Do you tend to panic about a lack of business at a certain point during the year?

Do you always feel like you’ll never get enough bookings for the fall?

I know several independent professionals who feel like this:

• a professional photographer who always worries in late summer that there won’t be enough bookings for senior portraits in the fall
• a bed and breakfast owner who gets nervous about seasonal bookings not coming in
• a professional speaker who feels panic when nothing is on the calendar during “dead periods”

You know who deals with this most? Seasonal businesses.

The simple solution: Put a reminder on your calendar for next year.

Around the time when you would normally panic, put a reminder or event on your calendar. Include a measure of where you were at this point during a year when you survived.

Your reminder could include a specific number:
“20 fall sessions booked on August 1 last year.”

Or just give yourself a bit of encouragement:
“Remember that there’s usually nothing booked at this time of year, but you’ll get through this.”

If you have tips for keeping a positive outlook during slack times, add it in the comments.

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Photo credit: josealbafotos on Pixabay

Shawn popped up a business test in his own yard! Photo by Deb Brown

Your fellow reader Ava asked a great question:

If I am already working, in school, and wanting to start up just a real small small business, then how would that work differently from someone who is coming from a completely different stand point, like not working or in school and is just generally starting up their business with saved money? Thank you!

The secret to starting a real side hustle, side gig or just a real small small business is to take small steps.

Try small scale steps that get your idea in front of people who can pay for it. That’s how you’ll build knowledge of what works, build an initial following in the market, and build assets toward your next, bigger step.

What can you do to test a business idea?

You don’t need much to start small. Even one square foot of space may be enough. Photo by Becky McCray.

• Try something temporary: pop-up for a day, a week or a season.
• Try something tiny: look for just a few hundred square feet to set up in.
• Try something together: set up your business inside an existing business, coworking space, maker space, shared art studio, or shared commercial kitchen.
• Try a truck or trailer: use more than one town to gather enough customers.

For example, a high school student in Alva, Oklahoma, popped up a business test by borrowing just one square foot of counter space in a beauty salon. She sold hand braided headbands made from fabrics scraps.

Our Deb Brown wrote more about testing your way into business here: Business plans are not worth the paper they’re written on

Surprise twist: this is how I’d advise someone not working or in school, someone who was generally starting up their business with saved money, too.

You can ask your rural small business question here.

Once every few years, an outside consultant comes in and leads a community engagement planning meeting. There are lots of flip charts and post it notes. 

Most of the people who attend hold official titles or formal leadership roles. Almost all are professional middle class white people, in their 30s to 60s. The Same Ten People who seem to be on every committee and board are there. Not many other people outside those groups attend. 

The consultant leads a discussion of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats as these people see them. The usual people bring up their usual topics.

Several ideas are written on big pieces of paper and mounted on the walls. Everyone gets some sticky dots they can use to vote for the ideas they like best. The ideas with the most dots are the winners. 

Maybe a survey is printed in the paper to gather more input. 

The consultant gathers up all the papers, goes away and writes up a plan. It more or less reflects what was on the papers. 

The resulting plan is submitted to the town government several weeks later in a really nice binder. It goes on the shelf in city hall. 

Who is missing from this view of “community”?

When we get these same people together, who speaks for those outside the professional middle class: the wait staff, the retail clerks, the nurse aids, the mechanics, the truck drivers, the office staff? Who brings the perspective of different ethnicities and cultures? Who speaks with a younger voice about the future?

Idea Friendly community engagement

Here’s an Idea Friendly version of community engagement. It doesn’t start with a meeting.

People from throughout the community are encouraged and supported in trying their own ideas all year long.

Small spaces are available to try micro business ideas. People are able to connect with each other at frequent networking and learning events so they can work on even bigger ideas. The whole town is idea friendly.

Throughout the year, the officials are engaged in helping with and watching the experiments.

When someone brings an idea to a city official anytime, they are met with, “Great! What would you need to test that out?”

