n't let directv now limit your entertainment. xfinity gives you more to stream to more screens. good morning. coming up on "your business" lessons on leadership from the united states air force weapons school in nevada. what businesses can learn from the membership and women guarding this nation. an entrepreneurial veteran repurposes military surplus into a fashionable handbag company. plus marketing to the needs of cowboys and ranch hands. information to help you grow fast, go far and work smart, coming up next on "your business."

hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your growing business. for us, a strong leadership may be the difference between the life and death of our companies. for those in the air force, it could be the difference between life and death. we recently visited the exclusive united states air force weapons school in nevada where colonel mike draley is obsessed that he trains his students to become the best leaders out there. we wanted to learn what characteristics and values are at the core of their education and how those qualities can translate to the business sector. known as the home of the fighter pilot, nevada's nellis air force base is just a short ride away from all the glitz of the las vegas strip. it's also home to one of the most prestigious training programs in the military, the united states air force weapons

school. twice a year, some of the most gifted warriors of the sky are chosen to attend the ph.d. level program there to learn the art of the most advanced integrated combat across land, air, space and cyber domains. not only do weapons school students become tactical experts in all areas of warfare, but they also received an unmatched education in leadership. these airmen have to be the best of the best leaders. they're called upon for the most complex and dangerous situations. faced with decisions that are often the difference between life or death. colonel mike draley has served as commander of the weapons school for the past two years. he believes leaders who have the highest level of integrity can consistently deliver successful results, not only in military but also in business and in life. and they all possess these key traits. they're selfless. >> when you go into an extremist

situation where lives are on the line, your life is on the line, it's not about you. the very first thing that goes through your head is what can i do to help. i've got friends, comrades that are on the ground that are under fire. what can i do to support them. >> they think of themselves as of service. >> the school, the institution is all about you. it's all about making you better, making you a better leader, making you a better person, making you a better tactician. it's all about helping others reach their fullest potential. >> they're humble. >> every time i'm engaging with my team, i try to do a quick cross-check of what i'm about to say. am i learning as much as i can, checking my ego at the door. everybody is fallible and that's just part of the learning process. if you have somebody that doesn't own up to those mistakes, that immediately causes you to lose trust. >> they're approachable. >> we want somebody we feel like has a vested interest in us that we can go and talk to, there's a level of trust there, and that helps you relate to that leader.

>> weapons school graduates become instructors to the air force's instructors, and many serve as advisers to some of the military's most senior leaders. >> it's a pretty amazing transformation. when the students show up to the weapons school, they know they're in for a five and a half month marathon of experiences. >> you'll never be as smart as the day you graduate weapons school, so our students feel like they can conquer the world. >> the lessons learned at weapons school and the front lines of battle are invaluable and can easily translate from the military world to the business sector. hire people that are confident navigating the unknown, mitigating the unknown in calm ballot is possible. the same applies to any business venture. building a team of people who can face uncertainty with confidence is critical. >> they have the trust and empowerment to say even though i'm in the unknown, i know where i need to be going and i've been empowered to get there. they have the right vector in place to get to where the leadership has asked them to go. >> whether you're building an integration strategy for combat

or a company, knowledge of all moving parts, players and departments is critical. >> the familiarity has to run pretty deep. you don't want to micromanage, but you want to be able to enable wherever possible. i'm not a cyber expert, but i know what can make them more advantageous in what they're trying to do. that's where maybe some companies fail is when they are so stove piped and just worried about their own success of their department and it's not integrated with the rest of the strategic vision. >> that's not an option for weapons school students. they must execute an integration strategy that's seamless every time. at the end of their journey, they're put to the test with a keystone mission called joint forcible entry. >> our joint forcible entry mission brings all those capabilities together to do a very complex and difficult mission, which is to drop an airborne force out and own a piece of terrain in hostile territory for a period of time. and the only way that you're able to do that is if you take everybody's capabilities,

maximize them and integrate them across the board. >> we want our students to be well versed in how to understand all the mission planning complexities, how to understand the execution complexities and deal with all the contingencies that may potentially arise. >> and when students graduate, they receive the weapons school patch, a badge of incredible honor given to some of the most resilient and remarkable leaders, who will stop at nothing to protect our nation's safety. >> old is becoming new again in the hands of these entrepreneurial sisters who are no strangers to the military life. their company recycles old military goods and transforms them into fashionable bags and accessories, employing veterans and giving back to the military community in the process. these bags used to be military tents. the company takes old recycled military goods and turns them into bags.

