Every business, no matter how small your town is, has to compete with someone. What advantage will you play up to your customers? Red’s, a barbecue place in my hometown, is promoting its location. See, 14 miles away in another tiny town is a terrific barbecue place. So Red’s is basically saying, “don’t make the…
A person emailed me about small town retail development a while back. I recommended he talk to Mandy Vavrinak and listed her email address. He emailed back, asking for more information about her. I thought to myself, “What more could he need?” That’s me with Mandy Vavrinak,At the 2011 Social Media Tulsa Conference. If he’d…
Now that QR codes are appearing in my local small town paper, on bags at the trade show last week, and everywhere else, it’s time to look at what works and what does not work. Because your QR codes are either boosting your engagement with potential customers and visitors, or really ticking them off. Mistake…
My nephew tries out Deb Brown’sGalaxy Tab. (It works with Flash.) A story with two points. In New York City, I asked my nephew to use my iPad to find restaurants. As he clicked through to the restaurant websites, some rendered well on the iPad, some didn’t. One site didn’t come up at all, just…
Are you ready to attract more buyers? Then be more specific. If you’re offerings are too general, few people can get excited. By trying to appeal to everyone, you’re really not all that appealing to anyone. In New York City, we saw this sign outside a tiny steak place, advertising just “Lunch.” What would you put…
A local restaurant held an auction, to sell off all their kitchen equipment. They’ve been closed for over a year, devastated by a water pipe break that ruined most of their interior furnishings. What if a nearby fireforced you to evacuateyour business? The news today is full of floods, tornadoes and even wildfires. We see…
Occasionally, we profile small business mistakes, so we can all learn and improve our businesses. I called a local plumber and left a voicemail explaining what I needed done. Two days later, he called me back, and left me a voicemail. He said if I would call him back, we could talk about it. I…
So which is it? Double-purified water or triple-purified water? Even small inconsistencies can hurt your reputation. And customers will notice. Chaz French did. Thanks for the photo, Chaz. New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.
We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.
Meet our authors on the About page.
Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.
Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.
We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses.
Copyright © 2006–2026 Becky McCray • Site by Webdancers