Tourism idea: delicious samples they can take home (Good for economic development, too)

A tasty sample from Ponca City that is easy to take home. Any small town tourism or economic development group should promptly steal this idea.

My neighbors in Ponca City, Oklahoma, have a famous local barbecue sauce, Head Country. This is the kind of thing that lots of economic development and tourism agencies have long given out in full size bottles to special guests and at booths at travel shows, etc.

The problem is, how they heck do people get this stuff home? If they’re driving, they have to find a good way to pack it without breaking the glass bottle. If they’re flying, they have to carefully pack it in a checked bag (and maybe pay to check that bag), or leave it behind. That’s not making a good impression.

A few years ago, Ponca City do-er Kat Long decided to champion the idea of small sample-size bottles, airline friendly, and unbreakable. Then they could hand out more samples and more people could actually get home with them. Last time I ran into Kat, she proudly handed me a 3 oz bottle of genuine Head Country sauce with labels on the back and on the lid promoting Ponca City’s economic development projects. A tasty idea finally made a reality. Go, Ponca!

And if you’ll be in Ponca City on May 8, 2013, I’ll be speaking about growing your small business. Here’s a flyer for the Small Business Week event (PDF) put together by Kat and some other Ponca City get-things-done folks.

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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.