how to get a loan now that the small business jobs bill has passed. and crafting jobs to capitalize on the strengths of employees. we'll meet one man who did that and discover an inspiring way to employ those with special needs. that and more coming up next on "your business." >> it's not just any business, it's "your business." that's why american express open is proud to present "your

business" on msnbc. hi there, everyone. welcome to "your business "where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. with the dual mission as haven for people with autism and a hub of community life, words bookstore managed to craft jobs for their everyday staffers, as well as kids with autism working in the vocational training program. they're making it work, chapter and verse. in the quiet new york city suburb of maplewood, new jersey,

another independent bookstore almost disappeared. that was until jonah and ellen came to the rescue. even though they knew nothing about the book business. >> we bought the staff or the goodwill of the store and the staff all came with us. >> when jonah came he didn't have a bookstore background. >> with the change in ownership came a change in management style. the former bookstore owner was hands on doing most of the work of the store herself. >> it wasn't that much more anybody else to do. and we all kind of just came in and worked our shift, and that was that. >> with jonah, it's definitely more -- there's more of a hierarchy. >> a recent graduate of business school, jonah was very interested in the idea of job crafting to better utilize the talents of his staff. >> it's changing the jobs to fit the people rather than the people to fit the jobs. now, that can't always work

100%. sometimes we have to buckle down and do something we're not good at or we don't like. but as much as possible i think it's in everyone's interest if people are doing what they're good at what s and what they like to do. >> he worked with each of them to determine their likes and dislikes and did best to play to their strengths. >> he spent a lot of time working with several of us who had been there for a period of time to figure out what our needs were. &who was going to handle what responsibilities. and who was comfortable doing what. and we sort of divied up the jobs that way. >> trish does the ordering. that's really her specialty. i do the scheduling, the tax stuff, things like that. and i do have a lot more responsibilities now than i did before. >> with the day-to-day operations being run by the staff they had time to do

something else near and dear to their heart. with the son diagnosed with autism, they wanted to expand the mission to the store to be a welcoming environment for those with special needs. >> there's an understanding here. it's just very comforting for me. i feel at home when i come here. i don't feel awkward if he should freak out or have an episode and just start screaming or whatever he may do, i don't think anybody here is going to care. >> they also created a vocational training program where kids with special needs could develop skills they could use in everyday life. >> the hardest thing in applying for a job is not having any experience. particularly problems for those with special needs. so my thought was that we could provide the first job or experience on a resume so people could leave us with real life job experience and a recommendation for another job.

>> i learned about teamwork and cooperation. i learned about organization. i learned a lot of good skills here. >> he's not going to be protected for the rest of his life. he can't be. he's not going to be able to function that way, nor would i want him to. so having this as a steppingstone or initiation into the real world is wonderful and invaluable to him and to me as a parent. >> thanks so much for coming. >> thank you. >> really appreciate it. >> the job crafting approach has revitalized the bookstore and made all the staffers more engaged and fulfilled in their jobs. >> i'm a lot more invested now. so when i go home i think, oh, gee, well, i forget to do this. and first thing in the morning i come back and do that. >> it's worked terrifically well to be empowered to make decisions and to help run the place. because they've been here since the very beginning, have an

ownership interest in the store. they take pride. this is their place. they started it. >> it's also giving people with autism a chance at a better life. >> the hiring of someone with special needs is a good business idea. sometimes they will do jobs that it's hard to get a college student to stick with. they show up. all weather. any time of day they're there and there on time. there's a role that you think works for them it actually is a win-win for everybody. >> see you, jonah. >> as we just saw, crafting a job to the strength of an employee can work wonders for morale. let's turn to this week's board of directors to talk about this. jen joins us again. serial entrepreneur and author of the book "what if and why not" and maureen is a staff writer at forbes. great to see all of you. >> thank you. >> i want to talk to you about this. google does this job crafting

idea. >> yep. >> how does it work? you hire someone for a particular job but you give them time to do something else? >> yeah. job crafting is kind of a new word. we have something called 20% time a long time ago. >> i remember that. >> when the company was just founded. that's basically our commitment to give engineers 20% of their time to work on a project that they really care about. it could be a product like g-mail or finding a better way for people to park their cars so they don't spend ten minutes parking when they come to work. >> how about work to go change their job? >> yeah. one is with the 20% time. g-mail is a perfect example of a product that started as someone's 20% time and it now consumes the energy of dozens of engineers to maintain and we have millions of people using it, right? and other instances i think my job could be a perfect example. i had this idea of people in an innovation lab with a couple of my co-workers. we put some time about it.

