Recently I was reviewing the different Income Producing Activities we do at SaveYour.Town, and divided them into these three buckets. I thought the same structure might help you in reviewing your own business. The Big 3 IPA’s: Discovering, Nurturing and Delivering The 3 key income-producing areas of your business are discovering, nurturing and delivering….
There are several common thoughts on the key elements to a successful business. Two of those most often mentioned are to build the business around a need or to build your business around your passion. While there are examples of both elements working, realistically, a combination of the two provide the strongest launching pad. Passion…
Every small town has empty buildings downtown. Whether they are completely empty or just used for storage, they can make your downtown look vacant. If the building has windows, though, there’s an opportunity to dress them up a bit and maybe even promote another business at the same time. In the picture above, a…
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….
Start with this checklist Here are specific steps any small business in a rural area can take to get started on social media marketing. Physical, bricks and mortar businesses, claim your Google listing first: Claim your Google listing at https://www.google.com/business/ What to do if you’re not in the right place on the map Update your info,…
To many business owners, marketing feels like a numbers game. Too little and no one knows you exist. Too much and your potential customer feels bombarded. So business owners are forced to look for balance in their marketing. Yet balance is not something that can be readily achieved. It begins with knowing your customer base….
You’ve seen the stories, “Build Your Business with No-Cost Marketing.” This headline has been used many times, most recently when talking about social media. We want such things to be true. Yet, we also know the reality – there is a cost to everything. It may not be a cost in dollars, but instead, it…
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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