. we'll look at how they handle stress and deliver on time on a special edition of "your business." >> american express open can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order. or expand your office. for those who constantly find new ways to grow on every step of the journey.

"your business" on nsnbc. >> hi, everyone, i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business ". we all know that meeting a deadline can sometimes make or break a business. but when the pressure is on and the due date cannot be moved, how do you keep calm and do your best work? last year we went to mobile, alabama for mardi gras to find out how they get everything done on time. >> this is show time? >> it is so show time, enerin here is feeling the pressure.

there is always a deadline, there is never not a deadline. >> being used to high pressure deadlines. >> i work seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day. trying to get sleep. >> steve builds these enormous floats in mobile, alabama. this season he and his staff completed 76 floats. >> you have to work on it, you cut all of it, all of the extraneous stuff out, and get down to the heart of the matter. >> in the weeks of carnival leading up to the final day of mardi gras, they were responsible for 31 grand events

like this. >> how many people are you expecting? >> out here in the audience? >> oh, 3,000 people people or so. >> we hung out with these two business owners right before their big event. the pressure was on. their clients expected a lot and there is no wiggle room on the deadline. right to the last moments they seemed very at ease. >> if i was real high strung, i would not be boss. >> how do they manage the deadlines with such calm? part of it is making sure their employees know they're a team. >> what is a secret to you getting people to get stuff down

on time? >> i give them opportunity to be part of a wonderful organization. it's like a fraternity in college. they fit in, they see their niche, and they feel part of that. >> they both use time lines to meet deadlines along the line. but even the best plans get derailed. >> then you have sickness or injury, you work the first few months and then you throw them out of the win done. >> the task will expand, the time alaugted. >> the excitement of the final deadline itself gets the staff moving. on the other hand, it's chickier they say to immediate the less

exciting mid project goals. >> you can put a little excitement into it. you can absolutely make them part of the excitement at any level ain the time and it does work. >> how? >> i say i have a great idea, we're going to change this -- she asked me to do this, but we're going to do that and that, and i want you to help me figure it out and make it happen. if you are v anything day namic you can add into this, let me know. >> so you get someone into being a partner. >> correct. >> they also oh part of their confidence to hiring people who understand their style. >> i can delegate because i have strong leaders. they're all very good ar tis in their own right. >> they both say that screaming

never works, they each have their own quieter way of letting employees know they need to step it up. >> if something is really going to hell or employees are having a bad time. i get very quiet and methodical. >> when you get quiet, does everyone get a little nervous? they know it is jr. version of yelling at them? >> i think you're correct. >> they each become an island of clarity at the center of a big storm. they don't let the chaos district them from the end product. >> i exude an confidence like syrup. and it makes everybody feel good, makes everyone feel like we're sort of under control here. >> you can't get too caught up in it or you could make yourself

crazy. where there is mardi gras, there is parades and tringing. it could be a profitable time for bars. we found a bar that knows how to grow through technology and data. >> here in san diego's famous gas lamp corner is tipsy row. fran makes sure people have a good time and it takes a lot more than a cold beer and a bowl of chips. >> we're not recreating the wheel. we sell the same products, but everybody has bud light, everybody has makers mark or jack daniels. >> it's about creating an on

going relationship for a good experience. >> an expert on using marketing data to increase properties. he says for any side business, keeping track of customer habits is the key to keeping them happy and engaged. >> it is easier to get a customer to spend more with you than it is to win a new customer. >> and that is exactly how greg sees is from behind the bar. keeping customers engaged. recently he installed a bar game that uses sales data to change the prices of his drinks. it is like a stock market. >> you see the bright led down arrows, and you see this drink went down, this is a good buy, and i want to take advantage of

it. >> los angeles based todd shram is the creator and distributer of the drink exchange. >> that means the prices change based on realtime demand. if people are buying a lot of bud light, coors light goes down in price. the weight the prizes change and they capitalize on the items. >> but there is more to the game than meets the eye. >> on the surface, it's a game, but behind the scenes, it's a lot of influence. >> in fact, data analysts like tyler don't call it a game. they use sales numbers to increase marketing. they say it is a highly effective tool.

did is data that can be used to maximize profit. >> the key to the system is that all of the price changes are determined by algorithms died into the point of sale system. it leads customers to pick the discounted drinks. >> they make a high profit margin on tequilla, so peel will start buying tequilla. we created a system for bar owners to get the most out of special products. >> after examining the first few months of sales records, they discovered something odd. >> patrons purchase items not part of -- that are part of the

drink exchange, and ignore everything else. >> temps and freelancers could be exactly what your small business needs. one, upwork. post a description of what you're looking for and candidates can apply for the job. try to include specific instructions. two. wonolo will put you in contact with immediate hourly or daily workers for times you could use extra help on sight. shift gig is a great resource to find service industry professionals. fourd, thumbtack is location

