Every time I see my local chamber director at an event she lets some little bit of news drop like everyone knows it. Inevitably, someone at the table is surprised. (Usually me.) “Chambers of Commerce consistently undervalue their information,” Ali Crain, with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Executives told me. I agree. As the small town chamber…
We just finished with National Small Business Week, and now we turn around and talk about Independents Week. What’s the difference, and why does it matter? Small business is a designation of size. So anything under 500 employees, according to Small Business Administration definition. I don’t know about your small town, but in mine, 500…
Photos are a critical promotion tool for your small business, and visuals remain a top trend in tourism. If you’ve been scattering your online photos from Facebook to TwitPic to Instagram, now is a good time to look at what has changed with Flickr. With 1TB of storage space for your photos, Flickr now gives…
Do you know the most common safety problem across all kinds of business? It’s slips, trips, and falls. That’s part of what I learned from Krista Roquemore, Safety Instructor at Pioneer Technology Center in Ponca City, Oklahoma. All accidents are 100% preventable, Krista said. She challenged us to come up with any possible accident that…
Here’s an idea from Milwaukee that any small town or rural region could copy: Downtown Dining Week. Downtown restaurants are offering a special rate, lunch for $10, and dinner for $20 or $30. That keeps it simple. My town of about 5,000 people has a downtown sandwich shop, a lunch counter at the drug store, and…
This first appeared in our weekly email newsletter, A Positive View of Rural. Even though I love local business, I’m about ready to ban “shop local.” Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m something of a shop local champion. So why am I ready to get rid of “shop local”? Because I’m afraid it has…
Last week, two local tours caught my eye. No, not local as in “my town,” local as in “taking your local people to see what’s local.” Hamilton County, Indiana, was taking their tourism staff out for a tour: Some of our staff is touring the county today to get acquainted w/ Hamilton Co.’s history! What…
Two special weeks honoring small business are coming up: Small Business Week and Independents Week. Both are basically U.S. celebrations. Either one could be a good tie-in for your small town business. (If you know of special small business celebrations in other countries, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.) June 17-21, 2013, will be…
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