Bring your own Brag Basket full of good news

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Bringing your good news to share in the Brag Basket keeps us connected. What’s in your basket?

The Brag Basket is open! This one is for Dec 16-18, 2016. Bring your good news, big or small, to share with everyone.

What can you share in the Brag Basket?

introduce yourself
share some great news from this week
celebrate progress, even baby steps
congratulate a friend
applaud for each other
confess your undying love for rural places

How do you join in?

Below this post is the comment section. Add your good news there.

Reading this in your email? Hit reply.

Don’t like to brag? Just share some good news for someone you’re happy for. It’s a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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Small Biz Survival

The rural small business blog. We talk about small town business, with how-to articles, especially on social media marketing and making your community a better place. We use this “author” for announcements and other things you’ll want to know.

www.smallbizsurvival.com

Jim Metcalf says

December 19, 2016 at 6:10 am

Fire Damaged Business Recovery
This is a personal work in progress. I am a volunteer SCORE business counselor who was asked if I could help recover a florist business which had suffered a disastrous fire. What made it personal was the fact that I grew up in that small town and purchased flowers from this florist for my prom date who now is my wife of 53 years.
The fire required the floral business to move to a side street away from the main street location. Secondly, floral businesses are under attack from on-line florists and $9.99 bouquets available at every supermarket. Thanks to Becky and Deb along with a number of folks in the Small Biz Survival network, we received a many great suggestions and ideas.
First, we asked the owner if she wanted to bail out now or recover the business. Her decision was to recover and grow to achieve a valued business which could be sold in 6 years when she could retire.
The community know that the floral business was still alive so the sign on the burned out store was removed, rehabbed and hung over the new location. Strategic lighting was added to the front of the new location to focus on the new inventory. The community received notice of relocation via newspapers and a helpful civic association.
To the rehabbed sign was added the word “Gifts” to now announce “Florist and Gifts” signifying a expanded range of offerings for all types of remembrance occasions. The added gift inventory was funded from fire insurance payments.
The new location was a little larger so space was used to create a destination business rather than the old walk-in business. The space could form an incubator for new start-ups so Local crafters were recruited to sell everything from foods to soaps to jewelry in the added space. The experiment was to feature a new crafter each week with advertising paid by the crafters used to boost the advertising budget. Each week the space will house a new crafter.
Key to the business expansion and relocation was communication to past and potential customers. Other businesses made people aware through visible postings. A high end restaurant exhibiter two floral arrangements which were raffled each week. Sandwich boards were placed on the sidewalk.
The short term goal was to show that the business was alive with an interesting variety of gifts in addition to flowers and boost sales during the Christmas season. Beyond the short term we will use some of the space to conduct craft and floral classes. The local cable TV facility is across the street so they will be approached to videotape the classes for community viewing.
The idea of this business as a complete gift shop will be enhanced through a software birthday/special date reminder program which could send a snail or email to customers in advance of a remembrance date to remind them of the date as well as make gift suggestions. The software is being explored for purchase or creation locally.
In summary, we are not bragging yet, but really appreciate your ideas and suggestions as they make sense for this business. We are not successful yet, but we are seeing this owner working hard to not only recover, but expand with an expanded positive small town community business. Thank You.
Jim Metcalf

Comments

Jim Metcalf says
December 19, 2016 at 6:10 am
Fire Damaged Business Recovery
This is a personal work in progress. I am a volunteer SCORE business counselor who was asked if I could help recover a florist business which had suffered a disastrous fire. What made it personal was the fact that I grew up in that small town and purchased flowers from this florist for my prom date who now is my wife of 53 years.
The fire required the floral business to move to a side street away from the main street location. Secondly, floral businesses are under attack from on-line florists and $9.99 bouquets available at every supermarket. Thanks to Becky and Deb along with a number of folks in the Small Biz Survival network, we received a many great suggestions and ideas.
First, we asked the owner if she wanted to bail out now or recover the business. Her decision was to recover and grow to achieve a valued business which could be sold in 6 years when she could retire.
The community know that the floral business was still alive so the sign on the burned out store was removed, rehabbed and hung over the new location. Strategic lighting was added to the front of the new location to focus on the new inventory. The community received notice of relocation via newspapers and a helpful civic association.
To the rehabbed sign was added the word “Gifts” to now announce “Florist and Gifts” signifying a expanded range of offerings for all types of remembrance occasions. The added gift inventory was funded from fire insurance payments.
The new location was a little larger so space was used to create a destination business rather than the old walk-in business. The space could form an incubator for new start-ups so Local crafters were recruited to sell everything from foods to soaps to jewelry in the added space. The experiment was to feature a new crafter each week with advertising paid by the crafters used to boost the advertising budget. Each week the space will house a new crafter.
Key to the business expansion and relocation was communication to past and potential customers. Other businesses made people aware through visible postings. A high end restaurant exhibiter two floral arrangements which were raffled each week. Sandwich boards were placed on the sidewalk.
The short term goal was to show that the business was alive with an interesting variety of gifts in addition to flowers and boost sales during the Christmas season. Beyond the short term we will use some of the space to conduct craft and floral classes. The local cable TV facility is across the street so they will be approached to videotape the classes for community viewing.
The idea of this business as a complete gift shop will be enhanced through a software birthday/special date reminder program which could send a snail or email to customers in advance of a remembrance date to remind them of the date as well as make gift suggestions. The software is being explored for purchase or creation locally.
In summary, we are not bragging yet, but really appreciate your ideas and suggestions as they make sense for this business. We are not successful yet, but we are seeing this owner working hard to not only recover, but expand with an expanded positive small town community business. Thank You.
Jim Metcalf
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- Becky McCray says
  December 20, 2016 at 5:26 pm
  Jim, I’m so glad to hear how you’re adapting and improving on the ideas we all shared. Please keep us updated. We’re cheering for them!
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