The existing plans are revisited and revised throughout the year based on the exciting experiments and developments going on throughout the community.

During the next planning cycle, lots of people are personally invited to attend and participate, and ideas that are being actively tried and proven right now are incorporated into the plans. 

Before you write your next plan this way

There are more alternatives! You can use a calendar, a few sheets of blank paper or even a big mock up in a parking lot. You have lots of alternatives to inviting the Same Ten People to write the same old plan. Find out more in the video: Before You Write Your Next Plan from SaveYour.Town.

The same ten people are here! We can get started updating the old plan.

By Chris Brogan

As the world starts to ask what’s going to happen when this pandemic is finally over and we can look at what it will take to jumpstart the economy again, one venture capitalist says we have to save Main Street and not bail out banks and hedge funds. Chamath Palihapitiya said in a CNBC interview that the way back requires a different perspective.

“On Main Street today, people are getting wiped out. And right now, rich CEOs are not, boards that had horrible governance are not, hedge funds are not. People are.”

You know that we spend no time here at Small Biz Survival pointing fingers or laying blame, and we’ve been here with you for years helping rural and small town businesses navigate the world, and that’s why this interview might prove interesting to you. It’s an important voice telling the nation that your business is who needs the help.

Don’t Wait for Handouts

As with all things, anything the government intends to do to help your business won’t come quickly enough for most people. It’s your job to rebuild and get your business back to thriving. Don’t wait for the handouts at all, but when they come available, don’t let your pride get in the way of filling out a few forms to get some “wiggle room” on the way to your recovery. You’ve worked hard and deserve that money more than the usual people who get bailed out.

Get to the Core Business

Over the years, maybe you’ve added and added and added to your business. Coming out of this pandemic might be a time where people will want the core of what you do more than anything else. Everyone is dealing with information overload, choice fatigue, and overall world-weary feelings. Make everything easier by offering your core service. If you do people’s taxes, offer your tax time services and monthly/quarterly bookkeeping. That’s it. Don’t get all that heavy into the other offers. Look at what makes your business important and strengthen that, keep the the “extras” and choices to a minimum.

Upgrade Your Payment Methods Now

Make it easier to accept payment from different sources, such as PayPal, Venmo, CashApp. As people struggle to make ends meet, smaller and faster money transfer technologies are used more. It’s worth your time to get your ability to be paid in multiple ways up and running faster than not. Never forget that YouTube has plenty of free videos to walk you through the setup and use of any new app you don’t yet understand. It’s a lot easier than you think (with a little guidance).

Reach Out

When times are tough, we tend to clam up and go inside. We don’t want other people to know we’re going through a bad spot. And it’s fine not to highlight that too loudly, but rest assured. The entire world is in this with you this time. Everyone out there is missing a payment here and there. People are digging into their life savings more often than they want. You’re not alone.

Reach out to your buyers. If someone hasn’t been in lately and you know how to reach them, do it. Ask if you can help. Offer different arrangements, if possible and if that helps. Don’t cut your prices. Everyone has to eat. You’re not a charity (unless you are). But connect with people and make sure they know you’re here to help. Send mail if you have their email address. Call if you’ve got a number. Keep your customer base warm.

You’re Valuable

We’ve said it all along. Small town businesses and rural companies are the backbone of what makes this nation run. Don’t wait for the cavalry. You’re the one who will save your business and you’re the one who will put this country back on its feet. Go get it.

I was on my second video conference of the day earlier last week and a peer in the meeting said, “Time-out! I need to ask everyone a question.” We all agreed, and he said, “What would you be doing this weekend, if the world hadn’t fallen apart?” Some people answered by saying they would be meeting with friends or family for a meal. Others offered special events like getting fitted for their wedding dress. Many mentioned normal things — laundry, cooking, kids, housework, or binge-watching Netflix. But, whatever the answer, we all agreed the way we are living and working today is much different than one month ago.

So, what if I changed that question just a bit and asked you, “How is your community doing after the world fell apart?”

