it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. good morning. coming up on msnbc's, "your business." everybody lies, some are big, some are small. how do you negotiate with someone if you are not sure they are telling the truth? celebrities love her jewelry, then tragedy struck. how she kept the company running dealing with her son's illness? >> why robotics isn't just for big businesses anymore. when it comes to making it with your business, that's coming up next on "your business."

msnbc "your business" is sponsored by american express. don't do business without it. "your business" is sponsored by american express, don't do business without it. hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your growing business. i get this feeling where i do everything between life and work and it's going well, but so busy, there's zero room for error. things that are out of our control happen all the time. it's how we deal with them that matters. we went to los angeles to meet a woman that faced a tragedy that forced her to rethink her company. she was at the helm of a jewelry line when her son suffered a

rare medical condition. she had to be there for her son and keep her business afloat. she was at the top of her game in 2016. the jewelry business she started 15 years earlier was doing great. her designed were adorned by everyone from gwyneth paltrow to lay day gaga. they were getting ready to launch a direct to consumer website. then, the unthinkable happened. >> my son was diagnosed with a disease. we could not get it under control. we were in and out of the hospital. >> her world was turned upside down and things went from bad to worse. >> i remember the doctor saying he might have to have his col lon removed. all hell broke loose. having a child who is sick is gut wrenching, it is awful. >> the terrifying medical journey had only just begun. >> he had three surgeries.

the first surgery, his colon removed. the second is big, because they reconstruct everything. it was awful. >> how could she keep up with the company she worked so hard to build while her entire being was focused on her son? >> the first few weeks are a blur. i had to do the best i could given the limited time, resources and mental capacity that i had. after the first surgery, we had so many horrible surprises. it was triage, at that point frrks a business perspective. i would answer things that had to get done. obviously, my focus was on my son and getting him well. >> she didn't want to give up the company. she couldn't. she needed to find a way to do things differently to keep the business running. suddenly, time was precious. >> i will never forget that my factory called me and they were late with something.

i remember just having no tolerance for this. that turned out to be, really, a positive blessing, almost. there's no room for mistakes that shouldn't be mistakes. chain gets shipped late. there's no excuse. we need to build in certain systems. why is it getting shipped late? we always order the same chain. produce more of it, hold stock of it. >> like many founders, she was always in the weeds with every aspect of her business. but, no longer. now, she had no choice but to trust her employees to make things happen without her. >> this terrible situation that allowed me to let go and be able to say, you know what? i have something more important that i have to dedicate my time to. we have a product. it has to get out the door. it has to get shipped. sometimes decisions have to get made without me there. they did. i wanted to be very involved in

all the website development. i realized we have to get something up. me not being able to make every decision and approve every single piece, those we can change. it's okay. so, let's get it up there. when i'm more mentally clear, we can take a bigger look at it and make changes. something sometimes is better than nothing. >> what made this possible was an openness with her team about what she could and couldn't handle and a group of people around her who were willing to step up. >> i would have to call someone and say i cannot send this e-mail. i need you to communicate exactly what i'm thinking and hope they did a great job because i had to move on and deal with something else. throughout this process, you realize you need to lean on people. >> work became a bit of a lifesaver for her. a much needed distraction during the hardest times with her son. >> there's a lot of dead time in

the hospital. it's emotionally gruelling. you know, you need things to distract you. i actually remember when simon was in one of the surgeries, reviewing things happening on my website, showing them to my husband and providing feedback on them because you really, you could go crazy sitting there. >> ultimately, simon made a full recovery and is thriving now and although the life-changing experience is something she would ever want to relive, she sees the profoundly positive impact it had on her business and her leadership skills. >> i think you don't emerge from hell empty handed. you definitely receive gifts from that entire process. i know, personally, the gifts that benefit me the most benefited my business. >> we all lie, all the time. that's mostly harmless like telling someone you like their

jacket when you don't. other times, the lies result in something big and harm to feel your company. many of us faced someone across the negotiating table who we are not sure is telling the truth. if that's the case, what do we do? how do you strike a deal effectively if you don't trust the person on the other side? i sat down with leslie john, who gave me ideas. is it easy to spot a liar? >> no, it is not ease stoi spot a liar. >> there are all these tales, if they blink a lot, look down. >> there are other reasons why people may look down or away. maybe they are shy. maybe they lack confidence. we want to believe we can detect lies, but we can't. >> going into a negotiation and trusting your gut or your own ability to say, oh, i'm going to know if they are lying or not, that is not a strategy? >> no. >> it's not going to work? >> no. >> for fun, we taped a bunch of people lying and not lying. i want to see if we could guess.

