Shift conversations from objections to next steps

A row of brightly painted sheds housing pop-up businesses. People are strolling in front of the businesses, while others gather and talk in the greenspace out front. — The Tionesta Market Village in Pennsylvania, tiny businesses in sheds. Photo courtesy of Forest County IDA-IDC.

Linda is a economic development board member from a town of 5,000 people. Inspired by our stories, she and the board members want to create a Tiny Business Village, like the one above.

They’ve been sharing their vision for the village project with the city council because they need permission to spend over a certain amount. The council has been reluctant to schedule a vote to give that approval. This discussion has been going on long enough that there’s been a change in council members and leadership, and the key vote keeps getting delayed.

Conversations with formal groups like councils will focus on objections. This is natural because council members want to avoid spending money on an idea that might fail. And because they are discussing the whole thing from the tiny idea up to the big ultimate future goal, of course they will look for objections anywhere along the way from idea to completion.

Linda and another of her board members decided to take a small step. They put a photo and poll about their market village concept on a neighborhood Facebook Group.

“Oh my gosh, what a wonderful response!” Linda said. “We’ve had over 100 comments (only a couple negative…mostly were great questions) and 200 votes (57% in favor, 25% just wanted more information, and 4 people offering to help with building, landscaping and planning!) in less than 24 hours. We usually only have 300 people vote in actual elections, so this is a great response.”

Now, Linda and friends and at least four new volunteers are looking at doing their market village idea in stages.

Find an empty lot or parking lot to host a pop-up tiny business expo or fair with tables or pop-up shelters.
Set up a model shed to be a visual of what the market village could be like, similar to the single red shed in the top photo.
Have a great time at the pop-up fair, and talk to people.

The conversations at the pop-up fair on the empty lot will be informal, and they can focus on just the resources they need to take the next step.

When might they do their next pop-up market to keep building momentum?
What are some options for places to hold the next pop-up event?
Who else might want to rent a shed at the village for their tiny business?
Who might want to help sponsor and bring the project in under their spending limit?

As the temporary events pick up momentum, more and more support will appear. More people will join in to help, more money will be found and more excitement will build. Eventually, they may pull off the whole idea without going back to the council. Or maybe the time will come to invite some council members to drop in on one of the pop-up fairs to see the idea in action. Then future council discussions would spend less time on objections because they have success stories to reassure them.

In her latest email, Linda tells me that she’s talking with other folks about seeing this from the entrepreneurs perspective, looking at other ways it can add more value to the community, and new partnerships to benefit everyone in the town. That’s Idea Friendly: being open to the new ideas that come up and new directions they take you.

Here’s the takeaway:

Conversations about the complete project invite objections.
Conversations about the next smallest step invite resources.

Top photo: A mockup shed that helped launch the Christmas Village Market, courtesy of Ned Overton, Timberville, Virginia.