Msnbc your business is sponsored by American Express. Dont do business without it. Your business is sponsored by American Express, dont do business without it. Hi there, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your growing business. I get this feeling where i do everything between life and work and its going well, but so busy, theres zero room for error. Things that are out of our control happen all the time. Its how we deal with them that matters. We went to los angeles to meet a woman that faced a tragedy that forced her to rethink her company. She was at the helm of a jewelry line when her son suffered a rare medical condition. She had to be there for her son and keep her business afloat. She was at the top of her game in 2016. The jewelry business she started 15 years earlier was doing great. Her designed were adorned by everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to lay day gaga. They were getting ready to launch a direct to consumer website. Then, the unthinkable happened. My son was diagnosed with a disease. We could not get it under control. We were in and out of the hospital. Her world was turned upside down and things went from bad to worse. I remember the doctor saying he might have to have his col lon removed. All hell broke loose. Having a child who is sick is gut wrenching, it is awful. The terrifying medical journey had only just begun. He had three surgeries. The first surgery, his colon removed. The second is big, because they reconstruct everything. It was awful. How could she keep up with the company she worked so hard to build while her entire being was focused on her son . The first few weeks are a blur. I had to do the best i could given the limited time, resources and mental capacity that i had. After the first surgery, we had so many horrible surprises. It was triage, at that point frrks a business perspective. I would answer things that had to get done. Obviously, my focus was on my son and getting him well. She didnt want to give up the company. She couldnt. She needed to find a way to do things differently to keep the business running. Suddenly, time was precious. I will never forget that my factory called me and they were late with something. I remember just having no tolerance for this. That turned out to be, really, a positive blessing, almost. Theres no room for mistakes that shouldnt be mistakes. Chain gets shipped late. Theres no excuse. We need to build in certain systems. Why is it getting shipped late . We always order the same chain. Produce more of it, hold stock of it. Like many founders, she was always in the weeds with every aspect of her business. But, no longer. Now, she had no choice but to trust her employees to make things happen without her. This terrible situation that allowed me to let go and be able to say, you know what . I have something more important that i have to dedicate my time to. We have a product. It has to get out the door. It has to get shipped. Sometimes decisions have to get made without me there. They did. I wanted to be very involved in all the website development. I realized we have to get something up. Me not being able to make every decision and approve every single piece, those we can change. Its okay. So, lets get it up there. When im more mentally clear, we can take a bigger look at it and make changes. Something sometimes is better than nothing. What made this possible was an openness with her team about what she could and couldnt handle and a group of people around her who were willing to step up. I would have to call someone and say i cannot send this email. I need you to communicate exactly what im thinking and hope they did a great job because i had to move on and deal with something else. Throughout this process, you realize you need to lean on people. Work became a bit of a lifesaver for her. A much needed distraction during the hardest times with her son. Theres a lot of dead time in the hospital. Its emotionally gruelling. You know, you need things to distract you. I actually remember when simon was in one of the surgeries, reviewing things happening on my website, showing them to my husband and providing feedback on them because you really, you could go crazy sitting there. Ultimately, simon made a full recovery and is thriving now and although the lifechanging experience is something she would ever want to relive, she sees the profoundly positive impact it had on her business and her leadership skills. I think you dont emerge from hell empty handed. You definitely receive gifts from that entire process. I know, personally, the gifts that benefit me the most benefited my business. We all lie, all the time. Thats mostly harmless like telling someone you like their jacket when you dont. Other times, the lies result in Something Big and harm to feel your company. Many of us faced someone across the negotiating table who we are not sure is telling the truth. If thats the case, what do we do . How do you strike a deal effectively if you dont trust the person on the other side . I sat down with leslie john, who gave me ideas. Is it easy to spot a liar . No, it is not ease stoi spot a liar. There are all these tales, if they blink a lot, look down. There are other reasons why people may look down or away. Maybe they are shy. Maybe they lack confidence. We want to believe we can detect lies, but we cant. Going into a negotiation and trusting your gut or your own ability to say, oh, im going to know if they are lying or not, that is not a strategy . No. Its not going to work . No. For fun, we taped a bunch of people lying and not lying. I want to see if we could guess. First one i wenlt to an all girls school from kindergarten to 12th grade. Telling the truth. I think so, also. I went to an all girls school and she looks like someone that would be at my school. And she is shes lying. I mean, i had no idea. That was so good. Next one. My aunt is a naturally born hawaiian citizen and voted miss hawaii in 1950. Wow. I think hes telling the truth because its very creative. I think its hard to make stuff like that up. Maybe im wrong. Im not listening to anything you say. I think hes lying because his eyebrow went up. You are sitting here telling me not to Pay Attention to that. Its so compelling this idea we can spot a liar. He is oh you were right. That just proves a point. Im not taking credit for it. That proves your point. We want to detect lies. If that was a negotiation, i have ruined it because i dont trust him. Yeah, yeah. I know all of these people and you dont know any of them. They all work in my office and yet, im not doing any better than you are. Yeah. The fact is, people are going to lie. Some people you are going to negotiate with them and they are going to lie. If i cannot rely on seeing how their facial expression changes or a weird tick, what do i do . Because we are not good at detecting, we want to try to head it off and prevent our counter parts from lying to us. How do we do that . Well, theres lots of strategies we can deploy. One is theres a lot you can do with respect to your questioning strategy. So, you want to make it hard for them to lie to you. Imagine that you are talking to a supplier and you are worried that supplier is running late. They are not going to deliver on time. So, you want to know if they are, if their work is on time. If i say are you on time, of course they are going to say yes. Yeah. You could ask it, this is subtle, right . You could say, you are running late, right . Thats harder to lie to. Right. If i say to them, you are running late, right, they have to say no, im not running late. Exactly. Which feels, it feels like it has a much greater weight. Exactly. It feels more like a lie. Its so subtle, right . Lets talk about dodging. Dodging is when people answer, essentially not the question you ask, but the question they wish you had asked them. Politicians are famous for this. I was thinking politicians. On the receiving end of a dodge, if i ask you a question and you didnt answer and said whatever you wanted to say, im actually not that good at detect thag you didnt answer my question. If i say to you, whats your rate of Customer Acquisition and you say the first time our customers come to our site, they love what we do. The first purchase they always make is the soap and we have such good feedback on the soap and we are talking about the so soap. You have not answered my question, but i want to work with you. Right. The natural question is what do we do . How do we protect ourselves against dodging. Write down the questions and check off whether that person actually answered the question. Another thing that can be helpful is to take advantage of information leakage. How we sometimes just will make fleeting comments and may actually reveal stuff about what we know. How do we get people to then, go beyond not lying, but actually tell you the truth they are hiding from you . Yes. In a negotiation, you can present a counter part with two different offers that you are indifferent between. Offer a, offer b, you are equally happy if thats the one you agree upon. Ask which would you prefer and what your preference is actually tells me about what you care about more versus less. If i said to someone, for instance, you can get this job done on time and ill pay you 150 or you can take three months more and ill pay you 100 . They pick the latter, then i know they value time more than money. Exactly. Which is something they may not want to tell me in a negotiation because thats sort of the secret they have in their back pocket. Exactly. Exactly. Getting the word out about your product and service is hard, its really hard as we know. For this elevator pitch series, we wanted to do something different. We wanted our pitchers to show product and service to influencers. We are in the office of she knows media, a womens lifestyle brand that reaches 75 Million People a month. They have a conference this summer called blog her. If they get the heart emoji from the panelist, they get to go to blog her and present their product or service in front of 3,000 people who can write about them and that could totally change the trajectory of their business. Lets see how our pitcher does. Brittany, hi. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. The company, happily ever happily ever borrowed. I keep going happily ever after. Its bridal accessories for rent. Right, we rent everything except the dress. Such a smart idea. Thank you. A lot of people hear about stuff for weddings through friends. Most of our brides find out about us through word of mouth with friends. My favorite and least favorite thing, oh, i wish i knew about you before my wedding. The ability to reach them before the wedding and let them know they have the option to rent is important. Do you feel nervous . A little bit, but i feel good. You are going talk to samantha, president of she knows. She basically runs blog her. All the influencers that are there are there because of her. The second one is katie, an influencer herself. She reaches about 500,000 people. She is the one who makes products like yours. Amazing. Lets see how you do. Okay. Hi, my name is brittany. Im the founder of happily ever borrowed. Hi. Hi. We are the eboutique that rents bridal accessories for the wedding day, veils, tiaras and accessories. Everything but the dress. It is to save money and present waste in the wedding industry. We have top products at a low, low price. We rent at 80 to 90 off the price. Weaf trial box to try pieces in advance of their wedding day. Since launching in 2011, we have served 20,000 brides across america. Having the opportunity to pitch at the she knows blogger conference would be amazing for us. We would love to be in front of amazing female influencers to help brides find their something borrowed. Love it, love it. Thank you. Nice job. Do you have questions of brittany . You did a good job . Thank you. How many competitors in the market . There are few. We know rent the runway, but they are focused on dressing the every day woman and wedding guests. Theres nothing that is bridal specific. We are really the only company that does this for actual brides with actual bridal product. I have a question. How do you distribute the product . I decide online or somewhere . Yes. I want that. Does it arrive . Yes, we have four eightday rentals. People rent it for a thursday, it arrives on a saturday. Sorry, arrives thursday for the wedding an saturday. If they want it longer, they do the eightday rental. We have a trial box. When you are having your hair trial or dress fitting, you can rent a couple pieces. Im going to let you two confer for a second to decide. Okay. If brittany will