Photo CC by Joanbrebo

Guest post by Mike Humphrey, Japan

Skiing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why my parents decided skiing would be our family sport. They were not avid skiers, and we didn’t live in a ski town. Whatever the reason, I was on skis at 3, and my love for the sport began. We would spend every weekend in the winter on the hill.

When I was 15, I became a ski instructor. Skiing is my passion. I love being out on the hill, and I love the mountains.

As I grew older, skiing was still part of my life, but it became a hobby. I went to university and got a job. I started a family, and things were going well. I would ski weekends at our small local hill, but it was slowly being relegated to an afterthought.

That all changed seven years ago when I left my corporate job. It was time for a life choice: continue with my career or make a change. With some savings in our account and dreams of powder turns, I leapt. I left my job and moved our family to a ski town in Japan.

It has been seven years since we moved to the mountains, and it has been filled with joys, challenges, and, of course, skiing. In that time, we have operated two hotels and a restaurant and weathered the storm of Covid. It has been a hell of a ride, and not without its difficulties. Despite the challenges, I would never return to working a corporate job.

Read on to discover the challenges we faced while building a business and our dream life in a small mountain town.

Photo CC by Cookie M

The Challenges of Running a Small Business in a Ski Town

1 – Seasonal Customers

The highs and lows of running a business in a seasonal destination, whether a ski town or a beach destination, are extreme. During the winter, the city’s population triples in size. In the span of 4 months, we get 400,000 tourists visiting our small village of 5,000 people.

The influx of customers is terrific for business but not always for sanity. Imagine the demand for your products skyrocketing for four months and then crashing back to almost zero as soon as the snow starts to melt.

As a business, you need to develop systems and processes to adapt to the extreme shifts in market demand.

Choosing a Business Model

There are generally two models to choose from when you decide what business to run. You can cater to tourists, or you can cater to residents. The best businesses are the ones that can manage to do both.

Catering to Travelers

With this model, you fully embrace the higher-paying tourists. You charge higher prices and focus on optimizing your returns for tourists. During the low times, you minimize your expenses and either shut the business down or drop prices and try to scrape by attracting lower-paying guests.

This is how we operated when we ran our hotel. We were very strategic with our opening dates and only worked during the peak season. During the slow times, we shut down the hotel, went into maintenance mode, and did upgrades.

This worked well when there were lots of guests, but if you have a terrible snow season or a global pandemic, for that matter, you can run through your reserves quite quickly.

Catering to Local Customers

Your goal here is consistent revenue throughout the year. You have to choose your prices to match the local market. Your customer base is smaller during the low season, but during the high season, your revenue jumps drastically.

This is the model we use to run our restaurant. We live and work in the community year-round and provide good food options at reasonable prices regardless of the season.

By establishing relationships with residents and business owners within the community, you can develop a strong clientele that will sustain you throughout the year. Those relationships help you to flourish during the high season when residents recommend your services to travelers in town.

Catering to Locals and Tourists

Matching both markets is a tricky needle to thread, and I haven’t seen many businesses do this successfully. Essentially, you must provide a service that can increase prices during peak times without alienating local customers. The closest we came to this was with the hotel, which had peak and low-time pricing. But this isn’t catering to local businesses; it’s just modifying your pricing to match traveler demand.

Photo provided by Mike Humphrey

2 – Staffing

Ski towns have some unique staffing issues that can be challenging for small businesses to overcome. The small local population combined with the boom and bust market makes staffing one of the most difficult things to deal with.

Staff Training

In a ski town, the money-making window is short, and staff is transitory. We hired 5 – 7 staff during peak season to help run the hotel. They would arrive early to mid-December, 1 – 2 weeks ahead of our first guests.

We rarely had repeat staff, and they had to be fully trained before the Christmas rush. It was trial by fire. You have to get them up to speed in 2 weeks so they can provide the best customer service possible. When the guests do start to arrive, it’s crunch time. You are running at full capacity almost immediately.

It’s the perfect storm. You need to hire the right people and have outstanding training programs and processes in place so they can hit the road running as quickly as possible.

