small businesses struggle with rising gas prices. can they keep from passing the prices on to the customers? entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams of opening up small businesses in china. and check out the chicken limbo in indianapolis. those stories and more coming up on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy. american express open is here to help and that is why we are

proud to present "your business" on msnbc. hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg and welcome to "your business" where we give you tips an advice to help your business grow. gas prices are an issue yet again. at this time of the year when the cost of fuel is typically lower, business owners are facing an unexpected problem. they are trying to find ways to keep the expenses down while the price at the pump keeps going up. >> i have two choices, raise the price a little bit more or as many small biz usiness people d you eat it. you say okay, and it will change. >> carmen con san tino who is the owner of a florist in new york says that gas is crucial to

the 79-year-old family business. >> our niche is to be delivery and handle deliveries and most people don't realize that a flower shop is the only place left in america where you can place an order at 11:00, have it custom manufactured and then delivered anyplace in the u.s. and canada in the same working day. >> with at least one delivery van on the road everyday and higher fees from the suppliers, the rising price of gas is a reality that he'd rather not be facing. >> i grew up when gas was 24 cents a gallon and we thought that was high. yes, it is a very challenging thing. >> carmen, and his daughter, jessica, and the shop's floral manager and the drivers spend plenty of time crunching the numbers trying to save cash. >> we have to watch it closely. it can get out of hand. >> in their part of new york, gas runs 20 cents higher than national average. it all adds up when you aret the gas station once a week. >> we definitely look at prices.

we track everyday mileage and definitely giving the drivers the opportunity if they see a low price get it while you can. >> and drivers like herb dyson play a pivotal role in streamlining deliveries. it is up to where it goes and when. >> years ago we run them out, and now we route them and get them ready. >> i want the drivers to use good timing and good use of the time. so we zone the orders, so if we are in zone two, we take everything that is a number two and go in zone to take that at one time. >> some of those runs are now being made in a more fuel efficient van. the consentinos are thinking of buying another one. >> we are filling up less with this vehicle, so you are seeing a change in the pockets. >> they also have adjusted the rates. they decided to raise the cost of local deliveries. >> we charge $7.95 which recently went up $6.95.

the $7.95 barely covers the cost of running the vehicle and barely the time of the driver. >> the move was not taken lightly and the owners know that passing on additional costs may not be the best decision for their bottom line. >> it is always nice to charge high, but i'm a fair person. in time it may come, but i'm not trying to make money off of the delivery. i am trying to give good customer service, and being fair gets my customers coming back to me. >> christine mcki, the founder and ceo of zippy ice in charlotte, north carolina, also wants to keep her customers happy, but set not easy. >> we are trying not the raise the prices for the customers and it might be inevitable if it keeps climbing, but we are trying not to do that. >> zippy's fuel costs are up 30%, and they say that they have no idea what is going to happen

next. >> i don't want to say you are rolling the dice, but everyday as somebody in business, you have to have a little bit of faith. >> business that the si six-year-old company peaks in the summer, and so delivering the ice is a challenge. >> we rely on the lower gas prices at this time to pay the bills. it has been really hard. we are trying to skate by during these months. >> like the florist, zippy's trucks are consistently on the road delivering ice to places like gas stations, restaurants and bars, filling up both trucks can cost $400. >> traditional delivery and wholesale delivery and the delivery at the end of the day, i have to get the product to the customers. >> the price at the pump is not cheaper, and the cost of the bags to put the ice in are not getting cheaper either. >> they are made of petroleum

products, and we started to get quotes for bags in november and they were six cents a bag, and now they are up to nine cents. so that is substantial to us when we are talking to 100 to 150,000 bags at one time. >> that is why the price of gas is driving certain parts of the business. >> we spec the truck based on the cost of fuel, and had to. we could not get a beater of a truck or buy a truck. that is why we are renting it. and that is because of to fuel prices driving the expense. we could rent a brand new truck that has more fuel efficient features to it. >> and how mackey says he is always looking to outsource production and getting new customers or finding the cheapest gas. >> this part of the business is so uncontrollable, so you have to look at things that maybe you didn't look at last year and say, is it possible to gain a

percentage here or half a percentage there? it might be. i'd look at every stone, turn it over. >> and carmen consentino agrees, because as far as gas goes, you have to be ready for the unexpected. >> well, you have to be flexible and in gas prices, you have to monitor it and know what is going to happen and have a good bookkeeping system so that you are aware of problems before it happens. >> those rising gas prices are affecting a lot of the small business viewers. donna who owns a carpet cleaning business wrote us on facebook, we have two trucks and we use between 150 and $200 a day on gas. we will probably have to evaluate our pricing at the end of the month. steve owner of crate works wrote us. the cost of shipping inbound and outbound is the biggest problem. trucking fuel surcharges are running around 24%.

