Hi there everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business. The show dedicated to helping your Small Business grow. Theres been one process i find not very fun at all and that is looking for office space. Once you get a great space of course its fantastic, but the road there can be, to say the least, a bit of a headache. So were going to try to make it a little easier for you by giving you the questions to prepare you for signing on the dotted line. Whether its your first lease or your 10th. Its a rainy day in new york city. Not best weather to go out looking at office space but as entrepreneurs, were used to dealing with much worse than a little rain. Ive gone through the process of renting an office a few times and believe me i know it can be daunting. Hi there. We ask jonathan, ceo and founder of real estate tech start up, the real foot to show us how to approach the concept of renting office space. Jonathan took us on a daylong tour, getting a sense of what you get for your money and more importantly, what questions you need to ask yourself when looking at spaces because, he said no matter what theyre going to be trade offs. When you walk in, is the lobby good . Is it clean . You want to make sure the bathrooms are clean . How many elevators are there . Connectivity is important. You want to make sure theres enough providers of internet and telecom. Theres a negotiation. How much are you paying per square foot . How long is the lease for . What kind of improvements will the landlord pay for . It depends on the specific market and the time based on supply and demand and also how long of a lease you sign. So if you say i want this space for 10 years, the landlord will do whatever wt in reason. I only want three years, youll have to come in and put money in yourself. Jonathan showed us a range of places to give us a sense of the decisions his clients can make. Different decisions make more sense for different groups. We started at a boutique, fashion and jewelry brand, this would be what he would consider a good option. Weve done a few deals in this building. Clients love it because the same lobby look and feel and the same office look and feel that you see in chelsea but because its Garment District its 20 bucks less a foot. The building is nice, the neighborhood a little less so. For this company, it didnt matter. They wanted to be in the Garment District because they wanted to be around the same type of companies theyre working with all the time. Here it was pretty much an as is space. The landlord polishes the floors, paints the walls and makes it very turn key. Mostly the it terms came down to price and the length of the lease, also jonathan felt comfortable putting his client here because he knew it well. Something he suggests Business Owners try to do before signing on the dotted line. Weve been in places where there was an actival tenant in the space and the client said how do you like it and the tenant said everything is great except these three things that there horrible. Jonathan took us to a health and wellness company. Their price is more expensive because its a trendier area of town. This company had very specific requirements. What must haves did this company come to you with . One of the things they needed was a kitchen. And this space checked that box with flying colors. They cov a lot of food stuff and best recipes and like to be able to cook within their space. Got it. But most offices dont have a full kitchen. It was hard to find but it makes it easy once you find it. Easy because they were clear on what was important. They were willing to pay extra to be in a desirable neighborhood and get a kitchen but didnt want to spend money on changing the layout and even though theyre growing fast, the set up works for them. How many square feet per person . Depends on the type of business you have. We have about 4500 square feet and we can fit about 42 43 people. Thats what we call start up comfortable. As you go up to a law firm, youre looking at several 00 square feet per person. 1 125 150 square feet per person is a good place to look at. Theres a couple ways we deal with. We share space with one of our investors and weve helped other groups do that. And theres other groups, like pivot that specialize in the matching process and the other is to realize that in the going out months, youll be paying more per desk spaces because it will be empty and at the back end, it will be the inverse when youre getting to thesardie nes. A company also growing rapidly. Good to meet you. The Company Started with this one office. When they ran out of space, they annexed an Office Next Door and another down the hall. Far from ideal. The cobbled together space was just no longer working. As i look around the room and at your sales area in the other room, its tight. Its really tight. Was there a point where your employees were starting to grumble and say you know, john, we need space. I think that was a year ago. They found a great new space nearby and getting ready to move but the staggered leases on their current offices makes it difficult. Is your lease up . Because we have three different offices, theres three different terms. Leasing, surrendering and giving away offices one at a time. It will be a mix of subleasing and surrending. They take it back, but it clear as liability off your books and you move into the next space not having to worry about your old leases. This time around john wanted to create the perfect office. He took a longer lease in exchange for a tenant improvement alouns, which means the landlord helps pay for the cost to rent out the space. It put us in a position we can grow for three to five years and feel like the landlords helps us by putting us in a place we can grow and expand within the same floor. With the hammers still swinging, john gave us a sneak peek at his new office under construction around the corner. This is great. Beautiful set up. Great entry way. Super exciting for an upgrade for us. Now at the higher end of the rental market, johns two priorities, room to grow and a Great Customer experience are realized. Welcome to