Finding Good Staff is a Challenge

While this may be true for any industry, working in a ski town is appealing because you can ski. There is always a balance between finding a good employee and their desire to hit the hill.

As soon as the ski season starts, it’s too late to hire someone new. You better find the right people at the beginning and make sure they are doing a good job. Having to fire underperforming staff mid-season is a considerable risk.

You have to weigh the negative impact of keeping the employee on versus the risk of being short-staffed.

I have been through both experiences, and it was better to let the person go instead of hanging on.

Here are some tips for finding good staff.

Ask For Recommendations

Ask previous and current employees if they know anyone who would be a good fit. Check with friends and family or other business owners in the area.

Watch Out For Red Flags

Trust is critical; skills can be taught, but trust and work ethic can’t. During the interview process, look for signs that there may be issues. Identify them immediately and be upfront. Don’t move on until you feel entirely comfortable.

Check references. Call them and have an honest conversation. Ask what issues they had with the employee.

Use Contracts To Your Benefit

An employee contract goes a long way to establishing a good relationship with an employee. Reviewing and signing a contract makes your relationship official and keeps your employees committed.

Photo CC by lamoix

Retaining Staff

The boom-bust nature of the ski industry means you can’t always keep staff all year long. The business can’t sustain employees during the low season. You always run a skeleton crew during the off-season and go into maintenance mode.

This means retaining good employees is hard. Expecting people to stick around and barely make enough money to live is unreasonable. Here are some ways to keep staff all year round.

Provide Extended Vacations

Give staff the chance to take time off during the shoulder seasons. They can take the opportunity to travel or go home to see family.

Reduce Staff Living Expenses

Consider alternative living arrangements or provide food through your business.

Collaborate with another business and offer a trade. Provide your services in exchange for cheaper accommodation for your staff.

It’s Hard Work

You have to make hay while the sun shines. For 4 – 5 months, you run flat out. Not only that, it’s playtime as well. You want to be out on the hill as much as you want to run your business. It’s easy to be understaffed and run your employees ragged. It’s a 4-month whirlwind of activity that can be hard to handle.

The critical takeaway is good hiring, training, and processes/systems. Watch for red flags when hiring staff; do not ignore your feelings about people. Don’t get me wrong, I have had some exceptional employees, but I’ve also had some horrible ones. Getting staffing right is crucial to making your small business work in a ski town.

One-on-one Training

When you’re in the thick of things, spending an hour or two with your employees teaching them may feel like a waste of time. But this is time well spent. An hour now could save you 10 – 20 times that time later in the season.

Learn From Other Businesses

We have friends who manage a hostel. They offered to take us through the building to show us how they managed their property. Here are some of the changes we made:

1. We added a self-check-in process for late arrivals
2. Better Signage
3. Better local information Kiosk

Hire an Expert

If you’re unsure how to get better, find someone who has done it before and offer to pay them for their time. Have them watch how you run your business. Then, get them to make recommendations on how to improve.

Lessons Learned

After the season, talk with your employees about how things went. What things did you do well, and what could be improved? What pain points did the employees experience? Your perspective and the perspective of your employees will be different, and it’s essential to record what you learned.

Document

Solid documentation can be a great way to leverage your knowledge and compound your efforts. Keep records of everything you do. I like to use a Google Folder to build up a library of procedures. Whenever I need to use it, I review it and try to improve it. Things to document:

1. Role Descriptions
2. Job Postings
3. Marketing Materials
4. Standard Operating Procedures
5. Annual Schedules
6. Maintenance requirements
7. Licensing renewals

This list will depend heavily on the type of business you run.

Implement

Last but not least, implement. If there is no action or change, then nothing will improve. I like to use project management software like Asana or Wrike to break everything down into manageable tasks. It will eventually get done as long as it’s written down and recorded.

3 – Cashflow Management

Cashflow is king, and managing your finances through a ski town’s boom and bust cycles is tough. Your business depends on tourists arriving at the start of the season to keep it running.

Building a reserve that sustains your business throughout the year is essential. But you also need to balance this against re-investing in your business. Cash sitting on the books doesn’t help your business grow and expand.

