This is a short sample from the SaveYour.Town video “Refilling Your Business Pipeline” featuring Deb Brown and me.

Small towns and rural communities will need new business startups to revitalize their local economies, but not many people have the resources today to do a startup the way it’s traditionally been done.

Part of what holds your potential new entrepreneurs back is thinking that going into business has to be a big and difficult and long project.

Imagine all the work that “everyone knows” is part of starting a new business:

If you decided to open a retail store, you have decide on your specialty and what kind of merchandise to carry, deciding or guessing whether your town will support it, finding a location and remodeling it or even bringing it up to code, decorating, finding suppliers and getting started with them, getting your local banking established, securing financing, hiring staff, advertising and marketing, and all that before you even know whether your initial concept is actually sound.

In small towns, those problems can be magnified where you may face a shortage of usable buildings, long distances to suppliers who don’t pay attention to small accounts like yours, few local banks, no chance of local financing, few choices for potential workers, and a smaller potential market. It seems like it takes a lot of time, money and work just to get into business.

You have to get all your ducks in a row.

What if I told you there was a much easier way to get into business?

Just get one duck and go from there. 

Imagine building some steps in between. If you could buy just a few products and test them by running a temporary business inside another business for a month or two, you’d learn a lot about what sells in your local market right now. If that works, maybe you could rent a small booth in a shared retail building. If something doesn’t work, you can fix it and try again.

From there, jumping up to starting a traditional store doesn’t seem as hard. You’ve learned what people want to buy. You’ve established relationships with suppliers. You’ve gained a loyal following. All those smaller steps lift you up closer to jumping over that hurdle of starting a traditional business. And if you miss a jump at a smaller step, it’s easier to recover and try something new.

Why this works

That’s the purpose of the innovative rural business models. They put people in a much better position to succeed, or to fail in a manageable way. It cuts time and money off the process of getting into business. 

For economic developers, these give you an easy way to add entrepreneurship promotion to existing projects and activities. It’s not about starting new things from scratch. It’s about finding and building on the small steps that already exist in your area.

Get the full video

The entire 30 minute is available for purchase at SaveYour.Town: Refilling Your Business Pipeline.

Learn more

How do we as parents set our kids up to lead into the future? Photo via USDA

By Paula Jensen

It seems I have almost always been interested in leadership.  My parents modeled leadership as I was growing up through their active roles in community, church, and school.  I joined 4-H at the age of eight, was called a “ring-leader” as an elementary student (which I don’t think this was a compliment) and continued to take on leadership roles throughout high school, college and beyond.  But my most important leadership role is as a parent. Through this role I’ve learned that all the wisdom and love in the world doesn’t necessarily protect any of us from parenting in ways that could potentially hold our children back from thriving, gaining independence and becoming the leaders they have the potential to be.

I was intrigued as I read an article by Dr. Tim Elmore and learned about how we as parents are keeping our children from becoming the next generation of leaders that are needed in this world.  The article shared seven harmful parenting behaviors that keep our children from becoming leaders – of their own lives and of the world they will live in:

