Present your business on msnbc. Hi everyone im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business. For those of you whove been watching the show for awhile you know that i started my company with my brother. And for any of you out there who also have Business Partners you know how absolutely critical it is to have shared goals. Not necessarily to see eyetoeye on all the tactics of writing your business but you and your partner have to believe in the same overall picture. So then what happens when your coowner wants to go in a different direction or maybe leave the company altogether . As one entrepreneur discovered it took some new blood and a restructured company to try to keep her Small Business sailing. The company was growing at a pace that was hard to keep up with. And we needed more band width, more capital into the business and not money, but we needed some skills that we currently didnt have Beth Shissler and her portland, maine, based company sea bags were at a cross roads. Beths Business PartnerHannah Kubiak wanted a change. And while the company had been growing fast beth knew she had to do something to make sure it reached the next level. If the company got busier you know hannah had a desire to kind of step back from the daytoday, and i still had the vision to see the company grow and add more employees and scale it up. Beth and hannah thad coowned the brand which hannah had founded, since 2006. Sea bags makes things like dotes, duffels and bucket bags from used sails. It become very clear in order to make any adjustments for either of us that we were going to have to raise some money. I couldnt afford to do it by myself and wasnt prepared to do that by myself. Before she could restructure anything beth needed new partners. Ones that would ideally add both cash and some savvy to the business. We wanted the product to continue to be made in maine. We wanted the product to stay out of recycled sales. And the product and our practices to be as green as we could be. She quickly discovered that she wasnt going to meet her match immediately. Not everyone saw sea bags future the same way. Some of the people that talked to me originally thought oh, it would be so much easier if you just made these things in china. Yeah, wrong business. Thats not really what we set sea bags up to be. It would be so much easier if you just used a bunch of new material. Yeah well we call that lld. So i had every one of those meetings and i usually left them kind of sick to my stomach. That was my barometer. As the search went on it was business as ire. The operation never slowed down despite the inevitable changes. We kept investing in the business as if we were going to continue to own it in the current structure because thats the only way we knew how. So we had to keep our foot on the gas and keep growing because we now had at that point over 30 employees that we were probably responsible for. Something finally clicked, when beth met fran phillips. The addition of frans former colleague don oakes to the conversation set the ball in motion. Don and i are both originally from maine. Born and raised here. Hes thrifty like i am and hes very, very level headed and easy to talk to. And i left that meeting saying theres a guy i can learn from and work with. Beth made it clear she wasnt looking for investors, but she was looking for partners and that she needed band width and she needed people who could work in the business. Before any formal agreement was signed beth fran and don got to work. Even though we went through some heavy, heavy negotiating, once emotionally we all knew we wanted to work to the don and fran crucially had a lot to share with my business. The hope was that their involvement would ensure smoother transition. The most important thing i needed to do was learn the business. So i was looking at it from the outside in. And now to be able to sit in on the inside. After eight months of wrangling the deal was done. Both sides had to look beyond the negotiations because they knew their skills complemented each other. If not for beth and my commitment to this it would have fallen apart multiple times. Don and i quickly became adept at saying you know what . I dont have to win every single point because working to the and in business together is ultimately winning. Don and fran came on as beths new partners. With don serving as ceo and beth as the president. Despite the formalities, the leadership is collaborative. The twosided desk they share is proof of that. Neither one of us is big on titles. We know theyre important to others. Theres nothing thats going on that beth or i isnt in the know about and one of us is taking the lead. So thats kind of how we work it. Step one was to formally reorganize the company. Including the creation of a board. So when we structured the deal with don and frans investors it was just more beneficial to restructure it as an llc. Within weeks a warehouse opened where sails could be stored and cut. On the sales side beth knew where to focus. Our wholesale business has been extremely strong over the years because that was my comfort zone. I wanted to direct channel. Thats why don spearheaded a new look for seabags. Com. We redesigned the website, both the branding and the look and feel. We shot all the bags in a consistent way. It was more a matter of doing a better jonathan telling the story. The addition of new staff is helping drive future growth at its three Retail Locations and online. I have Marketing Team can you believe it . I didnt have one before. I actually have a sales team which is amazing. Where before i had a sales person. Don has also consulted with employees to find out if theres a better way to do business. Changes we made were really focused on how do we improve the business . And really focused on the little steps that try to make peoples jobs easier. They know their jobs better than i certainly do. So we didnt try to come in i certainly didnt come in and try to tell people how to do their jobs. While beth and don were excited about the possibilities of the new sea bags. Not everyone was. I think its fair to say that not everybody reacts to change well. It also becomes apparent