“Everything gigantic in American [retail] is about to get smaller or die.” James Kunstler wrote in 2013. He said big box retailers were on the brink of scale implosion, and that “every element of economic reality is now poised to squash them.” Fast forward to 2017, and we’ve gone over the brink. Washington Post reported last month…
SmallBizSurvival.com and SaveYour.Town joined forces to conduct an international rural survey of 250 rural people during 2017. Some of the results don’t match up with the usual stories we hear about rural. A few surprising results: More people mentioned a lack of workers than mentioned a lack of jobs More people were interested in…
Small towns struggle to fill big downtown buildings. Back in the day, they may have been department stores or large retailers. Now they most likely sit empty. Instead of waiting for one big tenant to fill them, what if we divided them up, and turned them over to a whole bunch of tiny businesses…
Working where you have a view of nature makes you more productive. There’s a business idea in that. One company is creating and renting out tiny offices in natural settings. They’re all decked out with wifi and their own solar power. So far, it’s only in Europe. Sounds like a winner for a small…
Quick! Name 10 good things happening for rural areas! Having trouble thinking of 10? You’ll hear 10 positive trends for you in the next web broadcast by Becky McCray and Deb Brown. How does the declining cost of distance favor small towns? They’ll talk about it. How is the gig economy affecting rural workers? They’ll…
It’s a fad you’ll be hearing about everywhere. It’s all about comfort, coziness and connectedness. It’s the subject of a rush of new books. It’s a fad, and it won’t last forever. But it’s also connected to larger trends in society that are good for rural. If we can just figure out how to say it….
Guest post by H. E. James, MBA Has your small business ever been dinged because of credit card fraud? The smaller the business, the harder it is to shoulder the chargeback costs when a fraudulent transaction occurs. Before October 2015, most of those charges were borne by credit card companies themselves rather than merchants…
Beauty salons. Even really small towns probably have one. But when was the last time an economic developer considered them as important business development tools? I was speaking to the Northwest Oklahoma Workforce Board about the 8 Innovative Rural Business Models. When I got to the Business Inside a Business model, my own local…
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