good morning, komg up on "your business," with international orders coming in, the owner of a sandals company had to learn the ropes of exporting. small business star, rainn wilson creating online contact that stands out from the crowd. and how to doodle your way to the next big idea. we have that and more coming up next on yourp.

♪ hi, there. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. it is impossible to plan for everything that can happen when you own a company. i'm not only talking the bad stuff. sometimes good things can happen that throw you off balance as well. one small business owner was thrilled to be getting orders from customers around the world. he was worried, too. he was no expert in exporting. he needed to learn a lot in a

short time about the process. expanding globally wasn't as difficult as he expected. ♪ >> i would say the biggest problem in exporting is finding a customer. fortunately for us, the customers find us. >> he doesn't need much of a marketing budget. his company has more than its fair share of attention from customers around the globe just by word of mouth. >> we have had a whole big pile of international business from sweden, kuwait, japan and ireland and uk and spain and france. we sell to hong kong, taiwan, korea. >> the owner of gurkees says his sandals have quite the fan base. >> our product is 100% handmade.

we make the rope. we have store that is want to carry our product because they have seen it on someone's feet. >> it already had an international following when he was the top distributor. he got the company in 2009. >> it was a little niche, a hippy market for the sandals. everybody wanted them. >> once he was in charge, the orders kept coming in. he got high profile placement that helped him out. >> we have been in vogue magazine, gq, singapore on run ways and fashion shows and things like that. we have been in the new york fashion show. we have a lot of credibility coming in the gate. >> he is focused on exporting to old and new markets. the company ships to two dozen countries. he admits to being nervous at first. >> prior to us getting into the export, it was an invisible worry. oh, my gosh, what are we doing right? what are we doing wrong?

are we going to get in trouble? >> fellow entrepreneurs helped put his mind at ease. >> i met with other people doing exporting. it took the stress away. >> working side by side with his daughter-in-law, ashley, they manage gurkee global sales. one thing they discovered is it's easier to export a product made entirely in the usa. the paperwork alone was more straight forward. >> we are lucky because everything is all right here. we don't have to claim, okay, part of the product came from india and part came from france. we have one code to worry about, one product and, you know, no hassles. >> the next part was figuring out how to deliver to customers. >> some countries, like russia, you can only ship to a business, you can't ship to individuals. >> in certain countries you want a distributor with all the

skills to talk to multiple sources, then they go out and sell multiple products to stores and so forth in that country. >> these distributors are great resources for avoiding potential pitfalls. >> they tell us if they have issues with previous companies in the past wharks the issues were so we can look for that so we don't have the same issue. >> it is crucial to exporting. they can deal with the more tedious work. >> i would say, definitely set up an account with u.p.s., fedex, dhl. they quote the fees ahead of time so we can tell customer what is they are going to be. >> gurkee's spears customers some of the expense. >> the orders are international. they don't want to run out. >> we work it into the price, we may cover it, depending on how much they order. >> they order well in advance.

shipping doesn't take long, but making them by hand takes time. the early requests work in their favor. >> our busy season is during the summer months. november, december, january they are placing their orders. it gives us work during the winter and keeps our employees busy. >> they pay a portion up front to cover cost of supplies. >> they do 50% wire. before we ship, they do the remaining 50% and then we ship it out the door. >> there's the stress of sending a shipment overseas, but they do plenty of quality control before sending anything on their way. partnering with state and federal officials made a huge difference in their ability to market themselves internationally. >> we would have never been able to handle the travel expenses and costs being a small business z. >> when we went to japan, we had a small customer. the state of west virginia helped pay for our trip to go there and meet and provided an

interpreter and had someone go out and drum up more business for us. >> as ray and ashley look to the future, they are keeping tabs on which markets are easier to access. >> norway and russia are the hardest two to get into. china, taiwan, places like that, just because the government is more strict. you have to jump through a few more hoops. germany, italy, sweden, they are laid back. they have similar rules when it comes to the government. taxes aren't too high. >> they agree questions will arise. falling back on shipping and distributors makes exporting a success. >> talk to your rep. they know what countries have issues. they give you a heads up. >> once you do it once or twice, you get the gist of it. >> lately, we have noticed a trend at trade shows and conferences we go to. there's been someone on the side

