by american express open. helping you get business done. >> hi there, everyone, i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your growing business. a little competition never hurt anyone. knowing that other companies are out there trying to grab a share of the market can certainly keep you on your toes, but now switch it up. imagine you are the only game in town. how do you motivate yourself to evolve and get better? we go to alabama for some answers. that's where the team at the unclaimed baggage center is trying to improve their customer service experience even though they have the market cornered when it comes to lost luggage. >> we're world class and you can't just step into that arena and try to compete with us. we own the market. we're really good at what we do and we're continually getting better. >> there is no other business like unclaimed baggage center in the country. >> we stock upwards of 7,000 unique items to your sales floor every single day all at a discount. >> this is the lost luggage capital of the world. >> it's the definition of one of a kind and customers absolutely love it. >> i don't think anybody was as excited as me to come here. >> i do all my shopping here. sooner or later i will find everything i want. >> took everything in me not to spend all of my money. >> with 40,000 square feet of space you never know what you're going to find. >> unclaimed baggage center is the only store in america that buys and resells unclaimed baggage from the airline industry. >> doyle owens started this business this 1970. >> we don't use the word customer, we use the word guest. we want to be engaging from the first moment that they show up. >> it all began with $300 and a ride to washington, d.c. in a borrowed pickup truck to buy the very first batch of lost luggage. almost five decades later if the store is open, people are shopping. >> we have dailies that come in, some of them will be in here once a day, some twice a day. we have weekly people that come in. we have monthly. everybody works extremely hard to try to accommodate the guest, make sure that everyone is taken care of. >> about a million customers visit from around the world every year. it's a bucket list destination. and they come for the thrill of the hunt. >> the thing that makes us unique is we don't serve a demographic as much as we serve a psycho graphic. we serve people who are looking for finds. >> there's no competition in the market and that's not an accident. the airlines didn't want to get stuck holding lost luggage and unclaimed baggage had a solution. >> we do not disclose what airlines we did with. at the end of the day we say all major carriers but we won't call them out by name. >> the business that is exclusive deals to buy all of the lost baggage from the airlines and the goal is to keep it that way. brenda cantrell keeps contract terms close to the vest and won't even show us behind the scenes. >> we've worked hard to get where we are at and it is a process we are not willing to share with anybody else. it's proprietary information. what goes on behind closed doors we keep it behind closed doors. >> if an airline doesn't reunite checked luggage with its owner in three months unclaimed baggage buys t uns it's shipped to alabama luggage is unpacked and divided up. >> when we open these bags obviously we are not going to sell everything that we get. we actually sell about a third of what we get, but we donate about a third and we throw away or recycle about a third. >> the tablets, cameras, jackets and books left in seat back pockets or overhead bins are part of the deal, too. >> so when you think that you're doing yourself a favor that you're loafer loading your arms with your new pham ra and maybe your duty-free items or your coat or your eyeglasses or your baby stroller and in the hurdiness to get off the plane you forget one of those it's going to end up here. >> after being appraised and if necessary laundered clothes, shoes, jewelry and more are sent out to the sales floor. >> back in the day thrift store shopping wasn't cool, but it's cool now. we're thrifty. there's good deals, great deals and fantastic deals. we price anywhere from 20% to 80% off suggested retail. >> bargains aside the operation is about more than just making the sale. unclaimed baggage is sensitive to the information they have access to. after all, you never know what kind of details are on a smart device. >> we handle privacy with the utmost level of profession nichl. we go through department of defense protocol to clear those items, those tablets, laptops, phones, things of that nature. someone who may have lost their item you don't have to worry about your information ending up on the dark web. >> as you walk around you may be floored to find out what other people travel with. there's the paper ma shea tinker bell, a uni cycle and etch the golden arches. >> i've had $100,000 worth of diamonds sitting on my desk before and a needle point book from the 1850s sitting on my desk next to me. >> the company may dominate the market but brian and brenda know exactly what experience they're offering their customers. since there is no e-commerce platform you need to draw people in. one way they've done this is with something they call the baggage experience. >> people have always come in and wanted to say i wish i could open a bag or go into our processing and we've extended what they can't do into something they can do. we invite them to come down and go through the baggage opening process. it's a bag that only one person has seen on sight, it came off the truck, all the original contents stay in the bag. when they open these bags they tell a story, was it a man, a woman, on the way to the destination, after the destination. >> the true test for the business is whether or not they own the ride home. after all, sporcottsboro is not easy to get to. >> when they're going back to wherever they're from they're talking about the people they met, the hospitality they encountered, the items they bought. >> the business only has one location and it's going to stay that way. there isn't enough lost luggage to go around and that's just fine. >> that's the way it felt in 1995, that the possibilities were endless and in 2018 that's the way i still view it. >> the team is always trying