very quickly of people that arent capable of making change. Theres no shame for anybody in saying that this isnt a fit. After all the comings and goings the staff is now at about 50. With that increase has come a push for more open communication. Our core team is in place. And we need to get everybody settled and on the same page. One of the curses of being an introvert is sometimes if you think it, you think you said it. So i have to remind myself that just because i know it or i thought it doesnt mean that everybody is on board or understands. As sea bags goes forward beth has no regrets looking back. Shes grateful that she found not just partners but the right partners to help restructure her business. For me, owning a smaller piece of a bigger company, and relinquishing the control is a lot better than owning 100 of a smaller company. I got the best partners. The Consumer Electronics show which happens each january is a sort of tech wonderland for gadget lovers looking for the next generation of pcs, mobile devices, and all these modern musthaves. The show offers tons of great finds for Small Business owners who want to boost productivity or just simply upgrade their gear. Here to give us a look at some of the latest devices from this years ces is dana wollman the managing editor of engadget a web magazine with daily coverage of new gadgets and Consumer Electronics. Great to see you. Great to see you. Thank you for going through that enormous show and finding the stuff that works for our Small Business owners. Absolutely. I had a really fun job here. I want to give you a quick look at some of the hot stuff we saw this past week. Perfect. So these are all different kinds of pcs. Absolutely. Yeah. So i brought the mac book air here for scale. Everyone knows the mac book air and thinks of it as the quintessential thin and light laptop. Guess what . There are some newcomers that make the mac book air seem like a leg. We have ones smaller and a lot, a lot lighter. They suddenly look big. This is really an october cal illusion. What we have here is the dell spx 13. It has the same screen size as the 13 inch mac book air. But theres an optical illusion. Where theres very little border surrounding the screen so you get this big expansive screen but in a size into thebook thats more on par with an old school netbook. What that means for Business Owners is if youre a frequent traveler like i am you have a much smaller machine that you can put in your bag. And look at this footprint. Look how much space youre saving. You save a lot of space and its also just a lot lighter, too. So i think its the real benefit what about expense . Not bad it starts at 800. Which also beats the mac book air and a lot of other ultrabooks and ultraportable laptops, too. Whats this one . This is from lenovo. And it is one of the words lightest laptops. This one weighs just two pounds and its the lightest touchscreen convertible laptop. Lenovo makes one thats even lighter at 1. 7 pounds. Youre just giving up the touchscreen. But i almost want to hand this to you and just have you see how light it is . Have you play with this. It feels like a fake computer. Oh, it does. It feels like a toy. It feels like there are no components inside that its some sort of mockup or dummy computer. But its very real. And very fast. And the battery life is supposed to be on par with some much bigger heavier machines. I bring my computer everywhere. We had this at ces for nine days and carrying around a back pack all day. I would love to have Something Like this in my passenger bag and not have the heavier computer breaking my shoulder. Me, too. Is this a charger . This is a battery case for the iphone. This is from a Company Called iback. Okay. So what makes this one special is there are charging cases but this one actually has a pop jut battery and you can buy as many of these swappable batteries. Let me see how this works with my phone. Yeah, yeah. Is it heavy . Not heavy at all. Okay. So, this is the case. Oh and it does the iphone justice because this is a thin phone and you want a thin case to go with it that showcases what a thin phone you have. So this is a pretty slim case but whats nice is you get double the battery life and in case your battery runs out you can just pop this out and replace it with a new one. And you can find this very battery for as low as 11 on amazon. That is great so you can basically stop up and have endless battery life. I had one with an extra battery but it was enormous and i finally just stopped using it because it was too big and too heavy. And if youre like me you not only forget to charge you phone, but you forget to charge the chargers. Right. So for me this would be really a godsend, because youre doing it all at the same time. It would be nice to have a bunch of backup batteries and never wonder if im going to have enough battery life for my phone. I live on my phone when im traveling. Im sure a lot of Business Owners do. What do we have here . This is a new phone from lg. Called the gflex 2. And it is a curved screen phone. You might wonder why the heck you need a curved screen phone. I am. It adds a lot of flexibility and durability to the device. Lg had a device like this before. The screen is now tougher than it used to be. One benefit of having this device here is youre going to cringe when i do this i can bear down i can put a lot of pressure and flatten the device and it withstands that kind of pressure. Okay. So imagine in im dropping my phone all the time its just a much more durable phone than youre used to. Also this is sort of my favorite part is it has this material on the back thats quote unquote selfhealing. So if i scratch it up like this, this it fixes itself . Within ten seconds. The last generation of this phone also did the same thing but it took about three minutes. Now theres a little more of an instant gratification factor. Within seconds basically this is for the person who is just hard on their phone . Hard on their phone and if youre like me you just take your phone everywhere, you live on your phone and my phone, my personal phone has tons of tiny scratches on it because ive dropped it a million times. At an airport