The 7 Most Common Weaknesses of Local Shops And what we’re all going to do about them. As we head into the busy holiday shopping season, we’ll see lots of Shop Local messages working to get customers to think about shifting their shopping more to local stores. I want to add another layer, and get…
Dina Jackson is with the City of Harriman, in Tennessee, USA. The city government owns 9 vacant properties, including a hospital building and a couple of houses. Rather than hide them, the city decided to show them off. They invited folks to tour the buildings and asked for offers. “We are now in the…
Now that most cell phones can access the internet, you might think that wifi access doesn’t matter for tourism. And no one would want to work while on vacation, right? Well, more than ever, wifi and work spaces are important to local tourism strategies, especially in small towns. Let’s start with this key point: Your…
We walk and drive by small businesses every day. We go in their doors, make purchases and continue on our way without another thought. We depend on small businesses. They fill our need for products and services, and we expect them to be open on a regular basis to meet our needs (and sometimes we…
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…
Best small town economic development idea I’ve seen in months, hands down. My friend Deb Brown is the new director of the Webster City, Iowa, Chamber of Commerce. Deb looked at the empty store fronts downtown and other available buildings around town as opportunities. So she and her new team in Webster City decided to…
I got a call from a freelance reporter last week. She was assigned to write a positive story about the future of rural. Someone told her she should call me, so she did. It was hard, but I want you to know I showed some restraint, so I only kept her on the line for…
Recently, I listened to a session on How to Market a Community with Roger Brooks of Destination Development International. I wanted to share my notes with you. The first fact he mentioned is about how we search when we’re looking for somewhere to go. We search on activity first, then location second. So we’ll search…
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