forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business," we are here in austin, texas, at south by southwest where innovators and disrupters have gathered to talk about the big things coming next. we're going to pick their brains to find out how you as a brand can reach generation z. and we head to florida to meet a woman who has a real difference. she has a batting and body company and employees women in crisis decisions. when it comes to big decisions at work, we have your back. that's all coming up next on "your business." >> announcer: "your business" is sponsored by american express open. helping you get business done.

hi, everyone, i'm jj ramberg and welcome to "your business." this show dedicated to helping you grow your business. today we tell you the story of one entrepreneur who is making it her mission not only to have a successful company, but to help women be independent and have a voice at the same time. how? one job at a time. we had a he had to boynton beach, florida, to find out how her commitment to employing women in crisis situations is helping them get back on their feet and also helping her grow her business. ♪ >> thanks to this company i got my own place, i found my boys, i went through a lot of things like sexual harassment, domestic abuse and now i'm by myself. i'm like i can do it. >> being around great coworkers it helped me, i don't know, to see that everyone out there isn't a villain.

>> these two women have both beaten incredible odds and both work at ur batting and body in boynton beach, florida. that's no coincidence. in fact, about 50% of ur body's workforce is made up of women coming out of crisis situations. >> being a single mother whenever i started this business, there were multiple times that that could have been me. >> tracy gun is the founder of the company. when she was laid off from a corporate job she started making and selling soap out of her home to help pay the bills, but a chance visit to new york city changed everything. >> i visited a homeless shelter in the bronx, the director of the homeless shelter as the ladies would leave to go about their day she would stop them, hug them and say, you are amazing, you are beautiful, you are going to do awesome today, you're going to get your life back. >> suddenly tracy saw an opportunity. she could do more than just sell soap. she could help change people's lives. so she got in touch with local shelters and non-profits to ask

if they knew of anyone who would want to work for her. one of her first calls was to faith-based children's organization place of hope. >> if we're going to do a better job in this nation of taking care of people who have walked through tremendous trauma in their lives, sex trafficking victims, foster care that are aging out, you can't make it in life without a job, without skills that allow you to be employable. >> they connected her to jasmine west, a young woman who had grown up with an unstable home life that left her jaded and a bit weary of the world. >> between at home, work and school, i felt like it was always a give and take. there was always something. there's always a trick to it. and here it wasn't. >> two years later, jasmine now mansions the business' shipping department. >> i don't know what i would do without jasmine. when jasmine first came to work for us she was to herself, very withdrawn, almost rebellious. she had to fight for her life.

when you spend the time with someone you get to know their situation and their history, and you can turn those traits, those learned behaviors through her years of really surviving, when you take that and you embrace it rather than say that's bad, then you get a much better success rate by trying to understand the person rather than trying to correct the person. >> this woman left cuba in 2012 looking for a better life for herself, completely self-taught and a victim of domestic abuse and sexual harassment it meant everything when tracy took a chance on her and hired her as the company's web developer. >> she believed in me and some people they don't. i have an accent so when you get to an interview or something they just, you know -- they don't get you. i want to continue my life as an independent woman and show other people that they can do it, too.

and it's not impossible. >> that doesn't mean every hire has always ended with this type of happily ever after. >> i learned the hard way that it's not always easy employing the people that we want to employ. keep very healthy boundaries. you are their employer, not their family. not their friend. >> true trial and error tracy learned how to best balance running and growing a profitable business without losing sight of her mission. she says you need to vet what organizations you work with. >> all organizations are not created equally. so the ones that we truly love are the ones that don't just send employees and say good luck. we want the ones that will come in if we have an issue or if the employee is having an issue. >> also every person that comes on starts with a trial period. >> we do a couple weeks and make sure that it's comfortable for them. we don't want to put somebody in a situation that they simply can't function well. >> and she doesn't put her core business at risk. she has a group of employees

always in place that guarantee the bottom line is met. >> we know every day that we have a certain number of production so to have the core foundation we can guarantee that, but we also have people that should they be slo err in their learning or slower just because they're having a really bad day or they have a sick kid at home, we know that our business is solid. >> she has also built a certain type of culture. with so many of the employees having experienced firsthand just how far a little help can go, everyone here pays it forward. >> i know before i got here there were times in my life where that help wasn't provided. it wasn't there for me. so i had to go out and look for it or i had to be without it and i know what it's like to be without it and i don't want them to experience that any longer than what they have already. >> it's not all about giving back. providing an opportunity to women who need a little boost has helped tracy build up a loyal workforce that's been the backbone of her business' growth.

