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The small towns that survive will be the ones that are open to new ideas
Can you make a small town more open to new ideas? Yes, and it may be the most important thing you can do. Photo by Deb Brown, used by permission. In a world driven by frenetic change, which small...
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What restaurant franchises and chains work in small towns?
Some franchises seem to understand small towns, and others don’t. I suggest you look for local ideas instead. Photo by Becky McCray One of your fellow readers wrote in to ask what franchises and...
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Go visit your customers
Deb Brown making connections in Webster City Guest post by Deb Brown How well do you know your clients? Here at the Chamber our clients are our members. This year I’ve made a concentrated effort to...
View ArticlePromoting entrepreneurship to keep your town vibrant (AUDIO)
Big Ideas for Small Town Business Success I was honored to be a guest on this call with the Orton Family Foundation, and I’m happy to pass along this recording for you to listen in while we talk...
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Sometimes all you have is the dirt under your feet
“We don’t have anything here!” It’s an over-used excuse for small towns. You may see it differently after this. Photo by Becky McCray. Sometimes, when someone is telling me about their town, they’ll...
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Innovative Rural Business Models spread opportunity in small towns
Tiny, Temporary businesses set up Together in the Tionesta Maket Village. Photo by Julia McCray. Used by permission of Forest County IDA/IDC. Rural and small town businesses aren’t limited to the...
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What businesses work in towns under 500
In a small town under 500 people, you don’t have much local market to draw on, so what kind of business could work there? Photo of Freedom, Oklahoma, population 307, (C) by Becky McCray Melissa W....
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Tiny businesses in storage sheds: a rural economic development tool
When Deb Brown and I spoke at the RuralX Summit, one of the ideas we mentioned was the tiny business village, where businesses pop up inside of storage sheds in Tionesta, Pennsylvania. Dylan Fulton...
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Small town retail trend: shared spaces
A formerly-empty department store downton converted into space for many tiny business in Washington, Iowa. Photo by Cathy Lloyd. Small towns struggle to fill big downtown buildings. Back in the day,...
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How can a municipality support entrepreneurship?
Norfolk County encouraged more business development locally by holding Speed Networking for locals at their economic development conference. Photo courtesy of Norfolk County, Ontario. What supports...
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Where do you find potential entrepreneurs?
Waynoka, Oklahoma, Chamber of Commerce Pop-Up event helped entrepreneurs experiment on a small scale. Photo by Jeanne Cole. You and I talk a lot about encouraging more entrepreneurs in your...
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Where to find local entrepreneurs online
Right now, people in your town are making a living online. They’re entrepreneurs. Do you know where to look for them? Photo CC by Citrix Online. Last week, we talked about where to find potential...
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Surprising results in the Survey of Rural Challenges 2017
The Survey of Rural Challenges 2017 identified bright spots as well as concerns from small town people SmallBizSurvival.com and SaveYour.Town joined forces to conduct an international rural survey of...
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Retail’s big split: why big boxes are in trouble and what small town...
“Everything gigantic in American [retail] is about to get smaller or die.” James Kunstler wrote that in 2013 in Business Insider. He said big box retailers were on the brink of scale implosion, and...
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How we got a filmmaking crew to tell our small town’s story
Deb Brown with the film crew, telling the good news about Webster City, Iowa Guest post by Deb Brown We had filmmakers from San Francisco in our town this month making a movie about us. They are...
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How do I attract good employees for low-level jobs?
How can lumber mill jobs be more meaningful? Can automation remove some of the worst parts of the manual labor, leaving a job with worth? “How do I attract good employees for low-level jobs?” That...
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The rural contradiction: “There aren’t any good jobs!” vs. “We can’t find...
How can rural businesses find people to fill jobs that are open NOW? After we talked about the difficulties in finding good people for low-level jobs in rural areas, I wanted to follow up with a...
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The big flaw in rural business counts
If you leave out mobile businesses and home-based businesses, did you really count all the businesses? I thought you’d like this, from a recent local economic development newsletter that I received:...
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Why your downtown looks empty
I hear it all the time: we don’t have as many businesses as we used to. But are we looking in the wrong places? “We just don’t have as many businesses as we used to.” It’s one of those rural myths that...
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Where your future entrepreneurs and business leaders come from
It won’t be long until these girls are their town’s business leaders and entrepreneurs. A reader wrote to me about an influx of low-income people into his town, using subsidized housing and other...
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