now it's 50% to 60% of my time because i have been able to show it's good for google. >> google is giving people a chance to innovate. they were just doing something different. that takes a lot of time from working with your employees. >> i have been doing this all along with my own companies. i didn't realize there was actually a title to it. as an small company you need a lot of different hands-on experiences. and it's really hard and stifling to the growth of a smaller company to isolate people and say this is your job and that's your job. but to allow people to cross over and integrate what their responsibilities are. what i found is the most challenging part of this is to separate how those things that people don't want to get done are going to get done. that's just about saying here's a template of responsibility. these things need to get done. are we going to integrate and share the responsibility or who is going to do it? those things no one wants to do are the things that gets left to

the side and that is the problem. >> obviously it makes sense to work with your employees, find out what they're good at, play to their strengths. on the other hand, if people get too involved are you going to get a bunch of employees saying i don't want to do this, i only want to do this. >> i think you need to be the leader. it needs to be very clear you have the final say if you're the owner or you're the boss. so many smaller businesses don't think they have enough time to craft their job and i think it gives you so much more time as a business owner at the end of the day because people are doing so much more, like the people -- >> and they're invested. >> exactly. >> as we were talking about there. how has google codified this basically? not the 20% time but the working with you to figure out what you're best at? >> so we kind of fight it in a couple of ways. we have a very flexible workplace. and we define our jobs pretty loosely. we don't have many layers of hierarchy so people have a way

to express themselves. we encourage people to have very good relationships with their managers who are expected to help employees craft a job that maximizes their strengths and interests. >> a lot of managers to your point have been doing this for a while. there's a chapter in the book that could be written on this. >> the success of any company depends on its employees, but how can business owners who may not be able to offer the benefits packages hold on to their best people? take a look how one construction company's unique management style is boosting employee morale and developing loyalty in a hard-nosed industry. >> the construction industry is a notoriously tough business for hangering on to employees. >> i've heard them say they come

in five minutes late one day they're sent home right there. >> you had a superintendent who drove around and literally got out, yelled, fired a guy, got back in his truck and that was it. so they ruled with fear. >> with an average yearly turnover rate of more than 20%, loyalty between employers and workers is off nonexistent. and that means companies end up spending valuable time and money training new hires. >> when you train a guy to do the job you want him to stick arou around. >> mark and ben launched a development company or rpd, a taco tacoma, washington based construction company six years ago. they believed they had a solution to the problem. >> we found if we have people that are excited about what they do and get along with their co-workers and have a trust

level with their co-workers they end up doing good work and, in fact earn money. >> this is one of rpd's crews. a small group that works together on projects. today they're on a team-building retreat to develop communication skills and trust. >> that's something that is priceless. because when you get a team functioning and communicating, the sky's the limit. they can do anything, above their potential. >> they work with the lighthouse institute, a leadership development company that provides specialized training. >> you'll see better communication, increased trust. people will enjoy their job more when we enjoy our job more we do tend to give more in the process. >> you guys are relying not enough on each other. >> the company has been able to cultivate leaders from within. >> outside the team building, they actually had the management go to a leadership class. >> rpd's first employees six

years ago quickly moved up the ranks and is now a foreman, charged with overseeing a crew and all their projects. >> we taught him management skills. all of a sudden we have a dynamite manager who knows exactly who we are and what we're about. >> you get a lot more opportunity for advancement than you get, say, at a bigger company. they're willing to train you and willing to work with you. >> there you go. you guys got it. >> these training sessions, combined with hunting trips and retreats, have been added expenses. but they say it's worth it in the long run. >> i want to help you realize that in team dynamics, celebration will build energy and it will decrease frustration. >> it definitely pays back monetarily. when they're happy and when they're having good communication and being able to get along together as a crew and function at an extremely high productivity, it's -- they pay it back in the way that they do their job. >> your whole team needs to