not only that, it's owned by and employs veterans. >> what in my life is sometimes wasted that could be harnessed and turned into something really beautiful with a powerful mission. >> the nunez sisters started their company with a kickstarter campaign. >> we've worked with everything from tents to parachutes to repurpose bdu, uniform fabrics, to repurpose 50 caliber shell casings. >> emily is a former u.s. army captain who served in the 10th special forces group. >> it really embodies this life cycle where we're repurposing this material and giving back and empowering the community from where the bags materials are coming from. >> according to the bureau of labor statistics, in 2016 there were 453,000 unemployed veterans. >> it's also really meaningful

to us, because we personally know just how amazing veterans are to the civilian -- to civilian communities and civilian workforce. so i think the more that we can do to communicate that veterans are empowering assets to civilian workplaces, that that's a really huge part of our mission too. >> the sisters have repurposed more than 35,000 pounds of military surplus and supported more than 65 veteran jobs. >> the fact that we're able to build a business that has a quadruple bottom line and give back to the community that we're most passionate about supporting and that we grew up in our entire lines and that emily served in and that our dad served in and so many of our family members have been a part of, i think it's an immense feeling of pride, but also joy. >> and they give back even more. sword & plough donates 10% of their earnings to veteran organizations. >> we're extremely, you know,

hopeful and excited to hear that the bags are conversation starters. and i think we just hope that they have the opportunity to share their experiences within their service with the entire civilian community as well as really anywhere that they are, because we know their experiences and their leadership and their technical skills is something that everyone can learn from. >> when we're coming up with ways to move our business forward, we shouldn't be constrained by looking only to our own industry for inspiration. for example, when the owners were creating their packaging, they looked at candle and shoe boxes to come up with their signature look. and when steve geissler wanted to grow his company, he took a page out of the book of the fishing industry.

growing up in idaho, there's always been two constants in steve's life. horses and business. >> i always tell people it's a hobby gone bad. >> when he wasn't working at his father's farm supply and fertilizer business, chances are you could find him at a local rodeo. it was at one of those events that steve got his inspiration to start his own rope-making company, cowboy cordage. >> i was actually in a college rodeo and there was a horse for sale. so i went down and i was looking at the horse. he said, you know, i think i sell this kind of rope that you guys use. i said really? he said yeah. could you show it to me? >> even though it was typically used for japanese fishing nets, steve knew that the rope would be great for his rodeo needs, with a few adjustments. >> the problem is we could give them specifications how we wanted it made, but it would either come in maybe too soft or too stiff. you know, not really within our specifications to use. and i thought, man, there's got

to be a way to fix that. so i actually invented a machine to run the rope through to make the rope no matter how bad it was, we could straighten it and fix it. >> his invention made it possible to customize the rope to specific customers' needs and also resalvage inventory that would have been wasted otherwise. it's made a loyal customer out of rancher jay hogan. >> he'll make them any way you want them. they know what i want so i don't got to screw with the ropes when they come, they're just how i want them. >> cowboy cordage is now one of the industry's leading distributors. they sell district to surconsum but they're also stocked in supply stores like smith & edwards. >> i would think they'd be up there in the top five. i think with the poly, they're the main distributors on the coiled stuff. >> the brand now includes the original rope line, rocky mountain ropes, as well as two other brands that they acquired over the years. it's their consistent quality that has the old-timers coming

