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How to let customers know when changing your business hours

By Becky McCray

Screenshot of an instagram post with Christmas week business hours. One comment asks, "How late are you open new year's eve?"

Post extensively on social channels, and pin your hours post to the top of your page Your small business has times when you need to change your hours either for holidays, staff issues or (my favorite) extending into evening hours. How do you retrain your customers so they notice the change? Let’s look at a […]

March 12, 2025 Filed Under: customer service, entrepreneurship, marketing, rural, Small Biz 100, social media Tagged With: effective marketing, entrepreneurship, marketing, retail, rural, service businesses, small business

Survey of Rural Challenges 2015 – 2025 results

By Becky McCray

10 Years of Rural Insights. What small town people see as their biggest challenges and what topics they most want help with. Survey of Rural Challenges, report written by Becky McCray and Deb Brown. Challenges, assets, actions

Download the PDF report Executive Summary The Survey of Rural Challenges asks rural people to share their ground-level insight into the challenges they face and the assets they can use. This report analyzes over 2200 responses from communities across the US and Canada from 2015 to 2024. The responses show what’s changing and what isn’t […]

February 3, 2025 Filed Under: announcement, community, economic development, entrepreneurship, resources, rural, success, Survey of Rural Challenges, trends, workforce, youth Tagged With: community development, economic development, Rural surveys and polls, rural trends, Survey of Rural Challenges

TREND 2025: Retail’s Big Split: what small town retailers can do now

By Becky McCray

A few people shopping in an attractive retail store in refurbished downtown building.

Remember the Retail Apocalypse around 2017? In a media interview this week, I brought up that it was actually Retail’s Big Split, not an apocalypse, and it’s ongoing. The reporter asked me to explain, so here’s my update for today’s retail landscape.   “Everything gigantic in American life is about to get smaller or die.” […]

December 11, 2024 Filed Under: Best of, entrepreneurship, marketing, rural, shop local, Survey of Rural Challenges, trends Tagged With: experience economy, retail

Boost your co-working space with social hours

By Becky McCray

A plain brick building in a small downtown has a window decal that says “Caldwell Workspace: create, connect, work your way” Next door is an ornate brick building from the late 1800s.

When I visited Caldwell, Kansas, the manager of the co-working site said they had filled their private offices, but struggled to attract day users. People who work from home like working from home. They don’t want a full time office, so they said they don’t want to use the coworking space. How can the coworking […]

December 5, 2024 Filed Under: community, economic development, entrepreneurship, rural Tagged With: coworking, remote work, rural, small business, small town, zoom towns

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