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In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars

By Becky McCray

Book shelves with divided cardboard boxes filled with wine bottles

Be frugal. One of the Small Town Rules is to spend your brain power before spending dollars. Be creative about how you handle challenges rather than to throw money at the problem. Venture capital vs. Bootstrapped We’ve all heard about startups that have been funded by whatever venture capitalist or angel that has just dropped a […]

November 25, 2020 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, management, rural, survivors Tagged With: economic crisis, economic downturn, entrepreneurship, frugal, good management practices, recession, small business success

The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis

By Becky McCray

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Small towns have endured boom and bust cycles, commodity crashes, mill and factory closures, environmental disasters and losing their economic reason for existing. Rural communities have reinvented themselves before, and rural businesses are re-inventing the way they do things.  How Holyoke Hummus stays Idea Friendly through a crisis John is the owner of Holyoke Hummus […]

October 6, 2020 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, management, rural, survivors Tagged With: business crisis, business success, change, coronavirus, COVID, covid-19, COVID19, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Holyoke Hummus Company, idea friendly, Idea Friendly Method, Innovative Rural Business Models, SaveYourTown, small business, small business success, success, take small steps

Open Up – It’s the Customers

By Chris Brogan

As different places begin to allow local businesses to open up, you’re not alone if you’re breathing a sigh of relief mixed with a gasp of worry. We all need the money. We all want to get back to being useful for the people we serve. And some or most of us are worried about […]

May 19, 2020 Filed Under: customer service, economic development, entrepreneurship, management, marketing, rural, shop local, trends Tagged With: change, Chris Brogan, coronavirus, COVID19, crisis communications, customer service, disaster, economic development, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, guest post, recovery, reopening, resilience, shop local

Did America Get Too Big? Next steps for small businesses right now

By Chris Brogan

Survival skills for small town businesses in the Coronavirus era By Chris Brogan As the world starts to ask what’s going to happen when this pandemic is finally over and we can look at what it will take to jumpstart the economy again, one venture capitalist says we have to save Main Street and not […]

April 17, 2020 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, global, management, planning, rural, survivors Tagged With: business survival, coronavirus, COVID19, entrepreneurship, good management practices, guest post, rural, small business, success, survival

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