reside on the platform on the other side. >> their philosophy of investing in people is working. in this transient industry, rpds turnover rate remains below 5%. and as the company continues to grow, employee say they're happy to be on board. >> let's be honest, working on sewer is not glamorous. if you can have fun while you're doing it, i think you're a step ahead. >> twitter can be a great way to cost-effectively market your business. but if you're always on the run, it can be tricky to manage your tweets. here are five handy twitter tools for people on the go courtesy of aolsmallbusiness.com. a straightforward interface can help you easily track multiple accounts. it is similar to the desktop versions of the application. it can track twitter, facebook and a variety of other social media accounts. if you're tied to your

blackberry, check out ubertwitter. it shows when fell le fellow twitterers in the area. in addition to tweeting hootsuite has four square updates. and the iphone used to be called tweetie provides standard functionality and simple function. how the passage of the small business jobs bill can help you with your loan. sba administrator tells us how. and a product to let you exercise and take off the pounds while on the go. [trumpet playing "reveille" throughout]

reviving the economy means reinventing the way we do business. here's to the owners showing us the way. [trumpet playing "reveille" fades to silence]

days after president obama signed the $30 billion small business jobs act, 1 now, 400 sba-backed loans that were held up got approved. that raised future sba lending limits. it's so great to see you, administrator. >> nice to see. >> you thank you for joining us. so tell us how this is going to free up money for small businesses. >> $12 billion in tax credits. as you've said, small businesses have still having trouble getting access to capital. and we've been able to get $14 billion we can put out into the hands of small businesses. we have already started that with about 2,000 businesses that were in the cue. they got about a billion dollars

worth of funding just in the last week. so we're really acting on this and getting it out into small businesses's hands. >> i talked to a lot of bankers, and we've had this conversation too. certainly some banks out there wanted higher guarantees that needed more money to lend. other bankers are saying, you know what, we're getting applicants. we have money. but we just can't get these through because of regulatory issues or because we're not seeing good enough applicants. how does this affect them, or does it? >> this does help them. we have small businesses around the country that are growing, that do have the ability. maybe with a little help from your guarantees to get those bank loans and to pay them back over time. they need this capital right now because they want to take the next order. we had a small business call us from southern california. they said finally i can go to this stack of resumes on my desk and i can go through them because i have to hire two more people who are going to be web

designers. and they're going to have new jobs because the banks now have the funding to do the 90% guarantee. we had 2,000 of them in the cue and i'm really pleased we were able to clear this cue of people who waited all summer for this bill to pass and now they have their money. >> i talked to a lot of small business owners who say perhaps, you know, getting money is an issue. really the issue for me is getting customers right now. and so i don't really need a bank. i'm quite scared to get a loan from the bank because i don't know if i could pay it back. so what in this is going to help those people? >> lots of small businesses need new markets. they want to export but they don't know how. this gives us money and tools and advisers to help those small businesses get more orders from the export market. we also have a whole set of things around government contracting. we have $100 billion that we at the sba work with agencies in the federal government to make

sure it gets into the hands of small businesses. >> administrator mills, thank you so much. we hope to see you soon. >> thanks so much. nice to be here. ♪ >> need to get some exercise but don't have the time? today's elevator pitch has a way to do it that's a walk in the park. >> hi. i'm paulette, co-founder of gym in a shoe. gym in a shoe is two patented resistance bands that clip on and off the eyelet of any athletic shoes. walkers can exercise our chest and back while walking. you just clip off the band, roll them up, put them in your purse or your car. they're a great rehabilitation tool with women recovering from breast cancer center, people who have diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis. we patent registered trademark

at gym in a shoe.com. we're asking for $1 million in investment. for that we're offering 20% of our company. >> all right. thank you, maureen. what are you going to do with the money. >> advertising promotion. >> all right. so marketing. >> marketing. >> let's see what the panel thinks. how did she do in the pitch? >> i see a need in demand for this. i also see an opportunity that maybe you haven't looked at yet. you can also go to the different types of organizations like you just said. diabetes is a huge foundation. you go to and get them to buy into these products and partner with them. so maybe you will need less capital if you just do some of the bigger bulk types of introductions into the industry. you can go to the infomercial route which i think is really important. >> before you start giving advice you should meet after this. do you think she gave enough in the pitch to take another meeting. >> absolutely. >> what about you, maureen? >> first of all, you really grabbed my attention.

