand, you often see interesting businesses where the money comes from is not at all obvious as to where the value is being created. >> tanya. >> my top tip is to hire from bottom up and not from the top down. that can be tempting, particularly when you take outside capital from investors to bring in a slew of experienced experts to help run your company with you. that in and of itself is not a mistake. the mistake comes in because you

often times have never hired people with big, fancy titles. i'm not 100% sure what you want these people to do inside your company. you figure because they've got this track record, they're 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 more time but it's well worth it. >> tanya and david, thank you so much. great advice as always. this week's your business selfie comes from marsha barnes. she drives the finance bar bus to schools, organizations and corporations to teach personal

finance. what a fabulous idea. congratulations on that company. now we want to see your company. pick ur your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us @@yourbusiness@msnbc.com. if you'd like, tweet it to @msnbcyourbiz. don't forget to use the hash tag your biz selfie. 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, step back, whether it's meditating or, going for a run, something to just 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 questions or comments about today's show, 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. 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 they know, if we don't make a deadline, what's that going to mean? are we going to lose a contract. >> we find out all the methods and strategies they use to make sure that doesn't happen. until then, i'm jj ramberg. remember, we make "your business" our business. visit openforum.com for ideas to help you grow your business. 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 >> today was the race where we descended from the front runner acasualtying the wife. we descended from that to the national enquirer publishing lewd sexual allegations about his wife the consultant. the candidate is denying the national enquirer's story, that apparently how is republicans are trying to decide on their presidential nominee this year. so that story is ahead. at least as much of that as we can stomach ahead this hour. we have news this hour that is totally outside the political realm. it is a big deal in national security news. that's ahead this