Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops

7 Strengths of Small Town Businesses #4: More flexible

By

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

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.

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.

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

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!

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Partners

We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses. Logo with "Shop Indie Local" Move Your Money, bank local, invest local Multicolor logo with text that says "Global Entrepreneurship Week" Save Your Town logotype

Best of Small Biz Survival

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

%d bloggers like this: