good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business," a millennial son convinces his father they should stop working for other people's vineyards and start their own wine business. a young entrepreneur cleans up by boot strapping his bicycle delivery laundry service. plus, how the new overtime rules could affect your small business. that and much more coming up next on "your 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.

for those who always find new ways to grow their business, american express open proudly presents "your business" on msnbc. ♪ >> hi, everyone. i am jj ramberg, and welcome to "your business," the show dedicated to helping your small business grow. working with family is not always easy, especially when age and experience are factors but for one millennial his fresh perspective helped his latino family with strong roots in napa valley dream bigger. we head to wine country to see how they developed the perfect blend of new and old in order to grow a successful small business. ♪

for the gallegos family, wine is in their dna. >> my grandfather immigrated from mexico and settled in napa valley, and he worked for one of only five wineries in the area, barringer, and then in '66 he brought over the rest of the family, including my dad. >> he spent his entire life working in the vineyards of napa valley, often with his two sons by his side. >> i would go out there and prune. they would go out there with me. i would do the initial cuts and they'd come through and size the spurs and everything. >> he was content working for other people but when he saw his boys wanted to follow in his footsteps, he considered doing something different. >> he was happy with what i was doing. i enjoy working for the people i was working with. but western i saw that both nacho and eric were going in the same direction as i was, i thought it would be a good time

to start a business. >> so in 2008, hand in hand with his sons, ignacio started gallegos vineyards. they tend the grapes that go into making some of the world's top wine labels but that wasn't enough for the youngest son eric. he wanted to bring back another family tradition. >> it will be a nice wine. >> my father would always make wine when we were kids. eric would stomp the grapes with his feet. we could probably make good wine. eric was the one that grabbed the bull by the horns as far as the wine making decision. he was really adamant about it. >> with the green light from their father, the brothers bought grapes and bottled their first blends in 2011 under the gallegos label. jessica smith has known eric since kindergarten. she's running her grandparents' wine store with her mother. they were one of the first to distribute the wine which you can now find in various markets nationwide. >> the wines in general are delicious but our sales pitch is

also just that they've been a growing family here for so long and they got into the production side. >> it hasn't always been smooth sailing. at first they got carried away and released too many different varieties, something their dad warned them against from the start. >> after that we learned. we didn't do it again. that was probably one of the ones my dad asked many he to scale down and think about it a little more before we produced those wines again. >> it was one of the few times. that's part of what makes this family business tick. even when ignacio can see that his sons may be heading into the wrong direction, he lets them take the lead. >> i let them do their thing as much as i can. >> having the openness to let his sons try new things has paid off for the company. >> we decided to blend merlot with petizara. usually those are not mixed together. my brother and i decided to blown blend those together. it made a nice blend.

we put it on the market and it's doing really well. >> how to market the wine was another area that ignacio wasn't necessarily on board with from the start. ignacio had a much smaller vision for the label that focused on distributing the bottles locally but eric knew real growth would come by focusing on the millennial market. >> he wasn't going for social media. he didn't understand how facebook and instagram worked. i think it's important. i think it's important when you're at consumer events, they can take a picture and tag your company, especially with millennials, they're looking for that experience, share it with their friends. >> eric says having clear responsibilities is one way they keep things running smoothly. >> i think it's important in a family business to understand that everyone has different skills. i think at first you set the guidelines on who's responsible for what. if my brother is going to be responsible for vineyards, then he's doing that. i'm responsible for all the administrative stuff. i think everyone has a different role, they just have to stick to

it. >> there's always a tiebreaker if there's disagreement or differing ideas. >> my dad is usually the one that makes the final decision on everything. >> the key to this family business's success has been a common goal and respect. >> we all three have respect. if there's an issue, we talk about it. it's hard when the younger brother is telling the older brother what to do or the father. we work well together. we understand the ultimate goal at the end and see the vision as all three of us. >> one thing they never disagree on is that their families' roots is what sets their wine apart from all the rest. >> it's nice to be able to go and showcase your product, knowing where we're rooted from, the soil. it's total pride. when you pour a glass of our wine, it's from our family, it's from us. a little cash infusion can go a long way when you're starting a small business. but investors are only going to