drawing for the audience during the presentation. turns out this is part of a new movement that uses doodling to help make meetings more productive. we wanted to know more, so we sought out an expert. the co-founder of image think spends her days doodling. not only that, she gets paid for it, by big companies like google and lego. conferences like south by southwest and small businesses across the country. nora figured out a way to use doodles to unlock to createtivety of owners and businesses alike. forget brainstorming. get everyone together for a group doodle and you will get insights. >> if they are drawing and doodling, information retained 30% more than people sitting there statically. >> she has seen it work. her brooklyn based company was

doing well. she and her team were so focused on the day-to-day, they started to lose sight of the big picture. she brought on nora to help think through who bluma project is and how to communicate it with customers. >> we casually talk ability it, but to have a concrete plan where we say okay, this is what we are going to start to communicate to people and this is how we are going to do it. >> a few hours doodling with nora and she was able to come up with a concrete plan. >> let's get the team together and talk about the identity. i'll demonstrate for you so you will be set for the next time you meet. >> sounds good. >> the key is structure it. tip one, assign a note taker. >> you are going to want to determine, at the beginning of the meeting, who is going to be the note taker. it's not about how artistic it is, but how effective it is.

>> tip two, everyone should be able to see what you are drawing. >> have a big, white space to work so everyone can see it and you have lots of room for the team's ideas. you want to choose the topic of your meeting. in this case, what makes bluma project great. we are going to talk about your brand. write really large so when the team comes in, they know exactly what the topic is. it can help stay focused. >> tip three, organize the brainstorm using containers. >> one tip that is useful, once you start capturing brainstorming is containers. they are shapes that incapps late important ideas and emphasize them. they are shapes you are familiar with. the first one is a circle or ovl shape. the rectangle. and a bumpy cloud shape. have fun with it. >> ooh, fun.

>> a speech bubble. nice. great. you can really use these any way you like. whatever one is comfortable for you. >> the team followed this step by step. >> so, i would just love to hear what you think makes it great. >> globally inspired. there's a lot of travel involved with the job. when someone travels, they bring something new to the table. >> once thoughts were on the board, she explained how she used colors, images and space to tie it together. >> there were three main ideas that came out of the brainstorming session. i organized them spatially. we talked about being inspired by travel and everything that relates to that is located over here. this is also a good time to use what i taught you about containers. >> i'm going to highlight and contain this area. you also notice that i use color to organize the theme. so, everything relating and

inspired by travel could be green. lastly, i added simple images to the board. again, it is just something that adds emphasis and punch. >> at the end, they had a visual representation of the team's ideas and a way to move forward. >> what do you think? was this effective? >> i think it was. to clarify the things we all think about everything and i feel like we could put this up on the wall and just, you know, be reminded of the things we want to stay on point with when talking to clients. >> excellent. do you think you will be able to do it yourself next time? >> i think so. rainn wilson is best known for his role as paper salesman dwight in "the office." rainn is also an entrepreneur. he founded soulpancake in 2009 with the intention of bringing positive, thoughtful web content

to the world. oprah took notice and asked him to produce content for her own channel. soulpancake has youtube channel boasting 1.5 million subscribers. >> come on in. welcome to soulpancake. i started to get well known for being on a certain tv show. hello. and i saw an opportunity because, at that point and time, we are talking maybe six years ago, there was not as much positive stuff on the web. it really was a much more negative marketplace. it was kind of the worst of humanity. it was crass. it was pornography and kardashian butts and gossip. just shopping and just kind of, it didn't make us humans look too good. i wanted to do something positive on the web. >> this is great.

everyone was dancing with each other. it was fun. >> i did an interview with oprah. people were very intrigued, but skeptical. how are you going to make money at this? this sounds like a vanity project. it's ooey gooey, so good for you. we pivoted, a year or two in when we realized, listen, we are not getting the traffic we need. a lot of our questions and ideas we were exploring online in the digital space on our website, we found that we could easily turn into videos. we started doing that on the oprah network. one was pop your problems. ♪ pop your problems >> people were there, issues on a giant balloon, and all together, they pop it. it was filled with glitter paper, whatever. interesting video manifestation of some of the stuff we were

working on. as we created our youtube xanl, we really found our voice. let's take the big ideas, the issues and struggles of being a human being and make videos about them, shareable, short form videos for young people. besides oprah, kid president was really the thing that put us on the map. ♪ >> there's a kid in tennessee and his brother-in-law was a film videographer. >> mom! the best word in the world. >> we brought them to soulpancake and started a partnership. 100 million or so views later,

