Let’s look at the tale of two small town concerts. Concert 1: We’ve done all the work, you just need to show up! One happened at an agritourism business. They brought in a couple of professional musicians for performances out at the farm. The musicians were reasonably well known, with some previous exposure on…
Lots of big cities have started shipping container business villages. I love the idea. But many of them are making a huge mistake that I don’t want to see small towns copy. The Big Mistake: Ignoring the street My friend Carlos Moreno of Tulsa, Oklahoma, pointed this out. Here’s a picture of the Boxyard in…
It’s the essential entrepreneurial skill that is under appreciated: knowing what not to do. In small towns, entrepreneurs tend to have more than one line of business. Some have seasonal businesses, and some just have different lines of income within their business. Where we have fewer people in our local market, it makes sense…
Seems like there’s been a lot of retirements announced in my small town newspaper lately. There’s usually an ad giving a profile of their career, their smiling photo, and details of the retirement reception. As I read the latest one, I thought it seemed like a shame. Here was the story of a well-qualified person,…
Small town store owners, does any of this sound familiar? “I feel bad when customers tell me they can’t come during my hours. We have had a couple successful events in the evenings that brought customers in, but most attempts have been a bust. A shop I follow on Facebook recently tried for a…
Guest post by Peggy Sanders Let’s compare two small towns and how their retail outlets do business. Town A has a population of 3,700 and is on a steady decline shown by a loss of 15% since 2000, and Town B has 990 residents with a 27% increase during the past 16 years. Towns A…
“I’m always gathering email addresses any way I can. Anytime someone forwards a joke or an email to me and includes a bunch of other email addresses, I add all of them to the email marketing list for our organization.” That was the story from a respected rural nonprofit leader. She said that even though…
Glenn Muske wrote Your Small Business Needs a Sign. Ouch! This really hit home for me. Our store sign was damaged by wind and hail, and we left it there for way too long because it seemed like such a big job to do anything. Too many questions: how much will it cost? Which big city…
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