Just bought Small Town Rules! God, I’ve been ANXIOUS for this book. Don’t buy it because I
love Becky McCray and am friends with Barry Moltz. Don’t buy it because I said it’s a great book. Buy it because it will change your business.
Chris Brogan
NY Times Bestselling Author of Trust Agents
Since Small Town Rules was officially released, lots of reviews have come in. Here are some of our favorite insights and kind comments.
Best Small Business Books Published in 2012
Winner, Small Business Book Awards 2013
Top 10 Business Books You Should Read This Summer
Melinda Emerson, Huffington Post
Favorite Small Business Books of 2012
Pierre DuBois, Small Biz Trends
Small Town Rules is every bit worth the investment and is in my top 25 business books of all time.
James Dalman
Mark my words, Small Town Rules is a VERY important book for you to read.
Amid the gaggle of rah-rah follow-your-passion-the-money-will-magically-and-regularly-appear business books, this is a much needed reality check.
Heidi Thorne
It is a fascinating resource with genuinely new insights for everyone in business.
The book is a refreshing look at the advantages that small towns have and what lessons we can all learn by thinking small.
Ramon Ray
Small Town Rules is not an intellectual masterpiece of thought that leaves you floating. Instead it’s a brass and tacks, bread and butter, hammer and nail MANUAL for succeeding when you’re small…It’s a survival guide for a solo entrepreneur who wants to do big things or for the big company who needs to continue to be and act small.
Ramon Ray
Pretty sure I want to buy 112 copies for every small business owner we have.
Katie Pinke
You don’t have to be operating in a small town to benefit from the observations Moltz and McCray in Small Town Rules.
While most of their rules are aimed at businesses, I suggest some are equally applicable to small towns like Collingwood….I recommend that incoming [city] councillors read the book to see how these rules apply to municipal operations and governance.
Small Town Rules is not just for small town business, it is for all business. The book is full of helpful information and examples of how it all fits together.
How do these small town businesses manage to endure? This is the lesson of the book, and the authors are all too glad to share “small town rules” that are applicable to businesses of all sizes, in any geographic location.
This book is a study in creativity, resilience, disaster preparedness, team work, and financial sobriety. This book also makes the glaring statement that the rules of engagement have changed, forever. Any business entity that fails to accept these changes will be left behind, or lost forever.
Moltz and McCray know what they’re talking about.
Just because it says ‘small’ on it doesn’t mean it’s not good for big businesses to read.
Jason Falls
Moltz and McCray skillfully note small and big business perspectives, recommending approaches that merge business development skills with social media, networking sensibilities, and consideration of assets. This outlook helps the book relate to rural entrepreneurs far away from a metropolitan center as well as those in large urban centers who feel they are competing with everyone from everywhere.
This book is a great read for anyone who is running a business — anywhere. Turns out we all have a lot we can learn from those small towns.
We agree that business is becoming more small town like. And I would add that, if anything, the authors may be underestimating the strength of this trend.
If you want to do business on a human scale, no matter how large (or small) your organization is, this is a book that will serve as a truly valuable resource.
Small Towns totally get Fierce Loyalty. In fact, I think they invented it. They had to to survive.
Sarah Robinson
Becky and Barry do a great job explaining how the shifts in the economy, technology, and society are impacting many aspects of the economy.
I highly recommend this book and will be carrying it on Kindle App as a reference book to explain many concepts to many of my clients.
For me, the power of the book is how Becky McCray and Barry Moltz provide a comprehensive guide to understanding the importance of small town business practices, as a basis for success, in the modern marketplace.
Wayne Hurlbert
This book encourages the use of small town ideals, like frugality, local networking, and keeping small work units for success in the business world. The book explores how technology and economics are changing the world of business today and what your small business needs to do to prosper in this new environment.
Stephanie Faris, Small Biz Technology
In a time when “community” has become a buzz word for businesses to thrive in the age of social media, this book is a breath of fresh air providing sense and depth around what this truly means. I highly recommend Small Town Rules for business owners, entrepreneurs, and any student of communications, marketing or business development.
Becky McCray has written an interesting book, one that both embraces and transcends the world of small businesses in small towns. One message one gleans from her opus is that “location” is now simply a word that can refer to the small (global companies weighing local impact of their brands) as well as the large (the great virtual realm found online), and that there are ways entrepreneurs can profit from these conceptual shifts in our culture.
Richard Grigonis
My nose is stuck right in the middle of “Small Town Rules” and I have to say (like many others) that I love this book! I was raised in small towns and recently moved to a Chicago suburb so I too can see both sides. I am amazed at your passion but also the ability to quickly lay down concepts and advice that is digestible, not always an easy feat.