let's bring in the woord of directors now to talk about this. eric shurnberg is the editor-in-chief of, inc., and the founder of predictable success, an incubation success company, and also the author of "synejist" written by our guest les mckeown. >> if a big one of your costs is fuel, you are in trouble. the fuel costs rise on a global market and nothing that you can do about it, and nothing that a president can even do about it. you turn to a couple of solutions. one of them that i like is technology. use root optization software to cut down the miles that the truck has to go. there are lots of software programs and some key to small routes like ice delivery or flower delivery would be route savvy, and c2 logics and op ti

time to make sure that you get to all of the places that you need to go with the business with the fewest miles. >> what about the idea of let's say the idea of passing the cost along and the woman from the florist said they want to be fair, but they are not fair to themselves by eating the costs, so at what point do you pass it on and do it in a way that does not lose you business? >> well, the least effective way, but it is understandable that a lot of people do is to put a surcharge on, even if it is temporary, and people don't like it, but they understand it. the bill has gone up. what i like to suggest to people is that looking at the cost side of the equation and reducing the cost per mileage if possible, think about increasing the revenue per mile, and what can you do to get more revenue from the bus or the truck or the car out on the road. if you are a florist, can you sell some chocolates or teddy bears or anything like in valentine's day, and we have seen the upsale.

it is hard for a proprietary product like ice, but maybe bottled water or increase the revenue and get more revenue so that the people are getting something, so it is better than sticking on a price hike that hurts the wallet immediately. >> if you can't find a way to increase the revenue and hopefully you are always thinking of ways to increase the revenue and in the near term this is hurting you, what about the thought of putting on a surcharge and this is a gas surcharge and we will take it down versus raising the prices a little bit? >> well, the surcharge is a way to go and the reason is that inflation and fuel charges is that something that everybody knows and they see it at the gas station, and see it on the signage at the gas stations all of the time and well aware of it. but a surcharge, people know that is something i know where it is coming from and they are not taking advantage of me and broadcasting it is temporary. >> well, we have been there, and it is tough for the consumer to choke on it. if they can find another option

and somebody has buried it, they will go elsewhere, but if the you have to do it, you have to do it. look at competition to use a horrible and trendy word. if you are industry that is tough, but you have two or three other small businesses in similar industries, see if you can pool what you need to do. i mean, you know, what goes around comes around and good for everybody. find anyway other than just sticking to that $5 surcharge on, because people just resign against it. if there is no option they will pay for it, but if they see some place to go where they don't have the pay for it, they will go elsewhere. >> okay. great. this is a tough issue for people out there. we appreciate your advice. we have talked about a few ways to cut the gas costs, and here are five more ideas that should be on the list courtesy of entrepreneur.com. one, shop around. prices do vary from station to station, and penny saved per gallon can add up. two, use technology. gas comparison apps like cheap gas or gas buddy can help you to

get the best value on the go. three, plot the route. use gps to know exactly where you are going so you don't get lost. avoid left turns since they require for idle time than right ones. four, slow down. speeding burns more gas, so stay under the speed limit. and five, take training virtual. let your sales staff take training webinars or record it to watch later. earlier this week president obama signed the jump start your b business act or small business law into law. this is a way for small businesses to earn money through crowd money. and the co-founder of start exemption is a part of a team that lobbied washington in support of the crowd founding, and he is here to tell you how it can help your business. sherwood, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, j.j. >> for people who don't understand crowd funding, can you give a quick explainer how

this will help the company. >> well, crowd funding is where a group of people pool together a small amounts of money to help someone with an idea come to fruition, so in the case of crowd fund investment, you take the dollar amounts to invest them in a business. >> so basically i have a new business idea and i put on the crowd funding site and instead of an angel investor, i can get $100,000 from 100 people? >> yes, it is and on ramp for more sophisticated financing later. you will take the idea and go to s.e.c s.e.c.-registered website, and put out tweets and facebook updates on the social network and tell them about the idea and they come in to pledge small dollar donations, an unless you hit 100% of the target investment, no money exchanges a yoand you get the seed capital. >> so this is something they

will gate prize or something or a token, but now they have ownership in my company, and what does that mean for me as someone who is running the company that i have 1,000 strangers invested in my company? >> well, a few things. first and foremost, the most important thing to understand is that it means that you have a community of people who have a vested interest in your success. so those people want to know that you are going to be doing the right thing to help them get their money back. so that is actually great. i have raised millions of dollars of money for a company i started and one of the ways i was able to raise more money is that i had the community behind me to show the investors that i have people who really believe in me. it is a voice, and it is going to be money, and it is going to be power to help get it to the next level. >> any fear that if you have all of these, and people investing in the company that it is harder to raise the next round? >> i love that question. so, i think that there is a lot of misperception out there related to this. when we were raising money for

