Becky’s email newsletter

Rural people are innovative. We have to be. Limited resources, limited choices means we get creative to find ways to make lives better.  Tech-related companies dominated the Farm Bureau Rural Entrepreneurship Initiative contest this year.  The 15 important innovations for 2015 from Missouri S&T (that’s  Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla) include cool…

Twice recently, the question has come up: who is going to buy the stores in my town when their owners retire in a few years? In small towns, this is a pressing question. If you lose a key business because the owner can’t sell it, it’s probably gone for good.  Buying an existing business is…

I’ve lived around Alva, Oklahoma, since 1984. Naturally, I know all about every business in town, right? No, apparently I don’t. I went around to local businesses while organizing for Small Business Saturday. In every store, I found something I didn’t realize that they carried. Every single store. I’m not making that up!  I knew…

Do you ever feel like I’m talking directly to you? That maybe I’ve had a peek inside your town, and somehow I got inside info on your people?  I do always think of you individually when I write, so I am writing directly to you as much as possible. But about that inside info, it’s…

A new reader named Diane wrote in to tell me about her small town. She just retired and moved back to the town where she graduated high school. She wants to be near family. That’s good. Except the town hasn’t made any progress between when she graduated and when she retired. 40 years, no apparent…

When you think of small town business, you probably think about a downtown retail storefront. But businesses in small towns are testing out a wide variety of new business models, far beyond the traditional storefront.  Here are six innovative ways of building a business in a small town. As you read through these, take time…

We all know what rural towns need, right? They need jobs, and to recruit some manufacturing, and they have a huge poverty problem. Right? Well, no. At least that’s not what rural people told me. Earlier this year, I ran a survey of subscribers and visitors to SmallBizSurvival.com. Over 200 people who identified themselves as…

Because you care about the future of your town, I’m sure you read and hear a lot of examples and stories. And despite being interested in what other towns can do, you’re skeptical. Rightly so. You know what your town and your people can do right now. But there’s a trick.  Those big stories and…

Have you counted the empty buildings in your downtown? Does the number scare you a little? Deb Brown did that. Around the time she first started as the chamber of commerce director in Webster City, she counted empty buildings and found 14 in a town of 8,000 people. That scared her a little. So you’re…

I’m a fan of business fairs. These are the kind of event where different businesses come together in one place and set up booths or displays. Good fairs bring together business people with new customers and with each other. It’s good for everyone.  In my area, we often see craft fairs where people who make all…

In my email this week was a question about outside food trucks invading a town of about 2,500 people. It’s a good question, and I’m glad to have a chance to share it with you.  I am having a hard time in our small town with food trucks wanting to set up for a couple…

Mandan, North Dakota, has this great downtown. There’s all kinds of housing right downtown, so that’s a big asset keeping people spending time downtown. There’s a mix of new and old retail space downtown, so there is room to expand on what they already have. And that’s a problem: the new retail space is sitting…