Stocking Up Find the right suppliers to make building your inventory a breeze

Small-business owners today face a daunting challenge: learninghow to survive, let alone flourish, in an arena where the bigcorporations get fantastic wholesale prices by buying hugh amountsof product in bulk. How can entrepreneurs hope to compete? By usingsimple common sense, and employing the one weapon that corporationsdon't have in their arsenal: the personal touch.

The smart way to start your business is by building a morepersonal relationship with your suppliers. Anthony Dell'Aquila,who started his second major operation two years ago, learned thislesson through a painful trial-and-error process with his firstbusiness. Today, he's applying the universal lessons that helearned to his new enterprise, the Hoboken Brewing Company, acompany he started with his brother Mitchell, a home-brewingenthusiast.

While Dell'Aquila considers a number of factors whenchoosing suppliers, he highlights service as the single mostimportant attribute in a good supplier. "It's acombination of things, but look for service-orientedcompanies," he advises. "Make that your number-onepriority."