4 – Work-Life Balance

Running a business in a ski town is not all fun and games. You must be organized, stay on your toes, and manage your time well. It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the pace.

You can use the winter playground if you manage your business well and have the right staff. However, if you don’t, you will run yourself ragged, trying to keep everything afloat.

Final thoughts from a seasonal business

So, if you’re considering launching a business in a ski town, remember these points.

First, be prepared to put in a lot of hard work. It may not seem glamorous, but running a ski town business takes dedication and determination.

Second, be mindful of costs and stay on top of your finances. Knowing what you’re spending and where it’s going can help ensure you stay profitable.

Third, hire and train the right people to help you build a successful business. Finding and building a great team will make your life more enjoyable in the long run.

Finally, take advantage of where you live. Enjoy the mountains, the people, and all a ski town offers. It’s an incredible experience and one you won’t want to miss out on. I have seen too many business owners forget why they started their business and don’t get out and enjoy the lifestyle.

Photo CC by Radek Kucharski

Frequently asked questions: seasonal business

What are the peak seasons for running a business in a ski town?

The peak seasons are typically winter and summer when people come for skiing and summer outdoor activities.

Is it possible to maintain a steady income all year round in a ski town?

This largely depends on your business model. Some businesses are seasonal, while others offer services that are in demand year-round.

How do I attract local customers in addition to tourists?

Offering locals-specific discounts, involving your business in community events, and building a solid local reputation can all help attract local customers.

What challenges should I expect when running a business in a ski town?

Challenges may include:

• Dealing with the seasonal nature of business.
• Maintaining a steady workforce.
• Managing cash flow

How important is fostering relationships with other local businesses in a ski town?

Very important. Strong relationships with other businesses can help you stay informed about local trends, collaborate on joint initiatives, and create a support network.

Any advice on maintaining work-life balance while running a ski town business?

Schedule regular breaks, get involved in local activities, and ensure you take time for yourself and your family. Remember, enjoying your surroundings is part of the ski town experience!

About the author Mike Humphrey

Mike Humphrey is a writer and entrepreneur. He has operated several hotels and restaurants and founded mykhumphrey.com, where he writes articles about business, freelancing, remote work, and living abroad.

Westbrook, Maine, is a Main Street America community. Photo by Becky McCray

Hannah White, Interim President and CEO of Main Street America, dropped this little statistic at the Main Street Now National Conference in Boston in 2023.

Designated Main Street Districts in the US include over 1.1 million jobs, almost as many people as Amazon.

Amazon’s approximately 1.3 million jobs in the US does not include seasonal holiday help, contract workers, or delivery drivers.

Main Street’s 1.1 million doesn’t include all the downtowns in the US that aren’t designated Main Street Districts and also does not include seasonal holiday help, contract workers, and any other non-employee workers in the districts.

So the comparison is pretty reasonable to me.

Let me know if you use this stat in your community!

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Source: Survey of Rural Challenges, 2021

One under-utilized source of workers: At-risk students

Tony Guidroz, from San Saba, Texas, told me he was shocked when he found out there were 702 kids in the local school district, and more than 400 were considered “at-risk” either because of grades or language barriers.

Tony wanted to give them more choices and more chances. So he shared his idea for a Blue Collar Career Fair where, rather than employers letting grades or language barriers stop kids from applying, employers could connect directly with these kids.

Tony’s brilliant insight was to skip the usual lecture part of the career fair. Instead why not make it all hands-on? From trying out a welder to driving a skid steer loader. That would grab kids attention while it also helped employers look beyond “at-risk” status.

Give at-risk kids hands-on career experiences

Another career fair with a hands-on portion came from Jimi Coplen. She participates in a career fair in Knox County, Texas, population: 3,353

“We feature a lot of careers that can be done in rural communities but pay big bucks. But we also feature things such as Marine Biology – which can’t be done anywhere close to here! Turns out, the kids were totally enamored by this career! It opened their eyes to new possibilities.

“Our day brings in about 30 different speakers from 20 different career fields. The kids get to pick…We do it regionally, focusing on small schools that may not get as many opportunities to hear such quality speakers. It is a tough event to pull together, but the benefits are well worth the efforts.”

