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Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource
  • Donna Maria on wholesaling your products
    entrepreneurship | marketing | podcast | rural

    Donna Maria on wholesaling your products

    ByBecky McCray May 26, 2015April 14, 2016

    Download file | Duration: 3:20| Size: 3.1M One of the most common questions I hear from small town businesses that make a product is about wholesaling. Should they sell at direct markets? Should they sell to retailers at a discount? If so, how do they ever afford it? So I asked Donna Maria from Indie Biz…

    Read More Donna Maria on wholesaling your productsContinue

  • economic development | entrepreneurship | rural

    Art, Heart, and Playing it Smart: The care and feeding of small town revitalization

    BySmall Biz Survival May 11, 2015January 2, 2018

      Guest Post by Anne Pyburn Craig It happened to cities and towns throughout industrialized America in the late and middle years of the 20th century. Big employers who’d propped up local economies for decades downsized or left, creating a brutal ripple effect on smaller businesses. Three towns in the Hudson Valley of New York…

    Read More Art, Heart, and Playing it Smart: The care and feeding of small town revitalizationContinue

  • Tionesta Market Village Shops and shoppers. Photo by Julia McCray. Forest County IDA/IDC
    economic development | entrepreneurship | rural

    Rural economic development idea: tiny business villages

    ByBecky McCray April 20, 2015November 25, 2024

      When you bring together the idea of pop up (temporary) businesses with the tiny house movement, you get tiny business villages. They make great sense for small towns and rural places. Garden Sheds Turned Incubator: Tionesta Market Village Tionesta, Pennsylvania, (population 500) had a lot that was vacant for 10 years after a fire…

    Read More Rural economic development idea: tiny business villagesContinue

  • Multiple email address actually make it easier to cut through your clogged inbox
    entrepreneurship | organization

    Multiple email address actually make it easier to cut through your clogged inbox

    ByBecky McCray April 13, 2015April 12, 2015

      I’ve got a new email technique to help those of you who get a crazy amount of email every day. It starts with a framework I’ve used before. Have your email sorted automatically, before you ever see it, into groups based on the frame of mind needed to act on it. Frame of mind might…

    Read More Multiple email address actually make it easier to cut through your clogged inboxContinue

  • Six ways to use a tablet to boost your small business productivity
    entrepreneurship | organization | Small Biz 100 | tools

    Six ways to use a tablet to boost your small business productivity

    ByBecky McCray April 6, 2015September 28, 2016

      “Man, getting iPads was like discovering fire,” Lance Morgan, CEO of Ho-Chunk Inc., told me years ago. It’s still true that tablets can revolutionize business, but they can also be a boost to your personal productivity. We talked about ways to use tablets in retail businesses, and this time we’re talking about ways you can…

    Read More Six ways to use a tablet to boost your small business productivityContinue

  • Deb Brown in Webster City, Iowa.
    customer service | entrepreneurship | rural

    How small businesses can beat the big boxes: be nice

    ByBecky McCray March 30, 2015March 29, 2015

      Guest Post by Deb Brown, Webster City, Iowa, Area Chamber of Commerce My friend Kevin told me a story. Kevin has just bought the business he’s worked in for over 15 years, located on Main Street in my small town, Webster City, Iowa. He’s renamed it Interior Spaces because he’s a decorator and he…

    Read More How small businesses can beat the big boxes: be niceContinue

  • 10 Ways to use an iPad or Android tablet in retail
    entrepreneurship | Small Biz 100 | tools

    10 Ways to use an iPad or Android tablet in retail

    ByBecky McCray March 23, 2015May 27, 2016

      I run a retail store in a small town, and I love technology. That’s why I came up with these ten ways you can put an Android tablet or iPad to work in your rural retail business. 1. Take payments at the Point of Sale Throw away your old cash register. A tablet makes…

    Read More 10 Ways to use an iPad or Android tablet in retailContinue

  • Special event sign
    entrepreneurship | marketing | rural

    How to promote special events in a small town

    ByBecky McCray March 16, 2015March 15, 2015

    This is another list of ideas that came from a question by a real business owner. How do you get the word out about events in small towns? They were kind of stuck for ideas, past having the Chamber of Commerce send an email and creating a Facebook event. So what else could they do?…

    Read More How to promote special events in a small townContinue

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