Current economic conditions have been a hard thing to grapple with for even the most highly paid, highly trained ivy league CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies.

Here in Richmond County, there are dozens of small business owners who live side-by-side their customers, making up for what they lack in volume and price with service, attention and a human face.

These business owners are being forced to adapt to keep their heads above water.

“Our Chamber members are not immune to these difficult times,” said Richmond County Chamber of Commerce President Emily Tucker. “There is no better time than now for the business community to stick together and support each other.”

Richmond Block and Brick Owner Tim Hawks said he’s dealt with a drop-off in construction and material purchases by contractors, in part, by acquiring Richmond Equipment Rentals to diversify his business.

“My biggest thing was that I realized you have to deal with homeowners as well as the contractors, and when you’re dealing with homeowners, you’ve got to offer what they need to get the work done,” Hawks said. “Now, they can come here and get the masonry and building supplies that they need, and if they need a tool to rent, they can get that, too, along with my experience to help them get the job done.”

He is a licensed landscape contractor, who said he is willing to offer advice on projects and goes out of his way for customer service.

“But me personally, the thing that I try to emphasize to everyone is that we, as a county, need to keep our local dollars spent in the county,” Hawks said.

He used the example of going out to eat.

“I like to go to Moore County and go out to eat just as much as anybody else, but I know that if I eat in Rockingham or Ellerbe or Hamlet, I’m supporting local businesses that need my money,” Hawks said. “Moore County don’t need my money - they’ve got plenty of it. Richmond County does, the local business owners need it.”

When Hawkes purchased office equipment for his business, he said a couple of people advised him to go to Staple’s for it.

“I bought about $2,000 in office supplies, and I might could’ve driven somewhere and saved a couple of dollars, but Bobby Marshall down here, I know that if I go and do business with him, he’ll come and do business with me, and that money stays in the county,” He said.

On the Chamber of Commerce’s website, the “Shop Richmond First” page explains that over 30 percent of sales tax collected locally is returned to local government to fund public works, services and utilities, education and suppress property tax.

Bobby Marshall of Marshall’s Office Supply has over 30 years of experience in the office supply business in Richmond County.

He said over that period he’s offered customers service you can’t get from a big box store and practiced charitable giving in the community. But he says the recession has hit him hard.

“We’re probably doing about 25 percent of what we were doing, right now,” Marshall said. “I mean, you’ve got people like the county, they’re frozen right now, so they can only get supplies if it’s an emergency, basically. The small businessman is used to a certain amount of money each month from certain customers, when that halts, it’s tough. That’s just one example, everybody’s cut back.”

He said he’s been forced to cut back as well.

“One thing we’re doing is we’re not ordering as much inventory,” Marshall said. “We’ve restructured several employees’ of our employees hours, but they understand that, we brought everyone in here one-on-one and told them exactly what was going on, that’s what I feel you should do.”

He’s also cut back on energy costs, and looked at expanding more into teacher supplies.

But the one thing Marshall says he won’t cut is service.

“People need to realize that bigger isn’t always better,” he said. “We had a company that got bought out, and corporate tried to tell them they had to order from this certain company, but the man went to them and told them, ‘You just don’t understand what Marshall’s Office Supply does for us, they loan us chairs, they come and pick them up, they look after us.’ We kept that customer.”

One way to gauge the strength of an economy is by looking at its service sector.

Occupancy rates at area hotels have been battered, according to Tucker.

“We have seen a reduction in occupancy,” said America’s Best Value Inn Manager Jyoti Patel.

She explained she and her husband have acquired the business in the past year, but looking at numbers provided by the previous management, it’s clear. In order to adjust, she had to cut expenses.

“First, we’ve been doing more hours by ourselves, rather than buying help,” she said. “We’ve also gone out and talked to construction companies and other customers to get them to stay with us.”

Patel said her business has also cut energy costs.

“We try to save energy as much as we can,” she said. “Instead of waiting until check-out time at 11, we go to their room as soon as they check out and cut off the heat and the lights. We also recycle as much as we can, and encourage our housekeepers to only use the washer and dryer at a certain time.”

Even businesses that haven’t seen a drop-off in customers report having to look at ways to cut back as the consumer cuts back.

ReMax/Tri-City Real Estate co-owner Jamie Moss-Godfrey said her firm has had to “trim fat.”

“We’ve actually seen it building back up, very much so,” she said. “But what we’ve seen is, prices of homes are lower than they were last year, so numbers-wise, we’re there, but our total volume is down.”

She explained selling more merchandise for less money presents its own problems.

“We’ve had to trim some fat, but at the same time increase our marketing, so we really have to delegate what fat we trim,” she said. “It’s working smarter, not harder.”

Some businesses have proven more or less recession-proof, as well, but there’s still evidence of the crunch.

“Things don’t seem to be tightening up so much for us, but most of our customers are getting a lot more energy conscious,” said Wimpy’s Heating, Air Conditioning and Commercial Refrigeration Vice President Andy Shankle. “They’re buying more expensive units that are more efficient.”

He said the hybrid units have moved very well since the onset of the economic downturn.

Tucker said Chamber membership is a way to raise consumer confidence and take advantage of resources and a support network for the business owner.

“I believe business owners should look at a chamber membership as an investment,” she said. “The main reason to join your local chamber is that as a whole we can accomplish more if we work together as opposed to working separately. I am certain we will recover and be much stronger in the end.”