fund your idea if they feel they have a good chance of getting that money back and then some. so what do you do when potential investors won't even listen to your pitch because they think your business could be a bust? as the owner of a company with a special focus on bikes found out, you boot strap your business, manage it creatively and then get people to pay attention. when gabriel started his small business in philadelphia, he knew right away that getting funding was going to be tough. his bike laundry pickup and delivery service wash cycle laundry had a bit of an image issue. >> people were like how can you service a large account on a bike? what do you do when it rains? what about the snow? >> at first gabriel seriously considered going at it alone. >> when i started the business,

i thought the savings in my bank account would be enough, and then i was going to do it myself and then the savings in my bank account ran out. >> he realized as he grew he would need money, so he started out by bootstrapping it to show everyone, including investors, what the company was capable of. step one was to stick to the most important part of his plan, the bikes. even though people had their doubts about them. >> i don't think a lot of people just understood the scale of what you can accomplish with bikes. i think a lot of people thought i would carry laundry in my backpack or the basket of my handle bars 0 or something like that. >> the bikes saved money in a lot of ways. first of all, advertising, the brand had word of mouth advertising. second, the obvious, transportation. >> and a bike is three times cheaper than truck delivery in downtown areas, and don't have to pay for the truck or the gas or insurance. we don't get parking tickets. >> the bikes are better equipped to handle time sensitive pickups and deliveries to places like private residences, gyms and the

philadelphia convention center. >> there's a lot of bike lanes where we can bypass traffic. we can move quicker in downtown, finding a place to unload is easier for us. >> wash cycle laundry's internal app helps streamline operations. >> that does everything from allow customers to schedule their appointments for pickup online to routes and tells our cyclist where to go and where to be at any particular time. >> all orders are tracked while in transit. the laundry teams use it, too. >> this is how we start the mchs. >> it alerts the staff in laundry what they have to do that day. as soon as they mark the weight or count of what's done, it automatically generates the invoices. that feeds into a -- board so we can see what's going on. >> another cost the company doesn't have to worry about? >> real estate. we found underutilized laundries

and rent from them during their down times. >> he didn't want to deal with machines or a mortgage. >> it turned capital expense into a operating cost, and when we have more business we pay more and less business we pay less. >> developing relationships with community partners has helped cut costs associated with the company's hiring. >> they know what we're looking for in a laundry team member and as soon as a position comes up, they generally call us, we have someone perfect for the job. the goal is to address an underserved population of people who have been out of work for a while but eager to get back into the work force. >> some of the cost for on boarding new employees is already covered. >> they'll cover up to 50% of a trainee's wage for three to six months while people are getting up to speed and going through a preapproved training curriculum. that's huge. >> employees are cross-trained so they can understand every aspect of the company. >> we do everything on a 24-hour turnaround. if something is not going right

on the cycling end, it impacts laundry pretty quickly. if laundry is running late, it impacts cycling quickly. >> with other clients like nursing homes and v.a. hospital, investors have taken notice all that the company has accomplished. >> can you service a 200-bed hospital or build your sales quickly enough in order to provide a return. >> wash cycle has resulted in expansions in washington, d.c. and austin, texas. the boot strapping principles have followed. >> we launched in washington, d.c. with less than $25,000 in investment. and one of our investors put it to us this way, i was giving a presentation and says our other portfolio companies don't have a launch party for $25,000, much less an actual launch. >> gabriel says the boot strapping served its purpose and wash cycle laundry will be sticking to it. >> after we made it through the first winter, after we delivered our first million pounds, after we expanded to our second city,

people started to see the potential in it. getting your current customers to talk about your company to their family and friends is the best way to get new business. thanks thanks to inc.com we have five ways to ahelp attract new clients. one, ask for feedback. customers appreciate the chance to share how you can better serve them. so whether it's through a casual conversation or a survey, get their opinions and find ways to deliver on those requests. two, find a high-profile satisfied customer. getting an endorsement from someone people admire can go a long way in bringing exposure and new business to your company. three, be responsive on social media. no one likes to feel ignored. answer questions promptly and post regular updates to show that you're focused and engaged. four, emphasize relationships.

