About the Authors of Small Biz Survival

Becky McCray

I started Small Biz Survival because I am a small town entrepreneur. I write about small business and rural issues, based on my own successes and failures. My husband and I own a small town retail liquor store and cattle ranch. I also work with small businesses to maintain their web presence and help city governments with project management and grant writing.

My latest project is Tourism Currents, teaching social media skills to tourism professionals. It’s a joint project with Sheila Scarborough.

I love to speak to groups, and lately I’m in demand as a small business, social media and small town speaker.

I also write a personal blog, Out Standing in My Field. I’m proud to be one of the Small Business Outside Voice contributors at US News, and I write an occasional Small Business Letter from America for the Small Biz Pod UK.

If that’s not enough, you can read even more about me in these posts:

• Helping small towns and small businesses
• What I learned from failure
• The face behind the blog (photos)
  
• Five things you may not know about me
• Five MORE things
• Five things about me (things I can do)

Interviews:

• Customer Service is all you got (video) with Barry Moltz
• Business Owners Toolkit (audio) with Greg Corombos and John Duoba
• “I was fired, and then…” (video) with Jill Foster, SmallBizCool series at Women Grow Business
• Small Business Survival (audio) with Paul Cheney and JohnMunsell, User Friendly Thinking
• Simplified Marketing Plans (video – at YouTube) with David Austin, BMCA
• Entrepreneur People. Real Stories (audio) with Sherry Borzo, DSM Buzz
• A Real Entrepreneur with Deb Brown
• The State of Small Business Marketing (audio) with Jay Ehret
• Chain interview at SXSW (video) with Crystal Beasley
• SOBCon 09 profile (audio) with Michelle Vandepas
• Entrepreneur Club (audio – direct link to MP3 file) with Patti Serrano
• Helping other small businesses through a Blog (video) by Shashi Bellamkonda
• Push My Follow (audio) by some social media all stars
• Business networking advice by Josh Hinds
• Entrepreneurship Interviews with Cristian Dorobantescu
• Small Towns, Big Impact: A Conversation with Liquor Store Operator, Rancher and Blogger Becky McCray by Winning Workplaces

You can connect with me through:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Flickr
• FriendFeed
• Email
• PO Box 8, Hopeton, OK 73746-0008

Glenna Mae Hendricks “Maesz”

This is my mom, Glenna Mae Hendricks. She is an entrepreneur and income tax consultant, so we get lots of good tax tips from her. She is an oenophile (“look that up in your Funk and Wagnall’s,” she says), and a wine enjoyment teacher/guide who also writes wine notes at the Allen’s Retail Liquors site. Her political thoughts (and occasional outbursts of domesticity) appear at Old Feminist and Wild-eyed Liberal.

• 5 Things you may not know about Maesz

Maesz is also on Twitter.

Jeanne Cole “OkieJ”

This is my friend Jeanne Cole. She is an entrepreneur and business development specialist with the Small Business Development Center. I think more people who advise businesses should be in business themselves, just like Jeanne. We turn to Jeanne whenever we have SBA questions, and she frequently shares small business gems from her email and research. She posts her travel notes at OkieJ On The Road.

• Five things about OkieJ

OkieJ is also on Twitter.

Jon Swanson

This is my friend Jon Swanson. Jon has been a regular reader and occasional contributor around here since 2006, even though we didn’t meet (in person) until 2008.

Jon works as a pastor, but he understands business better than many so-called business people. He may claim to be too chicken to be an entrepreneur, but he wrote the best small business post that I have ever read. He gets that it is about people, relationships, service, and yes, even love.

He offers insight from a customer’s perspective, and he is a storyteller. He knows how to choose just the right words to get his point across, clearly and simply. Not surprising, given his background in teaching communication.

Jon’s regular internet home is Levite Chronicles, where he talks about faith, family, productivity, and relationship. I love how he looks “at normal things in odd ways and difficult things in simple ways.”

You’ll also find him on Twitter.

Next up…

Now that you’ve met us, let us take you on the Guided Tour.

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• About the Author
• Latest Posts

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

• Improving Rural Housing: turning blighted dilapidated houses into new homes - May 7, 2021
• Are marijuana shops good or bad for small towns? - April 22, 2021
• Downtown is your town’s core: How to make your case - February 22, 2021
• Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
• In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
• Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
• How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
• The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
• Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
• Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020