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7 Strengths of Small Town Businesses #4: More flexible

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7 best strengths of small town stores

7 Biggest Strengths of Local Shops

And how you can build on them.

Remember the 7 Weaknesses of Local Shops? They were crazy popular because they touched a nerve. I acknowledged that some of our local businesses really need to step up to earn business today. This series is the flip side of that idea. Small town stores have strengths, too. Our best local shops know a lot about customer service and community, and every business would be wise to learn from our strengths.

  1. Get to know you
  2. Make customers feel loved
  3. Fewer layers
  4. More flexible
  5. More knowledgeable
  6. Innovative
  7. Benefiting the local community

Strength 4: More flexible.

Maybe this was a secret, but small town businesses have the luxury of presuming people are basically good. That means we can treat customers like real people.

We can give you a handful of screws from the bin without charging you and say, “I’ll catch you next time.”

We can loan you one of our specialty tools and be confident you’ll bring it back.

We can offer advice and information, knowing you’ll try to reward us with business.

We can promote your business, even if there is no apparent connection between our businesses.

What makes this work is our small town community. We know you. We know your family. You’ll be back, and you’ll have to live in town with us. Very few people in small towns are willing to actively hurt a local business just to save a buck, then face the owner in line at the cafe the next day.

People are basically good. That’s what we think. And that’s how we treat you.

Next up: Strength 5: More knowledgeable

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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.

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Comments

  1. Hi, Can you please post one that has a link to all of these on it. As it is now, seems like I would have to share 7 different URLs. Maybe you can add a link to each of the previous 6 on the 7th one? Thank you!

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