we touched eed lot of lives and souls. kids are growing up watching them. teachers share them, parnlts share them. we are proud of it. when we started soulpancake, we got a lot of condescending pats on our heads like that's so sweet. that's so nice. people inside going it's never going to sell. well, it did start to sell and "the new york times" did an article last year where they talked about the most shared digital videos. they are not comedy videos. they are not fail videos. they are not sports or music videos. the most shared videos are inspiring content. in a way, we were at the vanguard of discovering this. people want to share something that moves them and is relevant to them and continues the human conversation. so, we were at the cutting edge of that. i get stopped a lot for playing

dwight on "the office" but i get stopped just as much for creating soul pan take. they are like we love it so much. thank you for creating it. we wanted to do it as a service, but ride the line of making it a service and profitable. we are not a nonprofit company. we want to expand. we want to be the king of all media. we want to be the king of positive content for young people. every time you are faced with a challenge at work, it's best to think creatively about it. the obvious answer is easy, but not always the best. strategic firm for growth companies and the author of "the language of man." good to see you, larry. >> great to see you, too, j.j. >> this is getting people to think creatively.

not just in the box but solutions for us. >> that is true. with entrepreneurs and small business owners, it's getting them to go back thinking creatively. >> we used to or did when they came up with the idea. >> the most important thing about createtivety is seeing an opportunity and how things can be done. it's the way all small businesses start out. then we get bogged down in the details and forget to pick our head up. >> not seeing just the impossible, i imagine, too. >> that's true. when we get bogged down, we see things in terms of a routine and the steps we have taken that work in the past to make it successful. when it changes, it can throw us. we are thinking of fixing problems rather than creating opportunities. >> you talk about looking adjacent, not just to the moon. >> we tend to think really big ideas. we think about those happening, we are here today and we have to make a huge leap to somewhere

tomorrow. really, ideas are an accumulation. the big ideas are little ideas connecting, modifying and creating new ideas. think about any small business we know. they are serving a need. they are fixing a problem that happened right around them. it's adjacent to them, the thing that is became their opportunity are right there, not in a far away land. >> those are the one that is grow, then suddenly, you reached the moon. >> you are living with them every day. it's a habit. if you are looking for them, if creativity is a habit, you can see the ideas. >> that's the point of making it a mind set. how do you do that? >> one of the best ways is think about having a mind set that is an inquiry mind set. this is different than questions. questions are a powerful tool. they can be the very thing that boggs us down. if you are thinking, however, about what is the possibility in something, how can i look at this differently?

what am i not thinking about? that's an inquiring mind set. that is the best leverage point for thinking creatively. >> you are questioning but not questioning specific things. you are making it open ended. >> right. >> is there a way to do this better or differently? >> correct. a terrific example is a customer calls with a complaint. we think of it in terms of what can i do to fix that complaint? what is it they are doing and saying to do things differently, avoid a higher risk? that's the minds set. >> it's a small change. >> exactly. >> co-create. meaning get other people involved? >> yes. think about the stereo type rumor of entrepreneurs. she comes up with the big idea. she starts the company and keeps the trains running on time. we know there are lots of people behind that with other ideas. they are gathering ideas usually from other people. when they execute them, an idea

to make it real, they need other people to do that. really, it's a co-creation, getting employees, partners involved in thinking about it and execute sg the best way. >> the same inquiry as well. it can't be just you, it's the culture of your company. >> i wasn't going to go that far, but that's it. >> congratulations on the book. good to see you, larry. >> good to see you, too, j.j. time is precious and seems there's never enough of it. a time saving app and services to boost your productivity and staying efficient. >> cracks your computer time to have an accurate log of how you spend your day. knowing the exact breakdown helps you eliminate what is dragging you down. two, full contact saves your

network profiles, company websites and more. you will always have the most updated information for all of your contacts on hand when you need it. three, use tools to outsource tasks to work on things that need your attention. this will match you with virtual assistants to help with responding to remails to travel coordination for a monthly fee. four, keeps tabs on expenses and time spent on projects. export reports for your clients. five, use clear to log your to-do list and set reminders for things that need to get done by a certain deadline. coming up next, one of our experts answers your question on finding a quality manufacturer and a warning for all small business owners to guard their privacy.