back and the way they reach some of their customers hasn't changed. >> a lot of our industry isn't necessarily on the web yet. we're a little bit behind with the farmers and ranchers. some of them don't even have internet service. so we really wanted to have a nice catalog, we wanted to have our name out there and pull the brands together. >> but cowboy cordage has attracted new business by constantly updating and growing. first up, their marketing. the internet has opened them up to a whole new customer base, international ones. steve's daughter came on as general manager a few years ago. she says that rounding up what the next trend will be isn't an exact science. >> and some of it is going to be great and some of it is going to be terrible. we just have to market our way through it. >> marketing isn't the only department that has benefited from some thinking outside of the box. one of their most successful products was inspired by one of steve's side hobbies. >> my boys and i, we are competitive shooters. and i was coming home one day

and i'm like -- you ask about an aha moment and this is it because we all wear shooting glasses similar to these. it enhances the colors. and i thought, man, if we could get a neon rope and do that, that would be amazing. and it just really changed a lot of things. >> when it first came out, it absolutely exploded. everyone had to have the bright, crazy colors. i would say most of the industry, no matter what you go to now, everyone has something similar. >> but the company's biggest influencers have been and always will be their cowboy boot wearing, rope throwing core customers. >> the ranching industry, just when it's just gotten a lot bigger in the past couple years. we've really listened to a lot of our customers an just kind of take what they think would be best for them. everything from the rope's being really soft to the ropes being a certain length that they want. we try to just adapt to the latest trends and get a product out there that they can use. >> and steve says the best way to know your product is to continue to be your own customer.

>> you can't be in the rope business and not rope. >> seo, search engine optization can be a scary term for those who don't understand how it works, which is most people. many of us simply don't know how to get up there. i recently went down to blog her in orlando where i chatted with chloe spencer, who gave me some helpful tools and advice on how to rank how in seo. >> how important is it for companies to think about seo. >> it's absolutely crucial. you need to build the traffic from the search engines to get the sales that you want so you need to be ranking in google. >> when you think about seo, how much of it is technical, things that you can do you to your site that you might not understand, versus, hey, just have a great site that people love. they'll keep coming back and you will rank higher. >> it's absolutely about both. you need to be creating really compelling content and you need to be doing those really technical seo tweaks as well,

which sometimes you'll need an seo expert to do for you because those are equally important. >> tell me some mistakes people make. >> i have three top mistakes. number one is the gut check mistake. this is when you're picking key words using your gut instead of using tools. so you need to be choosing your key words based on popularity, but it's often counter intuitive which sin anymoynonyms are the . number two is the broken record mistake. so you need to be placing your top key words in your title tags and in your headings and in your page copy but you do not want to be stuffing key words repetitively throughout your content. this is against google's guidelines and can get you penalized. number three is the blue light special mistake. having links point to your site is crucial to ranking well on google but you do not want to buy links for cheap because it's all about quality, not quantity.

so focus on building authoritative trusted links. >> are there any shortcuts to seo? are there tricks that people need to know or is it just, hey, you need to do this over time and really build authority and, again, just have a great site? >> sure. there's definitely a few little tips and tricks. i have an seo formula. seo stands for search engine optimiization. s is for strategy. while tactics are help. strategy is the game changer and is your road map to online success and e is for expert. you need to position yourself as the expert in your industry and only be providing really compelling content to your users. o is for on page. offpage seo is only half of the equation, which is link building. so you need to not forget about on page seo which is your title tags, your key word placement, your technical seo tweaks such as page speed which is a ranking

signal. >> when you talk about link building, you mean having other people talk about you. google uses that as a sign that this is an important website. >> absolutely. it's one of the main core pillars of seo. you need to be building up your inbound links so people point to you. >> to get people to talk about you, it's just like public relations. >> absolutely. that's why you need to provide really compelling content because then you'll increase your trusted links from other sites and build those natural links. >> and how much do i have to pay for an seo consultant if i'm listening to you and i think this is overwhelming, i don't want to have to think about it myself. >> absolutely. seo can range from a few thousand a month, which is really, really low up to $25,000 a month. so it really, really depends. but you get what you pay for. >> and also there's a lot of information if you're just starting out online that you could learn for yourself. thank you so much. this is really, really helpful. again, i think it is a scary term for some people who haven't gone into it yet and we all need