Things are changing quickly around us — what we knew to be true yesterday, might not be true today and our tomorrow is unclear. And, I’m told change is something rural communities don’t do very well.

Rural communities are often publicly criticized for being slow to change. We prove that point by making disparaging remarks about our own hometowns and are quick to reject new ways of getting things done. Too often people around us say, “We’re fine the way we are.” Those actions lead the world to believe we are in a holding pattern. It sends a negative message that rural communities are not worthy of investment. And, if those mindsets are believed locally it leads toward a path of decline.

My life’s work is focused on empowering and connecting rural communities. To support that work, I recently learned a new facilitation practice called Strategic Doing. It is based on four principles of collaborative action that can lead to change in our organizations, communities, and society. We believe… 1) we have a responsibility to build a prosperous sustainable future for ourselves and future generations; 2) no individual, organization or place can build that future alone; 3) open, honest, focused and caring collaboration among diverse participants is the path to accomplishing clear, valuable, shared outcomes; and 4) in doing, not just talking – in alignment with our beliefs.

When I think about rural’s relationship with change, the Strategic Doing practice excites me! It has the potential to help diverse groups of people create lasting change through a new way of working together. Strategic Doing isn’t about fixing the old system – it’s about designing what’s next based on what is valued most!

And, what I discovered in the past few weeks, because of the shifts due to the pandemic, has been quite the opposite of the criticism – rural is slow to change. I have observed rural communities, with well-connected economic development professionals and progressive local leadership, respond quickly to learn new technology so they could connect proactively with numerous partners to meet the immediate and future needs of the community. Rural leaders and their partners are naturally stepping into pieces of the Strategic Doing process to ask the questions: What could we do? What should we do? What will we do? and Who will do it?

The real test for all of us in rural communities will be based on how we continue to embrace change — new ideas, new supportive practices, new technology, new leaders and new ways to lead — after the pandemic has gone.

Before you write that plan, why not try a pop-up of your business idea? Even in your own front yard you can learn more than you will staring at a computer screen. Photo courtesy of Shawn’s Kettle Corn, Webster City, Iowa. 

by Deb Brown

At least, the old way of doing them

Writing a business plan is an intense project that takes up a lot of your time. You spend weeks and weeks on it, and you’re not even sure everything in it is correct. Your financial projections are just wild guesses. You’re not even open and they want you to guess how much money you’ll make! You can find out the amount of traffic that goes by your proposed location. But just because 10,000 people travel down that road doesn’t mean any certain percentage of them will be guaranteed to stop. 

What if you waited and wrote your business plan after you’ve run a few tests? 

How do you test out your products and market without having a brick and mortar business? 

Participate in a pop up event or two

Small towns have these kind of events. Car shows, town fairs, three day events for fun, goat eating contests, celebrations and many other kinds of parties. You can set up a table and a covering and sell your product. 

Do track your sales! It’s as easy as counting inventory at the beginning and at the end. Write down if you had to drop the price. Write down suggestions people give you for similar products they’d like. You’ll begin to get an idea of what products people like.

Try a longer pop up.

Does your town do seasonal popups in empty buildings? It’s worth asking the building owner to do that! You could partner with other entrepreneurs and give it a try.  

Again, track sales, price drops and suggestions. If possible, track the  number of people who came in the building. 

Let’s not forget online selling

Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Poshmark, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, eBid, and Ruby Lane are a few places. Be sure to choose the right site(s) for your type of product.

Many of these sites will do the tracking for you! If not, track them yourself.

Shared spaces

Is there a place in your area that has more than one vendor in the location? See if you could join them. This is a shared space, and they are operated in different ways. Some have one cash register, some have each vendor with a cash register. Both have been known to work. Get the details and see if they work for you. 

As you track results, don’t forget to write down your market

Who is buying your product? 

As you are trying these ideas (and making money) pay attention to the people who shop with you. Do they fall into a certain age category? Are they male or female? Of a certain social strata? This is all research for the kind of people who make up your market. 