1. We don’t let our children experience risk – We live in a world that warns us of danger and mistrust at every turn. The “safety first” preoccupation constantly reinforces our fear of losing our kids, so we do everything we can to insulate them from healthy risk-taking behavior and it’s had an adverse effect. Kids need to fail a few times to learn it’s normal. If parents remove risk from children’s lives, we will likely experience high arrogance and low self-esteem in our growing leaders.
2. We rescue too quickly – Today’s generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did 30 years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. When we rescue too quickly and over-indulge our children with “assistance,” we remove the need for them to navigate hardships and solve problems on their own. It’s parenting for the short-term and it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Sooner or later, kids get used to someone rescuing them: “If I fail or fall short, an adult will smooth things over and remove any consequences for my misconduct.” When in reality, this isn’t even remotely close to how the world works, and therefore it disables our kids from becoming competent adults.
3. We rave too easily – Kids quickly observe that Mom and Dad are the only ones who think they’re awesome when no one else is saying it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their parents; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality. When we rave too easily and disregard poor behavior, children eventually learn to cheat, exaggerate and lie.
4. We let guilt get in the way of leading well – Your kids will get over the disappointment of you telling them “not now” or “no”, but they won’t get over the effects of being coddled. Let them fight for what they really value and need. As parents, we tend to give them what they want when rewarding our children, especially with multiple kids. When one does well in something, we feel it’s unfair to praise and reward that one and not the other. This is unrealistic and misses an opportunity to enforce the point to our kids that success is dependent upon our own actions and good deeds. Be careful not to teach them a good grade is rewarded by a trip to the mall. If your relationship is based on material rewards, kids will experience neither intrinsic motivation nor unconditional love.
5. We don’t share our past mistakes – Healthy teens are going to want to spread their wings and they’ll need to try things on their own. We as adults must let them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help them navigate these waters. Share with them the relevant mistakes you made when you were their age in a way that helps them learn to make good choices. (Avoid negative “lessons learned” having to do with smoking, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc.) Also, kids must prepare to encounter slip-ups and face the consequences of their decisions. Share how you felt when you faced a similar experience, what drove your actions, and the resulting lessons learned. Because we’re not the only influence on our kids, we must be the best influence.
6. We mistake intelligence, giftedness and influence for maturity – Intelligence is often used as a measurement of a child’s maturity, and as a result parents assume an intelligent child is ready for the world. That’s not the case. Some professional athletes and Hollywood starlets, for example, possess unimaginable talent, but still get caught in a public scandal. Just because giftedness is present in one aspect of a child’s life, don’t assume it pervades all areas. There is no magic “age of responsibility” or a proven guide as to when a child should be given specific freedoms, but a good rule of thumb is to observe other children the same age as yours. If you notice that they are doing more themselves than your child does, you may be delaying your child’s independence.
7. We don’t practice what we preach – As parents, it is our responsibility to model the life we want our children to live. To help them lead a life of character and become dependable and accountable for their own words and actions. As the leaders of our homes, we can start by only speaking honest words – white lies will surface and slowly erode character. Watch yourself in the little ethical choices that others might notice, because your kids will notice too. If you don’t cut corners, for example, they will know it’s not acceptable for them to either. Show your kids what it means to give selflessly and joyfully by volunteering for a service project or with a community group. Leave people and places better than you found them, and your kids will take note and do the same.

Raising children who are strong independent leaders is not about their happiness today, but about their readiness for their many tomorrows. The truth is, parents who are able to focus on tomorrow, not just today, produce better results.

How can we as parents move away from these behaviors that are holding our children back?

It’s important for us as parents to become exceedingly self-aware of our words and actions when interacting with children. Care enough to train them, not merely treat them to a good life. Coach them, more than coddle.  And try these 10 ideas as a starting point:

1. Talk over the issues you wish you would’ve known about adulthood.
2. Allow them to attempt things that s-t-r-e-t-c-h them and even let them fail.
3. Discuss future consequences if they fail to master certain disciplines.
4. Aid them in matching their strengths to real-world problems.
5. Furnish projects that require patience, so they learn to delay gratification.
6. Teach them that life is about choices and trade-offs; they can’t do everything.
7. Initiate adult-like tasks such as paying their own bills or making business deals.
8. Introduce them to community mentors in an area of interest to them.
9. Help them envision a fulfilling future, and then discuss the steps to get there.
10. Celebrate the progress they make toward independence and responsibility.

Video: Connecting with Kids

SaveYour.Town created a video to show how they connect with kids and help them to play a role in shaping the future of their town. The Connecting with Kids video is available at SaveYour.Town.

I think it’s time to stop calling things a failure just because they come to an end. This comes up because I asked a friend about a project in her town that rehabbed downtown buildings.

“It’s not really active anymore,” she said with more than a note of failure in her voice.

Let’s check that sense of failure against a record of half a dozen rehabbed buildings back in use today. I can’t call that a failure.

What about your festival that doesn’t happen any more? It mattered at the time. That revitalization project that kind of fizzled out? It made a difference while it was going.

Plenty of good projects run their course. Maybe you couldn’t get enough volunteers anymore. Maybe it just didn’t make financial sense to keep going. That doesn’t diminish what it was while it existed.

The SBA will count your business as a failure if it ever stops. I won’t. If you served customers and you learned something while doing it, it was a success in those ways.

When you lower the barriers to entry and encourage hundreds of new tiny businesses to sprout, you’re also inviting a lot of failure. Most of those hundreds of tiny businesses will stop at some point. Unless you want the would-be entrepreneurs to be discouraged by being labeled as a failure, you’re going to need to start redefining what you call it when you stop doing something.