>> no matter who you hire, they're going to come or they're going to go. they may or may not work out. so to take a chance on someone who life has really beaten down on, the ones that truly work out and embrace what we're offering here, make the best employees. and in the end we have people that are solid. believe in our mission and believe in our company and that's what makes us so successful. >> and organizations hope more businesses will follow tracy's example. >> if you just think you're coming in to save the world you really don't know what you're about to enter into sometimes. we have to give them the opportunities. we have to teach them, guide them, mentor them, but more businesses need to be able to look at these kids and think, wow, we could really work together to make something great happen here. i think looking at tracy's example is a great way of starting. ♪ by this point most of us know about millennials.

now it's time to move to generation z, these are the people who are born 1996 and after. how are they different? how do we market to them? how do we hire them? we have all these questions. here at south by southwest we name to ask tiffany zong who is the founder and question of zebra intelligence. so good to see you. >> you, too. >> you are jen z. you drop out of college, started your own company and your company talks to people about how to reach people just like you, generation z. what are some of the big things you tell brands who want to get to sell to someone like you? >> the biggest thing is gen z grew up on their smart phones and social media so they can see through the bs very quickly. they will immediately skip through ads, they are just in tune with identifying what's an ad and what's not. that's why people have to -- or brands have to have more native ads and ugc.

>> what about influencers who get paid, does the bs button go up for that or not? >> gen z can identify if it's a product placement or sponsorship and ftc is cracking down on making sure that the influencers are showing that it's a sponsored post. kids can see through that. some influencers who don't have the right partnerships and try to make as money as possible will build a poor brand over the years because their fans will see that they are just selling out. >> but you feel like if a brand partners with the right influencer even if they are paying them that that might get through? >> yes. >> okay. >> 100%. >> okay. >> but a lot of brands don't know how to find the right influencers, like what pepsi did with kendall jenner and how that had a lot of controversy because it was out of the pepsi mission as well as kendall's so it just didn't work. >> you have to really be careful that whatever you're doing is sort of true, is authentic, i

hate to use that word, but is authentic. >> exactly. >> that's one thing you tell brands. what's another thing you tell them? >> another thing is that every single kid is a content creator and baby boomers weren't like this, but since we grew up on instagram and snapchat every single thing we take a photo of or tweet so it's a piece of content. utilizing that for your branding and marketing instead of trying to create your, for example, create your own ads or manufacture stuff, you can just use what your fans are already talking about and -- >> is that also, then, about always having something that is worth a photo? if they're going to come to something you better make sure you have something fun because they will put that out to the world for you? >> exactly. so another thing i tell brands is that gen z optimizes for going to things that are ass et

tick first, it's all optimized how this is going to look on my instagram or snapchat, is it going to be amazing. they think in terms of optimizing for photos that their fans and followers will like versus experiences. gen z cares more about experiences than products and cars and stuff like that. that's a huge shift in these luxury brands and how they're going to market to the younger generation when they care more about experiences and renting stuff instead of owning stuff. >> are there any particular brands that gen z loves right now? who is doing it really well? >> well, vans and adidas and converse are still relevant. supreme is obviously one of the hottest brands still, but majority of brands are just really struggling to adapt with how fickle gen z is and how fast things are moving, adapting with teen interest ends. >> you said gen z is fickle.

