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Masks are the new “no smoking” for small businesses

By Chris Brogan

Small Town Main Street Business

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash Guest post by Chris Brogan The whole quarantine and COVID-19 situation has impacted small businesses even more than the big guys because it’s not like anyone has massive reserves of cash around so that you could deal with shutting down for months at a time. And now, as different […]

July 13, 2020 Filed Under: customer service, entrepreneurship, rural Tagged With: Chris Brogan, coronavirus, COVID, covid-19, COVID19, masks

Refilling the rural business pipeline

By Becky McCray

Becky McCray and Deb Brown present Refilling the Business Pipeline

This is a short sample from the SaveYour.Town video “Refilling Your Business Pipeline” featuring Deb Brown and me. Small towns and rural communities will need new business startups to revitalize their local economies, but not many people have the resources today to do a startup the way it’s traditionally been done. Part of what holds […]

July 7, 2020 Filed Under: economic development, entrepreneurship, failure, mistakes, rural, success, trends Tagged With: Becky McCray, building a business, Climate, Deb Brown, economic development, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, idea friendly, Idea Friendly Method, Innovative Rural Business Models, recession, rural, SaveYourTown, small business, small business success, starting, startup, startups, take small steps, video

Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate?

By Becky McCray

A large industrial-looking empty building

Should we offer incentives to fill it with small retailers? How do we convince the mayor and economic development group?   The empty factory building A reader wrote in to ask about converting and dividing up a huge old building. Because my answer isn’t quite what the reader asked for, I’ve taken the details out. […]

June 9, 2020 Filed Under: economic development, mistakes, rural Tagged With: economic development, empty buildings, factories, funding, gather your crowd, grants, idea friendly, manufacturing, revitalization, take small steps

Economic self defense for small towns 

By Becky McCray

Carlos Moreno presents a slide saying, "They will never fix it. There is no they."

Editorial by Becky McCray Not everyone who says they’ll help your town is telling you the truth.  If you want a resilient small town economy and prosperity for the people in your town, I have some self-defense ideas for you.  Focus more on your own people, less on attraction.  Stop paying people to bring business […]

June 7, 2020 Filed Under: economic development, entrepreneurship, mistakes, POV, rural, survivors Tagged With: attraction strategy, community development, diversity, economic development, editorial, local investing, locavesting, opinion, point of view, prosperity, remote work, rural sourcing

Open Up – It’s the Customers

By Chris Brogan

1950s crowd at a Soda Fountain

As different places begin to allow local businesses to open up, you’re not alone if you’re breathing a sigh of relief mixed with a gasp of worry. We all need the money. We all want to get back to being useful for the people we serve. And some or most of us are worried about […]

May 19, 2020 Filed Under: customer service, economic development, entrepreneurship, management, marketing, rural, shop local, trends Tagged With: change, Chris Brogan, coronavirus, COVID19, crisis communications, customer service, disaster, economic development, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, guest post, recovery, reopening, resilience, shop local

Remember when we used to try to hide our accents?

By Chris Brogan

Two Small Town Guys

  By Chris Brogan I’m originally from Maine. Accents up there come through the nose. Most famously, people from Maine are supposed to say “Ayuh” when we mean “yes.” Midway through high school, I moved to Massachusetts, where you lose the nasal thing, but you also lose all “r’s” from conversation. “It’s hahd to sound […]

May 7, 2020 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, marketing, rural, shop local, trends Tagged With: accents, authenticity, branding, Chris Brogan, coronavirus, COVID19, effective marketing, email marketing, guest post, marketing, retail, rural, service businesses, small business, small business success, small town

Show and Tell – How Video and Maybe Even LIVE Video Are Important for Small Town Business

By Chris Brogan

Small Town Business Lights

By Chris Brogan They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, it might be worth a thousand dollars, too. Over the last ten years, restaurants and bars who post their best dishes or drinks as photos on sites like Instagram have learned that people love seeing examples of what they’ll get if […]

April 20, 2020 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, marketing, rural, social media, tech, tools Tagged With: Chris Brogan, effective marketing, entrepreneurship, guest post, rural, service businesses, small business, small business success, video, video tips

Did America Get Too Big? Next steps for small businesses right now

By Chris Brogan

Survival skills for small town businesses in the Coronavirus era By Chris Brogan As the world starts to ask what’s going to happen when this pandemic is finally over and we can look at what it will take to jumpstart the economy again, one venture capitalist says we have to save Main Street and not […]

April 17, 2020 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, global, management, planning, rural, survivors Tagged With: business survival, coronavirus, COVID19, entrepreneurship, good management practices, guest post, rural, small business, success, survival

What would you be doing this weekend, if the world hadn’t fallen apart?

By Paula Jensen

Paula Jensen

Guest post by Paula Jensen I was on my second video conference of the day earlier last week and a peer in the meeting said, “Time-out! I need to ask everyone a question.” We all agreed, and he said, “What would you be doing this weekend, if the world hadn’t fallen apart?” Some people answered […]

April 12, 2020 Filed Under: community, planning, rural Tagged With: #Iamrural, guest post

The best things you can do for local businesses in light of coronavirus

By Becky McCray

Social distancing sign for shoppers in a store

  Monica Bailey of Rock Port, Missouri, sent in this question that I think you can relate to: Thank you ladies, as always, for supporting small towns! My question is super generic but it is giving me sleepless nights. I am our counties economic/community development director and I’ve been scrambling to support our small businesses […]

March 27, 2020 Filed Under: economic development, entrepreneurship, rural, survivors Tagged With: change, community development, coronavirus, COVID19, crisis, economic development, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, isolation, recession, rural, service businesses, shelter in place, small business, stay home, Support

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