The coming and going of projects and businesses is like breathing; it’s a natural process.

Instead of talking about how something failed, let’s start saying, “I’m really glad we had that when we did,” or “I’m glad you tried that.”

Can you save a small town?

If your town can’t get its act together enough to accept help or seek opportunities, should outside groups spend any of their limited time and resources on you? Or should they focus instead on the places with the best prospects of success?

When I first had this conversation with Joe Borgstrom a few years ago, I was a bit appalled. Don’t the people of those towns deserve a quality of life, too? Is it their fault that the town board is fighting tooth and nail?

When I interviewed Joe for the second season of my podcast, we talked about it again. I’ve realized Joe is right about this. All people deserve a quality life, but not all of them will get it. In this era of extremely limited resources, the agencies and funders will have to draw some lines. And if we’re honest, this has been true for a long time.

It’s a self-service world, and the best solutions come from within. You want your town to be saved? Start saving it yourself, as best you can. Your tiny steps will lead to small successes. You’ll fail, too, along the way. Other people will squash your best ideas, and the opposition will drive you bananas. That’s part of what it takes to succeed. But it will all lead to bigger successes. And successful communities attract more resources. Towns that are just begging won’t get much positive attention.

“But my town sucks,” you might say. Let’s be honest. Most towns suck to some degree. You have to start by acting on your own. You do what you can, and it won’t be easy. Build relationships with other local revolutionaries. Savor small, even tiny, victories. Build relationships with the people in neighboring towns, the towns that other people consider enemies. Build online relationships with like-minded people in different areas. Draw support from each other and dream up small but meaningful ways to make a difference.

Take the ideas you’ve read here and all those other resources online, and pick one idea. Scale that idea down to do-able, then do it.

Fair warning: The towns that keep sucking the life out of their residents are going to be the ones that head downhill the fastest. People can be extraordinarily mobile today, and they can choose to invest themselves in any one of the many amazing and cool small towns out there. So it matters that you take even a tiny step to make your town a little better place to live.

Start by listening to Joe Borgstrom talk about Main Street and other signs of hope for small towns. Follow up with the second conversation with Joe Borgstrom about what Placemaking really should be, and why coffee and calendars can change everything in your town.

Grand Opening (CC) bjmccray, on Flickr

Your new business has opened its doors. It has been a challenge finding a good idea, obtaining funding, and getting the necessary permits in order. You have also had to find suppliers, get your facility ready, whether a brick and mortar store or an ecommerce site, and maybe hire some employees.

So now that you’ve accomplished those steps, the party is over and the real hard work begins.

Many business owners often take this time to have a big celebration and they should because it is a realization of a dream. Yet they need to know they face odds that are not stacked in their favor. Thirty to even 50 percent will not be there one year later.

Some of the greatest obstacles are still ahead. Perhaps that largest of these is marketing.

Often business owners do a big marketing campaign when they open. But they have no plan for marketing beyond that point. They may place an ad in the paper and start a website, but they have no focus or clear message.

Yes, you may have had sales that first day or week, but will the customers return? How are you reaching out to those customers to ensure they do? And what about those who stopped in, enjoyed your coffee, took home a “freebie” and never come back?

You may tell yourself you have a product everyone wants. But the reality is that this is the case less than 1 percent of the time.

Plus, you face the response from you competition. And you do have competition.

Dollars can be used for anything. You may be selling a staple such as groceries, but even then, people have choices such as restaurants, convenience stores, the big-box stores and even mobile food trucks.

And the competition for that dollar comes from other product and service categories.

Another big problem for business owners is the failure to develop a solid cash-flow plan. When the doors open, many business owners often are about tapped out. Sales are slow to start, the business owners already have maxed out support from family and friends, and the bank probably is not ready to put more money into the business yet. Some business owners may not have even taken the time to establish a business relationship with their local banker.

In terms of cash flow, one issue that often hurts small-business owners is getting behind on payroll taxes. It seems like a way to help your cash situation. Remember, though, that this is not your money. State and federal tax officials will be in touch with you soon if you do not pay payroll taxes.

Often the business owner also has not taken the time to build a support network, thinking he or she will have time to do that when the doors are open. The problem is that when the doors open, you’ll have even less time. Plus, that network, which should include seasoned business owners, could have told you about some of these startup issues if you would have asked.

