• Survey of Rural Challenges
  • Small Town Speaker Becky McCray
  • Shop Local video
  • SaveYour.Town

Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops
  • Front Page
  • Latest stories
  • About
  • Guided Tour
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • RSS

Monitor Your Small-business Reputation

By Glenn Muske

What’s being said about your small business online? Many small business owners have made the decision to not get involved in the growing social media trend. Their reasons include: the time or money it takes; don’t understand it; doesn’t seem necessary; or their customers aren’t using it. Avoiding the online world  is the wrong path […]

December 7, 2016 Filed Under: Small Biz 100, social media Tagged With: branding, effective social media, marketing, reputation, small business, social media

Promises, Reputation and Small Businesses

By Glenn Muske

Trust

Have you ever had a customer waiting for something? How did you respond? Did you provide an answer based on your work schedule, or did you respond quickly, without any thought of whether you could deliver as promised? Making promises is easy. Keeping those commitments is much harder. Your response puts you on a slippery […]

November 10, 2016 Filed Under: Small Biz 100, success Tagged With: communication, reputation, small business, success

Promises Kept = Happy Customers

By Glenn Muske

Promises are made in many different ways by a business. Some are verbal and some are written. You can find some just in the visual images and graphics shared. Some are offered through traditional marketing channels and some come to us online. Here are four promises that businesses have recently offered me. Each item was […]

May 11, 2016 Filed Under: Small Biz 100, success Tagged With: marketing, reliability, reputation, small business, success

Spend Money to Make Money

By Glenn Muske

What do these four things have in common? Keep up building maintenance Develop your online presence Provide good wages and benefits Establish a solid customer service program Give up? Perhaps the article title gave you a hint. Each of these items has been shown to build your bottom line. That’s correct. Spending money in these […]

May 4, 2016 Filed Under: rural, Small Biz 100, success Tagged With: branding, customer behavior, entrepreneurship, marketing, reputation, small business, success

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

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.

Partners

We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses. Logo with "Shop Indie Local" Move Your Money, bank local, invest local Multicolor logo with text that says "Global Entrepreneurship Week" Save Your Town logotype

Best of Small Biz Survival

A shopkeeper and a customer share a laugh in a small store packed full of interesting home wares.

How to get customers in the door of small town and rural retail stores

Rural Tourism Trend: electric vehicle chargers can drive visitors

Wide view of a prairie landscape with a walk-through gate in a fence

Tourism: Make the most of scant remains and “not much to see” sites with a look-through sign

Holyoke Hummus Company cart

How one food business keeps adapting, from table to cart to truck, to restaurant and back again

Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns

Newspaper story headline says, "Made in Dorrigo Markets a bustling success"

Boost your maker economy with a “Made in” day

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

Copyright © 2023 Becky McCray
Front Page · Log in