to pay attention to it. >> absolutely. thank you for having me. remember, if i could do it back when i was 14, then anyone can do it. when you grow a business or a department from the ground up, it can be so hard to let things go. it is normal to want to be involved in every aspect of everything that's going on, but at some point you have to learn to delegate if you want to scale your operations. so we've got these five ways for managers to master the art of delegation. one, prepare diligently. if you don't take the time to fully develop your ideas, you risk setting your employees up for failure. think about the budget, the timeline and the end goals before reaching out to your team for help. two, assign tasks according to your employees' strengths. even the best-laid plans will fall apart if you choose the wrong person for the job. three, check in but do not micromanage. you've already planned your project. you delegated your tasks to competent people, so trust them

to get the work done. but remember, they say trust but verify for a reason. schedule time to check in with your teams and track their progress so you can change anything if necessary. four, provide constructive feedback even if your employees do a great job on the tasks you give them. you have to give them feedback. you want them to know what they did well, why they did it well and what they might need to work on so that they can grow and do better in the future. five, celebrate wins publicly, your employees work hard for your company every day, so celebrate them as often as you can. you don't need to throw a party for every effort, of course, but a little recognition can boost morale and show other employees how you like to see work done. when we come back, why you need to pay close attention to online reviews of your business and our brain trust tackles the tricky question, what do you do when your most productive employee is also the most toxic person in the office.

thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. the question we would have with baby-boomers is how can we come across that they understand

that going on line to look at google reviews is very important for the business. >> the best way to communicate the baby-boomers the importance of checking the reviews of the companies and services is to communicate the value of being able to read people's minds. i always tell people the most valuable superpower you can have, in most people's estimation, is to be able to understand what other people are thinking about them. well, we live if a day and age now -- live in a day and angel n age where it's public. you should be able to google resources to find out what do they really think about your company and business. market research that is totally invaluable. i think if you communicate it in those terms, everybody will get it. >> this is the braintrust where i get to interest a-- yet to as some of the smartest in the business, the most tricky or controversial questions. today in the braintrust, i have cindy whitehead, the founder and

ceo of sprout pharmaceuticals, best known for pushing the female viagra through the fda. you sold that company for $1 billion which -- congratulations. that is so fun to say. >> thank you. >> and sam ski, president of "she knows," one of the top five media companies on line for women and run a blogger for women. you've been there for a while and helped the company grow three times? >> three times in revenue. twice double in audience reach. >> all congratulations. >> awesome. >> you guys have done it. the question we're going to talk about today is about employees. and i find this to be a really tricky one because there is a pat answer that everybody gives, and i don't think it's the truth of what everyone does. the question is -- what do you do if your number-one employee, the person who if you had to look back on the last three years came one the items that propelled your company forward, if it weren't for this person, your company may well be in the dumps -- is also poison when it comes to culture?

right? >> fire them. >> wow. >> is that the answer that everybody gives? >> that's the answer -- >> i did it. >> okay. >> i'll give you an example. my number-one salesperson in the company. you are never going to live on one person's contribution alone. it created paralysis of everybody around him. he was so toxic to the culture that nobody else was performing. a baby step version different from that, you have to create competition with that individual. two purposes -- a, it will keep them at their game and intellectually stimulated. if they think that they're always number one, they're not going to continue to compete. you actually have to have somebody come in who believes they can beat them. >> right. >> then you start to change it. >> let's take your situation -- it's a salesperson. presumably the fear is this person leaves and then my revenue goes down 50% or whatever they're responsible for. it's scary. you can start to fill that in, right? start to fill that in.

