After the rush of holiday business at our store, I decided to get everyone (all 5 of us) involved in cleaning up, fixing up and sprucing up. So I tried playing “Go For Broke.” (I remembered reading about a version of this game in Paul Hawken’s book, Growing a Business.) I took the little cork…
Do you know the most common safety problem across all kinds of business? It’s slips, trips, and falls. That’s part of what I learned from Krista Roquemore, Safety Instructor at Pioneer Technology Center in Ponca City, Oklahoma. All accidents are 100% preventable, Krista said. She challenged us to come up with any possible accident that…
Hiring the first employee is a huge step for a small business. If your small business has reached the point where you need help because the assistance of family and friends no longer covers the gaps, you may have reached the point where you need bring paid staff on board. (A previous Small Biz Survival…
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…
We’re looking for more examples of programs to connect rural youth to local jobs. Twitter friend Jenise Cook asked: I’m wondering if you and your rural small biz network might have some experience helping students/young people find work in their area, so that they don’t have to leave their towns to go live in huge…
Cooperatives are familiar to many small town people from the farmer’s co-ops and the rural utility cooperatives. Really, any kind of business can be a cooperative. At the BALLE conference, we heard about worker-owned cooperatives and how they can help develop an area economically. This can work in small towns as well as big cities….
Tony Guidroz, Director of Economic Development from San Saba, Texas, (population 2,600) shared his idea for a Blue Collar Career Fair at the LCRA Economic Development Forums, and I think every small town needs to start one. He is bringing heavy equipment operators, an HVAC contractor, a stone mason, a plumber, an electrician, a welder,…
Clint Kolby, Project Manager at Brenham (Texas) Economic Development Foundation, (population 16,000) shared this story at the recent LCRA Economic Development Forum where I was a speaker, and I knew you’d want to hear it, too. –Becky Through our Business Retention & Expansion Program (BREP) we were able to identify that the strongest and weakest…
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