to build above their success, solidifying the niche that is definitively their own. >> there is a method to our madness and that's what keeps our store great and the product flow coming in and the quality being what it is. we're good at what we do and why change a good thing? we have to be better than good, we have to be the best always. danny traho knows how to play a bad guy on fill: he spent time in and out of prison. he turned his life around and eventually found his calling. he is now a sought out character actor in tv and movies n addition he took his passion for food and started a series of l.a. restaurants where he also gives others a second chance at life. >> he is known for playing a very particular type of character. >> my career like took off from day one. i was inmate number one for the next five years in every prison movie, gangster movie, what ever. >> with more than 70 movie credits to his name his very recognizable face is definitely associated with a certain kind of guy. >> and i remember the first time i was ever interviewed by some young lady and she said, you're stereotyped as the mean chick cano dude with can a taos. i said i am the mean chick cano dude with tattoos. so find with me. >> now his famous face is entering a new territory, the food industry. with his business partners he is making his mark on the l.a. restaurant scene one taco at a time. >> at the time i was making a movie with danny called "bad ass." you sit around a lot, eat a lot. danny and i used to spend a lot of time together eating, talking about food and jeff and i separately were having this conversation about, you know, opening some kind of food place. it just kind of clicked. like i'm sitting next to the most famous mexican in the country, we love mexican food, why don't we open a restaurant together. >> in 2016 they opened their very first location of trehos tacos in mansion less. >> it killed it. people were coming from all over. >> one of the things that i know is that in the industry, the movie industry, there will be eight or nine people after a film and they want to go to a restaurant. inevitably somebody is going to say, well, you know, i'm vegan or i can't eat gluten or whatever, right? so we decided to make our menu more than just general menu. so we've got vegan, we've got vegetarian and if you want to bite into a cow we've got that. >> the empire has rapidly expanded to include more locations and even a seemingly out of character doughnut and coffee shot. >> the movie "tangerine" made this one iconic building on the corner of santa monica and highland and ash said, hey, that building is available. i said, wow, i'd love to see my picture on t the first day we were open we sold out by 12:30. >> when it comes to the restaurants danny is not just a famous name and face, he is deeply involved. each and every item on the menu at every restaurant has to get the treijo stamp of approval. >> every will come and see a celebrate the first time to get a picture and photographer, but if the food is not good they are not coming back. you will see me at every one of these restaurants because my name is on it so i stayed on top of it. i like it. i eat here all the time. i eat at every one of them. >> if you don't catch him in person you can bet his face will be staring down at you. >> i was in maryland, i said, where did you get that t-shirt? >> we were in l and we had to stop by. obviously like a picture -- a picture says a thousand words. >> danny became famous because of his face so we wanted that be to the core of the brand, his face, his image. the identity of the restaurant is him. >> that means every single aspect of the business will stay true to his roots, even hiring. >> i've been given so much and i started basically with a parole, you know, and by the grace of god my life has taken an unbelievable turn, you know, and right place, right time, good people. you've got to give back. >> here is a guy that was in prison three times and really turned his life around. so it can be done. at one point in our first restaurant i think our whole cook line were ex-cons. we always look for people who have a passion for what they're doing. we o do believe in second chances. as long as they're honest, they work hard and they care, especially in this business, there's so many people who come and go, that, you know, those are the three qualities that we look for. >> you can bet that as the brand continues to expand, his iconic face will always be front and center. >> to me danny is l.a. hopefully we can take this and say we're going to bring whether it's texas or new york or the far east or europe, we're bringing california. >> robert rodriguez said from convict to icon. >> the year is in full swing and there are a few business tech trends that are already gaining traction. here are five things to keep on your radar. one, mobile payments continue to go mainstream. we are a long way from being a cashless society, but the rise of apps like google wallet, venmo and apple pay have made consumers more comfortable with cashless and cardless transactions. two, robots hit the road. despite push back from pedestrian advocacy groups and the city of san francisco's board of supervisors, delivery robots are already being tested in major cities. three, the f cc's net neutrality repeal takes effect. although there is no guarantee that consumers will see any changes in their internet service some experts predict that big internet providers will begin to test their consumers' reaction to slower web speeds. four, cyber security takes center stage. if the recent experian data preach has taught us anything it's that we should make sure that our companies are doing everything they can to protect our customers' information. and five, ar trumps vr. virtual reality was supposed to become the next big thing by 2017 but the success of pokemon go and an augmented reality app suggest that companies may be better off exploiting augmented reality. when your customers love your company because they love you what happens as you grow and one person can no longer handle all the demand? this is exactly the issue that faced one phoenix-based wedding photographer. she had to figure out a way to not only hire people who cared about her company as much as she did, but to get her customers