first one -- >> i wenlt to an all girl's school from kindergarten to 12th grade. >> telling the truth. >> i think so, also. i went to an all girl's school and she looks like someone that would be at my school. and she is -- >> she's lying. >> i mean, i had no idea. that was so good. next one. >> my aunt is a naturally born hawaiian citizen and voted miss hawaii in 1950. >> wow. i think he's telling the truth because it's very creative. i think it's hard to make stuff like that up. maybe i'm wrong. >> i'm not listening to anything you say. i think he's lying because his eyebrow went up. you are sitting here telling me not to pay attention to that. >> it's so compelling this idea

we can spot a liar. he is -- >> oh! you were right. that just proves a point. >> i'm not taking credit for it. >> that proves your point. we want to detect lies. if that was a negotiation, i have ruined it because i don't trust him. >> yeah, yeah. >> i know all of these people and you don't know any of them. they all work in my office and yet, i'm not doing any better than you are. >> yeah. >> the fact is, people are going to lie. some people you are going to negotiate with them and they are going to lie. if i cannot rely on seeing how their facial expression changes or a weird tick, what do i do? >> because we are not good at detecting, we want to try to head it off and prevent our counter parts from lying to us. how do we do that? well, there's lots of strategies we can deploy.

one is -- there's a lot you can do with respect to your questioning strategy. so, you want to make it hard for them to lie to you. imagine that you are talking to a supplier and you are worried that supplier is running late. they are not going to deliver on time. so, you want to know if they are, if their work is on time. >> if i say are you on time, of course they are going to say yes. >> yeah. you could ask it, this is subtle, right? you could say, you are running late, right? that's harder to lie to. >> right. if i say to them, you are running late, right, they have to say no, i'm not running late. >> exactly. >> which feels, it feels like it has a much greater weight. >> exactly. it feels more like a lie. it's so subtle, right?

>> let's talk about dodging. >> dodging is when people answer, essentially not the question you ask, but the question they wish you had asked them. politicians are famous for this. >> i was thinking politicians. >> on the receiving end of a dodge, if i ask you a question and you didn't answer and said whatever you wanted to say, i'm actually not that good at detect thag you didn't answer my question. >> if i say to you, what's your rate of customer acquisition and you say the first time our customers come to our site, they love what we do. the first purchase they always make is the soap and we have such good feedback on the soap and we are talking about the so soap. you have not answered my question, but i want to work with you. >> right. the natural question is what do we do? how do we protect ourselves against dodging.

write down the questions and check off whether that person actually answered the question. another thing that can be helpful is to take advantage of information leakage. how we sometimes just will make fleeting comments and may actually reveal stuff about what we know. >> how do we get people to then, go beyond not lying, but actually tell you the truth they are hiding from you? >> yes. in a negotiation, you can present a counter part with two different offers that you are indifferent between. offer a, offer b, you are equally happy if that's the one you agree upon. ask which would you prefer and what your preference is actually tells me about what you care about more versus less. >> if i said to someone, for instance, you can get this job done on time and i'll pay you 150% or you can take three months more and i'll pay you

100%. they pick the latter, then i know they value time more than money. >> exactly. >> which is something they may not want to tell me in a negotiation because that's sort of the secret they have in their back pocket. >> exactly. exactly. getting the word out about your product and service is hard, it's really hard as we know. for this elevator pitch series, we wanted to do something different. we wanted our pitchers to show product and service to influencers. we are in the office of she knows media, a women's lifestyle brand that reaches 75 million people a month. they have a conference this summer called blog her. if they get the heart emoji from the panelist, they get to go to blog her and present their product or service in front of 3,000 people who can write about them and that could totally change the trajectory of their business.

let's see how our pitcher does. brittany, hi. >> hi. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> the company, happily ever -- >> happily ever borrowed. >> i keep going happily ever after. it's bridal accessories for rent. >> right, we rent everything except the dress. >> such a smart idea. >> thank you. >> a lot of people hear about stuff for weddings through friends. >> most of our brides find out about us through word of mouth with friends. my favorite and least favorite thing, oh, i wish i knew about you before my wedding. the ability to reach them before the wedding and let them know they have the option to rent is important. >> do you feel nervous? >> a little bit, but i feel good. >> you are going talk to samantha, president of she knows. she basically runs blog her. all the influencers that are there are there because of her. the second one is katie, an influencer herself.

