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
and advice to help your business grow. gas prices continue to rise and that s hurting both consumers and the nation s small businesses. the price of a gallon of gas is now more than $4 in many american cities, which has a lot of consumers cutting back on spending. as a result, some small businesses are reeling. many entrepreneurs say they re also losing customers because they have to raise their prices to make up for rising energy costs and many small business owners are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economy. mike miter runs factory services agency, a family owned commercial eating, air conditioning and ventilation company near new orleans. he is also a member of the board of trustees of the national small business association. great to see both of you guys. good morning. so, i d like thank you. i d like to hear how gas prices are affecting each of you. baxter, i ll start with you.
on the scale of one to ten, how big of a deal are these gas prices to you? i ll start with you, baxter. it s one of many prices. it s the straw on the camel s back. economic adversity forces us all to manage our lives and businesses a little better. for example, many of our deliveries are in the chicago area. but our ten locations are in the suburbs. so, we re investing in opening a new design and delivery facility in the city for more efficient low-cost service. yeah, hard times often cause you to be creative and come up with good solutions. mike, how big of a problem is it for you? on the scale of one to ten, it s an eight or a nine. our trucks use a fuel card my guys use when they service their trucks. that s a weekly deduct straight from the bank account with the direct pay. when you re used to paying $350 to $400 a week and all of a
sudden that weekly charge goes to $650 to $700 a week it has a serious impact on cash flow and requires us to monitor everything else and pay close attention to what s going on with our cash situation. mike and baxter, i thank you both for sharing your situations with us. we really appreciate getting to hear how this is really affecting small businesses. thank you so much. good luck with everything. thank you. thank you. the creator of the world s largest gummy bears is dealing with quite a dilemma but it s a great problem to have. especially in today s economy. he and his business partner get so many phone calls and e-mails about their giant gummy collection that they ve actually had to turn down some potential customers. at least temporarily. theirs is a business lesson in how growing slow and steady may actually win the race. honestly, it was sort of born out of desperation.
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