By John Crabtree, johnc@cfra.org Solutions to rural America’s challenges will come from rural communities; not from Washington and Wall Street. Then why does the Center for Rural Affairs speak out about federal investment in rural America? Because there will be another farm bill, commodity program, rural development title and continued debate about the future of…
The great CEO of General Motors, Alfred Sloan, was a business leader who understood that a corporation’s greatest asset is its people. Sloan once said, “Take my assets but leave me my organization, and, in five years, I’ll have it all back.” Sloan understood that every business is a people business. -Mary Kay Ash Your…
By Ed Morrison, EDPro One of the paradoxes of globalization is that our rural economies have multiple new opportunities to build wealth. The expanding role of entrepreneurship in rural economic development, combined with the emergence of smaller towns, open up new horizons for rural economies. (On the emergence of smaller towns, see Jack Schultz’ book,…
Small towns beat big towns for Random Encounters that can benefit your business. No need to ‘manufacture a Starbuck’s moment’ in a small town. Any trip to the post office can lead to the kind of chance meeting that spurs a creative thought, builds a new partnership, or leads to new business. Referrals are a…
“Despite a wide variety of strong concerns, women business owners are nonetheless optimistic, according the survey, with 76% of respondents expecting their revenues to increase this year, while 57% planning to add up to five employees.” From: Inc.com By: Ryan J. McCarthy Soaring health-care and energy costs are the two most pressing issues facing today’s…
Generation Y has its own unique qualities. In Tell Me Y By Elana Centor at BlogHer, Centor gives an excellent introduction to the topic. What I am telling my clients to do is to start reading Anatasia Goodstein’s YPulse, a blog that provides news and commentary about Gen Y for marketing and media professionals. Do…
First, Jeanne (OkieJ), explained that small businesses don’t get much of our money from banks. I gave a link to a bit more on how to raise money from friends and family. Now Marco Terry explains another option in his blog, Invoice Factoring: Small Business Financing: There are still two types of financing that are…
We are immanently flattered that Chris Brogan gave us his “Yellow Highlighter” treatment: Becky McCray consistently has amazing posts at her blog, Small Business Survival. They are often tied to not only small businesses, but small rural businesses. I think her efforts deserve attention and highlighting. If you run a small business, if you want…
Since 2006, this site has been helping people like you in small towns move forward without waiting on outside experts, big budgets, or perfect plans. You don’t need any of that to get started.
If you care about your business, your downtown, or your community, you’ll find ideas here you can actually use. Take one. Try it out. Let me know how it goes for you.
Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.
We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses.
Copyright © 2006–2026 Becky McCray • Site by Webdancers