to trust them as much as they trusted her. when christine and san teen know flores started planning their dream wedding they knew the one thing they couldn't compromise on was hiring the perfect person to capture the moment. >> we allotted probably a majority of our budget besides the ceremony space on our photos and we really wanted to make sure that it was the style that we wanted, something classic. >> they came across phoenix-based melissa jill photography. melissa jill began her business in 2003. >> i never intended when i started my business to branch out. i really just thought i was going to be shooting my own weddings for the rest of my life, just a small buh teen business. >> soon with growing demand came a growing need to think bigger. >> i was starting to get some inquiries that were saying, you know, we love your work, but we just can't afford you. do you have anybody else that you would recommend who is similar style, but just a little lower price. i was happy to refer those out to some of my photographer friends in the area and i realized maybe i should take advantage of these leads that i've been generating with my brand and bring on some other photographers to shoot for my company at lower price points. >> learning to trust others to carry on your brand isn't easy, though. especially when it incorporates your personal name. >> when i send an associate photographer out to shoot a wedding for my business they are on their own and they have my business in their hands and it's not their business so it's not as much of a personal investment as it is for me when i'm shooting a wedding. so trusting somebody with that is scary. >> so melissa found a formula to find the right people to bring on. first, since prospective customers are drawn to her company because of her portfolio she hires photographers who don't stray too far from her own personal aesthetic, having them shadow her before doing weddings on their own also ensures their approaches match. >> having them come on and second shoot with me is helpful because they see me working, they see what types of shots i get and as i go through their photos i'm able to give them feedback. >> another important factor is making sewer the job is a good fit for all parties. for full-time job mary jordan working as an associate photography is the best of both worlds. >> i get to do the fun stuff without the nitty-gritty. i don't have to do the business side, i don't really care for the business side of it, i just get to go be creative and take beautiful pictures of beautiful people and beautiful weddings. >> for melissa, taking on photographers who have zero interest in owning their own photography business is practical and cost effective. >> as a business owner i want to be bringing together a team of people who want to invest in my business for the long-term. >> the key to their success is making sure the client knows exactly what they're getting. >> how does it look if you put your hand in your pocket. >> the company's website highlights not only melissa's work but also that of her associate photographers. >> there is a portfolio for each of them so they can click through and see actual weddings that they photographed. i think having all of those things right there online really helps people to see that they can trust, you know, the brand and they can trust the photographers that are a part of that. >> the final step is probably the most important to make sure that clients get a product that's befitting of the melissa gillibrand. post production. one person handles all the editing of the raw images. >> even though a number of different photographers are photographic different events, we want to make sure all of our work is cohesive looking and the style is cohesive and true to the melissa gillibrand. >> while finding a way to hire employees while keeping checks and balances in place to ensure her brand is never compromised, melissa jill has found a way to extend her business's reach. >> i guess it really blew me away the way that it actually came out. so it really fit everything that we were looking for stylewise and the look and the whole feel. the most important thing is that they really captured us. i'm here with this week's elevator pitcher tara fitzpatrick. >> great to see. >> you you come wearing pants. >> twig pants. >> twig pants. how old is it. >> just two years old. >> so you're still in the thick of the beginnings here. >> absolutely. >> how do you feel about going to pitch? >> i'm a little nervous but i've been rehearsing. >> yoga breath. ready? >> yes. >> let's talk in. let me tell you who you are going to be pitching to. two people. neal bogul, he knows what he's talking about, and also cat cohen who started just like you did, a founder with an idea, two 20 years ago, her company now works in 43 countries around the world. let's see what they think. >> okay. >> hi, i'm tara fitzpatrick, founder of twill pants. think school date to dinner date, twig pants are chic comfortable pants made for women of all sizes with fabulous fabrics from europe. my inspiration is my daughter, i'm a mother, former model. my daughter had elastic pants that were trendy, adorable but easy and i said, us busy women we need these, adorable but easy. busy women, we need these, too. twig pants are creating a movement of style and comfort where you design your own pant on line. so you can have elastic waist, with or without a tie or straight or gathered waist. and we give back. my passion is girls' education and empowerment worldwide. pants are about 110 to $175. my ask is $100,000 to expand our marketing for 10% of the business. >> all right. good job, tara. you're going to get me out of my yoga pants i'm wearing constantly every day after work because it's so cold outside. want me to grab the pants? they'll look fabulous on you, neal. and you started this when? >> two years ago. >> and it's going well? >> positive feedback, everybody loves them. since i'm coming from the field of fashion, i'm learning the trade. just manufacturing has been michal lem my challenge. >> neal, let's start with you. >> i'm going to give the product a 6. i'm not the target market, but my wife definitely is. it's like a loft things in her closet, things that transition. the fabric is really nice. i think it's very stylish