she reaches about 500,000 people. she is the one who makes products like yours. >> amazing. >> let's see how you do. >> okay. >> hi, my name is brittany. i'm the founder of happily ever borrowed. >> hi. >> hi. we are the e-boutique that rents bridal accessories for the wedding day, veils, tiaras and accessories. everything but the dress. it is to save money and present waste in the wedding industry. we have top products at a low, low price. we rent at 80% to 90% off the price. weaf trial box to try pieces in advance of their wedding day. since launching in 2011, we have served 20,000 brides across america. having the opportunity to pitch at the she knows blogger conference would be amazing for us. we would love to be in front of amazing female influencers to

help brides find their something borrowed. >> love it, love it. >> thank you. >> nice job. do you have questions of brittany? you did a good job? >> thank you. >> how many competitors in the market? >> there are few. we know rent the runway, but they are focused on dressing the every day woman and wedding guests. there's nothing that is bridal specific. we are really the only company that does this for actual brides with actual bridal product. >> i have a question. how do you distribute the product? i decide online or somewhere? >> yes. >> i want that. does it arrive? >> yes, we have four eight-day rentals. people rent it for a thursday, it arrives on a saturday. sorry, arrives thursday for the wedding an saturday. if they want it longer, they do the eight-day rental. we have a trial box. when you are having your hair trial or dress fitting, you can rent a couple pieces. >> i'm going to let you two

confer for a second to decide. >> okay. >> if brittany will be coming to blog her or not. i love this idea so much. i'm probably never going to wear this again. >> it would cost around $700 and we rent it for about $50. >> what if we are not totally in agreement? we have to be in total agreement? okay. >> the moment of truth. will brittany be going to blog her or not? >> no. >> i think what you are doing is smart and i love the idea of less waste in the bridal industry. i think the entry is too low for duplicates and there's something more innovative that needs to be introduced. >> do you think people -- is there anything she could do differently in talking about it? >> i need to know why you are different. there may not be one company available to do this, i think i need something really specific,

really special that you do. i know the rentals, i understand the try box, but i want something, something differentiating. >> the way we get people to write about this, which is going to come back with an it ration that we are all about is the person who uses it. the people who use it, that's the story you want out there. that's how we write about things. it's a sustainability focused celebrity who decides the waste and the runway trades that already happen is the right way to go. >> yes. >> it's somebody very high end who can afford to buy it who use chooses not to. that's when it takes off. >> can i chime in, also? i'm thinking, i don't usually chime in. you are pitching to people to write to you. talking about what blog her means to you is irrelevant to them. to use that time to say this is why you should love this thing, to make you want to write about

me. did any of you get married? how much money did you spend? what a waste. >> right. >> i want you to talk about stephanie in north carolina who saved $2200 by borrowing accessories. >> exactly. >> repitch. >> then we want dwrou succeed. >> thank you guys. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. i'm at the collision conference in new orleans where 25,000 people have descended upon this conference center to talk about what's new in tech. what's innovative, what's coming next. i'm here with george to talk about robots. he is the chief product officer and co-founder of kindred. great to see you. you are doing really neat stuff with robots and retail. warehouse retail. talk about what your company does. >> we are creating artificial intelligence that helps robots learn. robots do repetitive stuff in

factories, but once you get out of the factory and go to the warehouse where things are changing all the time. robots aren't smart. we are helping them be smarter to do the work and help warehouse associates in what wo let's say i'm at the warehouse at the gap. what does your robot do? >> so hundreds of orders will come in a day. people will pick up items from the warehouse shelves. and it comes to like a soration area, where you have now have to sort out individual orders from this big batch of stuff that shows up. so people will sit there all day, trying to -- picking one thing out. and our robots will do that part of the task. so then the workers then go do the packing or do the auditing or doing the testing and that kind of stuff. >> so that is a big help for the warehouse stuff. >> exactly. >> and yet the great fear for so many people out there is robots are going to take my job. >> right. >> and so as someone who's in this field, is it something you are nervous about?

are new nervous that you are creating machines that are taking over human's jobs? >> we chose a market that was growing really fast a huge labor shortage and applying robots in that area. now, the more time we spend developing it, the more we realize just how complex and intelligent and vaadvanced huma are. so we let the robots do the very repetitive, mundane, boring things people don't like to do, and let people do the things they like doing. create i have work, judgment. a lot of tasks in a warehouse that create judgment and creativity. when you're packaging products, everyone wants to create a wonderful experience for the customer. that takes creativity and agility and all things robots can't do. so we focus on things that are repetitive that people don't want to do. >> you equate it to a forklift. >> correct. >> explain that. >> when forklifts first came out, people were worried about the same thing. job loss and all of that. people started wanting to be the

forklift driver. they got paid more, it was an easier job. but they got to do things like decide what is safe or unsafe, which the robots can't do. and the robot does the heavy work or lifting 40, 50 pounds multiple times a day. it's the same thing. our robots are doing the heavy lifting and you have the humans doing the helping, the training, teaching, judging, that kind of stuff. >> and your robots interact with humans. they have their own human help center. >> that's right. >> how does that work? >> robots are not as smart as we think they are and they have a long way to go. so we have robots who try to do the tasks, but very often they fail. and when they fail, they call home -- they call the help center and say, hey, i need some help. so our remote robot pilots will take control of the robot, help it through the tough spot, and let it continue its work. and it can go back to doing what it was doing. that way all our customers, small, mid-sized, large customers, they can -- they have a robot that just dozen the jes.

