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Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20160430

for those who constantly find new ways to grow on every step of the journey, american express open proudly presented "your business" on msnbc. hi, everyone. i'm jj ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. never, never, never give up is a quote famously attributed to winston churchill. and it's an adage most entrepreneurs understand. especially when things just don't seem to be working in their business. it took five years before the company teachers pay temperature teachers got traction and there were so many times they could have given up but they didn't. now the business has 4 million active users and teachers who sell materials on the site have earned $200 million. $200 million. this for a company that took five years with no traction. not bad for a company that almost didn't make it. ♪ kindergarten teacher deanna jump is something of a rock star. >> all these teachers are coming up wanting their picture with me. i'm still not used to it and hope i never get used to it. >> that's because she's a self-made millionaire, the first of several teachers that have hit the jackpot on the educational website called teachers pay teachers. similar to etsy, this pier to pier marketplace makes it easy for teachers to sell classroom resources that they develop like lesson plans to other teachers. >> i was the first one to hit the milestone and was honored to be the first one. and to be able to pave the way for others so to speak. >> that was back in 2012. not only was it a milestone for deanna jump but also for teachers pay teachers. >> we saw a group of teachers really adopt the platform. one of them was deanna jump, a tremendous teacher and inspiring educator. and they got teachers excited about what was going on on the platform. from that point on tpt was how to keep up with fast growth. >> fast growth was the last thing new york city public school teacher pawel edelman had to worry about when he started the company in 2006. he launched the business to connect and support the education community by allowing teachers to share the innovative materials they were creating for their classrooms, like lesson plans, interactive notebooks and games. >> that allows us to different versions of the reading of "the three little pigs." >> while everyone agreed that teachers pay teachers or tpt was a great concept, adoption was slow. the journey was a study in the three ps, patience, persistence and perseverance. there were highs like the purchase of the company by scholastic and lowe's. after the acquisition, there was no growth, then the business almost closed down. in a last-ditch effort to keep the company alive, paul bought it back in 2009 to save the community and the business from obscurity. >> it feels like a ten-year long over night success story. >> if you talk to teachers, they almost always know about it. teachers o people outside of the teaching community don't. but people outside the teaching profession don't and the companies kind of live under the radar. it's a place teachers came to get help. >> with almost 4 million active users, two out of every three teachers have downloaded something from the site. and while it's no secret that teachers are notoriously overworked and underpaid, tpt became a place to escape that by getting help, support and ideas for their classrooms with the potential of making extra money themselves if they sold their resources on the site. >> the typical journey for someone who comes to tpt is they start downloading for free. when they find a teacher they connect with they start to buy. so from the perspective of the teachers selling, that's a double good. they make some money, they get recognition for the work they've done and also get to know they they're having real impact in classrooms. because it is important to remember if you're a teacherpreneur on tpt, you're a teacher first, an entrepreneur second. >> todayed in orlando, florida, two of tpt's most successful teacherpreneurs have combined forces in two ways. >> where's my party people? there we go. >> by creating an event, the inaugural get your teach on conference. all of this helps grow the tpt community. >> we looked at each other and said, we have to start a conference. within an hour, we had get your teach on logo, we had the sessions worked out. that's what i love about the teachers pay teachers business, if you want to do it, do it. if you want to go for it, go for it. >> hope is a teacher at the academy in atlanta, georgia. she has a blog called elementary shenanigans as well as a successful store on the teachers pay teachers site. >> if i really want teachers to take what they are learning here and impact their classroom through engagement, i have to show them what engagement looks like. >> text, structure, very cab. >> so that's what i'm doing, songs, cheers and chants, hands-on learning because i can't just show teachers here's what you do, they have to experience it, too, because that motivates them and inspires them and that's what's going to impact the classrooms. >> if you look closely, you'll see adam freed in the audience here taking notes, asking questions and engaging with this group. part social, part educational, part technical and part entrepreneurial, tpt stays relative and connected by making sure all the tpt employees are immersed in the teaching community. >> in order to be an employee of the tpt, you have to be in the classroom shadowing a teacher twice a year, i go once a month. that doesn't matter if you are an accountant or engineer, you are a customer support rep. you need to be in a classroom at least twice a year. we bring teachers into tpt to ask them questions. >> anna is a second grade teacher in new york that was looking to supplement her income. not only did her tpt store simply skilled take off in just a few days, more importantly she found exactly what founder paul edelman intended when he started the company ten years ago. how important is the community of tpt for you? >> oh, my goodness, it's probably more important than anything. tpt has been such a huge part of my life the last four years. they invite us here, they want your feedback, they want to know how they can better this business and how they can help children and empower teachers. that's what they are all about. it's amazing the collaboration and friendships that have been created because of tpt. during a presidential campaign season it can be hard to get away from conversations about politics, especially this year when there is so much to talk about. so what is the best way to keep political discourse at bay? in the office? david lewis is the founder, president and ceo of operations ink, human resources and outsourcing firm. good to see you. >> hi, jj, how are you? >> i'm good. there's so much to talk about, particularly this year, right? >> is there an election going on? >> yeah, right? especially you're at msnbc, stay on for a couple hours, you'll see lots more. but there's so much. people are on different sides of the table. how do you keep this away at work? i mean, you can't. people are going to talk about it. >> you can't keep the approach of taking this out of the discussion in the workplace and it is a very polarizing issue. so you have to look at it from a few different angles. you have to accept the idea that it's going to get discussed. i think there are danger points, though. telling people they can't talk about it is a problem. ownership coming out and making a strong statement about what their views are on politics is also a problem because it also can be polarizing. so it's best to give some advice to people to just keep the conversation to a minimum versus telling people you don't want it to happen in the office. and try to diffuse as quickly as possible any of those more passionate discussions. if you have to pull people aside who are more passionate, explain to them, listen. the more passionate you are in the office the greater chance it will create some level of conflict with others who don't share the same views you do. >> let's get tactical about this, what do you do? do you have a conference about it, send an e-mail, how do you get the information across? >> there's different prevailing wisdoms here. one is you can go ahead and put a policy out there but that can create issues in terms of what the law says because the national labor relations board may come in and say, wait a second, that's limiting people's ability to free speech and concerted activity. so i think the policy a little bit different to craft without getting yourself in some trouble. so moving forward, i think you want to go ahead and just have more small conversations, pull people aside, especially when you see the conversation getting a bit out of hand. stay away from something printed. >> nothing printed. chances are you are not going to be there when somebody's having a heated conversation. so then it escalates and now suddenly there's conflict between two people. >> it's a typical hr issue. go ahead and bring the individuals in creating the issue or who have identified an issue and complained in some passion and try to work through it like any other item in employee relations. try to talk through and say, i understand you have differing views, we are not going to take sides here. we're simply going to say this type of discussion has potential problems within the workplace so we want to tone the rhetoric down and maybe this is not the best place to go ahead and bring these things up. >> have you seen this happen a lot? >> i see it happen almost every day. >> really? not to the point that people are just on different sides, that happens all the time, but to the point it escalates and is creating a problem in the workplace? >> this particular election is one that is extremely polarizing and it is demonstrating in office places as well as just everywhere around the country how people have very significant and different views from one another. so it's natural that it's going to come up in the course of conversation and someone is going to come in and make a comment in favor of somebody's political stance and someone is going to come in and have a completely opposing view. the more that spills into the workplace, the more it's going to create that type of potential firestorm if you don't go ahead and diffuse it. >> i guess you talk about it as you would anything, say we are a culture of openness, hopefully one is, right? and we don't want to insult each other. >> correct. >> we want this to be a place where people feel happy coming to work, people feel safe coming to work, and it's okay for us to have differing views but let's not insult each other and not make each other feel badly about it. >> again, you have to walk a fine line because you don't want to imply -- >> you're not saying don't talk. >> the talking thing is going to happen, it's the company's culture to have communication, but what most business owners will see, they'll start to see it potentially getting out of hand. they want to bring people in smaller groups and say, i know you're a supporter of this candidate or of this particular perspective. tone it down in the workplace. >> maybe you simply say, let's be respectful of each other, right? >> we're all going to have different opinions and that's okay. we're here to work, we have a common goal and a common mission around this particular business. you're absolutely entitled to your opinion, your perspective. that's what it is. it's all opinion based. on that basis, you're entitled to your opinion but remember, take a hard look at how people react to that opinion and figure out is that going to be conducive to you being an effective employee, a good coworker and be able to focus on what it is you're here to do. >> yes, it is an interesting time and lots of people have a lot to say. so i think it is important that we had you on to talk about how do we deal with this in the workplace? thank you so much. >> my pleasure. some of the most successful entrepreneurs we have spoken to over the years like tommy hilfiger and stewart whitesmith told us one of the keys to their success was learning from their mistakes. failure, large or small, happens to everyone at some point. but what you do after making a bad call makes all the difference in the world. just ask the owners of skincare line j. paul. they overcame some costly decisions which they shared so you can avoid the same pitfalls. ♪ men's skin caroline j. paul may have entered a crowded field when it launched its shaving accessories in 2007, but for the founders, that was no deterrent. >> our products really are targeted for those guys that do have thick beards, like myself. and my business partner, paul strong, has very sensitive skin. we felt that there really was a market void there. >> for them it was unchartered territory. >> i had zero. i had no experience at all, came from an oil and gas background and some logistics, we didn't have real industry knowledge. >> while they may have been at a slight disadvantage, you wouldn't know it. >> we used our savings and boot strapped this company from the beginning. we have very little outside investment. >> in addition to the company's website, j. paul products are found all over the country including nordstrum, macy's and dozens of high-end boutiques which they credit for giving them a boost. they admit they've made mistakes along the way. >> you have to be willing as a entrepreneur and business owner to be willing to make the mistakes. >> one of the first challenges involved the development of packaging. at first, the entrepreneurs turned to china. that just took too much time. >> what we found was