how do you as a brand deal with someone who is so fickle? >> well, my suggestion would be to constantly talk to your users and your target audience and constantly interviewing them and just understanding what's trending, what's not. what things you can jump on and what you can't. because you can't follow whatever is trending, you can't follow every single relevant meme and try to hop on to it joe ert wise it becomes unauthentic and brand never want to cross that line. >> but you do have to keep changing, you do have to keep evolving or they are going to say go there, go there, go there. >> every week, every month you have to keep iterating and a big problem with a lot of the brands is that they think that they want to understand -- millennials have purchasing power and they want to target millennials right now and they care less about gen z. but gen z is growing really fast and it's tail end of college, kids are about to graduate from college, they have their own

purchasing power because they have side hustles and learn how to make money quickly on the internet as well as the fact that they have influence over their family and parents' purchasing power. that's also a fallacy where brands think that gen z doesn't have money. >> all right. tiffany, thank you for stopping by. i know you did great on your panels. i really appreciate you giving us some insight here. >> thank you, jj. the official note takers at south by this year were the team at ever note. they summarized more than 50 talks outlining the big ideas coming out of the austin so that you didn't have to. it's hard to believe it's been ten years since ever note launched, the note taking revolution. long before it was cool to be in the cloud ever note was there on almost every platform making your work accessible to you wherever you were. we spoke to the ceo chris o'neal about making mistakes, setting expectations and the importance of community in this learning from the pros. ♪

>> i've learned much of what i have in life by playing team sports and in team sports the best team wins. it's not the best collection of individuals but the best team and i think that's true in business as well. so being really intentional about your hiring is essential. play for the front of the jersey not the back. so when i'm hiring i listen very intently to the number of times someone says the word i versus the number of times they say we. that's important. and then also hiring by committee and that sounds bureaucratic and a bunch of red tape but i think you can arrive at better decisions if you have different people interviewing people and probing and asking questions about different areas and different things and then comparing notes afterwards. so that you avoid biases in your hiring decisions. yes, it might require a little bit more up front but ultimately you are going to make better

decisions. whoops the monkey is a cute little stuffed animal as it sounds like and it's awarded to the person who has the courage to stand up in front of their peers and admit they've made a mistake. they also have to share what they've learned, but in return they're granted immediate forgiveness for that mistake. you think about that, allowing people to be okay making mistakes is absolutely essential. like taking the right types of risks is essential for doing things differently. innovation. it requires you being okay with making mistakes along the way. >> one of the things you do as a leader, you have to set expectations. you have to say what's expected of me and how am i doing against that and how can i improve? if you can't answer those three questions, you are not doing your job as a errleader. if you are answering those three questions it makes those decisions a little less

mysterious. if you have to part ways and fire somebody and they're surprised it means you haven't done your job. >> community is everything. these are people we rely upon for everything. when we're developing a product how do we develop it? we test it with our community and get feedback from our community. they are our sales force. we don't have a traditional sales force. with he rely upon the community fob evangelists. we operate in 28 different languages. in every country in the world. we can't be everywhere to everyone so we rely on our community in that regard. >> one of the things that i think is -- has been a great lesson in my time here at evernote is the degree to which it is an emotional connection to the product and content and what people capture. with en we think about the value we deliver and how we ask people to pay us, with he made changes last year to that, and i was nervous about that because it's pretty important, that relationship when you ask people

to pay for something, it's emotional. with when we did that we were nervous but ultimately it was a leap of faith. when we did that we were very pleasantly surprised that not only did people respond a little bit positively, they responded incredibly positively. they said, oh, i get it. you do something in my life that is greatly valuable to me and you're asking me to compensate you in part for that. time for today's elevator pitch and we have leigh goodwin. >> tell me the name of why you are company. >> it is called we do and we do dorm décor and bedding. >> i have two nephews going off to edge cl. this is who you're after, right? >> this is. >> the freshmen going there and need beautiful bedding for their extra long beds. >> absolutely. >> do you have any investors yet. >> we have no investors other than friends and family. >> how comfortable are you with

