— How many times have you heard it? Someone lamenting, “There’s nothing to do here!” Worse yet, hearing someone tell visitors that. “What is there to do around here?” “Nothing, really. I don’t know.” Enough with that. Let’s give people an easy way to answer, and let’s do it the Idea Friendly way. Make a…
Marketing tip: keep signs up year-round even if you’re a seasonal business. When I toured several small towns in Washington and Idaho with the Inland Northwest Partners, I noticed many part-time and seasonal businesses did not have signs up during their off season. In the town of Deary, Idaho, (population 500) there is a wine…
Takeaways for improving rural workforce: Bring together students, employers and multiple levels of education Build and document employee skills with micro-credentials Use apprenticeships to build skills, increase awareness of local job options Stitch together multiple programs to build your own workforce To add a new program in the public schools, hire dedicated program staff (at…
Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Rural business people are trying a variety of different business models today, including pop-ups, shared buildings, businesses inside of other businesses and more. Entrepreneurs are using these smaller-scale experiments and tests to learn what works before making a huge investments. Learn how these Innovative Rural…
Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Starting a business the old way is hard On an Idea Friendly visit to Jackson County, Kentucky, I visited with a group of artists/entrepreneurs. This group had created a loose organization called the Jackson County KY Creative Community. They wanted to start businesses, but were…
Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Last year during entrepreneurship week, I saw lots of articles about what big cities can do to support entrepreneurship. Advice for small towns got left out. Again. So I wrote this entrepreneur week advice for small town economic developers and chambers of commerce, whether you…
Guest post by Deb Brown What attendees learned from attending the Idea Friendly Session by SaveYour.Town at the International Economic Development Council Conference — Big Ideas you can copy in your town Becky McCray and I were excited to lead an interactive Idea Friendly workshop at the International Economic Development Council Conference in Dallas in…
I’m sharing notes from sessions and conversations at the International Economic Development Council annual conference in Dallas. First up: Retail! Lacy Beasley of Retail Strategies moderated a panel on retail real estate and development. While it was mostly big city stuff, several topics were relevant for smaller towns. How to convince a property owner to…
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