Do you know what the most commonly asked question is at any of my talks? It’s always about dealing with the negative people, the people who say you can’t, the roadblocks. Jack Schultz calls them the CAVE people: the Citizens Against Virtually Everything. I find that encouraging and discouraging all in one. It’s encouraging because…
One of the principles of a small town business is to be personal. Sometimes, automation can help you to be personal. Here’s what I mean. A friend was taking registrations for an event. If you’ve ever dealt with event registrations, you know it generates a lot of emails. One of the options in his marketing…
Your small business has launched. Things are going well. Your day is spent working with your customers or restocking shelves. Yet you have so many other things to do. Nights and weekends are your time for ordering, recordkeeping and planning. Family members, who you hoped to spend more time with, see less and less of…
My friend Johnita Crawford is a county commissioner in Cloud County, Kansas. When we talked about “what is a small town business?” she sent me this note about what several towns under 800 in population in her county are doing to promote small business: “We have a special fund from our Wind Farm that we…
I got a call from a freelance reporter last week. She was assigned to write a positive story about the future of rural. Someone told her she should call me, so she did. It was hard, but I want you to know I showed some restraint, so I only kept her on the line for…
Sheila Scarborough was touring around small towns in Alberta, Canada. The person driving her around said, “Actually, I have a picture of Winston Churchill when he visited here during the war.” He pulled out his phone and showed her and told the story. (I’ll put the story at the end of the post.) He had…
QR codes continue to expand in popularity, but most still suffer from fatal mistakes. Here’s one that get close, at least with its description. This is a retail package that includes barbecue accessories including a bag of wood chips. Some customers who use gas grills may not be sure how to use those special wood…
Photos are key for tourism promotion, so you can never have too many great photos to use online. However, most photos you find online are NOT public domain, so you do not have the right to use them. One great resource that brings together many different types of images that you are allowed to re-use…
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