pitching? >> i'm pretty comfortable. i'm ready to go. >> we will be talking to two people today, both entrepreneurs, very successful so they know what it's like to be you, the first one is jess can johnson cope, the can't of johnson security bureau and the second is jason albanese the ceo of centric digital. >> let's hear how you do. >> thank you. hi, i'm leigh goodwin, the founder of a bedding and dorm décor company. after my daughter went off to school she had difficulty sourcing quality bedding in the extra long twin size. everybody wanted them. we designed a pillow shaped like a head board and that became the pillow head board our best selling product. today we target girls going off to college and boarding school and we reach them primarily using social media. the goal was luxury bedding at a great price and we do dorm décor differently than anyone else in the space. with he design our own textiles,

manufacture our collection all made in america. today i'm seeking strategic direction to open up new sales channels and drive revenue and i'm actually open to offering equity in exchange for funding to help accelerate the business. >> all right. nice job. thank you. >> good job. all right. i'm going to give you -- i will trade you the pillow for your scoreboard. so i need two numbers, one to ten, the first one how do you feel about the product, the second how do you feel about the pitch. it's so funny when you talk about the extra long twin bed, i remember going to bed, bath and beyond when i went to college with that list. i clearly do not need an extra long bed but it was so hard to find the sheets shoo that was part of the problem. really the impetus for starting the us company. we like to say it's not your mama's '80s dorm room. >> i was trying to think '80s dorm. what year was i there. jessica, let's start with you. turn it around. all right. >> i give you a nine and a nine. i think it's an innovative idea and i think it's very timely

when you think about young people and how they want to express themselves, it's nice to have something that's american made that they can get by in and make their dorm space their own. i also give you a nine for your pitch. i think that you were poised, you were were confident. you were convincing, and i think you're going to do extremely well as you reach out to potential investors and as you reach out for a thought leadership. >> thank you, jessica. >> jason, ton it around. >> i gave you an eight and a seven. i think that the product from the example i'm looking at here really feels like super high quality. it is very impressive that -- the coloring, the texture, which is something you can't tell if you're watching on television. >> it is really soft. >> the softness of it. you could see it is just super high quality product. i think that's very important in this competitive consumer product marketplace we live in today. >> what was she missing in the pitch? >> in the pitch i think overall you did a great job. i would say talking a little bit

more about how you would utilize your proceeds if you were raising capital is important to express. that way you can attract investors with a specific focus on wanting to put their money to work in a way they think is going to drive immediate results. >> sure. >> thank you. >> thanks, both of you. good luck to you and your company. we're twins coincidentally today. >> thank you for having me. >> good luck with everything. >> thank you. >> exciting news. we get to announce the finalist for our special hsn elevator pitch has been select. those chosen will have a chance to come on our program and sell their pitch live on msn. check out msnbc your business to see a slide show of the finalists and their products. >> there is no turning back. we are fully in the digital age, but these five old school marketing techniques still can get you big returns.

one, compelling signs. physical signs are still one of the best ways for businesses to tell the people where they are and what they offer. just make sure they look good. two, face-to-face conversations. e-mails and social media posts are easy to do, but in-person communication allows sales people to build trust with buyers and better explain complex offers. three, special promotions. sales and loyalty perhaps can help attract new customers and encourage old customers to keep coming back. >> four, mailing list campaigns. e-mails and direct mailers are still two of the most effective marketing practices. make sure you match the message with the target. five, continue to be involved. volunteer work is a great way for business leaders and their teams to get to know the communities they want to serve. just be sure to choose a cause that's meaningful to you and your staff. when we come back, we have

ways that can up your company's digital game, and what entrepreneurs oven have to ak situate fe -- sacrifice in the pursuit of success. sponsored by american express open. helping you turn your ideas into reality with money and know-how so you can get business done. t . oh. nuh uh. yeah. ahhhhh. mm-mm. oh. yeah. ah. agh. d-d-d... no. hmmm. uh... huh. yeah. uh... huh. in business, 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. we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open.

