By Jon Swanson “Are you Martha or Molly?” I figured it was a simple question. He acted like he owned the place. “I’m George,” he said. The sign says Martha and Molly’s,but the customer service was George’s. It was a clothes and shoes shop in northwest Ohio, on a road where most of the cars […]
Archives for September 2012
Small towns go high tech on Nov. 8
Speakers from 20 states are converging on Kansas November 8, 2012, for a conversation about how high tech thrives outside Silicon Valley and all the usual big cities. It’s the Small Town State of NOW, which we used to call the 140 Conference. Contributor Jon Swanson and I will share apanel on true friendship this year. […]
Big boxes are getting smaller
Big-box stores are getting smaller. Because so many big box retail chains are cutting back on store sizes, Barry Shlachter writes in the Fort Worth Star Telegram that this is a national trend. It’s also one of the Small Town Rules, where we know that bigger isn’t always better. A few juicy quotes from the […]
Chasing two rabbits as a business lesson
If you chase two rabbits, you probably won’t catch either of them. That’s one of those “common sense” business lessons I’ve heard for a long time. Of course, I don’t follow it. My husband and I own a liquor store and a cattle ranch, I speak and write about small business, and I co-founded Tourism […]