that part of being in china is you have to wait six weeks for every interration of the packaging. if you get it back and it's not the right color, you have to wait six more weeks for the adjustment. >> a canadian company eventually produced the right packaging with the right shade of brown but j. paul already wasted a lot of time and money. >> 18 months from the first time we first contacted the company in china to when we received the tubes. it was close to about $15,000 start to finish. >> the ceo said at one point this texas company used a distribution center in connecticut. >> as we were growing and the demand was growing and the orders were coming in, so at the advice of our consultants, we moved our operation to a fulfillment center that was recommended to us. we paid a monthly fee. >> but then the customers started to complain. >> we just kept getting more feedback from customers with pictures, this is what arrived to me and it just wasn't up to standard. we just didn't have the quality control. >> distribution was eventually brought back to houston. but not without losing money first. >> after it was all said and done, we took a $20,000 to $25,000 hit that we won't be able to recoup. as a result of that, we're not getting product that's arriving anywhere damaged. >> marketing was another hurdle. j. paul ran newspaper ads in markets like dallas and chicago where products were starting to sell. they launched a social media campaign, too. >> we felt that we needed to have some sort of advertising campaign, whether it's print media, online, and that was a major mistake. >> the newspaper ads didn't bring in any new customers. >> quickly added up to $15,000, almost $20,000. in these different cities. >> the social media campaign wasn't any better. >> we probably invested close to somewhere between $15,000 to $20,000. probably closer to $15,000. >> the lack of name recognition didn't help when j. paul looked for a spokesperson either. >> we felt inevitably we needed to be in the bigger box stores, bigger retail stores. as a way to bring recognition, bring exposure and bring some clout, we felt like a celebrity endorsement would give us the cache we needed to walk in the door. >> despite hiring a talent agent and meeting face-to-face with one celebrity, nothing materialized. >> i think the official reason was that we were not really a known company. >> that search cost them $15,000 which never amounted to anything. but it turns out j. paul never needed that kind of endorsement. the product spoke for themselves and customers responded. >> in the end it really is about your product being able to stand alone by itself. >> while all agree the money lost could have been better spent, this was a learning experience. it may have been costly but in the end j. paul is a better company because of it. >> sure, mistakes probably did motivate us. i don't think every company can do everything right every single day. we're human, mistakes are going to happen but it's how you really adapt and learn from those sort of mistakes. in proving your small business's performance is difficult if you're not measuring your company's progressive effectively. to turned to venture.com to see if your business is on the right track. one, web traffic. measure how people are engaging with your tools using google analytics. knowing how visitors are finding out about you and what products and services are piqueing their interest will help you better target your key audience. two, customer satisfaction. find this out by talking to your clients or asking them to fill out a simple survey. three, social media. monitor what people are saying about your company on different platforms. check for comments and responses at least once a day. four, finances. small businesses often fail because they incorrectly budget or forecast their funds. so track your financial performance to ensure you have an accurate sense of your cash flow. and five, productivity. assess how efficient your employees are day to day. analyze ways you can help them improve their performance output so your company as a whole can continue to expand. spring is here and the weather's getting nicer and that means that a lot of you are going to go outside to do some gardening. today's elevator pitcher has expertise in the landscaping business to come up with a product to make weeding a little easier. now we'll see if our panel thinks his business can grow. les mccuen is the founder and ceo of predictable success and patrick mcginnis is a venture capitalist in private equity investor who found deer we go advisers. he's also the author of "the 10% entrepreneur," live your startup dream without quitting your day job. >> my name is vinnie. i invented a garden tool called the ring weeder. i pulled out many weeds being in the land escape business. the best way to weed is with your hands. use the fork to penetrate the soil, losen up the root of the weed. this is a very good in vegetables gardens and flower beds, while other larger tools don't fit and it's like an extension of your hand. i was overfunded on kick starter by 248%. since then i've been featured by this old house magazine. with the help of my son john we're currently selling online and throughout stores across the country. we need to increase inventory, lower our production cost, that way we have a higher mark in profit and be able to fulfill the orders from the big box stores. thank you and let the ring be your weeder. >> thank you, vinnie. nice job. good for you. i'm going to give these to you two. i want two numbers, one to ten. the first one is what did you think of the product. second, what did you think of the pitch? how did you make your first prototy prototype? >> i went to a welder the day after thanksgiving in 2012. he liked the idea so much he made a bunch of prototypes over and over for free because he wanted to see it on the market. i went to an old-time welder. he did it for me. >> good for you. let's get the answers. let's start with you. >> eight for the product, six with the pitch with the potential of tuning in. here's the reason why. i want to hear about the business, not just the product. i want to hear about the market, your current sales activities, know you're going to expand and hear about product extension so i'm not investing just in a single product. wonderful you're overfunded, think about the business, how are you going to pitch the business and not just the product. >> i love this, right. you have you have a different elevator pitch for different people, customers versus investors. >> seven for the product and eight for the pitch. the reason i gave you a seven, i love this product. i get it. i weeded gardens to make money. was this defensible? it's a simple tool. i wonder if somebody could rip you off and take your entire lunch and eat it. in terms of the pitch, i love the passion you brought. i love the fact you convinced me that you're the man to build this business and so that really got me excited and you told me about your partners who are highly credible which made me think this guy's got something. >> thank you so much. >> sounds like you have great traction already. good luck with everything. >> i have a ring leader for both of you. >> thank you. >> i have one for you, too. >> i will be handing that over to my husband. thank you very much. thanks both of you. >> now, if any of you out there have a product or service and want feedback from our elevator pitch on your chances of getting interested investors, send us an e-mail to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. tell us how much money you want to raise and what you intend to do with that money. when we come back, what you need to know about writing a business plan and will you be ready when walmart or google calls? our cosmetics line was a hit. the orders were rushing in. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com how does one write a business plan when contemplating starting a business? is there someone who will do this for you or help you with an outline? >> so i want you to think about your business plan as a flight plan. like this. a pilot would never get in an airplane in new york and fly to los angeles without a flight plan, right? of course, he needs or she needs to know which direction they're going to head in. they need to know how much gas they're going to need. they're going to need to know landmarks to look for along the way. that's exactly what your business plan is, is your flight plan for the success of your business. and what you want to do is think through all the things that you're going to need to know to run your business. how much money are you going to need? what are the obstacles that you likely are going to face along the way? who's your competition? how are you going to market your business? how are you going to do your money? if you think it through all ahead of time, you're going to have a far greater chance of being successful because you've thought it through. and you're going to find obstacles that you anticipated and some that you didn't. but if you thought through your plan, then you're going to be at least prepared to deal with it. how are you going to do that? there is all sorts of help for you along the way. you could go to score, score is a great organization with people who could help you come up with a business plan and work through your business plan. there's a website i like a lot called bplans.com. they have some interactive software that really helps a lot. just do a search, find some help, and you'll find that you can create your own flight plan for the success of your small business. we now have the "top 2 tips" you need to know to help your small business grow. les and patrick are back with us. let me pick your brains. les, let's start with you. >> my tip today, j.j., is know what you're going to do when walmart calls or google or department of defense. whoever the big dog is in your industry. what i've seen so often is you get that precious call or e-mail or the sale goes through, and before you know it, you don't own your business anymore. you're doing precisely what this massive supplier tells you to. six months later, you're totally making everything to their specification. they move on to a lower-cost supplier. you've got to start all over again. know how to manage the relationship at the start. and most importantly, plan to exit because you don't want to be that vulnerable. you don't want to have more than 20%, 25% of your revenue from any one source in the early days. sit down, think about, what are you going to do when walmart calls? >> patrick. >> say no to fomo. >> fear of missing out for anyone who does not know. >> exactly. fear of missing out. and i was credited by "boston" magazine for actually coining that term. >> really? wow! >> it's something i know about in my own life. when you're starting a business, everybody is going to tell you you should do this. you should enter this market. you should try this out. try that out. you need to focus. and if you listen to fomo, you're going to spend your time doing things that aren't going to drive your business forward and trying too many things. so instead of fomo, try focus. >> great. thank you so much, both of you. this week's " #yourbizselfie comes from christine. she owns hair solutions in niles, illinois. after managing a number of small businesses, christine struck out on her own at 62 and started this company that makes custom hair replacements for men and women. what an inspiration and a reminder that you can start a company at any age. now, we love celebrating your businesses. so please pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you and your company and send it to us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet it to @msnbcyourbiz. do not forget to use the hash tag your biz selfie. thank you, everyone, so much for joining us today. i think one of the biggest takeaways came from the top five, and it's about metrics. we should all have a dashboard of the metrics that drive our business. and if you don't have this or if you don't even know what those metrics are, you need to step back and figure that out. and you should look at that dashboard daily, weekly, monthly and yearly so you know what levers to pull to increase your business. we'd love to hear from you as well. if you have any questions or comments about today's show, just send us an e-mail to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. you can also go to our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. we posted all the segments from today's show. plus a lot more. and don't forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms, too. next week we meet the entrepreneur of a superhero costume company who found himself deep in debt and on the verge of losing everything. how listening to his customer helped rescue his small business and now has the company flying high. till then, i'm j.j. ramberg, and remember, we make your business our business. brought to you by american express open. visit openforum.com for ideas to help you grow your business. ing. ing. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com i want to wish you a very happy friday. there's a lot going on in today's news. just a moment, we'll look at the rowdy and aggressive and at times violent protests that erupted today in burlingame, california, as anti-donald trump protesters just exploded with rage over an appearance by mr. trump at the california state republican convention. this is the second day in a row that anti-trump protests have gotten violent in california. we have the story of those clashes coming up in a moment. caught on camera, about an important $10 bet that involves vice president joe biden and a cadillac.

Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20160709

or expand your office. for those who constantly find new ways to grow on every step of the journey, american express open proudly presents your business on msnbc. hi, everyone. welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. never, never, never give up is a quote famously attributed to win stop church hill and an adage that most entrepreneurs understand especially when things just don't seem to be working in their business. it took five years before the company teacher's pay teachers got any traction and there were so many times along the way when they could have given up, but the they didn't. the business now has almost 4 million active users and teachers who sell materials on the site have earned $200 million -- $200 million! this for a company that took five years with no traction. not bad for a company that almost didn't make it. deanna is something of a rock star. all these teachers are wanting their pictures with mean. i'm tell not used it to. >> she's a self made millionaire, the first of several teachers that have hit jackpot on the educational web sit called teachers pay teachers. similar to etsy, this peer to pere marquette place makes it easy to sell resources that they develop to other teachers. >> i was honored to be the first one and to be able to pave the way for others. >> that was back in 2012. not only was it a milestone for deanna jump, but also for teachers pay teachers. >> we saw a group of teachers really adopt the platform. one of them was deanna jump who is a tremendous teacher and inspiring educator. and they got teachers excited about what was going on in the platform. and from that point on, it was really about how do you keep up with fast growth p. >> fast growth was the last time in new york city public schoolteacher had to worry about when he starteded the company back in 2006. he launched the business to connect and support the education community by allowing teachers to shart innovative materials they were creating for their classrooms. like lesson plans, interactive notebooks and games. >> that lends itself well to reading different versions of the three little pigs. >> and while everyone agreed teachers pay teachers or tpt was a great contest, adoption was slow. the journey was a study in the three ps. patience, persist dance and persevere answer. there were highs like the purchase of the company by the education company skol has tick and lows. after the acquisition, there was no growth and the business almost closed down. in a last ditch effort to keep the company alive, paul bought it back in 2009 to save the community and the business from obscurity. what is interesting about tp it t to me is it feels like a ten year long overnight success story. right? >> it's the classic overnight success five to ten years later. i think what happens, if you talk to teachers, they almost always know about it, but people outside the teaching profession don't and the company has lived under the radar. it's been a place that teachers came to get quiet help. it's really hard to be a teacher i think always, but maybe harder now than ever. so tpt is a place they can quickly discover they can find great resources, talk to other teacher, share some of the trials and tribulations of being a teacher today. and that fueled the growth. >> with almost 4 million active users, two out of every three teachers have downloaded something from the site. and while it's no secret that teachers are notoriously overworked and underpaid, tpt became a place to escape that fate by getting help will, support and ideas for their classrooms. with the potential of making some extra money themselves if they sold their resources on the site. >> the typical journey for someone who comes to tpt is that they start done loading for free and when they find a teacher they connect with, they start to buy. so that's a double good. they make some money, he they get recognition for the work they have done and they also get to know that they're having real impact in classrooms because it's important to remember that if you're a teacher entrepreneurial, you're a teacher first and then entrepreneur second. >> and today in orlando, two of the most success fell entrepreneurs have combined forces in a new way, beyond their classrooms and tpt stores, by creating an event, the inaugural get your teach on conference. and all of it will helps grow the tpt community. >> we said oh, my gosh, we have to start a conference. and within an hour, we had to get your teach on logo, we had our sessions worked out and that's what i love about the teachers pay teachers business p if you want do it, do it. if you want to go for it, go for it. so we went for it. >> hope king is a teacher in atlanta, georgia. she has a blog called elementary shenanigans. as well as a successful store on the teachers pay teachers site. >> if i really want teachers to take what they're learning here and let it impact their classroom through engagement, i have to show them what engagement looks like. so that's what i'm doing. call and response, song, cheer and chants, hands on learning because i can't just show here's what you do, they have to experience it, too. because that's what motivates them and inspires then and that's what will impact their classrooms. p. >> if you look closely, you will see adam freed in the audience taking notes, asking questions an engaginging with this group. part social, part educational, part technical and part entrepreneurial, tpt stays relevant with innovative educators like king by making sure all the tpt employees are immersed in the community. >> you have to be in a classroom shadowing a teacher at least twice a year. i go once a month. and that doesn't matter whether you're an accountant or engineer or customer support rep. you need to be in a classroom at least twice a year. we bring teachers into tp to ask them questions p. >> anna was looking to supplement her income. not only did her tpt store take off in just a few day, more importantly, she found exactly what founder paul edelman sfwepded when he start the community. >> how important is the community? >> it's probably more you>> how community? >> it's probably more you important than anything. tpt has been such a huge part of my life the last four years. they want your feedback, they want to know how they can better this business and how they can help children and empower teachers. that's what they're all about. it's amazing the collaboration and friendships that have been created because of tpt. >> during a presidential campaign season, it can be hard to get away from conversations about politics. especially this year when there is so much to talk about. so what is the best way to keep political discourse at bay in the office? david lewis is the founder, president and ceo of operations inc, a human resources firm. there is so much to talk about particularly this year, right? >> is there an election going on? >> yeah, right? i mean especially you're msnbc, stay on and you'll see lots more. but there is so much. people are on different sides of the table. how do you keep this away at work? i mean you can't, right? people will talk about it. >> you can't take the approach that says you will keep this out of the discussion in the workplace. and it's a very polarizing issue. so you have to look at it from a few different angles. you have to accept the idea that it will get discussed. i think there are danger points, though. telling people that they can't talk about it is a problem. other th ownership coming out and making a strong statement is also a problem because it can be polarizing. so it's best to give some advice to people to just keep the conversation to a minimum versus telling people you don't want it to happen in the office. and try to diffuse as quickly as possible any of those more passionate discussions. and if you have to pull people aside who are more passionate, explain to them, listen, the more passionate you are in the office, the greater the chance that it will create conflict with others. >> so let's get tactical about this. do you have a conference about it, do you send an e-mail? how do you get this information across? >> one is that you could put a policy out there, but that could create issues in terms of what the law says because the national labor relations board may come in and say wait a second, that is limiting people's ability to free speech and to concerted activity. so i think the policy is difficult to craft without getting yourself in some trouble. so moving forward, i think you want to go ahead and just have more small conversations. pull people aside especially when you see the conversation getting a bit out of hand, stay away from something that is printed. >> so nothing printed. chances are are you not going to be there when somebody is having a heated conversation about that so then it escalates. and now suddenly there is conflict between two people. >> typical hr issue. you want tpnt to bring the individuals in who created the issue or complained in some fashion and try to work through lie any other item in employee relations. talk through and say i understand you have differencing view, we won't take sides here a, we're simply going to say this type of discussion has some potential problems within the workplace, so we want to tone the rhetoric down and maybe this is not the best place to bring all of these things up. >> have you seen this happen a lot? >> i see it happen almost every day. and -- >> really some not to the point that people are just on different sides, that happens of course all the time. but to the point where it really escalates and is creating a problem in the workplace? >> this particular election is one that is extremely polarizing. and it is demonstrating in office places as well as just everywhere around the country how people have very significant and differing views from one another. so it's natural that it will come up in the course of conversation. and someone will come in and make a comment in favor of somebody's political stance and someone will come in and have a completely opposing view. and the more that spills into the workplace, the more it will create that type of potential firestorm if you don't go ahead and did did ffuse it. >> and i guess you say we don't want to insult each other, we want people to feel happy coming to work, people feel safe coming to work and it's okay for to us have differing view, but let's not insult each other and let's not make each other feel badly about it. >> and again, you have to walk a fine line because -- >> not saying don't talk. >> i think the talking thing will happen. it's part of a company's culture to have communication. but i think what most business other thanes will see, they will start seeing it get potentially out of hand. you want to start bringing people together in some fashion and say listen, i know you're a supporter of this candidate or will perspective, tone it down in the workplace. >> maybeyou simply say be respectful of others. >> we all have different opin n opinions and that's okay. we have a common goal around this business and you're entitled to your opinion. and that's what it is, all opinion based. so you're entitled to your opinion, but take a hard look at how people react to that opinion and figure out is that conducive to you being an effective employee, good co-worker and keep focus on what it is you're here to do. >> yes, it is an interesting time and lots of people have a lot to say. so i think it's important that we had you on it talk about how do we deal with this in the workplace. so thank you so much. >> some of the most successful entrepreneurs we've spoken to over the years like tommy hilfiger and stewart whitesman have told us that one of the keys to their sick says was learning from their mistakes. failure, large or small, happens to everyone at the some point. but what you do after making a bad call makes all difference in the world.he some point. but what you do after making a bad call makes all difference in the world.e some point. but what you do after making a bad call makes all difference in the world. some point. but what you do after making a bad call makes all difference in the world.some point. but what you do after making a bad call makes all difference in the world. just ask the owners of skin care can he j. paul. they made some costly mistakes which they shared so you can avoid the same pitfalls. men's skin care line j. paul may have entered a crowded field when it launched its shaving accessories in 2007, but for the founders, there was no deterrent. >> our