don't forget the customer once the job is over. stay in touch so the next time they need what you offer, they'll think of you. five, say thank you. when a client refers you to their friends, send them a product or a note to show them how important they are to your business. the department of labor recently announced a new ruling that will expand overtime pay for millions of employees. starting on december 1st, salaried employees making $47,476 or less will be entitled to time and a half pay if they work more than 40 hours per week. this new rule impacts the bottom line for many small businesses. so what do small business owners and employers need to know about these overtime rules? rhonda abrams is a "usa today" columnist who's written about this topic. she's president and founder of planning shop, a publishing company that creates content about business planning and entrepreneurship. and katie serves as vice president for government

relations and public affairs at the national association for the self-employed. so good to see you both. >> nice to be here. >> thank you, jj. >> rhonda, just as a quick summary, explain to the audience how this has changed. >> first of all, i should re-assure everybody that the sky is not falling and most small businesses probably won't be affected at all. but how this has come about, way back in the depression, rules were adopted to make sure that workers weren't exploited and particularly to try to encourage a regular 40-hour workweek. as a result overtime pay was required for any employees who weren't considered managerial or supervisory. over the years, the percentage of employees who fell into that category of being exempt from overtime kept expanding. and where in 1975 almost 80% of employees were covered by it. now it's down to about 8%. and so what's happened now, is to try to re-adjust that.

part of the reason this has come about is because many employers, especially in large retail or large restaurant chains were actually abusing this and finding -- naming people as supervisors or team leaders or managers who are doing menial work and then requiring them to work 50, 60 hours a week and often being paid less than the hourly workers who they, quote, supervised. some of the abuses led to that. >> katie, just so people can understand how this is going to affect their companies, is it about a 40-hour week or 8-hour day? >> it's about a 40-hour workweek. there are definitely situations within the current work force where, you know, there have been labor issues as it relates to how a corporation, a big corporation, manages its work force. i think for the small business community, especially for our microbusiness owners, this is a pretty significant jump.

and you know, they're looking at how are they going to be able to accommodate these rules and no employer that i have ever spoken to is willingly or wanting to take advantage of an employee. now, there are certain circumstances depending on your field that perhaps in a given month you may work 36 hours a week, you know, 28 hours a week given the work flow. now what's happening is that the employer and the employee can't kind of manage that work flow effectively. because if you work more than 40 hours in a given week, you're eligible for overtime and the next week when there is less of a bork flow, less orders that are coming through, it's not a holiday time, you know, they're not a able to use actually the month to work on that schedule, to make sure that it works for the employee and the employer and everyone is being paid fairly and equitably for their work. >> there are definitely people on both sides of this issue. what i'd love to help our audience understand is, given that this is going to be the rule, how do we deal with it and what kinds of things do they

need to think about? >> let's talk about the solutions that you can be doing. one, one thing you can do in that kind of situation, you could switch your employee to an hourly worker and then, therefore, your work flow, you'll be able to adjust the payment from one week to another. that's a solution you can be going to, instead of a salary employee. >> indeed you will still be paying overtime if that -- if you're paying someone hourly and they work more than 40 hours a week. >> right. you would have been making it up on those 25-hour weeks when you have been paying less. >> i think one of the things i have been pondering on this is really the erosion between the employer and an employee relationship that i feel is being a little bit more attacked on this. because for an employer to sit there and say, okay, i have an employee who is making less than $47,000 a year. there are at least eight weeks where their time spikes over the

