Our friend Maury Forman of Washington state, sent us this idea from Madras, Oregon: On February 16 the Madras Downtown Association and Petite Sweets hosted the first-ever Cookie Crawl. Participants paid $5 and received a box and map that listed all the locations where the beautifully decorated cookies were available. Petite Sweets decorated cookies…
Have you heard of “soup” events? People pay a small amount, say $5, to attend a local pitch event. Local groups pitch their ideas, everyone votes, and the winner gets the money. The real winner is the community, of course. It boosts activity, gets people talking to each other, builds momentum and rewards people…
Holding an event and want to get people to mix across some divide? Put the drinks and plates on one side, the food and cups on the other. See what you did there? You’ve separated the food from the plates, and the cups from the drinks. This simple trick of making people move around…
If you have followed this blog, my colleague, Becky McCray, has provided lots of ideas for building communities and the small businesses in those areas. Her blogs have suggested things such as Pop-ups – https://smallbizsurvival.com/2014/03/what-is-a-pop-up-business.html Shared spaces – https://smallbizsurvival.com/2017/04/small-town-retail-trend-shared-spaces.html Tiny businesses – https://smallbizsurvival.com/2017/03/tiny-businesses-in-storage-sheds-a-rural-economic-development-tool.html I am adding another thought to this list by suggesting that a business or…
Two special weeks honoring small business are coming up: Small Business Week and Independents Week. Both are basically U.S. celebrations. Either one could be a good tie-in for your small town business. (If you know of special small business celebrations in other countries, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.) June 17-21, 2013, will be…
Why should small businesses be blogging? How can they get started? Those are the two big questions for #blogchat this Sunday night. What is #blogchat? Here’s Mack Collier leading a live, in-person version of#blogchat. This Sunday, I’ll join him for the onlineversion, focusing on small business blogging. It’s a chat held on Twitter. It’s a…
Do you know what you need to do to grow your business in the next 12 months? You’ve probably thought about your big ideas, big goals, and your dreams. But how’s the foundation? That’s what I want to work on with you. Let’s put a solid foundation under your businessfor a prosperous 2013. Back a…
If your small town is doing a good job of reclaiming vacant properties, here is your chance to share what you’ve learned. If you don’t speak up for small towns on this topic, who will? Waynoka, Oklahoma, has a foundationthat reclaims vacant properties. From their email: The Center for Community Progress is seeking session proposals…
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