proceducts are targeted r those guys who do have thick beards like myself and my business partner has very sensitive skin. we felt that there really was a market void there. >> for them, it was unchartered territory. >> i had no experience at all. came from an oil and gas background and some logistics, so we did not have any real industry knowledge. >> while they may have been at a slight disadvantage, you wouldn't know it. >> we used our savings, boot strapped the business from the very beginning. j. paul has gron organically with very little outside investment. >> in addition to their website, j. paul products are found all over the company including nordstrom, macy's and incidence of high end boutiques which they credit for giving them a boost. they admit they have made mistakes along the way. >> you have to be willing as a entrepreneur and business owner to be willing to make the mistakes. >> one of the first challenges involved the development of packaging. at first, the entrepreneurs turned to china. that just took too much time. >> what we found was that part of being in china is you're having to wait six weeks for every iteration of the packaging that you're getting. and so if you get it back and it's not the right color, then you get to wait six more weeks for them to make an adjustment. >> a canadian company eventually produced the right packaging with the correct shade of brown. but j. paul had already wasted a lot of time and money. >> 18 months to move through from the time we first contacted the company in china to when we actually received the tubes. it was close to about $15,000 from start to finish. >> the ceo says at one point this texas company used a distribution center in connect cut. >> as we were growing and the demand was growing, the orders were coming in, so at the advice of our consultants, we moved our operation to a fulfillment center recommended to us. we paid a monthly fee. >> but then the customers started to complain. >> we just kept getting more feedback from customers with pictures, this is what arrived to me. and it just wasn't up to standard. we just didn't have the quality control. >> distribution was eventually brought back to houston. but not without losing money first. >> after it was all said and done, we took a 25 -- $20,000 to $25,000 hit that we won't be able to recoup. and as a result of that, we're not getting product that is arriving anywhere damaged. >> marketing was another hurdle. j. paul ran newspaper ads if will markets like dallas and chicago where products were starting to sell. they launched a social media campaign, too. >> we felt we needed to have some sort of advertising campaign, whether print media, online. and that was a major mistake. >> the newspaper ads didn't bring in any new customers. >> quickly added up to almost $20,000 in the different cities. >> the social media campaign wasn't any better. >> we probably invested somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 probably closer to $15,000. >> the lack of name recognition didn't help when j. paul looked for a spokesperson either. >> we felt like that in-eitherbly we needed to be in the bigger box stores, bigger retail stores. and as a way to bring recognition, bring exposure and bring some clout, we felt lake in a a celebrity endorsement would give us the cache that we needed. >> despite hiring a talent agent and meeting pace to face with one celebrity, nothing materialized. >> i think the official reason was that we were not really a known company. >> that search cost them $15,000 which never amounted to anything. but it turns out j. paul never needed that kind of endorsement. the products spoke for themselves and customers responded. >> in the end it really is about your product being able to tap alone by itself. >> while all agree the money lost could have been better spent, this this was a learning experience. it may have been costly, but in the end, j. paul is a better company because of it. >> sure mistakes probably did motivate us. i don't think every company can do everything right every single day. mistakes will happen, but it's how you adapt and learn from the mistakes. >> improving your small business's performance is difficult if you're not measuring your company's progress effectively. we turned to venture burn.com for metrics you can watch to determine whether your business is on the right traffic. one, web traffic. measure how people are engaging with your site using tools like google analytics. knowing how visitors are finding out about you and what products and services are piquing their interest will help you better target your key audience. two, customer satisfaction. you can find this out by talking to your clients or asking them to fill out a simple survey. three, social media. monitor what people are saying about your company on different platforms. check for comments and responses at least once a day. four, finances. small businesses often fail because they incorrectly budget or forecast their funds. so track your financial performance to ensure you have an accurate sense of your cash flow. and five, productivity. assess how efficient your employees are day to day, analyze ways you can help them improve so your company as a whole can continue to expand. spring is here, the weather is getting nicer and that means that a lot of you are going to go outside do some gardening. today's elevator itcher has use added his expertise in the landscaping business to come up with a product to make weeding a little easier. now let's see if our panel thinks his company can grow. he's the author of the new book 10% entrepreneur. >> my name is vinny and in my 30 year in the landscape business, i pulled out many weeds. this is how i came up with a solution for many garden loves like myself to know that the best way to weed is with your hands. you take it over your index finger, use the fork to penetrate the soil to loosen up the root and pull it out root and all. this is good in vegetable and flower beds where other larger tools don't fit in that 2013, i was overfunded on kick starter by 248%. sense then, i've been featured by this old house magazine. with the help of my son, we're currently selling online and in over 100 stores throughout the country. we need a $50,000 investment in order to increase our inventory, lower our production costs by 32 cents to 16 cents, and that way we'll have a higher profit and be able to fulfill the order from the big box stores. thank you and let the ring be your weeder. >> thank you, vinny. nice job. okay. i'm going to give these to you two. i want two numbers from you. first one is what did you think of the product. second, what did you think of the pitch. how did you make your first prototype? >> i went to a werlder day afte thanks in 2012 and he liked the idea so much that he made a bunch of prototypes over and over for me but free, but he wanted to see it on the market. so he did it for me p. >> okay. let's get the answers. >> i'm going to give eight for the product. simple, elegant, does the job. i'll give six for the pitch and here is the reason why. i think if i'm going to in-investigation, i want to hear about the business, not just the product. i want to hear about the market, your current sales activities. i want to know that you will expand and maybe product extension so that i'm not investing just in a single product. wonderful that you're overfund this had kick starter, but think about the business, how you pitch the business and not just the product. >> i love it. should you have a different elevator pitch for different people. investors versus customers. >> so i gave you a seven for the are duct and eight for the pitch. the seven is because i love thi. the seven is because i love this product, i get it, but i was worried about whether or not this is againstable. it's a pretty simple tool and i wonder if someone could rip you off and basically take your entire lunch and eat it. in terms of the pitch, i love the passion, i love the fact that you convinced me that you're the man to build this business, so that got me excited and you it would me about your partners were are highly credible, which made me think this guy's got something. >> thank you so much. >> sounds like you have great traction already. good luck with everything. >> i brought one for both of you. >> thank you very much. i will hand it over to my husband. now, if any of you out there have a product or service and you want feedback from our pitch panel on your chances of getting interested investor, just send us an e-mail. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. in that e-mail, include a short summary of what your company does, how much money you're trying to raise and what you intend to do with that money. we will look forward to reading all of your pitches and seeing some of you here on the show. when we come back, what you need to know about writing a business plan and will you be ready when walmart or google calls? will your business be ready when growth presents itself? our new cocktail bitters were doing well, all i could think about was our deadlines racing towards us. a loan would take too long. we needed money, now. my amex card helped me buy the ingredients to fill the orders. opportunities don't wait around, so you have to be ready for them. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. how does one write a business plan when contemplating starting a business? is there someone who will do this for you or help you with an outline? >> so i want you to think about your business plan as a flight plan. like this. a pilot would never get in an airplane in new york and fly to los angeles without a flight plan, right? of course. he needs to know or she needs to know which direction they're going to head in, they need to know how much gas they will need, they will need to know landmarks to look for along the way. well, that is exactly what your business plan is. it's your flight plan for the success of your business. and what you want to do is think through all the things that you will need to know to run your business. how much money are you going to need? what are the obstacles you likely will face along the way? who is your competition? how will you market your business, how will you do your money? if you think it through all ahead of time, you will have a far greater chance of being successful because you thought it through. and you will find obstacles that you anticipated and some that you didn't, but if you thought through your plan, then you will be at least prepareded to deal with it. how do you do that? there all sorts of help for you. you can go it score, it's a great organization with people who can help you come up with a business plan and work through your business plan, there is a website i like a lot called b plans.com and they have interactive software that helps a lot. so just to a search, find some help and you'll find that you can create your own flight plan for the success of your small business. we now have the top two tips you need to know to help your small business grow. les and patrick are back with us. all right. let me pick your brains. les, let's start with you. >> my tip today is know what you're going to do when walmart calls. or google or department of defense, whoever the big dog is in your industry. what i've seen happen so often is you get that precious call or e-mail or the sale goes through and before you know it, you didn't own your business any most of, you're doing precisely what this massive supplier tells you to. six months laters you're totally make everything to their specification, they move on to a lower cost supplier and you have to start over again. know how to manage the relationship at the start and most importantly, plan to exit because you didn't want to be that vulnerable. you don't want to have more than 20% of your revenue from any one source. so sit down, think about what will you to when walmart calls. >> patrick. >> my tip today is say no it fomo. >> fear of missing out for anyone who does not know. >> exactly. and i was credited by boston magazine with actually coining that term. >> really? wow. >> so it's something i know about in my own life. and when you're starting a business, everybody will tell you you should do this, you should enter this market, you should try this out, try that out. you need to focus and if you listen to fomo, you will spend your time doing things that aren't going to drive your business forward and trying too many things. so instead of fomo, try focus. >> all right. great. thank you so much both of you. this week's your biz selfie comes from christine pusateri in niles, illinois. after managing a number of small businesses, christine struck out on her own at 62 and started this company that makes custom hair replacement for men and women. what an inspiration and a he reminder that you can start a company at any age. now, we love celebrating your businesses. so please pick up your cellphone and take a selfie of you and your company and send it to us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet it to @msnbc your biz and do not forget to use the #your biz selfie. thank you everyone for joining us. i think one of the biggest takeaways from today's show came from the top five and it's about metrics. we should all have a dashboard of the metrics that drive our business. and if you don't have this or if you don't know what those metrics are, you need to step back and figure that out. and you should look at that dashboard daily, weekly, monthly and yearly so you know what levers to pull to increase your business. we'd love to hear from you, as well. if you have any questions or comments about [']daed's show, e-mail your business at msnbc.com. you can also go to our website, open forum.com/your business. we posted all of the segments from today's show plus a lot more. and don't forget to connect with us on all of our digital and social media platforms, too. next week we meet the entrepreneur of a super hero costume company who found himself deep in debt and on the verge of losing everything. how listening to his customer helped rescue his small business and now has the company flying high. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. and remember, we make your business our business. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. philandophilando. rachel has the night off today but she will be back on monday. this is atlanta, georgia right now, just a giant protest that's been growing throughout the night, much of the afternoon and the evening. this is philadelphia. we have a lot to get to tonight. sit worth taking a moment to consider just how we got here. it's been just a horrifying, gut-wrenching, exhausting, crazy 72 hours in america. it's been hard to wrap your mind and your heart around everything that has happened since last tuesday night. first we were confronted with a chilling video of a man in baton

Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20180916

msnbc "your business" sponsored by american express. don't do business without it. > . >> announcer: your business sponsored by american express. don't do business without it. hi there. everyone. i'm jj ramberg. welcome to your business, the show dedicate today helping your growing business. it is hard not to notice how rapidly the health and wellness industry is growing. people everywhere are investing in improving their minds, their bodies, their souls and medication has become one of the biggest trends in this space. the owner of inscape. he's quickly turned his new york-based studio in guided meditation into up the rising the business. he hasn't done this alone. strategic brand partnerships helped take him to the top. >> take a deep breath. quiet your mind. and sink into a state of serenity. that's what the founder of inscape is asking you to do. and people are responding. >> i think that -- >> meditation and mindfulness have gone mainstream. over the past few years, they've quietly become a billion dollar industry. inscape with one of the key players in this space, taking the ancient practice of medication into the future with its stunning high tech studio, voice guided meditation and an app that brings the experience to the masses. >> located in the flatiron district of new york, the 5,000 square foot studio opened in 2016 quickly becoming a hotspot for people seeking calm and clarity in the middle of their fast-paced hectic daily lives. >> the technology, bombarded with information and not education, sounds -- that was my lifestyle. i was in times square every day. >> he made a name for himself in the fashion industry with his previous company intermix. in 2013, he sold it to the gap for $130 million. soon after, he turned his decade long passion for meditation into his next venture. >> i am probably like a million people in that i know meditation is good for me, i would like to do it, i even did it for a little while and then kind of stopped. so you deal with people like me all the time, right? >> i think the idea that you -- it's like you do it every day. you have a great day. you do it every week, you'll have a great week. you do it as a lifestyle, you'll have a different and better lifestyle. >> the company started with a focus on consumer marketing. tapping into people like me who were interested in creating that habit but he knew that in order to really scale his brand, he'd have to go beyond a b to c business and focus on strategic brand partnerships. he identified one industry in his sweet spot. >> it was the natural collaboration with them. >> he put together his pitch. >> know what the branch has done before so you can show them you've spent the time research and that you understand what resonates with their demographic and how to potentially push them further. if you haven't done your research, you potentially pitch an idea that they've tried before and failed or succeeded and not going to do that again. >> when the james hotel chain was developing its in-room four bodies wellness program, inscape was an obvious choice for the meditation portion. >> we give them a -- to allow them for a month to unlock the app. hopefully after that, they have a great experience and they become users. >> inscape brought in inherent value to the in room offering and the cost was covered for each app download. >> it has to make sense for both sides and be a win-win. >> think of what is the benefit for them. if you are investors, how would you answer it? >> understanding are the brands a true match. do they propel further? >> the addition luxury boutique hotels collaborated with inscape to bring the feel of the actual studio to their room and they'll soon offer a dedicated inscape tv channel with exclusive guided meditation. >> the additional -- part of the sensory experience when you come into the room, tv is on already, the lighting, the mood, the sound in the background. >> he's also focused on reaching legacy brands. many are looking for innovative and hip startups to partner with in order to stay relevant in today's market. inscape collaborated with listerine for its be bold campaign by creating original content and bringing well-known influencers on board like sophia bush and eric decker who believe in it. >> established brand. might want to be with the underdog and that's a key to what we look at. who might need that? the ideal start is to say what are your goals? understanding the big picture of goal, going to the drawing board and coming to them. >> we like tapping into an audience that would never even consider meditation. it was to create short meditations to produce from scratch and compensate our production costs and efforts that we put behind us. >> inscape also partnered with other unexpected brands like stella ar tios. >> narrated by luke evans. >> i think it's only your first mindful tasting experience. >> we like creating a buzz. but it has to be buzzed at. it gives a great outcome. our mission is to get users and keep them actually actively using it and seeing the benefits of it. >> as he continues to grow, he'll keep creating what may look like surprising partnerships. so far, they've been working out. >> wow. isn't this good? >> it feels like actress jennifer garner is everywhere. on the big screen, on red carpets and now in the grocery store. she's one of four founders of cold press organic baby food company once upon a farm. we sat down with this big star and one of her co-founders to talk about why she's turned into an entrepreneur and why this was the opportunity that caught her eye. >> actress jennifer garner has played everything from a take no prisoners mom out for revenge in peppermint. >> what do i want? >> i want justice. >> to the understanding supportive mom in love simon. but being a real life mother of three has inspired her in a whole new type of collaboration. business. >> i had the fortune of getting to represent businesses that i really like. but the next thing you want to do is be part of it from the ground up. >> when jennifer heard about two entrepreneurs in san diego making an organic cold press baby food pouch and that food industry veteran john faor acre was on the board -- >> would you like to meet with jennifer garner. she's interested in this brand. i said sure, i'll take a meeting with jennifer garner. >> we talked a lot about how business is now what's driving social change and what's driving the good in the world. >> just a huge passion for organic and healthier kids' foods and she just seemed also like a fun person to work with. >> it's kind of crazy, actually. it was kind of a moment of, i'm in if you're in. okay, well i'm in if you're in. do you really mean it because i really mean it. >> once upon a farm, a food company offering cold pressed organic foods officially had two new members on its leadership team. jennifer, serving as chief brand officer and john taking on the role of ceo. >> for me, just from a mom's point of view, there's so many great businesses out there. but there are very few that i feeley would have done that. that would have solved a huge problem for me. this would have solved an enormous problem. i had three kids, i made their baby food. sometimes it was an enormous hassle. sometimes i couldn't get it done. when you open a jar of baby food sitting on the shelf for longer than your child has been alive, it's so unappetizing. you can't imagine eating it. it never made sense to me why we would feed this to our kids. >> i was amazed. i've been in the industry for a long time and run a wonderfully successful company that was one of the mainstream brands in organic. it also fascinated me that no one was doing it in baby food, really. >> they're shaking up the baby food industry. >> our products require refrinl ration because of the way they're processed. there's no refrigerators in baby food aisles. no one had put them in another part of the store. >> a lot of moms and dads interested in conventional baby food, they're also shopping the yogurt category. when jen and i decided to do this, we said let's attack that dairy aisle. >> though jennifer is the face and voice of the company, she's making sure her involvement is far past just a spokesperson for the brand. >> it's a nouveau cab larry. everybody is talking in a lingo i don't understand. i'm taking notes as fast as i can and writing down the things i don't know so when i leave i can say to john what does this mean, what does that mean? >> there's lots of celebrity endorsers, but we needed a partner, a hard working involved partner every day. there's no harder working person i've met in my life, seriously. full-time actress, mom, partner in the business. we needed that to make this happen. >> john and jennifer also bonded over the desire to have once upon a farm be a brand that pushes to make fresh foods accessible to kids everywhere. >> one of our long-term goals is to be the first fresh wic baby food that you can buy in the country. that will be a process to get there. it's very complicated. we know that wic is very important. >> the kids growing up in central valley, california, the salad bowl of the united states if not the world, where all of our fruits and vegetables are huge percentage are grown. these kids do not have access to the fresh healthy food oregon began i can food whatsoever. we want to get our healthy great products out to kids all across the country and all across the social economic strata. >> you can find it in major retailers nation wade as well as online. this dream team has every intention of growing with their customers. >> how can we continue to solve problems for moms and give them options that don't exist right now, that are healthier and closer to fresh and that are still really exciting for kids palat palates. my daughter tells me, mom, it doesn't matter what the mission is and what -- how pretty the packaging is if kids don't like it. what's exciting for me is seeing my 12-year-old wanting it in her lunch or seeing kids just really enjoy the taste and flavor and texture of the product. >> designer zack pose en wears many hats. he designs for brooks brothers and recently updated the uniforms at delta airlines. on top of all of that he released a cookbook. he talks about the changing face of retail and why he's starting to