the new space. Oh, its great. Its big. Its massive. The elevator exits right off the space. A nice change in scenery from the old space. Youre walk nothing to an all show room floor set up with a big retail experience. Weve essentially taken the old retail floor and tripled the size. After seeing places all over town, it was interesting to witness the day of not standard growing out of one space and into another. How excited are you to be in one space instead of four spaces . If im excited, our staff is ecstatic. As we just saw, space is incredibly important and thats particularly true when it comes to a brick a Mortar Retail store. It is so easy to buy things online that your shop needs to have a Little Something extra to get people through the door. They figured out the trick. They sell items you cant find anywhere else and turned their store into a true experience. When they created a small collection of vinyl wallets on a wim, they never imagined their passion project would evolve into a leading lifestyle brand known throughout the world. Back in 2003, the husband and wife team became known. For organizing hip little art shows during their down time. The stylish duo loved exposing their innercircle to the emerging talent around them. None of us could afford it because were all poor. So we thought why not make something affordable that everyone needs. They collaborated with a handful of local heaartists to L Limited Edition wallets. The wallets sold out that night. People were like whoa, this is awesome. With their art for your every day motto at the core, they launched an Online Retail destination that sells their original creations and other design driven pieces with a similar aesthetic. All with similar prices. They have always celebrated the visionaries behind the products. There was always a bio for the artist, itads a whole other life to what youre bringing home. They have gone from an unplanned upstart to a booming business with a Robust Community of die hard fans that grows by the day. Big name brands like nike and target have also embraced poketos flavorful flair. I think thats a special thing about poketo is it was able to walk this line of mainstream andn niche. They have always understood the importance of memorable experience, from pop up art it allows them to engage with the brand on a deeper more meaningful level. So in 2012, ted and angie opened up poketos flagship. It houses a retail store, creative offices and a transformative Space Dedicated to special events. From condiments and calligraphy to flower arranging and social media for your business, poketos work shops have become a celebrated Community Building staple for the brand. Were not just here to sell things to them, were here to provide a whole different set of creative outlets. It has taken poketo beyond their wildest dreams. They recently oopened a second brick and mortar in korea town that line hotel and they partnered with nordstrom so that nonanglenos could get a taste of what theyre all about. The best compliment is when people write us and say were so inspired by what you do. You pushed me to do this or create that. Its great that poketo can touch people in that way and have that experience beyond just buying a product. I know that we talk so much about social but i dont want to discount the importance of email. Its evolved in big ways thanks to a greater innovation of social. We turn to the start up mag. Com to give us five ways we can make the most of our digital correspondence. Make your contact list a data base of information. Clear bit moves them to relevant details on each lead. Get real time notification. A Chrome Extension like side kick can alert you when your emails have been opened. Three, you can capture more email addresses with the help of a tool like sumo. Me. Four, automation. Have prebuilt emails sent off with the help of Companies Like send with us and mail jet. Strategically communicating with your visitors at a specific time and in a particular way will help you convert more into customers. And five, dont underestimate a transactional email. Personalized offers can often inties past clients to make repeat purchases or share with their friends. When it comes to building our teams i think all or most of us go into the process thinking were looking for the best people and assuming that once theyre in our companies, were cultivating their talent. But the truth is so many Small Business owners are doing it wrong and their companies are suffering as a result. Hes a professor at dartmouth colleges top school of business. He recently launched the book superbosses how exceptional leaders foster the flow of talent. Nice to see you. Great to be on, j. J. This is probably the most important thing you can do for your company is hiring people and keeping them and too many of us dont think of it as a real business practice. It is and it has to start with the interviewing process. Look for the best people. They say hire people smarter than you. Have the guts to do that and know how to dig into it and ask the types of questions that will give you meaning and ideas. Ask about specific things theyre doing on the job to see how they think and react. How specific can you be about your company . How much can you assume this person knows about your company . Number one, you want someone whos done research ahead of time. That shows theyre at least somewhat interested. Number two, its too costly to make a bad higher. So lets test them out and kick the tires. One of my favorite questions is what are the top five things youre going to do your first month. And they might be wrong. It wouldnt be the things im thinking but it gets me to understand they have started thinking about what we do. You want people in the game and thinking not going to do everything you assign them, which they better do right but you want them to come up with things you havent thought of. A lot of people feel when you lose people its quite disruptive. You dont want to lose the best talent but the reality is the best talent might want to start their own company, they might want to have your job, they might want to go to a