On September 1st, the IRS increased the mileage rate allowance to 48½ cents a mile from 40½ cents a mile. This 8-cent increase was prompted by soaring gas prices.

At the same time Amtrak raised its fares, citing fuel costs have risen 40% from a year ago and are expected to continue climbing. Amtrak is in the transportation industry so we just accept this. But what should a small service business do? First, like Amtrak, be aware of how the cost is affecting your profit margin. Then, decide how you should handle it. Some options are:

• Do nothing. Yes, you are making less money but your margins are still acceptable.
• Increase your rates. (Typically your rates are to cover expenses like gas.)
• Charge your clients for mileage.
• Schedule jobs more geographically, rather than on client demand. (Clients may have to wait a few days longer to see you or charge them extra.)
• Re-evaluate the way you deliver your services. Can you do more support via the phone or computer?
• Refer work to other businesses in areas too far to drive.
• Hire staff that lives farther from the office who could service those clients. Organize work so they don’t have to come into the office as often.

Now is the time to assess your profitability. If you have to raise your rates, now is the time. Clients never like it but they will understand, especially if driving to the client site is the way they are serviced. Be clear with your clients why you’ve had to do this. When we hear that fuel costs have gone up by 40% for Amtrak, we can understand the price increase, even though we don’t have to like it.

Twice this month I observed small business owners chewing out their staff inappropriately. One wrote a rude note to an employee and the other basically belittled a staff member in front of me. The owner felt justified because of ‘the load’ of running the business. They were frustrated that no one could ‘get it’ like they could. What they didn’t ‘get’ was the damage they had caused.

Assistant professor Christine Porath at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business has researched the subject of incivility in the workplace for nearly a decade. Her findings include:

You use Windows Explore to display the files in your My Documents folder. (Tip – I open this first when I start my computer and leave it open on my taskbar so I can quickly locate files. Right click on the Start button and choose Explore.) But when you click on different folders, the display (or View as it’s called) is in a different format. How irritating! You like to look at the files using the Details view so you can sort the columns to more easily find something by name or file date. It takes extra key strokes to get the right View which is unproductive.

To make all of your folders look the same, open any folder (click on it and the files in the folder appear in the right pane) and create the View you like (View, and then either Thumbnails, Tiles, Icons, Lists or Details). To make this look the same for every folder, choose Tools, Folder Options, select the View tab. In the Advanced Settings section, scroll down and make sure the box for ‘Remember each folder’s view settings’ is checked. Then click the ‘Apply to All Folders’ button and Yes when prompted. If your View was Details, all files will be displayed in this format now.

Because you checked the box for ‘Remember each folder’s view settings’, if you change a particular folder’s view, it will stay that way until you change it to something else. This is especially useful when displaying folders with pictures. I set folders (like My Pictures) to use View, Thumbnails so I can see the picture in the file. I can find what I want more quickly. Try it and see what you like. You know what the functions do now, and can change them to suit your needs. If you always want the View the same, then uncheck the ‘Remember each folder’s view settings’ box before you apply to all folders.

• My blog is up at www.workandlivesimply.com! What’s a blog you say??? It’s basically a mini website you can do yourself. You write entries in a journal format and people can post comments. You can basically have a ‘conversation’ with others in cyberspace. The search engines like to pick up these pages and since content changes frequently. Hence, it is one of the latest online marketing tools. It does take some time to write on a frequent basis. If you don’t like to write, this probably isn’t for you. I’ve committed to write at least 3 times a week about my own lessons as a small business owner and the clients whom I help. Check it out. You may a tip or idea that makes you more productive.
• Americans who expect Social Security to be their primary source of income: Seniors (92%), Baby Boomers (77%), Generation X (53%). (Source: MainStay Investments of New York Life as stated in USA Today, 9/12/05) How do you compare?