that's the key elevator pitch. walking in with that i see what you're offering and it's amazing. but that said, i think you want to be a little bit more specific about your target market. it could appeal to a lot of people but i want to hear a little bit more about who you're really going after. i think it helps to segment the market, how you're going to get there and how you are going to use the proceeds to get there. >> did she say enough? >> i would definitely be interested. >> fantastic. good job. good luck with your product. and thank you guys today. and if any of you have a product or service and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel, just send us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness at msnbc.com. shouch money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money and what your product is. you never know. somebody may be interesting in helping you. it's time to answer some of your business questions.

jen and maureen are back with us again. when to approach a venture capital firm. >> we're a very small company. we have significant revenues. but what is the right time for us to approach a venture capital firm, for example, if we wanted to take our company from an $80 million company to $800 million company. >> i think when you first see growth slowing down you need to be reinvesting more capital than cash flow. they're going to be able to stand back and watch. you're going to give too much away. you don't want to do it too late because you will go under. that is really smart. it will help in negotiation once you go to the place. >> one question to ask yourself, too, do you want venture capital money. because you're not just getting money. you're getting somebody on your board who is going to be on your business. >> exactly. it's not your company once you

get the investment on board. people say you could have, you know, 100% of a million dollar company. >> right. >> or much smaller percent of a huge company. >> this is from terry. he writes, i'm in the service industry and my staff is feeling dejected because we have heard so many noes from potential clients the past year. how can i get them excited even though business will probably not pick up any time soon? this is hard. this is when the cheerleader companies out. >> i think this is the wrong question to start out with. assuming that sales are going to continue to fall is not a good attitude. the business owner really needs to sit down and think about how these noes can turn into business down the road. he or she needs to ask the staff what are the follow-up questions you're going to ask when you hear that no and is our pricing wrong, is it new products. >> then it becomes we're a team and let's work together to build our business. >> creating a collusion. it's what's going wrong and how

do we -- they're reconfigurationing another product or service and how it's being distributed. teamwork is really important. you have to really respect the head game here. the yes, noes are going to shatter people's confidence. also giving them tools. maybe sending them to a motivational type conference. giving them books. make them feel better so they don't feel shattered. >> this is a question from john. he writes, how do i make a campaign about my company viral? i tried e-mail that i thought was funny and bought a list of names and sent it to my contacts but it justify never got off the ground. he thought it was funny. clearly wasn't that funny. there is no science to this, is there? do you know something. >> first, you want to think about why you want to go viral. you could start a viral campaign but it will translate into more sales. >> i think about that sometimes.

over the holidays i get dancing santas. people send them because they're funny and there's a little ad at the end that i don't miss. the e-mail is viral but it's not doing anything for the company. >> are you a local business that you need to create buzz locally as opposed to globally online. you really need to think about why you're doing it. >> right. it can really help people. giveaways are such a way to create something viral. or if you pass this on and five people sign up you get something for free. >> it's so true. if there's self interest involved it is so much better. >> absolutely. make it an incentive for who you are asking to help make it viral and allow them to get some sort of reward and exchange because they will continue to work with you. you're building brand equity if there's not a conversion right away. >> right. so people you don't have to rely

on your funniness, which may not be that funny. thank you so much for all that advice. you guys were great in giving advice. if any of you have a question for our experts, go to the website open forum.com/your business. hit the ask the show link to submit a question for our panel. you can e-mail us your questions or comments. yourbusiness at msnbc.com. have you ever fired off an e-mail in the heat of the moment and then thought, you know, i really wish i hadn't said that? well, our website of the week can help you avoid these situations. tone check is a free downloadable e-mail screening program that can verify the tone of your outgoing messages. it works like spell-check making suggestions to your e-mails and offering ways to reword potentially problematic sentences. it offers paid services for tasks such as monitoring social media.

to learn more about today's show, click on your website. openform up.com/yourbusiness. web exclusive content. and don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we look forward to getting some of your feedback. and follow us on twitter at mz your biz. next week, follow me to new york city's new fulton fish market for useful lessons on how to drive a hard bargain from one of the city's toughest salesman. >> lime looking for $4. >> $4. >> what if we split the difference there between $4 and $4.40? >> you've got a deal. >> good doing business with you. >> watch as we go fishing for the best price on the market. remember, we make your business our business.

[trumpet playing "reveille" throughout] reviving the economy means reinventing the way we do business.