driven. and five, reach out to local universities. they may have students interested in your field and eager to work. you can get affordable help. >> no one knowing more about the challenges of finding a work life balance than entrepreneurs. it is. >> chris: seem like there is not enough hours in a day to do it all, but it can be done with the right approach. >> one woman starts making and selling her own mobiles. she works out of her home studio. >> finding o work life balance is elusive when you try to balance growing a business and a family at the same time. your business quickly becomes

your neediest child. >> to help, we brought in charles, author of "smarter, faster, better." hes that three tips to streamline the way we do work. tip one, the to-do list. >> write out your biggest goals at the top of your page. you're reminded of your most important aspirations. >> you might not every get to the biggest, to -- so what is your biggest goal for today. sm is a smart goal. what specifically do you want to get done? >> i need to finalize the designs. >> m, measurable, how many do you want to do today? >> i need six designs. >> a, achievable w, what will i

take? >> i need time with no distractions. >> r, realistic. what do you need to change to have a focus to get this done? >> not check my e-mails and not engage n social media. >> t, time, how long will it take? >> probably two hours. >> motivation is easier when a chore becomes a choice. doing so gives us a sense of control. >> how about tackling the title wave of e-mails. >> one thing that productive people who is they look at their inbox, and they hit reply, reply, reply. and then it is so much easier to go back and fill in the rest of the e-mail. >> make a picture how you want

your day town fold. the more specific, the higher the chances it will occur. >> what distracts you the most? >> be sides my children, this. >> we all need breaks every so often. here is what you will do to make sure it doesn't become a distraction. you set your timer for 6:00. when the alarm goes off, that is when you turn it off, get off the phone, and get back to work. >> she goes from being busy to productive and all of those minutes saved add up to hours with the family that inspires her. >> if you don't remember the classic children's book harold and the purple crayon, here is a refresher. he creates a world of his own drawing it with a single purple

crayon. every year, our next guest kicks off the year by reading the book to the whole company. >> he was falling in thin air. he made aball loan and he grabbed on to it, and he made a basket under theba balloon big enough to stand in. according to james, harold is an entrepreneur who is thinking on the fly and creating what he needs in the moment. >> okay, talk to me about persisten persistence. why do you read it? it's a kids book. >> we read it every year because i think it is so easy for people

to get in the trap of reading things that are very tactical. i want to inspire people to be creative, energetic. i have three kids, and i read it last night, you know you read it all of the time and it always rings true. >> persistence is one of those things every entrepreneurial needs. so he draws a long path, so he is like there has to bae better way, so he draws a shortcut. >>. >> so the second thing you talk about is resources.

>> yeah, he has one crayon. i think many entrepreneurs start with nothing. just a kwood idea, you don't have any money, and harrell uses the same resource. so when he is hungry, he draws pies. when he is draowning he draws a boat. >> you were a start up at one time. >> but you have more than $100 million in funding, but you are telling your staff, resources, right? forget the money, the staff, think about us with this one crayon. >> if you go to our office, there is a bunch of post it notes taped to walls saying "i am a conference room." i think there are small ways for entrepreneurs to do more with

less. and i think harold is a good example of that. >> boundless creativity. he draws trees and -- >> i think the best example is that every entrepreneur setting up to climb a big mountain with his business. he draws a mountain, and forgets to draw the way down. he says i need to figure out what to do and he draws a hot air balloon. how will we solve the situation? at the root of it, that's what harold is all about, right? >> you're talking about very important tenance. we have them for every new

employee, their on our coffee tables. >> we'll do a little engine that could book swap next time. >> you got it. >> still to come, what you need to know about growing your major accounts without affecting the smaller ones. and what bill walton can teach you about small business. our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. 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 relyon as 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

.. that is a high quality problem that means your business is right about to scale. that is very exciting. what you're going to need to do is free up some time. the way you do that is step one, get really clear on all of the touch points with some of your smaller existing customers. see if you can automate even 50% of those by having a really great phone line or putting up a great faq on your website. things that help you empower your existing customers to feel like they got service from you.

and that gives you the opportunity to free up your accounts and help them grow their business with you. we now have the top two tips you need to know to help your small business grow. let's introduce this week's board of directors. we have denise and steve. he is the founder and ceo of the self employed dotcom. >> great to be here. >> let's start with you, denise, one tip? >> you have to know what people are thinking. you need communication opportunities, what is working, what is not, it's very hard for someone to tell their manager or business owner that something

there is not perfect without fearing a little repercussion. so, we have special meetings set up ideas, but we also do some interesting things. we send to a company called time vault once a week we send a one question survey to. and sometime it's information you don't really love to hear. you think everyone loves their job all the time. well they don't. they have insights, things you couldn't possibly know because they're not doing their job. then we have the opportunity to respond to them without them identifying themselves. we get a lot more information that way. >> that's interesting. so if somebody says whatever information they have, i think the responsz is interesting. someone may be complaining about something and it's not a big company issue. no one else is saying it. so you don't want to actually deal with it on a large scale. but you do want to get back to this person to say hey, why don't you look at it this way or