Jennifer Hanson
As part of our research, we asked business people from urban and rural areas, and from organizations from 1 to thousands, to tell you why they think all business can learn from small towns.
People say the world is getting smaller; I think the world is getting more connected. It’s all about the relationships – who you know and who knows you. Through the power of the Internet, mobile apps, and online social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn, businesses now have unprecedented ways in which to nurture relationships with everyone in their marketplace. We’re going back to the small town way of doing business where everyone knows your name and genuinely cares about you.
Mari Smith
author The New Relationship Marketing
For generations, small town businesses have been responsible for building the American
economy, and all entrepreneurs can learn a thing or two from their success.
Scott Gerber
Founder, Young Entrepreneur Council; Co-Founder, Gen Y Capital Partners
Author, Never Get a “Real” Job
Small town businesses know their customers. They know their kids’ names, they know their favorite sports teams and what they buy on a regular basis. This kind of intimate knowledge creates loyalty—the kind of loyalty that creates longevity and success in business.
Carol Roth
NY Times Bestselling Author of The Entrepreneur Equation
Small is the new big because you can reach everyone with the click of a mouse and anyone can
review and critique you. Think you know how to play the game? Think again. The rules have changed. Read Small Town Rules. It’s the rule book for the connected economy. Highly recommended.
Michael Port
NY Times Bestselling Author of Book Yourself Solid
Business should be personal. The ‘who you are’ can play a huge role in the ‘what you offer’. That’s how small towns have conducted commerce since the get-go, and we’d all be well-served to inject that kind of approach to our businesses – no matter how big in scope or vision.
Rich Sloan
Author of StartUp Nation
There are a lot of traits about small town business which offer insights and opportunities for
people to leverage in all businesses. Community matters. Relationships matter. People matter.
My observation about conversations in a small town is that people care. And businesses that are smart are learning to listen, connect, share and engage their customers too.
Big business and businesses in general could learn a lot from how a small town works.
Jeff Pulver
Co-founder, Vonage
Founder, 140 Characters Conference, VON Conference
Only in a small town can you discover the true nature of what it means to be connected and at the same time, living in a fish-bowl.
Tim Sanders
NY Times Bestselling Author of Love is the Killer App
In a small town, word of mouth is the most powerful force there is.
Everyone in town knows about the business. If the quality and service are good — or bad — everyone soon knows. That’s why every business should operate like a small-town business, no matter where you’re located or how far away your customers come from. When you and your team run your business as if every potential customer will eventually know everything about your business, you naturally will keep quality and service standards high.
Anita Campbell
CEO, Small Business Trends LLC
Author of Visual Marketing
In this impersonal world, more and more customers yearn to do business “where everybody knows your name.” Small town entrepreneurs know how to create long-lasting connections with their customers. We can—and should—learn from them. This book shares their secrets.
Rieva Lesonsky
CEO & President of GrowBiz Media
It is no surprise that big businesses are coming around to the idea of small town style customer
experience and service. As customers we know we prefer the “Small Town” way of doing things. We like to be treated as human beings, as individuals. We like our loyalty being rewarded, and we like having a person to talk to when things go wrong. Someone who understands our problem and has the ability to put it right. When it comes across as natural rather than forced in an awkwardly fake “PR” way, then it works all the better. The days when a blockbuster Super Bowl ad could solve your marketing problems are gone (if that was ever the case). The future of business is one customer at a time, just like in small town businesses.
Chris Garrett
Co-author of ProBlogger: the Book
With a couple of basic tools like DropBox, Skype and Google Aps, a small town business can look like a big business with one killer ap: you can stay in a small town with the associated lifestyle benefits and lower cost of doing business. Small town businesses are rewriting the rules on what it means to be competitive with their big company rivals for customers and talented employees.
John Warrillow
Author of Built to Sell
Small town businesses understand this better than most any publicly traded company in the
world: you must be cash flow positive or it’s your death. As long as you have positive cash flow, you can keep the doors open, expand as much as your cash flow will let you, and try new things. The moment you go cash flow negative, you’ve spelled your doom. It may take a week or a century, but you’re eventually going out of business if you’re bleeding cash. Big businesses are accustomed to running deficits and issuing stock, but these are stopgap measures that more often than not serve to enrich the shareholders as the ship sinks. If your business, big or small, is cash flow positive, then everyone from shareholders to shop floor sweepers will do well.
Christopher S. Penn
Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Blue Sky Factory Email Marketing
In a small town everyone knows Jack who owns the local pizza joint franchise always supports the high school. In a small town everyone knows the local car lot owner’s family also runs a charity that buys shoes and toys for families in need. In a small town, everyone knows the business owners who support their community with their own sweat AND their dollars. AND the small town supports them too.