think about the presentation of his brand differently. so nice to see you. >> nice to see you. good morning. >> good morning. thank you for stopping by. >> thank you for having me. >> it's so interesting following your career and thinking, watching you think about fashion in relation to the public. >> yeah. >> so you famously decided not to show at new york fashion week. you've done this a little while. why? >> i wanted to create great great collateral, imagery that connected with the fans and the consumer. i wanted to control that image. i wanted to be a better storyteller. >> you took these beautiful pictures and your videos that go with them. why not that on top of doing a show fashion week? >> you could and some do. it really came to a decision about kind of finding a pure message. we live in a social media age where those images tell the story of your brand. >> right. it's so different than when you first started out, right? >> exactly. there were systems and formulas and just the very beginning of online reviews and it's vastly changed how we sell changed, how we market changed. the consumer has changed. >> right. >> so you kind of have to really take risk to be a tuned and aware of it. >> in your industry in particular, it seems so much changed. you're talking about how you're marketing to people and speaking to people. also, i have friends who are designers like you. it's a scary time for many of them because the way people buy is changing so much. >> absolutely. i mean, i think first off, one needs a really personal product. it has to be really unique. it has to be special. and it has to be consistent. >> yours has been unique and special. >> we try. we try each season and we have our codes, our construction and clothing that loves and empowers women and really playing with the power of glamour. not in a subjective way. in a self-empowering way for the rare opportunities that you get to wear a ball gown. >> when you take your design -- rare opportunities we have. when you take off your designer hat and put on your business hat, how do you face the unknown of the future of how people are going to buy and where they're going to buy your things and are they willing to spend what they wanted before. >> i think, looking at luxury, you know, from some distance, today there's a challenge. it's oversaturated. the veils have been lifted. that can be very concerning. there's so many brands entering the market. fashion loves new. they like to dispose. and it's something that i've lived. now i'm kind of comfortable in my own skin with my own work. and i kind of stick to that and build and it's a choice. you know, today i'm running a profitable company. we self-fund ourselves with what we do. and it's a slower process. but i think it's authentic. it's real. but when i look at it, there's a lot of waste in luxury. fashion and clothing doesn't retain value in the way it did in. in the past it was designed by rarity. exotic ism. everything is globalized now. you can get everything shift the next day tomorrow. so that changes. we had large brands that were burning and destroying their clothing. depressing. moving, look at the future, i'm not there yet, but there's a huge ecological initiative that needs to be taken by the luxury in fashion industry. >> you've had such a ride. your documentary documents your ride as a designer and as a business person. highs, lows, everything in between. >> all a learning pro is's long the way. >> also learning. it sounds like, to hear you say you're profitable and run your company with your profits is a great success. on top of making beautiful clothes, congratulations. >> thank you. it's been back to school time for both students and their teachers. as we've seen in the news, many states have cut education by just along with teacher salaries. many of those who educate our children do it for the love and passion of teaching. unfortunately, it doesn't always pay well. as we reported a while back, there is a business now that is gaining traction that allows them to supplement their income by selling learning materials to other teachers. >> kindergarten teacher deanna jump is something of a rock star. all these teachers are coming up, wanting their pictures with me. i'm still not used to it. i hope i never get used to it. >> that's because she's a self-made millionaire. the first of several teachers that have hit the jackpot on the educational website called teachers pay teachers. similar to espy, this peer to peer marketplace makes it easy for teachers to sell classroom resource that is they develop like lesson plans to other teachers. >> i was the first one -- i was honored to be the first one and to be able to pave the way for others, so to speak. >> that was back in 2012. not only a milestone for deanna jump but also for teachers pay teachers. >> saw a group of teachers really adopt the platform. one of them was deanna jump, a tremendous teacher and inspiring educator. they got teachers ex kicited ab what was going on. how do you keep up with fast growth? >> fast growth was the last thing new york city public school teacher paul edelman had to worry about when he started the company back in 2006. he launched the business to connect and support the education community by allowing teachers to share the innovative materials they were creating for their classrooms, like lesson plans. interactive notebooks and games. >> that lends itself well. reading different version was the three little pigs, okay? >> while everyone agreed, teachers pay teachers or tpt was a great concept, adoption was slow. the journey was a study in the three ps. patience, persistence and perseverance. there were highs, like the purchase of the company by scholastic and lows, after the acquisition, there was no growth. and the business almost closed down. in a last-ditch effort to keep the company alive, paul bought it back in 2009 to save the community and the business from obscurity. >> with almost 4 million active users, two out of every three teachers downloaded something from the site. and while it's no secret that teachers are notoriously overworked and underpaid, tpt became a place to escape that fate by getting help, support and ideas for their classrooms. with the potential of making some extra money themselves. >> the typical journey is that they start downloading for free and when they find a teacher they connect with, they start to buy. from the perspective of the teachers sell, that's a double good. they make some money and get recognition for the work they've done and they're having real impact in classrooms. >> hope king is a teacher in atlanta, georgia. she has a blog called elementary shenanigans, as well as a successful store on the teachers pay teachers site. >> if i really want teachers to take what they're learning here and let it impact their classroom through engagement, i've got to show them what engagement looks like. so that's what i'm doing. cheers and chants, hands-on learning because i can't just show teachers, here's what you do. they've got to experience it, too, because that's what motivates them, inspires them and is going to impact their classrooms. >> anna is a teacher in new york looking to supplement her income. not only did her tpt store simply skilled take off in just a few days, she found exactly what founder paul edelman intended when he started the company. >> how important is the community of tpt for you? >> it's probably more important than anything. tpt has been such a huge part of my life the last four years. they invite us here. they want your feedback. they want to know how they can better this business and how they can help children and empower teachers. that's what they're all about. it's amazing the collaboration and friendships that have been created by tpt. >> still to come -- our experts talk to us about some important parts of growing your business. sticking with your vision. maintaining your culture and moving on from failure quickly. don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president. (laughing) don't settle for your first draft. or your 10th draft. ♪ ♪ you get to create the room where it happens. ♪ ♪ just don't think you have to do it alone. ♪ ♪ the powerful backing of american express. don't live life without it. how do you maintain the mission and passion in your team when you're scaling fast and having to add a lot of new hours a? >> so the way that you maintain vision and passion is to make sure as you're recruiting that you're not just looking for expertise and cultural fit but passion as well for the category. you need to make sure you're hiring super consumers into your business. super consumers is a concept of high passion, high profit consumers. so the way i'd express this, there's a company called royal canine. they bring in dogs into their interviews. they're measuring how good are you at your job and will you fit in but they're observing the dog to see how you interact with that. so if you are engaging with the, do it's a good fit. if you're not, it might not be a great place for you to work because the category passion isn't there. when gallup says 87% of employees are not engaged and companies that have a highly engaged workplace are 147% more profitable, this is an important measure to include which is category passion. we now have the top two tips you need to help you grow your business. let's introduce our panel. kim perell is the ceo of global marketing technology company amobi and author of "the execution factor." the one skill that drives success. and tim roach is the co-founder of small business funder lender. tim, you have now, what, more -- 80 employees? 50 employees? >> 50 in new york and a sales team in -- i'm sorry, 50 in chicago and 30 in new york. >> and millions and millions of dollars in lending. you started this yourself. one tip? >> the tip or concept for me and working with our business owners is being able to fail fast and recover faster. the concept seems simple, but when you actually try to start executing and understanding and accepting it, it becomes more difficult. when we think of change or failure, by human nature it's not a natural fit to change. we always resist it. i don't think anybody wakes up and says i cannot wait to fail today. so small businesses that are successful that actually deliver strategies that can execute and make decisive decisions every day, there's business owners that are doing that every single day. and what we found is those businesses continue to do that and they do it well. >> what do you mean by recovery factor. how can you get yourself to recover faster? >> working with our team and our culture if you start understanding why you're fail, you may be hiring some of your team member that doesn't fit to a executive decision on a marketing campaign to you just had too much inventory for the fall season or your accounting or crm that is no longer working and is disrupting. to be able to fail at that, recognize it, analyze it and react and realize we failed at this decision that we need to move past on. when i say recovery, it's the ability to recover and move forward from it. what we're finding with our business owners is we talk to them in may. and we're having the same discussion next june. >> got it. >> we're saying, you had the same inventory you turned over three or four times last year. year over year the growth was there. what happened. >> you started your company at your kitchen table and it's doing a billion dollars in revenue? >> yeah. >> in how many years? >> i started my first company in 2003, almost 15 years ago. >> so you know a lot. tell me one thing you've learned going through the past 15 years. >> it's easy to get distracted in today's world. the one thing i've learned that's really important is prioritize your vision. and that's being really crystal clear and putting it visibly you can see it every day. i put mine on my bathroom mirror. every day on a post-it i wake tup and see it. >> before you leave you also have to tell me the name of your book is the one skill that drives success. tell us what that skill is. >> that one skill is execution. so execution is what separates innovation and it's a bridge between innovation and transformation. it's really easy to have that idea and ideas are a dime a dozen. it's hard to execute. the book really says that. >> someone came up to me the other day, a good friend with an idea for this new company and i said to her, it's an obvious idea. why hasn't anyone done it yet. so it's a great idea but for sure someone has thought of this before. so why hasn't anyone done it yet and why can you do it better than all these people