Where do these people live? What do they look like? How old are they? What gender are they? Are they different nationalities? Where are they shopping for similar products? Are you satisfying a need in the marketplace? 

After this time of tracking sales, places, and people you’re really ready to begin writing a plan.

The difference is you’ll have actual figures and not made up ones. You’ll also want to write about your products, competition and staffing. You’ve already got the answers for these topics too.

You have everything you need for a simple business plan. You can show the banker, if you need one, exactly what you’ve been doing as you build your business. You’re not putting your dreams and wishes on paper. You’re putting facts and figures and proof that your business is working. 

Our next video is Before You Write Your Next Plan and you’ll hear about real people in real towns who are not writing business plans the old way anymore. 

We tried it once. Does that mean we can never try it again? Photo by Becky McCray.

Guest Post by Paula Jensen

When was the last time you heard someone say, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!”  In my early days as a local leader those words spoken by an experienced leader often stopped me in my tracks. Their words indicated to me that they had the experience of knowing what worked and what didn’t work in the community.  Sometimes I would ask, “Why?” and rarely get a strong explanation about the failure that occurred, which left me determined to learn more.

My confidence as a leader has grown over the years and I have gained much more experience. Now when someone says, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” my response is…”and, what did you learn from that?”

Learning about failed attempts, missed opportunities, and community history requires honest and focused conversations with local leaders. I strongly believe that as current leaders, we must know the history of things tried in our community, the work that has been accomplished and why decisions were made.  So often, the reason history repeats itself is that leaders don’t own their part in the community’s history. We must look back and own our part of history to move ahead.

Let’s begin by asking a question – How do we start an honest and focused conversation with community leaders about what has been learned in our past?

4 Steps to Learn from “We Tried That Once!”

There is an art to initiating and carrying out a conversation that creates positive results.  Here is a 4-step method that enables your conversation to flow from surface to depth. You can lead this conversation through a series of questions at these four levels:

• Step 1. Objective Level – Begin with the data, facts, and external reality. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What did you actually see, hear or read?” or “What surprised you?”
• Step 2. Reflective Level – Next, ask for immediate personal reactions, internal responses, emotions or feelings, hidden images, and associations with the facts you discussed in step one. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What was your gut reaction?” or “What were your biggest frustrations?” or “What has worked well?”
• Step 3. Interpretive Level – Then, draw out meaning, values, significance, and implications. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What are your hopes and dreams?” or “What would you say were your most significant contributions?”
• Step 4. Decisional Level – Lastly, bring the conversation to a close, seeking resolution and enabling the participants to make decisions about the future. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What do you think we should do?” or “What steps could we take to move forward?” or “Who else should be involved in local leadership?”

The results of focused conversations can help develop awareness to accept the things that have been done in the past and follow the lessons learned from each situation to move our work forward. When a leader starts asking “How can we learn from this?”, automatically it affects the future of the community. Having focused conversations is a transformational process that starts with one person wanting to learn more and ends with moving toward a more positive future by learning from the past.

As a local leader I want to empower younger generations to take their ideas and act on them. I want to be asked about successes and failures from the past. And lastly – I, Paula Jensen, vow to never say the words, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” #Iamrural

Photo (CC) by uberof202ff, on Flickr

Many retailers experience a sales slump during after the holiday season. How do you respond?

The slump comes as no surprise and most small-business owners know they just need to plan for it and ride it out. They think of it as time to work in the business and perhaps to grab a short vacation. Those are good ways to spend your time. Everyone needs a break and spending time restocking, cleaning and reorganizing can add freshness to your visual merchandising.

There are other approaches you can take, however. These range from bringing more people into the store during this slow period to working on business growth in the future.

Bringing more people can be done through directed mailings/emails. It can be a time when you aim for a new audience. Maybe you do a charity event or drive. This may be a time for you to start your own holiday (See our post, “Start Your Own Holiday”) or grab on to an existing one such as Groundhog’s Day or “Winnie the Pooh” day (Jan. 18th). or “International Fun at Work Day” (Jan. 26th).