Doug Stewart
DSC Web Services
A key to success for any small business is to be actively involved in their community.
That feeling of “community” is what drives the web and social media. Now it’s just about mandatory that businesses of all sizes be active in their respective communities–both online and off. It’s the interaction, the connection with those who support you, that helps make businesses successful today.
Leslie McLellan
All Things Social
During the past four decades, big has gotten the attention in my industry sector. Economies of scale, resources for impressive events. But what’s becoming clear is that the relationships, the personal attention, the value of doing life together is what matters. I know. I’m a pastor, not a business owner. But the ideas that Becky and Barry are talking about for what small businesses can teach all business is true in our ‘business’. While big churches get the press, the number of house churches, of communities of faith is growing, too. Small, done well, can teach all of us how to live and work better.
Jon Swanson
Social Media Chaplain
Small town business has to do with the basics. Those simpler times that city-dwellers dream
about when they’re sitting in a 2-hour traffic jam, listening to their satellite radio, while pounding out meaningless emails and texts on heavily-used Blackberry’s. Small town businesses are a lot more about handshakes than they are about 14-page contracts that Harvard Law School graduates write…and that no one ever seems to understand. All business owners can learn a lot by watching how business gets done in America’s small towns.
The Franchise King®, Joel Libava
Author of Become a Franchise Owner!
Although the competitiveness of large population areas (between individual businesses) might be tougher – it does not compare to the daily fight for survival in a small town or remote area. This fight for survival brings out the best of entrepreneurial spirit in many small town businesses with innovation, service, and quality. The mere desire to survive pushes the small business to excellence. But the thing I admire most, the reason I live in a small town is not this at all… The real treasure of small town business is the heart! Small town businesses are not just serving strangers but their neighbors, friends, family or someone who knows these people who are important to them. The best small town businesses CARE that you are not feeling well when you stop by to pick up your medication at their pharmacy, CARE that you are without transportation until they get your car repaired at their garage, CARE… This natural sincerity that comes from living in small communities can be duplicated in practice by all business and I believe is the most valuable asset small business has to share.
Laura Girty
NW Field Representative, Rural Enterprises of Oklahoma, Inc.
Small town business can teach all businesses about efficiency. Small
businesses don’t have the luxury of compartmentalizing roles. It’s all hands on deck, working as quickly and seamlessly as possible, to ensure the greatest profit.
Alexandra Levit
author of Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success.
Small town businesses are lean and mean, which means they have to be creative and innovative to compete and turn a profit. Businesses of all sizes can watch and learn in order to do the same.
Gini Dietrich
Arment- Dietrich and SpinSucks
There are more successful small town businesses than
there are large corporations. They aren’t a fluke or an accident or an anomaly. They grow from need, vision, risk, and response. They listen to and understand their community and their customers. They engage in positive ways with those around them. They understand and offer a good product and good service. They change with the times. They admit when they’re wrong and make it right. They go the extra mile. They understand the value of customer loyalty. They work hard, try to have fun doing it, then get up the next day and do it again. It’s nothing fancy. It’s just what you do.
The information small town business owners offer is practical, tested, and is shared generously. Small town business can be easily underestimated but should never be ignored.
Andrea Springer
Springer Coaching and Consulting
Transparency is the over-used buzzword in the customer service world of today thanks to the communication onslaught brought on by the internet and specifically social media. Due to the ‘everyone knows everyone’ effect of small towns, small town businesses were forced to become masters of transparency a hundred years earlier than the rest of the world.
Cody Heitschmidt
Small town business owner
Small town business teaches us that it’s easier to continue to sell to the
customer we already know. It’s easy, just provide great value and consistent quality, and you’ll make customers for life.
Jim F. Kukral
DigitalBookLaunch.com, author of Attention: This Book Will Make You Money
Small town business teaches us about community, trust and relationship – all the current buzzwords that have been the backbone of small town business for over 100 years.
Sarah Robinson
Escaping Mediocrity
Small town businesses, by their nature, are genetically
encoded to connect, share, and engage.
Alan Weinkrantz
Alan Weinkrantz and Company PR
A small town business owner knows that every customer is important and that every customer, employee, vendor, partner, friend, and family member contributes to what makes the business grow. Small town businesses know that relationships and being part of the community are at the heart of every successful business and that a business without a heart won’t survive.
Liz Strauss, international business strategist and author of Successful-Blog.com
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Small Town Rules: How Big Brands and Small Businesses Can Prosper in a Connected Economy is a book written by Becky McCray and Barry Moltz. It was published in 2012 by Que Biz Tech and was reprinted internationally in 2015.