who haven't done it? >> it's so true. >> it's about execution. >> it is about execution and it's about having the njd that blueprint of how to execute and that's what the book really shows. >> thank you for writing it and thank you for stopping by. congratulations. both of you have seen great success. >> thanks, jj. this week's your biz selfie comes from zee and edwina arenas who own lemonade love in washington, d.c. they sell locally sourced fruit, and other flavors. pick up your smartphone and take a picture of you and your business and send it to us at yourbusiness@msnbc or tweet it to #yourbizselfie. include the name, the name of your business and its location and we look ford seeing those pictures. thank you so much for joining us. i say this every week and i really mean it. we love hearing from you. if you want to get in tounch, e-mail us. also please go check out our website. it's msnbc.com/yourbusiness. we posted everything from today's show in case you missed anything or want to see it again. plus a whole lot more from you. and connect on all of our digital and social media platforms. also check out our podcast. it's called been there, built that. download it for free from tune in or wherever you get your podcasts. we look forward to seeing you next time. i'm jj ramberg and remember, we make your business our business. don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president. (laughing) don't settle for your first draft. or your 10th draft. ♪ ♪ you get to create the room where it happens. ♪ ♪ just don't think you have to do it alone. ♪ ♪ the powerful backing of american express. don't live life without it. good morning and welcome to "politics nation." in just a few minutes, i will be talking to senator kamala harris, democrat of california, about the upcoming midterms. the kavanaugh confirmation hearings. and her possible presidential run. and later, the tragedy in dallas that left another unarmed black man killed

Transcripts For MSNBCW Your Business 20180922

♪ hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business." it is hard not to notice how rapidly the health and wellness industry is growing. people everywhere are investing in improving their mind, body and souls. meditation is becoming big. he's quickly turned his guided meditation app into a thriving business. but he hasn't done this alone. strategic brand partnerships have helped take inscape to the top. ♪ >> take a deep breath, quiet your mind and sink into a state of serenity. that's what the founder of incape i inscape is asking you to do. people are responding. meditation and mindfulness have gone mainstream and quietly become a billion dollar industry. inscape is one of the key players in this space, taking meditation into the future with its stunning high-tech studio, voice guided meditations and an app that brings the inscape experience to the masses. located in the flat iron district of new york, the 5,000 square foot studio opened in 2016, quickly becoming a hot spot for people seeking calm and clarity in the middle of their hectic daily lives. >> with technology, we're bombarded with information and notifications, sounds, screens. that was my life style. >> he initially made a name for himself in the fax industry with his previous company inter mix. he turned his decade long passion for meditation into his next venture. >> i know meditation is good for me. i would like to do it. i did it for a while and stopped. >> i think the idea is you do it every day, you have a great day. you do it every week, you'll have a great week. you do it as a lifestyle, you'll have a different and a better lifestyle. >> the company started with a focus on consumer marketing, tapping into people like me interested in creating that habit. but he knew in order to scale his brand, he'd have to focus on strategic brand partnerships. he identified one industry right in his sweet spot. >> we're big on the hotels. we see natural collaboration with them. >> so he put together his pitch. >> you should definitely know what the brand has done before so that you can show them that you've spent the time researching and that you understand what resonates with their demographic and how you could potentially push them further. if you haven't done your research, you could pitch an idea they've tried before and failed. >> when the james hotel was developing its program, inscape became an obvious choice for the meditation portion. >> the goal for that was more acquisition. we give them a code that would allow them for a month to unlock the app. hopefully they have a great experience and become users. >> the cost was covered for the first app download. >> it has to be a win. win for both sides. >> ultimately you have to think of what is the benefit for them. >> then understanding are the brands a true match. do they really propel one another further? >> the luxury boutique hotels recently collaborated with inscape to bring the feel of the actual studio to their rooms. they'll soon offer a dedicated tv channel with exclusive guided meditations. >> it's part of the experience. when you come into the room, the tv is on already, the lighting, the mood, the sound is in the background. >> he's also focused on reaching legacy brands. many are looking for innovative and hip startups to partner with. inscape collaborated with listerine for its campaign and bringing well-known influencers on board like sofia bush and eric decker who believe in the power of meditation. >> we say if we're new and innovative, who might need that. the ideal start is to say what are your goals and going to the drawing board and then coming to them. >> we like tapping into an audience that would never even consider meditation. they compensate our production cost and any efforts that we put behind that. >> inscape's also partnered with some other unexpected brands like stella artois. >> think it's only your first mindful tasting experience. >> we like creating a buzz but it has to give a great outcome. our mission is to get users and get downloads where people actually are actively using it. >> as he continues to grow, he says he'll keep creating what may look like surprising partnerships. so far they've been working out. it feels like actress jennifer garner is everywhere, on the big screen, on red carpets and now in the grocery store. she's one of four founders of cold pressed organic baby food company once upon a farm. we sat down with her and one of her cofounders to talk about why she's turned into an entrepreneur and why this was the opportunity that caught her eye. actress jennifer garner has played everything from a take no prisoners mom out for revenge in "peppermint" to the understanding supportive mom in "love simon." being a real life mother of three has inspired her in a whole new type of collaboration. business. >> i've had the fortune of getting to represent byes that i really love. but of course the next thing you want to do then is to be part of something from the ground up. >> when she heard about two entrepreneurs in san diego making an organic cold pressed baby food pouch, she had to learn more. >> one of those entrepreneurs called me and said, hey, would you like to come down and meet with jennifer garner? she's really interested in this brand. i said, sure, i'll take a meeting with jennifer garner. >> we talked about now how business is driving social change and the good in the world. >> just a huge passion for organic and healthier kids' foods and she seemed like a really fun person to work with. >> it was kind of crazy actually. it was kind of a moment of i'm in if you're in. >> in 2017 once upon a farm, a food company offering cold pressed organic baby foods officially had two new members. jennifer serving as chief brand officer and john taking on the role of ceo. >> for me, just from a mom's point of view, there's so many great businesses out there. but there are very few that i feel like i would have done that, that would have solved a huge problem for me. this would have solved an enormous problem for me. i have three kids. i did make their baby food. sometimes i just couldn't get it done. when you open a jar of baby food that's been sitting on a shelf for longer than your child has been alive, it's just so unappetizing. it never made sense to me why we would be feeding this to our kids. >> i had been in the industry for a long time. i had run annie's, a wonderfully successful company. it always fascinated me that no one was doing it in baby food really. >> they're shaking up the baby food industry, starting with the grocery aisle. >> our products require refrigeration because of the way they're processed. there's no refrigerators in baby food aisles. a lot of moms and dads interested in buying conventional baby food, they're also shopping in the yogurt category. so we said let's attack that dairy aisle. >> though jennifer is the face and voice of the company, she's making sure her involvement spans far past being just a spokesperson for the brand. >> it's a whole new vocabulary. everyone's talking in a lingo that i don't understand. i'm just writing down the things i don't know so when we leave, i can say to john, what does this mean, what does that mean. >> there's lots of celebrity endorsers and whatever. that's fine for what it is, but we really needed a hard working involved partner every day. there's no harder working person that i've ever met in my life seriously, full-time actress, mom, partner in this business. we're on the phone all the time working through stuff. we needed that to make things happen. >> jennifer and john bonded over the desire to have once upon a farm be a brand that makes today accessible to kids everywhere. >> one of our long-term goals is to be the first fresh wick baby food. that will be a process to get there. it's very complicated, but we know that wick is very important. >> the kids growing up for example in central valley california which is considered the salad bowl of the united states if not the world, these kids do not have access to fresh healthy food or organic food whatsoever. so we want to get our healthy great products out to kids all across the country. >> you can find the products in major retailers nationwide as well as online. this dream team has every intention of growing with their customers. >> how can we continue to solve problems for moms and give them options that are healthier and closer to fresh and that are still really exciting for kids' pallets. it doesn't matter how pretty the packaging is if kids don't like it. what's exciting for me is seeing my 12-year-old want it in her lunch or seeing kids enjoy the flavor and texture of the product. designer zac posen wears many hats. he designs for brooks brothers and he recently updated the uniforms at delta air lines. he release aeased a cookbook lar and has a new documentary out. he joins us today to talk about the changing face of retail. so nice to see you. >> nice to see you. >> thank you for stopping by. >> thank you for having me. >> it's so interesting kind of following your career and watching you think about fashion in relation to the public. >> yes. >> you kind of famously decided not to show at new york fashion week and have done this for a little while. why? >> i wanted to create great collateral. i wanted to create imagery that connected with the fans and the consumer. i wanted to control that image. i wanted to be a better story teller. >> so you took these beautiful pictures and videos. >> yes. >> why not that on top of doing a show at fashion week? >> you could and some do. it really came to decision about kind of finding a pure message. you know, we live in a social media age where those images are what tell the story of your brand. >> right. it's so different than when you first started out, right? >> absolutely. there were systems and formulas and just the very beginning of online reviews. it's vastly changed, how we sell changed, how we market changed. the consumer has changed. >> right. >> so you kind of have to really take risks to be attuned and aware of it. >> your industry in particular is seeing so much change. so you're talking about how you're marketing to people and speaking to people. but also i have friends who are designer like you and it's a zary tiza scary time for many of them because the way people buy is changing so much. >> absolutely. i think first off one needs a really personal product. it has to be really unique. it has to be special and it has to be consistent to build a business. >> yours has always been unique and special. >> well, we try. we try each season. we have our codes, which are our construction and clothing