Finally, problems will arise out of the blue. These issues may, and often do, require more of your nonexistent cash, but they also eat into your limited time and even can reach the point where they shut you down. These unexpected issues may be a patent or trademark infringement, a building code violation or bad batch of product. If such issues can happen, they might. During that first year, they can mean the demise of your business. Your solution often will involve time, money and your professional network.

The bottom line: The easy work is done. Now is make-or-break time for many new businesses. Make your plans but be ready to be flexible.

Glenn Muske is the Rural and Agribusiness Enterprise Development Specialist at the North Dakota State University Extension Service – Center for Community Vitality. Follow Glenn on Twitter: @gmuske

Every week, I fail in my business. I never can outguess the customers!

Looking in from the outside, you don’t see the whole picture. A smart friend told me he’s intimidated when he looks at people he considers successful in business, including me. I started listing off a few of my more notable failures, from personnel to assets, to marketing and advertising.

Every week of the world, I put in my stock order based on my best guess of what people will want to buy for the next week. I’m never completely correct. I get close, but there are always misses and sometimes horrible mistakes. It’s just that no one sees them, except for the hole in the shelf.

But from the outside, you don’t see it that way. You think it’s all planned and precise, when I know that it’s really messy.

My weekly stock ordering failures remind me that failure is a constant in business. If you’re not committing some errors and experiencing some failures, you’re probably not doing anything.

Don’t be afraid of the failures. They are the only way you can learn and grow.

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We all have trouble finishing what we start. [An unfinished portrait. Photo (CC) by Heather Miller.]

Starting is easy because you get to do the fun stuff. For me, the fun part is having those exciting initial discussions about an idea, and then planning out how it will work. For another friend, it’s the designing of new logos and the developing of the concept.

We love these parts because we get to do what is tasty and new. The implementation seems so much harder because we already did the fun parts. Now it’s down to the work.

What if you built in more of the fun stuff along the way? Can you find a way to give yourself little shots of the fun stuff as a reward during the hard part? Can you dream up a way to renew the project or remake it with more fun baked in?

I don’t know for sure that this will work. I’m just staring to test it myself. But it sounds pretty good to me. How would you improve on it?

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We talk about my many businesses, SOBCon, Small Town Rules, failures, and customer complaints.

If you don’t see the video, click through to the page on Kitchen Table Talks.

There is no proof that Chris and I were headbanging to the out music. No proof at all. (Joe Sorge is disqualified from headbanging for having a shaved head.)

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Photo by my friend Gloria Bell.

If your business is not making it, then it is time to change something. 

Let me share a couple of examples.

But I Can’t Afford To! Part 1
When I suggested small business people delegate some tasks, one response I got was:

Delegate to whom? Most of the small business owners and farmers I know are owner operators and hire folks on an as needed basis. We have no full or even part time labor other than ourselves.

If you can, grow that business. Then let it hire, either on payroll or on contract as appropriate. You may have to change your thinking. If you have an “I’ll do it all myself” attitude, you better change it.

Certainly, there are ways to get by for a while. Here are 10 ways to delegate without hiring, for example. But that doesn’t mean you keep limping along forever.  If you can’t grow the business up to the point it can pay for its own help, then that business is a candidate to abandon.

But I Can’t Afford To! Part 2
In another conversation, I talked about how freelancers could draw the line between what to give away and what to charge for. The discussion veered off with this comment:

How about entrepreneuers that can’t afford to pay someone?

If you really can’t afford to pay anyone, you need to fix your business, and fast. I realize that every entrepreneur has to be frugal, and we all go through rough patches. However, we hold on to a “can’t afford to” mindset much longer than we should. We end up spending our $100 per hour time doing $25 per hour work.

Sounds harsh, I know. Sometimes reality is harsh.

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One of the Napkin Dad’s artworks (c) Marty Coleman, shared from Flickr

“I have had a LOT of failures and catastrophes in my life; schools I got kicked out of, a failed marriage, rejection in the art and academic world and physical disasters just to name a few.  If I had not had those ‘failures’ and not gained the resulting character I now have, I would not be able to take the successes I have had in a good, positive and mature way (which I attempt to do).
Our successes reveal the character we’ve built during our failures.”
Marty Coleman, the Napkin Dad

Part of our ongoing series on failure.

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