Business owners in every industry are struggling to keep costs in line with their declining sales.

By Emily Maltby, CNNMoney.com staff writer May 11, 2009: 1:32 PM ET

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (CNNMoney.com) — Behind every statistic about whopping job losses and the shrinking economy are thousands of small businesses battling the everyday realities of trying to survive with less staff and fewer customers. Three weeks ago, a group of entrepreneurs from peer advisory group The Alternative Board (TAB) gathered to discuss their view from the frontline of the recession.

“I’ve managed to cut so much already, but I wonder, what’s left to cut?” asked Ken Villani, president of Cottage Pharmacy and Surgical in Woodbury, NY.

“People aren’t buying breakfast on the way in to work,” said Owen Mester, whose Maspeth, N.Y., bakery makes and distributes yogurt muffins that get sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. “My competitors - I don’t know how - are offering a month of free delivery. I’m not sure how to counter that. At some point, we still have to still run the business.”

Five of the six business owners at the meeting saw their sales fall last year, with the declines ranging from 8% to 40%. Most expect this year to be equally grim: Only one owner thought his sales for 2009 would be higher than last year.

To adjust to the new economic realities, business owners are shaving their staffing down to the bone. Businesses with fewer than 50 staffers have collectively shed 1.4 million jobs in the past six months, according to estimates by payroll processor ADP.

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Government Help for Small Businesses

The Alternative Board CEO, Jason Zickerman talks about the impacts of the government aid for small businesses.

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Why these scions decided it was the best career choice after all

By Jeff Wuorio

JASON ZICKERMAN  - President and Chief Operating Officer, The Alternative Board, a $21 million, 32-person consulting firm in Westminster, Colo.

Jason Zickerman, 40, had more than a few misgivings when his father-in-law, Allen Fishman, invited him to become chief operating officer of The Alternative Board, the Colorado consultancy Fishman had founded in 1990. For one thing, Zickerman already had a job in accounting some 2,000 miles east in New York. But more than that, “I was worried how it might affect my marriage, the great relationship I had with my father-in-law—everything,” Zickerman says. “The business is an economic unit, the family a social one. Mixing them together can really muddy the waters.”

Fishman, who had long been impressed by his son-in-law’s smarts and drive, worked with Zickerman over the course of several months to draw up vision statements that addressed goals and potential issues in exhaustive detail. “We talked about the number of hours we would work, what precisely each of us would do, how it would affect our quality of life with children and grandchildren,” says Fishman, 67. “We basically covered everything and anything that the other person needed to know.” They even agreed on limited participation in the business from other family members, solidifying Zickerman’s authority.

But it was the escape clause that proved most important to Zickerman. If, after one year, either party determined that things weren’t working out for any reason—lack of chemistry, family friction, or something else—their arrangement would terminate. “We came in with a very clear understanding that we would talk after the first year was up,” says Fishman. “If either was unhappy, it would be over.” Seven years later, the escape clause is dusty and unused.

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