will your business be ready when growth presents itself? our new cocktail bitters were doing well, but after one tradeshow, we took off. all i could think about was our deadlines racing towards us. a loan would take too long. we needed money, now. my amex card helped me buy the ingredients to fill the orders. opportunities don't wait around, so you have to be ready for them. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. i'm wondering where i can go to fipd manufacturers for things like iphone cases or leather components for iphone cases where i can work with and lay

which is what i'm focusing on in my jewelry line. >> i love this question because it plays on the trend of makers in this country. what i would say is that there is absolutely a lot of online resources for manufacturers, if you just google it, you will come up with makers row, thomas net. however, before you jump into those sites and start digging in and talking to manufacturers, i have a few things to consider. do i want to manufacture here, domestically or overseas. that is determined by the quality of your product, quantity and cost involved. you may want to engage a pro prototype services company before contacting the manufacturer so you are prepared on that front. you may want to contact and agent to visit on your behalf before you engage. do your homework and find what

works best then go online and look into the online directories i mentioned and figure out the fit that works for you. we now have the top two tips you need to know to help your small business grow. jennifer hill is an attorney and coo at remedy analystics and the head of the golds group owns and runs five businesses in chicago. good to see boast of you. >> great to be here. >> great to be here. >> it's been awhile for both of you. happy to have you both on the show. you are at a new company now. what is one tip? >> be smart about privacy. every week in the news we are hearing about a company with a data breach, a social security number stolen or other information. whether you are online or offline, you need a few key things in mind. the first thing is, what kind of information are you collecting and how are you collecting it? do you have people coming into

your store and credit card information? are you collecting e-mail addresses or health data? the kind of data you have, you need to be thoughtful and what you are doing with it. a lot of companies have something called a privacy policy, which a lawyer can help you draft which shares with your community, employees and customers how you are use zing your information. >> jay, you are up. >> great. when people start businesses, they are focused on growth and profits. you find out, it is about cash flow. at the end of the day, when you run out of cash and can't pay your bills, you go broke. three things happen in a business that steal the cash. one is inventory. it is easy, when you are trying to take your customers inventory. if you run out, overorder. unfortunately, in 30 or 60 days when the bills come due, your payables are out of control. it's important to keep an eye on inventory levels and monitor and

discipline yourself to keep the number at a number. two, receivables people want to take your customer. maybe don't give credit, maybe it should be c.o.d. if you are doing flooring for houses, get a 50% deposit. that can make a huge difference in the cash you have to work with. when you go buy equipment, computers and cars a lot of people are trying to avoid debt. they use cash. it's easy to get leasing options with to buy or in a car case your payments are lower. preserve your cash for things like inventory or work in process or how you renew people. if you don't keep an eye on it, it's very, very easy to get strangled. at the end of the day, maybe you can get a bank to give you a credit line against receivables or inventory. it's a good discipline from the beginning to watch those things. >> absolutely. thank you so much.

great advice. this week's yourbizselfie runss d.j. services in fargo, north dakota. he started in 2004 and has been busy with weddings, proms and corporate events ever since. pick up your cell phone and take a picture of you and your business and send it to us at yourbusiness.msnbc.com. thank you so much for joining us. we would love to hear from you. if you have questions or xeants e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com or openforum.com/yourbusiness. you will see all the segments from today and more. don't forget to connect with us on digital and social media platforms as well. next week, the founder of a

small business figures outlet a way to spend half the time in his office and the other half traveling the world. >> a win/win for the company and myself. when i travel, we come up with the best ideas and brainstorming and where most of the stuff gets done. >> sound good to you? we'll tell you why giving proten shl hire as tryout and letting employees take the lead allows this ceo to work on his business instead of in his business. remember, we make your business our business. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? our new cocktail bitters were doing well, but after one tradeshow, we took off. all i could think about was our deadlines racing towards us. a loan would take too long. we needed money, now.

my amex card helped me buy the ingredients to fill the orders. opportunities don't wait around, so you have to be ready for them. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. on the one side it was britain and france and russia and the u.s. and italy and belgium and greece and portugal and just this incredible list. in the end it was a huge list of countries. on the other side it was germany and austria-hungary and the turks which you would be well served at the time to call the ottoman empire. between all of those great powers and all the smaller countries that joined up alongside them along the two sides. eventually you had most of the countries in the world facing off in a war that went on for four years.