Two business lessons from a local business: You have to be open to make the sale. Pay attention to the customer in front of you. My hometown Alva, Oklahoma, (population 6,200) holds a monthly first Friday Art Walk downtown. It’s primarily about fine arts displays, but a few businesses are starting to be open as…
Simply Made Apps is a tech start-up based out of Fargo, North Dakota, population 110,000. They reached out to us because although that’s not really a small town, it is definitely rural and remote. Co-founder Brandon Medenwald talked about what it’s like to run a high-tech business in an isolated small city, far from…
How do you view your business? Is it a way to make a living or a way to live your life? That is a question business owners commonly ask themselves or are asked by researchers. People start businesses for a variety of reasons. However, many of the reasons fall into one of these two categories….
Every week, I look for small town and rural business stories to share with you. I look for stories about shop local and the local movement, planning and development as relates to rural, rural news, community involvement, and ideas you can try in your town. Some of them end up as stories I share…
The visibility of your business may seem insignificant, but it is a key factor to the success of many enterprises. Being visible comes in many ways. Today we hear a great deal about your online visibility. Plus, you have visibility, in a sense, when people know your name and that you exist. Yet the visibility…
In general, towns are more or less the same. Streets, houses, trees. It’s the details that make one different. Sitting down for a meal in the restored Harvey House in Waynoka, Oklahoma. Watching the white-haired men lawn bowling at the seaside on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Enjoying a scoop of juneberry ice cream in…
A pop up business is just a temporary business. Different authors may add different qualifiers, but I like to keep things simple. A pop-up is a way to take advantage of fleeting opportunities, test whether an idea is workable and to learn from direct experience. Pop-ups can be: Booths and stands at festivals Short-term…
Mack Collier Interview Mack Collier leads the highly influential weekly #blogchat, publishes the most popular discussions of social media for business pricing, and leads corporations and businesses of all size to be more social and better serve customers. He’s also the author of Think Like a Rock Star, and he’s based in a rural area…
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