Some of the hands-on demonstrations included trying on a full haz-mat suit and testing physical therapy tools.

Trying out a haz-mat suit at the rural career fair. Photo courtesy of Jimi Coplen.

At the career fair, high school kids tried out some physical therapy tools hands-on. Photo courtesy of Jimi Coplen

How are you reaching the kids in your town who get labeled as at-risk? What real world career experiences do they get hands-on?

Learn more practical steps in the Rural Workforce Trends video from SaveYour.Town

If you can work from anywhere, why not work from a small town? Photo by Becky McCray.

Remote work will dominate the future small town workforce

Your current residents

Your current small town residents will increasingly work from home or remotely.

Gallup looked at jobs that could be done remotely and the locations where workers actually did them. Four times as many workers will work remotely going forward, compared to the number in 2019. Up to 24% of all remote-capable jobs primarily will done remotely in 2022 and beyond, and that’s more than the 23% who expect to work primarily on site.

And most people in the workforce like it that way. In a 2022 Axios Harris 100 poll, 84% of millennials say remote work is important vs. 66% of Gen Z, 75% of Gen X and 68% of Boomers.

Your young people

Some of the new people who will be remote workers in the future are actually your own young people. Kids who are using distance learning today are your future remote workforce. They’re learning how to use the technology right now, and they already live here.

Your new residents

You will also see new people moving in who bring their job with them via remote work, or bring their own business with them.

Research from 2015, 2018 and 2021 shows that there is pent up demand for rural living, and way more people prefer living in rural places than urban.

What remote workers need in small towns

We’ve talked before about what makes your town attractive to remote workers.

Since your current residents, young people and future residents will increasingly work remotely, what will they need from their community in order to thrive?

Qatalyst Research Group shared their findings from a review of current programs from big cities and small towns all over the world that attract remote workers. Common tactics included:

• offering financial incentives
• providing coworking spaces
• building a community of remote workers

Those are the supports that remote workers with a choice are looking for, so these are the supports for rural remote workers we’ll talk about in this article:

1. Incentives to live here
2. Places to work
3. A sense of community

Incentives for rural remote workers often center on housing, including land giveaways and cheap building lots. Photo by Becky McCray.

1. Incentives to live here

Your first thought might be big-city style “come live here and we’ll give you thousands of dollars” incentives. That’s not your only option or even your best option for small towns.

Promote incentives for current residents to stay

Don’t just think about luring new people. Think about what rewards your local people to live here.

Start combing lists of benefits any local resident could qualify for. It could be a special program based on income or residency. Or it might be something a local business offers that helps local people. Get creative!

• homebuyer assistance
• weatherization and energy efficiency help for existing houses
• free checking at the local bank
• media services at the library

I’m sure you can brainstorm a longer list from local, regional and state agencies that serve your community. Make sure your local residents know how to tap all that they qualify for.

Create small-town sized incentives to move in.

You’ve heard of small towns offering free or reduced price lots for homebuilding for new residents. Most small towns could also offer reduced city utilities for the first few months.

In some places, you can promote your streamlined permitting process. James Decker pointed out the difference in homebuilding between his town Stamford, Texas, and Austin, Texas: “you can get permitted in like a day.” compared to it taking 100+ days.

You can also promote most of the incentives you found for current residents because they’ll apply for new residents, too.

Entice alumni with “come home” projects:

People who once lived in your town are an easy target for living in your town again. Here are some ways to encourage them to consider a return.

Hold awe inspiring alumni reunions. Cross the year boundaries and combine all the classes. Do this more than once every hundred years. Waynoka, Oklahoma, does it every 5 years.

Include all alums. Private schools, church schools, rural schools, vo-tech schools, schools now closed or consolidated, all the schools you can think of. Remember the colleges, universities, junior colleges, beauty schools, and trade schools. Include the pre-schools.

Develop an outstanding mailing list of alums. Use it wisely to promote your the quality of your town, events and opportunities to return.

Make sure that alumni groups know about the incentives you’ve compiled and mention them regularly.