this is why we're doing this. that is so smart. >> and then beyond that, too. we want to make sure that outwardly facing. i don't know if you've heard of glassdoor.com. but one in six employees are checking it when considering applying somewhere for a job. >> so glassdoor is a place where employees can anonymously talk about their experience at a company. >> where they are now, where they were. even people who interview can give some insights to the rest of the world, to hear potential employees and potential customers of what the culture is like. so you want to make sure you go on there, claim your company's page, read what they're saying. respond, thank people, even if it's stuff that you don't want to hear. >> right. >> and fix whatever is wrong. and people see that kind of attention as something that is very positive. so even if things weren't perfect, things can't be perfect all the time, knowing that the head people involved in a company are paying attention and are fixing things, that speex volumes. >> great advice. thank you, denise. >> all right, steve, onto you. so, here we are, j.j., in basketball season, it's the final four. i'm a bruin.

i know you went to duke. nice little basketball team you got there. >> yeah. >> but i was reading -- >> i was reading an interview with bill walton, right? legendary announcer, but even a more legendary college basketball player. he was talking about when he was being recruited to ucla by coach wooden. and what caught my eye was not the basketball part of it. though that was interesting. what caught my eye was as a small business person, what the coach said to the star player. now, a lot of people were coming to walton saying, you're the greatest, we're going to build our whole, you know, system around you. but that's not what coach wooden said. he told him billy, we love you, and we love your enthusiasm, and you'd be a great basketball player at ucla but ultimately your success is going to depend not on you, but on the quality of the teammates around you. in fact, in life, your success is going to come from what you do, but more importantly from the quality of the people that you surround yourself with, and

the quality of your teammates, so come to ucla, because we have the best teammates for you. and i was thinking, well that's a great lesson for any of us in business. and if you think about the best small businesses, you think about the best businesses, these are businesses who had great teams. you know, you think about apple, for example, steve jobs, legendary, you know, great entrepreneur or kind of a bill walton of business. but he had a great team. he had steve wozniak and these people around him. so, for small businesses, yeah, we know it's important to create great teams, but maybe it's even more important than we thought. so that's what i think people need to think about. >> absolutely. and look, if you are looking for a job, you want to work with smart people. right? if you are smart -- >> right. >> you're the kind of person that a ceo wants to bring on, you're the kind of person who wants to be surrounded by smart people. you don't want to be the smartest person in the room. you want everyone -- >> absolutely. and, yes, and what are you looking for? well, you could look for experience. which is a mistake. i think a lot of small businesses make.

we're going to hire for experience. but look it, coach wooden wasn't trying to find the most experienced center. he's trying to find the best center. you're looking for smart, emotionally intelligent, capable, can think on their own. you find those people, surround yourself with those people and your teammates are going to be better. your team is going to be better, your small business will be better. >> great, steve and denise, thank you so much. it's interesting that you both focused on people, because ultimately, right, the success of your business depends on having good people. so great advice. thank you both so much. >> thank you. >> this week's your biz selfie is from margie and feliciano who own pie me over in las vegas. they make custom made chicken pot pies at their retail outlet. i think there's a trend about chicken pot pies. now why don't you pick of you your cell phone and take a picture of you and your business and send it to us at your biz@msnbc.com or tweet it to@msnbc your biz and don't

forget to use #yourbizselfie. thank you so much for joining us. here's what i learned on today's show. no matter how open your culture,it is very hard for employees to criticize their manager, and certainly hard for them to criticize the ceo or founder. so you have to create a wait where people feel like they can talk openly. and i think denise had a really interesting idea earlier in the show with the tiny pulse surveys. so be careful that you are actually soliciting really honest feedback from people if that's what you're asking for. now we'd love to hear from you. if you have any questions or comments about today's show, if you'd like to share what you learned, just e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. you can also click on our website, it's open forum.com/your business. we've posted all of the segments from today's show, plus a lot more. and please don't forget to connect with us on all of our social and digital platforms. next week, an online service that connects pet owners with animal loving sitters, has found a way to stay top of line for

potential clients and their furry companions. >> often people need to hear about it more than once before they're comfortable trying the service out. so they see an event, and then later a friend might mention it and they see an ad and those together say okay, maybe this thing is real. let's give it a shot. >> we'll see how hosting local events is helping this small business get new customers. 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 usfill the . just like that. another step on the journey. will you be rey when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com donald trump's worst week ever. >> there has to be some form of punishment. >> can he survive his abortion gaffe? and could wisconsin be the gop's turning point. our one-on-one interview with trump supporter ben carson. >> what are his policies that impressed you in the areas that would make you discount what he said that are frankly are offensive statements to many minorities? also, too close for comfort. bernie sanders closing in. is hillary clinton feeling the pressure? >> i am so sick of the sanders campaign lying about me. >> we get answers from clinton's national political director. all that, plus a big test of perhaps the worst voter i.d. law in the country.