for the last ten years i have devoted so much of my time, energy, so much of my family's time on building and growing my business, and i've had to sacrifice a lot. so what are the things that you've had to sacrifice that you regret? >> so the last ten years -- i have an 11-year-old son, so in addition to running my business the last ten years i have been raising a child. i have sacrificed things for both of 'em this. a business is kind of like a child. i think personal hobbies has been a big sacrifice to me. i love doing things with my child and his hobbies and i love taking care of my business and nurturing it, and it is easy to lose yourself during that time. if neither were around, what would you be doing? so that's something in recent years i have been trying to do more of. i hadn't gone scuba diving in ten years. i started doing that recently. cross word puzzling. i think those are important to keeping me mentally sharp and inspired by life that has to do with me. i think it makes me a better

mom, a better leader at work and a happier person. we now have the top two tips you need to know to help you grow your business. jason albany and jessica johnson coe are back with us. jessica, let's start with you. >> my tip is simple. show up. show up if you means that you're in front of your clients, in front of prospective clients or employees or vendors. people need to know how much you care. they can't do that if you are sitting behind a computer or if you have your face tucked away behind your favorite device. when you get in the field you get insights on how to improve your business. you can get feedback from your customers and prospective customers and see what your vendors are doing to make sure that they're delivering on the promises that you need them to deliver. so show up and show out. that's how you grow your business. >> i laughed when you said that because it seems so obvious, of course, to show up. but it is so easy to jot off e-mails to someone or at which

timing or something, that a lot of times we don't show up and just assume work is getting done. but it is about the relationship. >> you don't have to stay long. just hitt it and quit it, right. you show up, you get what you have to get, you say what you need to say, and then you move on. you go away long enough that they remember that you were there but that they know that you care. >> great. jason? >> i work in the digital space, and we see companies more than ever trying to transform themselves and become more dig cdig digital and keep their business growing and prevention of erosion. my tip is centered around executives in larger companies that are natively digital needing to measure and contextualize their performance in digital, not just compare themselves to other companies in their industry but compare themselves to best practices in general and look at companies out of their industry for tips and ideas how to perform better in the digital space. >> the thing is every company needs to think of themselves as

a digital company, because ultimately the back of what you do is all digital. >> that's right. >> with data, right, the companies with the most data and figuring out how to use it and know the tools used to measure the data are going to win in the end. >> that's right. and the real secret to success that gives you an edge today is not having the data but looking at the data in a contextual way so you can make strategic decisions. it is easier said than done, but it is critical. as our points of comparison, again, that are broad, not just specific, you don't want to be just the best in digital in health care. you want to be the best in digital in a broad sense and look outside for ideas and what the broad competition is doing. >> also the beauty of that is you can go to people not competitive to you, right, and have very honest conversations about what are you doing, what tools are you using, how do you get insighted and learn from them. >> that's right. >> thank you both. >> thank you so much for having

you. >> thanks, jj. >> this week's selfie comes from brent pullman, the president of midwest laboratories in omaha, nebraska. you can see him with his dad ken pohlman, the founder and ceo and some of their 150 employees as they kicked off a marketing campaign called driving smart decisions. they provide analysis of data for the agricultural and food industry. take a selfie of you and your business and send it to us at yourbestness@msnbc.com. be sure to include your name, the name of your business and use the hsh your b#yourbusiness. send an e-mail to

yourbusiness@m yourbusiness@msnbc.com. we put everything up there from the show and so much for you. don't forget to connect with us on all digital and social media platforms, too. oh, there's one other thing. remember to check out our podcast, been there, built that, where i go in-depth with founders, entrepreneurs, ceos and decisionmakers about how they get through the day running their businesses or team. we look forward to seeing you next time. i'm jj ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. ♪ sponsored by american express open. helping you turn your ideas into reality with money and know-how so you can get business done. a 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! we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. welcome to "politics nation." is president trump nearing a decision to shut down the mueller probe? one thing is for sure, this administration seems determined to tarnish the reputation of anyone involved in the investigation of donald trump. and while we are all busy with the stormy saga and the white house chaos, the president continues to rack up small victories that go unnoticed. look at the tax bill he