the robot uses that information to keep getting smarter. >> and is this something that's very expensive that's going to separate the big businesses with lots of money from the small and medium-sized businesses that aren't going to have the same efficiencies in their warehouses? >> right. so to counter that, withe actua don't sell the robots. they're pretty expensive. we lease them as a service. so as the same cost as a human worker, you can lease one of our robots and use it as much as you need to. that way anyone has access to the technology. >> it was so nice to talk to you. you're doing some really neat stuff and congratulations on all the success so far. >> and still to come, how to come up with a budget and stick to it. plus, why you need to own your mistakes so that you can actually fix them. the line between work and life hasn't just blurred.

it's gone. that's why you need someone behind you. not just a card. an entire support system. whether visiting the airport lounge to catch up on what's really important. or even using those hard-earned points to squeeze in a little family time. no one has your back like american express. so no matter where you're going... we're right there with you. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. don't live life without it. in the first couple of years, we would take money anytime that we could and we only spent money when we had to. but now it seems like we need a budget, but we don't have one. how do we get a budget? when do we get a budget? and how do i put in some acco t accountability and responsibility around a budget? >> it's a great question. it seems so elementary and

obvious, but two things i have to say, it always takes longer and costs more as a small company or start-up business as anyone ever imagined. if you don't start with some kind of because to put a pin in the ground, you'll never know whether you're making your numbers or not. the other part of the answer is cfos or controllers are hires that ceos and entrepreneurs tend to think of as extra weight, overhead. but i'll tell you one ceo who made a ton of money said when he hired a cfo, it was the best hire he will ever made. so the cfo is not just for big companies. >> we now have the top two tips you need to know to help you grow your business. let's introduce our panel and get their advice. chris molnar is the founder of good life clothing. and marcus vistta is ceo and founder of babel. so tell me one tip you've learned along the way, because you've grown quite a successful company. >> i would say, own your failure and learn from it.

sounds kind of trivial, but it's one of the hardest things to do, because entrepreneurs are usually geared towards believing what they do is right. and to a certain extent, that's what you need to do. but then you get to that judgment call, where you need to get in, i'm riding a dead horse. and at babel, that kind of saved us. because we built a product first that really didn't work very well, the language learning. and we gave into the fact that we have toiterate. >> am i right in just guessing that it took you longer than it should have to own that failure and change? >> yeah. how do you know? >> that's what's always happens, right? you know it in your gut, but it takes long to pull the switch. all right, you've had an interesting experience, because you have worked with big brands in the fashion industry. and then you left and started your own company, which is doing

quite well. it's in department stores nationwide and also your own site. so how are you writing your company maybe differently? what's one piece of advice you have now that you've seen both sides? >> you know, working in the big world of fashion and i realized that you can end up being more productive in today's kind of modern, kind of corporate world if you have not necessarily less people, but concentrating on, you know, having a more transparent atmosphere in the workplace. where everyone is involved in different things. so you're in the working in individual silos, let's say. so of course, i'm running the company, so i'm involved in production, design, marking, et cetera. but i think the best thing to do is to have employees that have their hands in all the different things. part of the reason i was able to start my own company was because i had my hands in different departments in past lives. and i think bringing that towards a smaller company is very beneficial. >> all right. well, great to see both of you. thank you both and congratulations on both of your success. >> thank you, thank you.

earlier in the show, we met a woman who kept her jewelry business going while at home she was facing a very scary situation with her son. this week's "your business" selfie comes from another inspiring entrepreneur. christine sanders owns green tree grooming in naples, florida. she started the business in 2015. just a year later, she was dyingdying -- diagnosed with ovarian cancer. now she has several employees, over 300 clients, and she says life is good. we are so happy to hear that, christine. why don't you send a selfie of you and your business, include your name, and use the hashtag yourb yourbizselfie. thank you so much for joining us. if you want to get in touch, send an e-mail to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. we read all of them, i promise. you can click on our website, it's cnbc.com/your business. we put up everything from

today's show plus a whole lot more for you. and you can connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms, as well. and one last thing, remember to check out our podcast, been there, built that. you can download it for freeway at apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm j. jchj ramberg. and remember, we make your business, our business. it's pretty amazing out there. the world is full of more possibilities than ever before. and american express has your back every step of the way- whether it's the comfort of knowing help is just a call away with global assist. or getting financing to fund your business.

no one has your back like american express. so where ever you go. we're right there with you. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. don't live life without it. good morning. welcome to "politics nation." coming to you today from jacksonville, florida. right now, i hope you have all somewhat recovered from this turbulent, disgraceful week of russian roulette. it started with an abysmal performance of president trump in helsinki. a disgusting back-stabbing of america's military and intelligence