my prior company, when we took on more money in each round, the previous investors were offered to be bought out at the round of the financing so what will happen and what we see in the crowd funded companies is that investors will come in and say, hey, you paid 1x and we want to come in at 3x, and if you want to exit we will buy you out at 3x and there will be a lot of people who are either going to take them up on that offer. >> and the law went into effect this week and when can i as a business person or i with an idea start this? >> well, another great question. it is 270 days before the s.e.c. is done with the rule making process. we are going to be heavily involved in working with the s.e.c. we are working with the leadership group right now to help form an sro, a sifra.org should be the self-regulating body to oversee the industry, but it is probably 2013 before you see the crowd funding web sites offering the crowd funding equity. >> okay.

sherwood, thank you for joining us. i know you get loans through crowd funding, so is it the next step in raising money to gain equity, so thank you for joining us. when we come back, interesting an fun small business stories for you. american entrepreneurs find their small business american dream in china. forget about the easter bunny, because this indianapolis entrepreneur found a niche that is hatching profits. you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen.... for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners,

and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. the per suit of entrepreneurial dream has been an american dream, but some en vestors have found it in a different part of the world. recently we traveled to china where small u.s. business owners are finding success. >> it can feel like cleveland, ohio. it can feel like san francisco. kit feel like terre haute, indiana, but actually you are in beijing, china, half a mile from tiananmen square, and you could not be more in china than here. >> this is my company great leaf brewery, and we have met other americans starting businesses,

and cc sweets which is a cupcake bakery and lost and found which is an interior design shop, and the veggie table which deals in vegan drinks and everything, and then home plate barbeque that is a texas style and southern style smoked meats and barbeque, and all sorts of fascinating things that are starting to represent the american entrepreneurial spirit in beijing which before was lacking. so everyday i leave my house and walk to the brewery. most of these alleyways are 100 to 200 years old. a lot of the culture, and a lot of history here. we first opened to the public on october 2nd, 2010. the first night we sold two kegs, and we thought that was amazing, but now we move on average 30 to 40 kegs a week. i don't think that i could do this in the states the way that we did it here. you look at the city like

cleveland or pittsburgh, you are talking urban center and 300,000 to 400,000 people, and there is a dozen or two microbreweries per city, but here 2 million people who live in beijing and as of 2011, we were it. >> in one of the beers we use a pepper corn. >> you go to the market and there are spices on the shelf that you will never see in america, and your mind goes crazy thinking about the brewing. >> when you come here, the best part is making banter with the vendors who run the stores. [ speaking foreign language ] >> the vendor gave me his opinion of obama in that he thought he was evil, but he thought my chinese was very good and he split the difference. he seems like a nice guy. i think that we have started something that will inspire a lot more people to do craft brewing, and i'm happy that we are the first. when there is a chinese craft brewery that makes a beer bert

than mine, that is going to be one of the proudest accomplishments. >> that is delicious. >> it is time to answer some of the business questions, and erica and les are with us again. and this is a question from bill, i want to expand my company to include hotel ownership and i'm thinking of a unique hotel on or near the beech. how can one find an angel investor to see the business plan? what about that. he has an idea and how does he find somebody to give him money? >> he is right to two to the angel rather than venture capitalist because he is investing his own money, and he can be more idiosyncratic, and investing from the gut and can do more. in this case, particularly, stay local. there are lots of angels in every town. they are usually retired executives who have money to invest. look for someone who has that interest, and someone who has been in the hotel business before or has an interest in

that part of the jeeg ra ti fi. and maybe a willing investor for you. >> it is tricky, because you can't go to the angel group with an investment like this, because they are mostly focused on tech. >> well, you can if you work hard, and as we say on the show, google is your friend and google angel networks and see what comes up. if you do a lot of hard work, you can get there, but the thing that i am most worried about is the pitch for the contributor is lose the first initial clause of the premise. i want to expand my market iing company to buy a hotel. any sophisticated angel investor have seen every version of we are really good at y, so we want to do x. we manufacture baby stores and we want to open up coffee shops, and this is horror, because it is essentially saying, i am really good at this and i think i will be really good at that. and drop that. i want to open a hotel on the beach, and this is why it will work, and then find the funders. >> thank you. this is about marketing your