or wherever ive been traveling. Got it, okay. So what is this little tablet here . This tablet is the dell venue 87000 series. And it won in gadgets best of ces award in the mobile category for a few reasons. Both because of how it looks and what it does. First of all it is extremely thin. Up think its the worlds thinnest tablet at just 6 millimeters thick. Its well designed has this beautiful crisp display here that i think rivals the ipads retina display. This is an android tablet by the way. And it also has this very unique 3d camera set up on the back that might sound gimmicky but actually allows you to do some cool things. Including, point the camera at something in a room and get a measurement of space. So without thats neat. Without having to pull out a tape measure, lets say. Right. So i wanted to measure space and see if furniture would fit there or something. So the camera is very useful. Also fun. Dana thank you so much for walking that show, and finding the great stuff that is helpful to us who didnt have a chance to be there, and also frankly arent that qualified to go and find out whats best there. So thank you so much. Great to see you. Thanks for having me. Working out in a top new years resolution. But lets face it while a lot of people hope to adopt a healthier lifestyle its often easier said than done. And that is why in 1992 brothers michael and Marc Grondahl cofounded planet fitness. They offered low membership fees and created an environment that is inviting, not intimidating. Now, the business has more than 900 locations nationwide, and they have plans to expand to canada this year. In this learning from the pros we sit down with ceo chris rondeau. He tells us how letting the dust settle and focusing on what youre good at has helped the brand grow. Focus on what youre really great at and do that right 100 of the time customers will be happy with you. I think you cant be the master of all. We got rid of aerobics juice bars and spinning classes and day care and we had that back in the early days. What we started every day there was moving part and we were disappointing more members than you were really servicing. We had the courage to take it out. Doesnt happen. All of a sudden our members were always happy because you couldnt let them down we focused on what we did perfect. Its hard to hold back. Youve got to let it go out and let the dust settle a little bit to see what really sticks and not stick and see how does that work for your particular business or my particular business here that benefit us you know. I think it let it go out there, first, dont jump on it real quick. People are going to gravitate towards it or not. You dont want to spend a lot of time going down a road thats not going to be i think seeing customers share their experience is obviously that they believe in your same vision and your same direction of the company and what you believe in. We Just Launched a new platform called planet of triumphs which is basically customers can tell us their triumphs and what theyve done thats been with us. And its some small, some are large but theyre all important to us. If youre willing to show you their testimonial why they like your product over somebody elses it truly means that youre winning and hitting the right nerve than what youve been trying to focus on all along. So i think you can get that from your customer it truly means when we come back as your company grows, should you focus on value or valuation . And how did you do with my challenge from last week . Are you ready to tackle a new one . The next j. J. Challenge after this break. If i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing ive learned is my philosophy is real simple American Express open forum is an online community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make Smart Business decisions. If you mess up, fess up. Be your partners best partner. We built it for our members, but its open for everyone. Theres not one way to do something. No details too small. American express open forum. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. This weeks your biz selfie comes to us from jason and haley the owners of the pittsburgh pretzel cafe in pittsburgh, business. So stop by and say hi to them. We want to see your selfie too, so send a selfie of you and your business and add yourbizselfie. Tweet it to us msnbcyourbiz or add it to yourbusiness msnbc. Com. Dont forget to tell us your name, your business and the name of your company. Its time now to answer some of your business questions. Eric schurenberg is the president and editor in chief of ink and cnbc contributor carol roth is a recovering investment banker and a bestselling author. Thanks guys for being here. So good to see you both. You too, j. J. Lets get started. The first one comes from darrell and he wrote us when a business has reached the ten year maturity mark how do you determine if your focus should be on value or valuation . With value, its Generational Sustainability versus valuation, emphasis on what i can sell the business for today. I think its an interesting question, right . Because you will make different decisions if youre thinking about selling your company than if youre thinking about passing it down potentially. And i think the good news is is theres no right answer it really depends on your own objective. But i will tell you that far too many entrepreneurs wait too late to consider preparing for the sale process. They wait till theyre ready to sip those margaritas on the beach before they prepare. So if youre even considering potentially exploring a sale you need to get your dream team to the. You need to get an investment banker or broker you need to get a lawyer and not your uncle ira, one that focuses on m a if you want if youre exploring it. Because they will help you not only get your house in order but theyll help you tell you when the rest of the when you think about Business Decisions if youre thinking about valuation, you may go for sort of a quick fix revenue versus the longterm strategy of of you know this is going to work in the longterm for my kids. I think if youre not at the stage where youre thinking about selling, then y