biggerer company. You want to give them an opportunity to excel and as a result you do much better. We can get so hung up on that. How do you so if all of your employees see a lot of people going out the door, one reaction is this isnt a great place to be f it was there wouldnt be such turn. Or these people are moving on to bigger and better things. This is where i want to be at. And you gain a bit of a reputation as a talent magnet. Good people seek you out. And how do you say good bye to people who leave . Say good bye to start. The last thing you want to do is say youve been disloyal. The network youre developing can be so valuable. Ive had people who come back to get rehired. Theres a business opportunity, theres so many different ways you can continue to do business. Why wouldnt you want to do that . Use your self confidence to deligate more. It is one of the number one issues, particularly with founders is they hold on tight. I mean its tough. Because youve built it, you created the whole thing. You know everything thats right. And thats dangerous in and of itself. The key to being a successful manager and thats what you is to be is youve got to be able to hire great and deligate and give them an opportunity to create value for you. Youve got to be self confident. You have to feel theyre not going to eclipse you and you got to trust them. Thats the thing i find time and time again trips up people. If youre not deligating. They say theyre burned out. Why not . Because theyre not deligating because they dont trust those other people. Again, we cannot stress how important the team is. Its the difference between a Successful Company and a nonsuccessful one. Thank you. Todays elevator pitcher wanted to teach her children the importance of being charitable. She is the founder and ceo and scott is co founder of so cozy hair care for kids. Hello. My name is lillya. And a Monthly Subscription creating kids craft for a cause. Im a mom of two and wanted to teach them the importance of giving back. So i created little loving hands. Each month we spotlight a different chartd charity and provide all the kids they need to crealt a craft sent back to that charity. Since launch we have shipped over 1,000 boxes and we have hundreds of kids around the country creating beautiful crafts that are sent to help the elderly, homeless and sick children. Right now im doing this all by myself so a 50,000 investment would be helpful to acquire more customers. Its a billion dollar industry but theres nothing like little loving hands that provides an activity to teach about kindness and empathy. So will you join me in showing that littlest people can have the biggest hearts . How much are you looking for . 50,0 50,000. So two numbers. The first between one to ten. First, what do you think of the product and what do you think of the niche . I think its incredibly smart, the ideas incredibly smart. Thats my opinion. So i gave the product a 7. Its clear you felt a personal point and there was a need for this and understand it deeply. I like the idea of what youre doing and sounds like theres traction to date. I gave the pitch a 7 because i felt like there was a lot of really great information in terms of your ask and some of the milestones and market soois size but i would have wanted to hear more about what youre using the money for and how youre defending yourself against competition. So 7 and 7. And thats great feedback because this is what she does for a living. So i gave your product a nine and your pitch an eight. On the product size, i have a 4 1 2yearold who would be obsessed and i want my kids to learn how to do well. From a pitch perspective, sometimes charity and capitalism, its like oil and water. If you can give the investor a context to other businesses that have succeeded there. For example, toms for the shoes and if you can weave that into your pitch, i think you can bridge the gap between the two and give context to your opportunity. I think thats great feedback because ultimately an investor is not investing in a cause. They also want to make money. That was great feedback from both of you. Thank you so much and good luck with everything. If any of you out there have a company and you want to pitch it here in the elevator, send us an email. Your business msnbc. Com. Include a short sum ray of what you do and what you intend to do with that money. We look forward to reading about your businesses and seeing some of you on the show. When we come back, we tackle the question how much will it cost to start opnew business and the difference between pitching a product and pitching your company to potential funders. Bllz 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. Arlean writes how does one come up with start up costs for starting a business . Good news, arline. A lot of the basic tools you need, whether its creating email accounts or marketing on social media or a website are basically free. So that may even allow you to start a business without raising any capital at all and basically boot strapping it. But i think the best way to do is to talk to banks and if not, consider venture capital, angels, crowd funding and you consider how much you need, you may find you can raise very little to get started and thats a good thing because the minute you raise capital, you have a boss and you want to make sure you retain as much control as possible. We now have the top two tips you need to know to help your Small Business grow. Alicia and scott are back with us to give advice. You gave great advice in the elevator. Now something for the audience. My top tip is know the difference between a product pitch and an investment pitch. With a product pitch, as you know its all the details of the product, the technology, ad ones, etc. But a pitch to investors for funding really has to focus on the business holistically. That includes everything, including the product but also the team, the market size, the competitive landscape, what youre asking for in terms of funding, where that funding with ilgo and the financials, how youre reaching customers. You have to know what kind of pitch is called for b