business on a budget. >> how does a small manufacturer compete in a changing marketplace with shrinking margins and huge companies funding huge ad campaigns and marketing that's not available to a small manufacturer. >> well, you know what i love about this is that you can. it is easier to do it now more than ever. you can go up against the big guys. what advice for him? >> with all respect to him, and i mean that, i would start with an attitude adjustment. i don't mean that to be disrespectful, but it is not helpful to solving the issue, and the stance of what can i do against the big guys. the question is, why are these guys throwing all of the money at the market, and what have i got that they are trying to numb and the answer is usually closeness to the customer, and what you have got that they don't have is the closeness to the company. the ceo of that company is not going to visit the ceo of your potential company. so don't think of what to do against the gorilla, and what

are they trying to beat that i have got d, and it is usually closeness to the customer. >> that is right. les is totally right. you should not compete on that ground. go with speed. you can fill orders faster, and closes on the the customer. that is key, key. >> and this is another e-mail, i get inquiries from overseas where the buyer wants to have the credit card processed over the phone rather than paypal which is what i use. they request their own shippers for personal pickup, and are these basic overseas custom? the thing i want to get to is what is the best way to do this? >> well, i checked with paypal and it was a competitive request they were hearing and they were suspicious, as you would expect them to be, but there are things

that we have written about at, inc. that are scams. i would be suspicious about this, and particularly the personal shipper. if you don't have a record of your shipment arriving at the address it is intended to, it is often, often a bad sign. >> i would split the two issues. first of all under no circumstances am i going to change the way in i with i will be paid for an overseas transition. i might do it domestically where i am more aware, but i want to see the money in the account and cleared. with understand that has happened i might be more flexible in the shipping, because i have already been paid. but it is the case on occasion, and particularly i understand having originally come from britain, but local shippers are cheaper than bringing in the big boys from over seas, but only explore that possibility once i was absolutely sure that the funding channel worked and i have the money in hand. talk about the money first and talk about the shipping later. >> thank you very much. that is great advice. if you have questions for the experts go to the website. the address is

openforum.com/business. there you can hit the ask the show link to submit a question for the panel. if you'd rather e-mail us the questions or comments to yourbusiness@msnbc.com. as we have said so many times on the show, coming up with a unique twist to differentiate your business from similar ones can be the key to success. that is exactly what one indianapolis business school grad did when he hatched an idea about a new kind of limo company. reporter scott swan from the affiliate wthr has the story of a chicken obsession turned into a small business. >> a lot of people have a look of disbelief. >> in a world of sleek and fancy limos -- >> oh, here he comes. >> this saturday, let me check. >> reporter: john barker gets the call. >> come on! >> when people are looking for a different way to travel.

>> chicken limo, this is john. ♪ i'm so chrrispy ♪ >> it is a car. it is clucking. >> what is it? >> behind us, we have the one and only chicken limo. >> reporter: the city's most unusual ride. >> it is the chicken limo. i mean -- >> reporter: it is everything that it is clucked up to be. >> it is a '96 lincoln stretch town car with a giant chicken on top. >> everything looks plain until you see a chicken wagon limo. >> chicken limo was an idea hatched by a grad from the ohio kelly school of business. did you think in your wildest dreams you would be running the chicken limo? >> no, not i didn't. >> reporter: it is a head turner. is that the sound of a chicken? >> yes, i have the chicken.

>> reporter: when it arrives -- >> the rooster. the cob a doodle doo. >> and hear it. >> he is fierce looking and ready to party. >> what kind of partying are y'all doing here? >> happy birthday. >> c-h-i-c-k-e-n. >> you would expect the chicken limo to be a hit with children. >>. >> it is great for children's birthday parties. >> reporter: but the chicken limo is a huge draw for adults. >> it gets rented out to all ages. >> it is clucking! ♪ c-h-i-c-k-e-n >> for her 80th birthday we thought it would be a great thing. >> chicks gone wild. >> reporter: and when the inside is fueled with adult beverages. >> get clucked up. >> and the chicken limo is one giant party. ♪ chicken chicken >> and what is going on inside

of this limo? >> what happens in the chicken limo stays in the chicken limo. ♪ i'm so crispy >> reporter: this business may expand beyond the nest in indianapolis. >> i want to franchise out and go global if i can. >> videos can be a great way to market online, but they don't always translate into more business. to bring your videos to the next level check out the site of the week. your biz.com helps you add customized videos to the map like maps of your business or share other important information. it can be added to the site or shared across the web. to learn more about today's show click on the website. it's open forum.com/your business, and you will find all of theday day's segments plus exclusive web content, and you

can also follow us on twitter, and don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we love your feedback. next week we will talk to top retailers and visual consultants about how to wow them with the window windows. >> people wonder what is going owithin the colorful windows and what is happening in the store. so they come in the door to find out what is in here, and then we have got them. >> the simpsonple secret to kee your windows looking good. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and we make your business our business. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again.