Our friend Linda, @MissDazey42, is a retired business owner, with experience in sales, market research, etc. (Her motto: “If I had my life to live over, I’d pick more daisies.”) Linda shared this story about her experience with a local business for our series on mistakes small businesses make. Two years ago, I had the best experience…
Erratic or limited hours are a frequent complaint about small town businesses. But how can you convince small business owners to expand their hours? My friend Charles French sent me this very neat tool: “while you were out” notes for businesses. Here’s how it works. Customers use them to let businesses know when and how…
All small town businesses are different, and all customers are different. Mix those two realities together, and people end up with all sorts of small town business experiences. Here are a few comments I caught on Twitter. Small town business ftw! Christmas shopping resumes :) 8:18 AM Dec 21st @siriuslyheather You have to love small town…
Barry Moltz came to my attention with Bounce!, his book on failure. His latest book is BAM! Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World, with co-author Mary Jane Grinstead. (Barry and I are already working on his next book, and my first, on rural entrepreneurs.) Barry gave me a copy of BAM!, and it is…
Our friend Bruce Christensen, CEO of PartyWeDo, sent me this idea. It’s from a yarn store in Florida, but anyone could use it. Basically, the store allows customers to bring in yarn, or any fiber related gift, all wrapped up like a present. Then at a designated time, they play white elephant exchange. Read the…
Bringing together small business, small towns, social media, free, tourism, memorable experiences, failure, and rural advantages, my interview on User Friendly Thinking Radio covered it all.UFT Radio is sponsored by web content management software company, Bizzuka. When you listen, you’ll hear marketing director Paul Chaney do the introduction and CEO John Munsell step up for…
“Memorable experiences are the ultimate scarce commodity.” That’s what I scribbled while driving, listening to Chris Anderson’s Free. The marginal cost of digital distribution is falling toward to cheap to measure, so it makes sense to offer many digital products for free. For example, the Audible copy of Free I was listening came with no…
I was near the end of a two-hour drive to pick up our daughter at college. It had been an intentionally quiet drive. I had been texting a bit, but hadn’t talked to anyone for the whole time. When my phone buzzed twice, I realized it was a call, not a text. I looked at…
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