for today. i think it looks great. there's obviously a challenge where there is not a lot about the proprietary apparel. you'll need to build a brand that really means something. the pitch goes toward building a brand. your story is interesting, being a model and a mom. the story is inspirational. i think for this to catch on, the story has to resonate with people, otherwise it's like a million pairs of pants that people can buy on amazon. >> i gave the product a 4 and the pitch a 6. the product i gave a 4 because to me looking at it and touching it, to me it feels a little like pajamas. i'm not sure i would put on a pair of these, drop off my kids at school and then go to work, so i'm not sure they actually go through the whole day. the other thing about the product that maybe made me rate it a little bit lower is the cost. i think the cost is high for what this is. it's a very simple design, and maybe even the fabrics are coming from europe, i found it a high-cost product. i don't know that i would spend that much on these pants that feel sort of like sweat-type, pajama-type pants to me. the pitch i gave a 6. like neal, i really loved your back story, hearing about your personal story with your daughter. i think you have to think about why you're calling it twig. i didn't understand the connection between the name or the brand with the pant. if you want to think about women all over of all sizes, twig did not resonate with me. also with your cause, i think, as you said, you're interested in empowering women in education, and i didn't see how that connected. but then again, i loved hearing your own back story. >> okay, great. >> this is so helpful because you have something here, and i think these guys need to get it more. you need to hone that pitch down to answer cat's question, right? like why would you wear this all day long in a way that captures their imagination and talk about the brand more. so fantastic advice, both of you. congratulations on how far you've gotten so far out of nothing, and best of luck to you. >> thank you. when we come back, where should you focus your attention when your company starts to rapidly grow? and the man who founded okay cupid. shop runner ceo sam yagan on why data is the key to success. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. is how the customer feels from all the way from acquisition to all the way through the whole experience of whatever they're doing. if they're purchasing something or going through a service with you, buying a widget. and even after they go through that experience, what are you doing with that customer? ultimately they're going to be a referral source for you, and that creates loyalty. they will also come back to you. so that's key. we now have the top tip you need to know to help you grow your business. internet entrepreneur sam yagan is the ceo of shop runner. he was the vice chairman of the match group. he created e donkey and spark groups. you've done a lot. >> thanks for having me. >> you had to close one company, you ran a huge company, you've done it all. piece of advice? >> i would say the most important thing a ceo has to do is set the right culture. through the companies i've been involved in running is getting people to think the right way, whether that's using data to make new decisions, whether that's going to fail, or whether they think about business in new ways amid disruption. organizations are designed to basically maintain their momentum and protect themselves from outside threat like change. so you as the ceo have to be the one that comes in and sets the culture. it's okay to fail, we're willing to think differently. >> what have you done in the past when you realized your culture was veering off course and you need to ed to right it? >> one thing i do is i require the executives who report to me to quantify their failures in their annual review. i need to know how much have your failures cost the company in actual dollar terms? once you get people thinking that that's okay, in fact, it's required that you make mistakes throughout the year, i find it changes the way people act entirely. >> interesting. do they do that with their direct reports also? >> certainly. as you go down through the organization, hopefully the numbers become smaller. i once made a $15,000 mistake when i was running the match group, and i was very open with that. i sent it to my director reports. so being able to monitor that showed people, well, if he's able to talk about that failure, i can talk about my failures and take chances. most people get to success without failing. as you build that throughout your career you take fewer and fewer risks, and i wanted to change that. >> so good to see you, sam. thank you. >> thank you so much. this week's #yourbizselfie. she studied the aroma and became what she calls a scentologist. take a picture of yourself in your business and send it to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. include the name of your business and its location and use #yourbizselfie. one thing i love is hearing from you, our audience. if you want to write to us, just e-mail at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. head over to our facebook page. we put up all the segments of today and a lot more from you. don't forget to connect with us on our digital and social media platforms as well. finally, don't forget to check out our podcast, "been there. built that." i promise you'll be entertained and learn a whole lot. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then, i'm jj ramberg, and remember, we make your business our business. so that's the idea. what do you think? i don't like it. oh. nuh uh. yeah. ahhhhh. mm-mm. oh. yeah. ah. agh. d-d-d... no. hmmm. uh... huh. yeah. uh... huh. in business, there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you. so we're doing it. yes. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. welcome to "politics nation." president trump is at it again. last night he went unscripted and unleashed during a rally in pennsylvania, stumping just days ahead of the special election in the state's 18th congressional district. it's a local race, but with big implications beyond the keystone state, and president trump in campaign mode went

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