normal 40-hour workweek. do i take them down to an hourly employee or do i have to bump them up to $47,000? unfortunately, i think a lot of these decisions are being made without the understanding that the employee and the employer do have a relationship. it's important for them. there is value placed on that. so to a lot of individuals going down to being an hourly employee, doesn't actually make them feel good. i know that's kind of psychological but i think as we're talking with some of our members about this, it is psychological, about the relationship between the two and what they can do to get through this period. >> katie and rhonda, thank you so much. katie, i'm sure you'll be getting so many questions from your constituency about this. thank you for your organization being there and helping people get through changes like these. rhonda, so great to see you. thanks so much, both of you. >> thank you, jj. >> thank you. if something happened to you today, would your family know where to find your banking

information, your will or insurance policy? if the answer is no, then pay close attention to today's elevator pitchers. we want to see if our panel thinks they have a good business. mike is the ceo of profit first professionals and author of "surge." time the marketplace, ride the wave of consumer demand and become your industry's big kahuna. and nellie is the founder of a movement and she also has a new book, "self made," becoming power, self-reline and rich in every way. >> we're john and michelle, co-founders of my life and wishes, the online solution to an age old problem. >> after my father died it took us a year to locate all his financial documents and online accounts. searching to are that information had a major impact on us of time, stress and money. >> research shows 50 million baby boomers is lone have indicated they've not shared this information with family.

imagine a day when families know exactly what to do from funeral plans to location of bank accounts, wills, passwords, even digital life. that day is today. >> my life in wishes is easy to use. it provides step by step guidance to help you organize, upload and securely store the information your family will need when you're no longer here and for less than $100 a year, our solution is for everyone. >> we're seeking $200,000 for 10% stake in our company. to hire additional staff and to expand our marketing efforts. >> nice job. i think there is definitely a need out there for this. whether this is the business or not, that is for my panel to decide. two numbers, first one is, what do you think of the product? and the second is what do you think of the pitch? is it up and running right now? >> it is. >> how many users do you have? do you have beta testers? >> we've gone through beta tester. we offer a free trial for 30

days. we're just beyond that. people are converting over. >> you went through your beta. now you're ready, which is why you're looking for money. >> i think the product is a 7. i think the pitch was very good. here's my issues with the product. it's a curative product which means i don't know this is a problem until the problem's happened. it's hard to sell a product like that. what i liked about your pitch, personal story. when you can share this is my back ground, this is why i'm doing it, it becomes compelling. the pitch is better than the product. the product, the natural challenge is how do you make a preventative in a way that people register with it as opposed to curative. >> nellie? >> i was tough, too. product is a 7. pitch is a 6. let me tell you why. product first. i love the idea. i think it's a home run. in my book i say in your pain is your brand. you're coming from your pain. that's the best way to invent a company. i had a lot of questions that were unanswered. what am i going to pay for this? i'm worried you guys are giving

me an idea that i then realize i have a problem and i fix it myself and put it together myself. i'm also concerned about my data, where are you going to put my data and who are you? what is the proprietary software? it worries me. the pitch, i think what you said is really beautiful and perfect. you left out a few things. i think you were very nervous. nothing wrong with that. i feel like this is an emotional business. you almost have to be so calm, breathe, you have to meditate before you come and say it. you're going to catch me emotionally. and you're almost memorizing, reading the thing. i want you to make me feel like, oh, my god, has anybody died in your family? you'll be in a horrible situation. so i emotionally connect with it more. >> thank you for your advice. you are two of the best pitchers we've ever had. i've seen you not on this side

but life pitch. good luck. i agree there is a real need for this. for me, the pitch, my only question is security. if you could add something in there, nellie touched on this, why this is secure and this company is not going to go away tomorrow and my information is going to be hacked, that would throw me over the edge to take another meeting. thank you so much for coming on the program. good luck with everything. thank you, too, for your advice on this. if any of you have a business and you want feedback from our elevator pitch panel and your chances of getting interested investors, send us an e-mail, yourbusiness@msnbc.com. don't forget to include a short summary of what your company does, how much money you're trying to raise and what you'll do with the money. we look forward to reading the pitches and seeing some of you here in the elevator. when we come back, we look at the advantages of minority and women owned businesses getting certified. and how to turn your pain into gain.

will your business be ready when growth presents itself? our new cocktail bitters were doing well, but after one tradeshow, we took off. 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. monica writes does it pay to become certified as a minority owned or woman owned business?

