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 […]
Warning: Are you breaking the law by gathering email addresses?
“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 […]
No, really, my business needs a new sign
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 […]
The customer came back, but the owner missed the point
This is a story from the “You may have missed the real lesson” files: A business owner mentioned taking a walk in their own downtown on a Saturday evening after dinner. Apparently, it was a popular time for walking downtown because the business owner saw folks peering into the front window of their own business. […]