be coming to blog her or not. I love this idea so much. Im probably never going to wear this again. It would cost around 700 and we rent it for about 50. What if we are not totally in agreement . We have to be in total agreement . Okay. The moment of truth. Will brittany be going to blog her or not . No. I think what you are doing is smart and i love the idea of less waste in the bridal industry. I think the entry is too low for duplicates and theres something more innovative that needs to be introduced. Do you think people is there anything she could do differently in talking about it . I need to know why you are different. There may not be one Company Available to do this, i think i need something really specific, really special that you do. I know the rentals, i understand the try box, but i want something, something differentiating. The way we get people to write about this, which is going to come back with an it ration that we are all about is the person who uses it. The people who use it, thats the story you want out there. Thats how we write about things. Its a sustainability focused celebrity who decides the waste and the runway trades that already happen is the right way to go. Yes. Its somebody very high end who can afford to buy it who use chooses not to. Thats when it takes off. Can i chime in, also . Im thinking, i dont usually chime in. You are pitching to people to write to you. Talking about what blog her means to you is irrelevant to them. To use that time to say this is why you should love this thing, to make you want to write about me. Did any of you get married . How much money did you spend . What a waste. Right. I want you to talk about stephanie in North Carolina who saved 2200 by borrowing accessories. Exactly. Repitch. Then we want dwrou succeed. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. Im at the collision conference in new orleans where 25,000 people have descended upon this Conference Center to talk about whats new in tech. Whats innovative, whats coming next. Im here with george to talk about robots. He is the chief product officer and cofounder of kindred. Great to see you. You are doing really neat stuff with robots and retail. Warehouse retail. Talk about what your company does. We are creating Artificial Intelligence that helps robots learn. Robots do repetitive stuff in factories, but once you get out of the factory and go to the warehouse where things are changing all the time. Robots arent smart. We are helping them be smarter to do the work and help Warehouse Associates in what wo lets say im at the warehouse at the gap. What does your robot do . So hundreds of orders will come in a day. People will pick up items from the warehouse shelves. And it comes to like a soration area, where you have now have to sort out individual orders from this big batch of stuff that shows up. So people will sit there all day, trying to picking one thing out. And our robots will do that part of the task. So then the workers then go do the packing or do the auditing or doing the testing and that kind of stuff. So that is a big help for the warehouse stuff. Exactly. And yet the great fear for so many people out there is robots are going to take my job. Right. And so as someone whos in this field, is it something you are nervous about . Are new nervous that you are creating machines that are taking over humans jobs . We chose a market that was growing really fast a huge labor shortage and applying robots in that area. Now, the more time we spend developing it, the more we realize just how complex and intelligent and vaadvanced huma are. So we let the robots do the very repetitive, mundane, boring things people dont like to do, and let people do the things they like doing. Create i have work, judgment. A lot of tasks in a warehouse that create judgment and creativity. When youre packaging products, Everyone Wants to create a wonderful experience for the customer. That takes creativity and agility and all things robots cant do. So we focus on things that are repetitive that people dont want to do. You equate it to a forklift. Correct. Explain that. When forklifts first came out, people were worried about the same thing. Job loss and all of that. People started wanting to be the forklift driver. They got paid more, it was an easier job. But they got to do things like decide what is safe or unsafe, which the robots cant do. And the robot does the heavy work or lifting 40, 50 pounds multiple times a day. Its the same thing. Our robots are doing the heavy lifting and you have the humans doing the helping, the training, teaching, judging, that kind of stuff. And your robots interact with humans. They have their own human help center. Thats right. How does that work . Robots are not as smart as we think they are and they have a long way to go. So we have robots who try to do the tasks, but very often they fail. And when they fail, they call home they call the help center and say, hey, i need some help. So our remote robot pilots will take control of the robot, help it through the tough spot, and let it continue its work. And it can go back to doing what it was doing. That way all our customers, small, midsized, large customers, they can they have a robot that just dozen the jes. The robot uses that information to keep getting smarter. And is this something thats very expensive thats going to separate the big businesses with lots of money from the small and mediumsized businesses that arent going to have the same efficiencies in their warehouses . Right. So to counter that, withe actua dont sell the robots. Theyre pretty expensive. We lease them as a service. So as the same cost as a human worker, you can lease one of our robots and use it as much as you need to. That way anyone has access to the technology. It was so nice to talk to you. Youre doing some really neat stuff and congratulations on all the success so far. And still to come, how to come up with a budget and stick to it. Plus, why you need to own your mistakes so that you can actually fix them. The line between work and life hasnt just blurred. Its gone. Thats why you need someone behind you. Not just a card. An entire support system. Whether visiting the airport lounge to catch up on whats really important. Or even using those hardearned points to squeeze in a Little Family time. No one has your back like <