>> the answer to that question is yes. it does pay to become certified as a minority or women owned business. here are two caveats. you need to figure out which certifications really apply to your business. do you need to be state certified? is it better for you to be certified as a veteran owned business or a woman owned business? that all depends on who your customers are and what kind of business you're going for. you don't want to have too manier is the ficks. it gets you into the second issue. those certifications have administrative costs in staying current. it's a good thing to be but be strategic about it. we now have the top two tips that you need to know to help your small business grow. mike and nellie is back with us once again. all right, mike, let's start with you. i haven't seen you in a while. >> you're a big movie fan, i know it. >> i haven't seen a movie since i had kids. >> remember the classic action

movies, tom cruise or something, he walks to the beach, everything is perfect. opening of the movies is always perfection, then it's the murder, they take the kids. and the rest of the movie has to avenge the situation. that's called the phoenix effect. we can use it in our business, too. most businesses boast how successful and wonderful they are. that causes envy. other businesses, they say it's been such a hardship, now we pity them. a phoenix effect, you see where they could be, the collapse and reviv revival, we embrace that and want to join on. in business, state your big, bold vision, how you're changing the world, the impact you want to have. then talk about the struggles, the heart aches, where you failed, how difficult it was but then your successes and invite the audience to join you in on the path to join you in that vision. that's called the phoenix effect. >> how do you do the first part

without sounding boastful? >> you're not there yet. >> here's the big opportunity, the challenge, here's the big players and we'll change it forever. this is how we plan to do it but we're struggling to get there. we fought our way there. we're in the trenches, we've gotten dirty. join us and let's get there together. >> all right, nellie. >> for me, this is something i wrote in my book. in your pain is your brand. from going on the road and meeting so many women, the people i find have transcendent businesses that are profitable but they have a message and a meaning are people that instead of taking their pain, something horrible that happened to them and sweeping it under the rug, they use their pain in their brand. either to get customers or to actually create a business around their pain. i have a woman that you know had child abuse, beaten up by her husband. the worst things you can think. she got a massage done for her physical abuse and realized oh, my god, this is a business. people that either come back from the war, people that have

issues need body work to get that trauma out of their body. she created this incredible massage business. she has a blog, a book, everything. so good to see both of you. thank you. >> thank you. this week's your biz selfie comes from rhonda jones. she owns chez moi bakery in durham, north carolina. they sell desserts including their trademark rum cake. i'm going to visit when i go to my college reunion. your passion for baking started as a child. why don't you pick up your cell phone and take a selfie of you in your business and send it to us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com or tweet us @msnbc your biz or use #your biz selfie. we'd love to hear from you. if you have questions or comments about today's show, e-mail us at

yourbusiness@msnbc.com or head over to our website, openforum.com/"your business." we posted all the segments from today's show, plus a whole lot more. connect with us on digital and social media platforms as well. next week, a small business owner is surprised to find out that his handmade rope sandals have an international customer base. we'll tell you how this company turned into a successful exporter and what they've done to increase their sales around the globe. till then, i'm jj ramberg and remember, we make your business our business. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? our new cocktail bitters were doing well, but after one tradeshow, we took off. 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. of course the day long funeral for the greatest boxer of all time and one of the greatest ever icons of american culture, muhammad ali today was eulogized by former president bill clinton and by billy crystal and bryant gumb gumbel. not another person with this guest list to their funeral. everybody from the former president of afghanistan to king abdullah to arnold schwarzenegger. valerie jarrett was there, read a statement from president obama. mike