Many small businesses are so fearful of today's economic turmoil that they're waiting out the storm. Instead, they should be proactively and quickly adapting to the new economic realities.

Or so says Mr. Jeff Zelony, V.P. of Sales of American Best Group, a transporter of refrigerated freight and dry goods. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Mr. Zelony.

What should small businesses be doing right now? The big mistake in a recession is to not realize that things need to change and that they need to be flexible and adapt quickly. Unfortunately, bad news has this huge ability to paralyze people. It is very important for a small business owner to be fast and nimble. Many business owners look at their business in this economy and see revenues falling off but continue doing the same thing they did before - such as continuing to use the same trucking company rather than looking at a transporter that can offer logistics management. The key is really to look at your business financials and business model in parts, and shift your emphasis toward the segments of the business faring better, and reviewing existing vendor relationships and ask "Can we get a better deal somewhere else?".

But isn't that just smart business strategy in general, regardless of the economic climate? In a good economy, if you don't move quickly, you don't get nearly as penalized. You might not be making as much as you could, but likely all parts of your business are somewhat profitable. In a chaotic economy like today, the penalty for being slow hits very quick. Look at the major banks. A lot of them knew they had problems about a year ago, but they just moved way too slowly to fix them and that's why we're having a crisis now.

How do you figure out what parts of your business to focus on in this economy? Look at your business like you're grading a kid's report card. You want to look at the individual sources of revenue, split them up and give the report card a letter grade for each of the individual services and products you sell. You might also break it apart looking at the various types of customers, products and services and how you sell. For example, you may want to divide your bricks-and-mortar business and your e-commerce business, and monitor them individually. That will give you a much better picture of where you're really making money. When you lump things together, it hides hidden gems and masks where the problems are. In today's economy, the difference between a profitable business and one that is failing, may be the same as the difference between and A- and an A+.

What about fuel surcharges? Is there any way around this? High fuel surcharges are affecting everything from pricing to the bottom line for businesses of all sizes. Most businesses are scrambling for solutions. Again, you should analyze this problem by breaking it down into parts. You may find that your products are being shipped to the east coast when your business is on west coast. If your shipments are LTL (Less Than Truckload), and if the shipments are sporadic vs. regular weekly shipments, it may be best to ship a full truckload of your products to the east coast and warehouse the remaining shipment. It is much easier and cheaper to have a local courrier service pick up a pallet or two from a warehouse and deliver it to your customer 60 miles away than to ship those same two pallets from two thousand miles away.