>> you must fill that in or think how vulnerable you are. if you're dependent on one person as your lone contributor and they're devastating to the cuccinelli -- especially in -- culture -- especially in small businesses, in a small business you have one person who doesn't fit, it's just completely -- >> toxic. >> kills it. >> which is why you always want to say get rid of them. but i've been in situations -- go ahead. it's hard. it is hard. >> i love your decisiveness about that. i'm going to the place of how are we defining toxicity. how old, experienced is the person because maybe we go through a wave of thinking we know everything before we don't know everything. i think salespeople and likewise i've managed and revered people for two decades, good salespeople are often difficult people in my experience -- >> can't you put them on the side? >> yes, if they're individual salespeople. >> got it. which was in your case. >> if they're managers --

toxicity is, i think, untenable in a manager. and speaks to things they're probably not going to work out in the workplace. i think that it is -- you can rehab toxicity in some situations. we talk about this, but i go with do i like this person, trust this person, do i respect this person? if you have two of those, toxicity usually to me relates to trust. you don't trust. you're not aligned. >> say you trust them, you like them. but no one else on the team can relate to them. >> i think i like the competition idea. >> yeah. that's right. not knocking them down in a malicious way but humanizing them. my feeling is if there's toxicity it's a lack of humility. particularly if they're a particular star contributor and start to disconnect. >> just bad communications skills. >> fair enough. i think creating some -- like humanity around them in a couple shots at them that brings them

to everybody else's level -- >> give them a more challenging task also. sometimes we become so comfortable with people that it is easy for me to manage that person. it's easy for him or her to communicate quickly, rapidly with me. maybe their job isn't hard enough which tends to turn us into far, in my experience, worse versions of ourselves. maybe you need to give them a herculean task that will cause them to struggle and reach out. one thing i wouldn't do that i think we're jumping around is telling them to not be a jerk never works, explaining how they hurt people's feelings never works. it's got to be intrinsic, not extrinsic. like they feel like they need somebody else and they do need somebody else. >> don't send them out for coffee. bad idea, very j.v. thank you both. one of the apps we use at

fpg is groupme. that allows us to have a social component where we're talking and communicating together. for example, we have a dale theme like -- daily theme like freaking awesome friday where we talk about what caused success in the organization. >> one of the apps that we recently started using is refersion. an minneapolis to -- an to set up an affiliate program. we get a lot of referrals from word of mouth, people who tried the product and love it and want to refer it to other people. we thought of a way to provide an incentive for other people if they want to share the product. refersion allows you to set up an affiliate program. when someone signs up as an affiliate, they get their own dashboard and can track sales and commissions. all of the payments are made seamlessly through paypal. people who want to share the product with other people can get an incentive for doing that. >> personally, i like the app

dark sky. it's a weather app. and dark sky's pretty accurate up to almost the minute. it will alert me based on my gps and area if it's going to rain. to take cover and not get rained on. this week's #yourbizselfie has the art school, victory spot in fayetteville, georgia, was created by speech, the alternative hip-hop group arrested development. you probably remember their hit "tennessee." victory spot has classes in dancing, acting, and teaches people how to play instruments, as well. all of you out there, we would love to see your business. take a selfie of you and your company and send it to us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com, or tweet it to @msnbcyourbiz. include your name, the name of your business, the location, and don't forget to use the hash tag yourbizselfie. thank you very much for

joining us today. we'd love to hear from you. so if you want to get in touch with us, just e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. you can also go to our website, openforum.com/ye openforum.com/yo openforum.com/yo openforum.com/yourbusiness. we posted all of the segments plus a whole lot more. connect with us on our digital and social media platforms, too. we talk on there all week long and give you more information. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. and remember, we make your business our business. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs)

(voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. morning, glory, i'm hugh hewitt. monday through friday, hear me on the salem radio network and its affiliates from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. eastern. saturday mornings i'm here on msnbc. in the second part of today's program, i'll be talking with a couple of new media superstars, political columnist anna marie cox, and perry bacon jr., senior writer for 538. one of the leading analytics in politics website available today. first there is perhaps no one better to talk to about the state of the world as it exists today than a novelist -- specifically, pe