If you’re a rural small business person, I want you to introduce yourself. Our first proud rural entrepreneur is Caroline Jordan, from CashFlowRollerCoaster.com.
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The sun peeks over Rice Hill shining into the bank of windows in my home office in Waterford, Maine (pop. 1450). My cats wander by and birds flit past the windows on their way to the bounty in the birdfeeders. The only sound is the tap-tap-tap of my keyboard as I write an article or a blog post. Later on today I’ll teach a class, work on a new product, and consult with a client by phone. Tomorrow may find me two hours away in Augusta, our state capitol, working on cash flow and startup issues with a client.
As a child, I dreamed of living in the woods and being a writer. Today I do live that dream. My office looks out over a little frog pond. In the spring, the frogs congregate there as soon as the frost is out of the ground. Each evening in my office during “frog season”, I hear them tuning up for an evening of singing and frivolity and I know it’s time to push back from my desk for the day. The singing and frivolity leads to the laying of copious amounts of frog eggs, cloudy and mysterious bundles of potential. The eggs give way to thousands of tadpoles whose progress through life I am able to follow each day when I take my “tadpole break.” I watch their little bodies change as they grow first legs and gradually lose their tails. Eventually, they travel on down stream to the big beaver pond and live out their frog lives, returning again the following spring in a grand circle of froggy life.
In winter, I see wild turkeys at my birdfeeders, consuming mass quantities of seeds and corn. They leave wandering tracks through the snow and startle easily when they see a face in the window. Deer, moose, coyotes and bears share the encircling forest. Living in the woods means that sometimes a grown woman can throw herself down in the snow to make snow angels without any human neighbors to see. And if they did see, well, I’ve decided they can chalk it up to the following explanation, “She writes.” That provides a great cover for a multitude of oddities. And here in Maine, we value our characters, those who don’t quite fit the mold. Those who wander a bit from the beaten path. And those who are “a little tetched in the head.”
Caroline Jordan has been called one of the foremost experts on small business cash flow and finances. She is the owner of The Jordan Result, a company that creates and provides real world, practical resources to help small business owners overcome cash flow problems, create sustainable businesses, and increase profits. She is the author Stop the Cash Flow Roller Coaster, I Want to Get Off! and Strength in Numbers.
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Rural small business people, want to introduce yourself? Send me up to 500 words and two photos, max. Tell us about your business, yourself, your small town. I’ll share them on Wednesdays.
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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.
