There’s not enough parking downtown! Doesn’t every city have that problem? You’re about to learn a new way to get more parking for your Main Street without having to pave, stripe or get a permit. It doesn’t work in every town, but it very well might work in yours. Finding hidden parking There is only…
At the Main Street Now conference, I sat in on a session about coffee shops. I wrote down bunches of ideas that the audience shared. I thought you might know a coffee shop person, or you might think of ways to use these with other types of small town businesses. Hold trivia nights or…
You probably know better than to follow up with someone like this: “Just following up!” You realize that doesn’t really help either of you. But you still might be making this mistake: “Did you do that thing you said you were going to do?” That feels like it’s helping, but from the customer perspective, it’s…
“This product is great! It will save your marriage, improve your bank account and make you slimmer!” OK, enough with the benefits overload! I can’t believe your benefits claims because you didn’t show me why they’re believable. Sales pages online are drowning in benefits, but without any hint that they connect to an actual…
Being open later hours in the evenings is hard for a lot of small businesses, but we have an easy promotion for you to make more sales later in the day. Reach out to your existing customers, and let them know you have a new service: Call ahead, and we’ll have it ready for…
We’ve all had times when we weren’t able to deliver what we promised to our customers. Maybe you’re going to be able to do it, but not when you promised. Or maybe it’s not going to be quite the way you said. Maybe a supplier didn’t deliver to you on time. Maybe you had…
If part of the services you provide includes helping people make a plan, be sure you don’t stop there. If you don’t address this pitfall, it’s going to hurt your sales and hold potential customers back. The problem Everyday people, like your customers, want to have a plan, but they have an important doubt….
Setting business hours is a big mess. In our Survey of Rural Challenges, small business owners told us that trying to be open later hours with no success was their number one challenge, two years in a row. When Deb Brown and I did our Q&A session on The Future of Retail, several people asked…
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