j.j. ramberg, and welcome to a special edition of "your business." today, we celebrate the start of our sixth year giving you tips and advice to help your business grow. as a small business owner myself, i've learned so many great lessons by getting involved in the issues and operations of some great american small businesses. in west virginia, i picked up a paddle to find out how three once-competing white water rafting companies merged both their companies, and their cultures. ♪ once upon a time in the wild and wonderful mountains of west virginia, there were three river rafting companies. classics river runners, mountain river tours, and rivermen. they had all started in the 1970s, and each had their very own personalities. they were friendly competitors, and they all loved running the business they were running. so you can only imagine what it was like when the owners of these companies were approached about merging their operations into one. >> when paul first told me, i really wasn't interested. i actually said no. we had a good gig going. we w

j.j. ramberg, and welcome to a brand-new year of "your business." where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow. in this presidential election year, there is a lot of talk about issues like the outsourcing of jobs and overseas manufacturing. if you're in the business of making a product, you may have heard that it's cheaper to manufacture it in a place like china. but we wanted to know if that was really true. today, we meet a business owner who says she couldn't afford to make her candles overseas anymore. and so she opened a factory right here in the usa. >> i started going to china in the late 1980s, and the buzz word in the '80s and the '90s was outsourcing. but i think now, it's about right-sourcing. finding which countries are right for your supply chain. >> that's dale williams, chief operating officer of chesapeake bay candle company. >> you actually can't import candles from china cost effectively any longer, because there's a tremendous anti-dumping duty applied to chinese candles. >> anti-dumping, as you know, is a way when

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j.j. ramberg is the host of msnbc's "your business" this weekend and she is launching a new segment calledbiz sounds off where she takes a look at real issues affecting small business owners and which candidates are resonating on those fronts. great to talk to you today. small business is obviously a buzz phrase a lot of viewers perk up to. >> we get the jobs report today. the first line in eric canter's response is small business. the second line in his report is small business. the candidates -- he is not the candidate. they are talking about this left, right, and center. so what we've done is we've collected 25 small business owners from around the country, different industries, different political leanings, to basically be our reality check. tell us what's important to you and how the candidates are responding to what's important to you. so this week we got, we kicked it off and got a sense of what people are thinking in general. take a listen. >> i'm not looking so much for small business, small business. i'm looking for candidates and leaders that are looking for ca leaders who say w