and then as you begin to understand what the requirements are, you ll naturally see which role you ve got to fill in order to let you get on with the more important things. go to sites like script lines, guru.com, look for people who provide those services, look for good references and give them a tryout. give them one thing to do. don t contract them for the long-term. see how they do. if they work for you, put them on a part time retainer. you can see if that is the position you need to fill. correct. that sounds like great advice. it sounds like the questioner maybe is a marketer and t-shirt designer. if that s the case, maybe he needs to think about operations and how that comes along. one note of interest about the t-shirt business is there has been a lot of startup activity in the space in recent years which has been great because the barriers to entry have been low. the price of cotton is moving around a lot now and so figuring out the pricing strategy to make sure you re
financial sense to take your time and build your business gradually and makes great pr sense. we re doing a story about them, right? i think it s far better knowing what you can cope with. certainly getting better at that so that the rate of increase, the rate of growth you can cope with gets bigger as time goes on than plunging head long in and trying to work out later, how do i pay the bills? it s no way to build a sustainable business. i think people get nervous, right? here is a customer. if i don t take them on now, they re never going to come back. how do you deal with that? how do you get them back later on once you have a business? well, you know, to les point, entrepreneurs are optimists so it s in their nature to say yes to whatever and figure it out later. it s important for them to know what can lead them into trouble, what behavior do they need to moderate. this is a great pair of entrepreneurs knowing saying yes isn t always right for their business.
and its customers. something that s not easy to do in the retail fashion industry where fads come and go. it feels like a big family. it fits perfect with the brand and with everything that i m about and where i came from and we like it that way. it s great. i couldn t ask for anything different. time now to answer some of your business questions. mike and les are with us once again. the first one is a question about conflict in the workplace. when you have a business partner and you often don t see eye to eye or completely clash on any given topic, what s the best way to mediate a resolution? that s a great question. it happens all the time. business coach what do you
question for our xeexperts, go our website, openforum.com/yourbusiness. the website is again openforum.com/yourbusiness. or e-mail us your questions or comments to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. mike and les had really helpful advice about how to improve your business. now let s get some great ideas from small business owners just like you. it is an oldie but a goody. it is really simple. stay out of debt. for our small business, we re very natural and organic in how we do things and that s actually how we grow the business. one important thing to do, especially when you re starting out, is to find a supplier who is willing to work with you work with you on small quantities. and also be ready to replenish
everyone involved in it. it s hard to say no to customers but sometimes as we just saw it s the right thing thing to do. let s turn to this week s board of directors, mike hoffman editor of inc.com and les mccuen author of predictable success. great to see you. seems funny to have this guy here, too, let s see what he has to add for it. smells very good. i can smell it from here. i want to talk about this idea of saying no to customers because that is hard. and i ve talked to a lot of companies who said, we just said yes and figured out how to deal with it. what advice would you give to someone who came to you? do what they do. i think this is very smart. i think where you have a manufacturing business, where you re making product, have all that money tied up, it makes