that loves and empowers women and really playing with the power of glamour. but not in a subjective way. in a self-empowering way for the rare opportunities that you get to wear a ball gown. >> for the rare opportunities. when you take your designer hat and put on your business hat, how do you face the unknown of the future of how people are going to buy and where they're going to buy your things and are they willing to spend what they would have before? >> sure. i think looking at luxury, you know, from some distance today, there is a challenge. it's oversaturated. the veil has been lifted. that can be very concerning. there's so many brands entering the market. fashion loves new. they like to dispose. it's something that i've lived, so now i'm kind of very comfortable in my own skin with my own work and i kind of stick to that and build. and it's a choice. but today i'm running a profitable company. we self-fund ourselves with what we do. it's a slower process, but i think it's authentic. >> right. congratulations. >> it's real. but when i look at it there's a lot of waste in luxury. fashion and clothing doesn't retain value in the way it did. in the past luxury was defined by rarity. everything is globalized now. you can get anything shipped the next day tomorrow. so that changes it. we started to hear very large brands that were burning and destroying their clothing. >> so depressing, right? >> it's pretty depressing. i think looking at the future -- and i'm not there yet -- but there is a huge ecological initiative that needs to be taken by the fashion industry. >> your documentary documents your ride as a designer and a business person, highs, lows, everything in between. >> all a learning process. >> it sounds like just to hear you say you're profitable and that you run your company with your profits is just a great success. congratulations. >> thank you. it's been back to school time for both students and their teachers. as we've seen in the news, many states have cut education budgets along with teacher salaries. many of them do it for the love and the passion of teaching, but unfortunately it does not always pay well. as we reported a while back, there is a business now that gaining traction that allows them to supplement their income by selling learning materials to other teachers. deanna jump is something of a rock star. >> all these teachers are coming up wanting their pictures with me. i'm still not use to it. >> that's because she's a self-made millionaire, the first of several teachers that have hit the jackpot on the educational website called teachers pay teachers. similar to etsy they sell classroom lesson plans that they develop to other teachers. >> i was honored to be the first one to hit that milestone and to be able to pave the way for others, so to speak. >> that was back in 2012. it was also a milestone for teachers pay teachers. >> we saw a group of teachers really adopt the platform. one of them was deanna jump who's a tremendous teacher and inspiring educator. they got teachers excited about what was going on on the platform. it's been a story about how do you keep up with fast growth. >> fast growth was the last thing paul edelman had to worry about when he started the company back in 2006. he launched the business to connect and support the education community by allowing teachers to share the innovative materials they were creating for their classrooms. and while everyone agreed teachers pay teachers or tpt was a great concept, adoption was slow. the journey was a study in the three ps, patience, persistence and pers vernthere were highs a. after acquisition. to save the community and the business from obscurity. with almost 4 million active users, two out of three teachers have downloaded something from the site. while it's no secret that teachers are notoriously overworked and underpaid, they got help, support, and ideas for their classrooms. with the potential of making some extra money themselves if they sold their resources on the site. >> the typical journey is they start downloading for free and when they find a teacher they connect with they start to buy. from the perspective of the teachers who are selling, that's a double good. they make some money, get some recognition for the work they've done, and they get to know they're having real impact in classrooms. >> hope king is a teacher in atlanta, georgia. she has a blog called elementary shenanigans as well as a successful store on the teachers pay teachers site. >> if i want it to impact their classroom, i have to show them what engagement looks like. that's why i'm doing songs, cheers and chants, hands-on learning because i can't just show teachers here's what you do. they've got to experience it, too, because that's what motivates them, inspires them, and that's what's going to impact their classrooms. >> anna is a second grade teacher in new york looking to supplement her income. not only did her tpt store simply skilled take off in just a few days, she found exactly what founder paul edelman intended when he started the company ten years ago. how important is the community of tpt for you? >> oh, my goodness, it's probably more important than anything. tpt has been such a huge part of my life the last four years. they invite us here. they want your feedback. they want to know how they can better this business and help children and empower teachers. that's what they're all about. it's amazing the friendships and collaborations that have been created because of tpt. >> still to come, our experts talk to us about some important parts of growing your business, sticking with your vision, maintaining your culture, and moving on from failure quickly. don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president. (laughing) don't settle for your first draft. or your 10th draft. ♪ ♪ you get to create the room where it happens. ♪ ♪ just don't think you have to do it alone. ♪ ♪ the powerful backing of american express. don't live life without it. how do you maintain the vision and the passion in your team when you're scaling fast and having to add a lot of new hires? >> so the way you maintain vision and passion is to make sure as you're recruiting you're not just looking for expertise and cultural fit but passion. make sure you are hiring superconsumers into your business. it's a concept of high passion, high-profit consumers so the way i would express it is there's a company called royal canin, and they bring dogs into their interviews. they're measuring how good are you at your job but you're interviewing with the dog to see how good you are with that. if you're engaging with the dog, it's a great fit. if not, it might not be a great place for you to work because the passion isn't there. companies that have a highly engaged workforce are 147% more profitable, so it's an important measure to include. >> we now have the top two tips you need to know to help you grow your business. let's introduce our panel. kim is the ceo of global marketing technology company, and also author of "the execution factor: the one skill that drives success." and tim is the co-founder and ceo of small business funder/lender. good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> tim, you have about 80 employees, 50 employees? >> 50 in new york and a sales team -- 50 in chicago and 30 in new york. >> millions and millions of dollars in lending. you started this yourself. one tip. congratulations, by the way. >> thank you very much. the tip or the concept for me and working with our business owners is being able to fail fast and recover faster. the concept seems simple, but when you try to start executing and understanding and accepting it, it becomes a little more difficult. when we think of change or think of failure, by human nature it's not a natural fit to change. we always resist it. i don't think anybody wakes up in the morning and says, you know what, i cannot wait to fail today. small businesses that are successful that deliver strategies, that can execute and make decisive decisions every day, there's business owners doing that every single day. what we've found is those businesses continue to do that and do it well. >> what do you mean by recover faster, though? how can you get yourself to recover faster? >> so a perfect example is we've been working with our team and our culture, if you start understanding why you're failing, you may be hiring a team member that doesn't fit to an executive decision on a marketing campaign to you just had too much inventory for the fall season or you're accounting is no longer working and is disrupting. to be able to fail at that, recognize it, analyze it, react, realize we failed at this decision that we need to move past on, and when i say recovery, it's the ability to recover and move forward from it. what we're finding with our business owners is we talk to them in may and we're having the same discussion next june. we're saying, well, you had the same inventory that you turned over three or four sometimes -- times last year. >> your company is doing a billion dollars in revenue. >> yeah. >> in how many years? >> i started my first company in 2003, almost 15 years ago. >> incredible. you know a lot. tell me one thing you've learned going through the past 15 years. >> i think it's easy to get distracted in today's world. so prioritize your vision. and i think that's being really crystal clear about what you're trying to achieve and putting it visibly where you can see it every day. i put mine on my bathroom mirror so every morning on a post-it i wake up and see it and every night as well. >> the name of your book is "the one skill that drives success." what is that skill? >> it's execution. execution is what separates innovation, and it's a bridge between innovation and transformation. it's easy to have that idea and ideas are a dime a dozen. it's hard to execute. >> someone came up to me the other day, a good friend with an idea for this new company and i said to her, it's kind of an obvious idea. why hasn't anyone done it yet? it's a great idea, but for sure someone has thought of this before, so why hasn't anyone done it yet and why can you do it better than all these people who haven't done it? >> so true. >> it's about execution. >> it is about execution and about having the knowledge and that blueprint of how to execute, and that's what the book really shows. >> thanks for writing it. thank you for stopping by. congratulations again both of you. such great success. amazing to see. >> thanks, j.j. >> this week's "your biz selfie" comes from zee and edwina arenas who own lemonade love in washington, d.c. they sell locally sourced fruit and frozen concoctions. now, why don't you pick up your smartphone, take a selfie of you and your business like you saw and send it to us. >> include your name, the name of your business, and its location, and we look forward to seeing those pictures. thank you so much for joining us. i say this every week and i mean it. we love hearing from you. if you want to get in touch, e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. and check out our website, msnbc.com/yourbusiness. we posted everything from today's show in case you missed anything or want to see it again, and a whole lot more for you. and connect with us on our digital and social media platforms as well. also, remember to check out our podcast. it's called been there, built that. you can download it for free from tune in or wherever you get your podcasts. we look forward to seeing you next time. i'm j.j. ramberg. we make your business our business. don't forget that the past can speak to the future. ♪ ♪ i'm going to be your substitute teacher. don't assume the substitute teacher has nothing to offer... same goes for a neighborhood. don't forget that friendships last longer than any broadway run. mr. president. (laughing) don't settle for your first draft. or your 10th draft. ♪ ♪ you get to create the room where it happens. ♪ ♪ just don't think you have to do it alone. ♪ ♪ the powerful backing of american express. don't live life without it. hey, there. i'm david gura. we are following two huge stories. first, is it a bombshell report or a joke that bombed? the number two official in the justice department suggesting he wa wear a wire to tape the president of the united states. the president is reportedly asking, should he fire rod rosenstein? >> there's a lingering stench, and we're going to get rid of that too. >> breaking overnight, extension granted, senate republicans giving brett kavanagh's accuser more time to decide if she swants

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