But for long term growth and success, this may be the time to look forward. To make the most of your time, here are three possible efforts you could pick from:

• Internal efficiency and staff development – Do a deep dive into your data. Examine new technology and trends. Break out the list of consumer complaints looking for common areas of frustration. Include staff in these discussions. Also, plan some staff training and some fun.
• Develop your supply side – Maybe its time to have coffee with your sources of goods and materials. Are there opportunities for you to access additional items at cheaper prices or better terms? Do they have any special programs that you are not taking advantage of? Are you using technology effectively in your ordering and inventory control? Finally, what do they see as upcoming trends in the marketplace? It’s also a time for you to interview new potential suppliers. These may be your primary suppliers or backup suppliers or suppliers of specialty items that may complement what you are already offering.
• Better understand your customer base – Make an appointment with your top 10 customers. How can you get a greater share of their business? What issues have they had with your company? What trends do they see in the future and how will your business need to change to respond? How do they know who might be a new customer (and will they help you approach them)? What type of marketing is most effective in their view? You may also do surveys of your entire customer base or a short survey of customers as they come into the store. Also, some general market surveys to look at name and brand awareness might provide information. Finally, dig into the data. How is the make-up of your community and market changing? Perhaps you want to talk with some elected officials and other community leaders for their thoughts on your business, your market, the community and the future.

Getting this information is a great first step. However, you also need to use it and to do it now. Do some “what if” scenarios, some brainstorming, a SWOT analysis, scenario planning, etc. Include not only management but employees and your mentors/advisers. Even family members may be someone you want to have at the table.

So don’t look at this as your slow time. Make this your GROWTH time!!

Yes it was fun to be part of that conference, but once you get home, it’s time to implement. Photo by Becky McCray.

As you plan out conferences you want to attend this year, here’s a new rule to consider for after the event:

The 2-to-1 rule: Schedule two days for implementation for every one day of the conference. 

(I heard that from Marc Pitman, who said he heard it from Elizabeth McCormick. )

Your implementation days don’t have to be, and probably shouldn’t be, all right after the event. Spread them out so you have a chance to keep up with other demands.

They don’t even have to be full days. You can schedule half days, hours or even 20 minute blocks, as long as they add up to the same amount of working time.

What will you do in those implementation sessions? Well, the first session can be to go over your notes from the conference and pick out action items to work on.

Read our whole series on getting your money’s worth from a conference.

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.

Photo (CC) by Howard Lake, on Flickr

Let’s start with Best Wishes for 2018. 

That wish was to be a part of my post last week. But as you may or may not have noticed, I didn’t get a post done.

This is not the first time it has happened but those missed times were typically planned for some reason.

Last week my missed blog occurred when I had a “life happens” event. A Saturday phone call put me on a different track as I ended up locating and helping my mother move to an independent retirement community.  Thankfully, Becky gives me a great deal of independence in my posts.

But it raises a good question. Are you prepared to handle such unplanned life events and still maintain your business? Most businesses can’t just shut down for a short break and then restart right where they left off. Momentum is lost as well as good will with your customers. For a retail business, shutting down during the holiday season might just end your business.

In many ways, such events are just another type of disaster. As you have done your disaster planning, did you think about these personal life events that impact your business as much, or maybe more than, as a burst water pipe or a fire.

Yet, most of the events you have planned for probably involve the business system only. This makes them somewhat more contained than a personal event where both the business and family systems are involved at the same time. If only one system is under stress, we can often call on the other for various types of relief but where do you turn when both systems are stressed?

As you head into a new year, I would encourage you to think about similar events that you might face. What unique demands might you face? And what resources do you have to help? Some prep work will offer a great deal of relief both: (1) thinking about the future, and (2) when and if the day comes when you need to put your plan into action.

Once again, have a happy and prosperous 2018.