Workshifting at the RV park. Photo by C.C. Chapman

2. Places to work

Create more flexible workspaces: Third Workplaces

With more people working remotely, more people are working from places that are neither their offices or their homes. Cue the rise of the Third Workplace.

You may remember “third places” as places you hangout that aren’t home and aren’t work. Coffee shops, bars and places like that. “Third workplaces” are places you work that aren’t home and aren’t the office.

One of our favorite trendwatchers, Emergent Research said:

We’re seeing signs that, thanks to the shift to remote work, the paradox of place is breaking down and workers and companies are geographically spreading out.We expect both the trends towards greater use of 3rd places for work and economic de-agglomeration to continue.

Different people will like different kinds of workplaces.

Some people want a noisy coffee shop. Some will like quiet libraries. Some want a more homey place, and others will feel more business-like in an office-style setting. Whatever the feel of the work space you create, there is someone who will love it.

Create appealing co-working spaces

A 2015 co-working study from Emergent Research and partners showed that coworking spaces are human spaces.

“The key finding is while coworking spaces are definitely workspaces, they are also much more,” they said. “They are places where members work, network, learn and socialize together.”

In their research, coworking members reported:

• improving professional success
• learning new skills
• attending events at the coworking space
• feeling happier and less lonely in their work.
• Those are all outcomes you’d love to see from any entrepreneurial program in your town!

Where to find space

You probably have some office space in a local business incubator, belonging to an economic development group, or in a local educational facility that you could re-purpose. Maybe you have a business that just has way more office space than they need. Or there’s an empty building with potential.

The key element is community. I successfully persuaded my friends at the Northwest Oklahoma Small Business Development Center in Alva to convert an under-utilized space for coworking. They had the space, outstanding wifi, desks, chairs and all the extras. What we didn’t have was a ready-made community to connect to it. So it didn’t get as much use as we would have liked, and they ended the experiment. We needed to build the community for it to work.

Connect with local people who work from home, coffee shops, the library or any other alternative space. Begin holding work-together days, like Fridays from 10-2 or something. You don’t need a special space for the meetups. The library, coffee shop, or even one big home office will work for now.

Joel Bennett of Pella, Iowa, helped pioneer a co-working space in his town. You can read his 5 tips for starting small-town co-working and listen to an audio interview with Joel on co-working. Sneak peek: he talks a lot about building community before finding a building.

Informal work space: the low-budget version of co-working

If you don’t have a coworking space in your town now, there are small steps you can take now. Find creative alternative places where remote workers can connect with each other and get some work done.

Where can you find unofficial coworking spaces?

• Start with the public library. They have work areas.
• Maybe a local hotel, motel or bed and breakfast has a workstation or two for guests.
• Whatever organization or business you work for, could you set up a guest workstation in your office? Economic development groups or chambers might be first to volunteer.
• Look for businesses that aren’t using all of their space.
• Maybe an insurance company has some open space up front.
• Maybe an attorney has an extra office they don’t use.
• What about the church fellowship hall or youth center? Would they accept folks for coworking?

As you share your lists of alternative work spots, you’ll be starting to build your remote work community.

Bonus: Nature offices

Working where you have a view of nature makes you more productive. Small towns and rural communities have easy access to nature. Put that together and your town can make nature offices an advantage for your remote workers.

There are plenty of options for creating nature offices.

Start with the public parks. Make sure there’s wifi coverage, then look for picnic tables, shelters or other places someone could plop down a laptop and start working. Add electrical outlet access as a bonus.

Local businesses could set up tiny offices. Those could be in tiny houses, attractive work sheds, or tiny mobile office trailers. Add power and satellite internet access. Put them in natural settings, rural locations or park-like areas in a small town.

Put several tiny offices together for a mini-co-working community with a nature view.

Coworking groups and clubs can provide that sense of community remote workers need. Photo by Sheila Scarborough.

3. A sense of community

Find a co-working group or make one.

Even small towns can support simple co-working groups. Just take your laptops to a local eatery or the library and spend Friday afternoons together. Even 2 or 3 people together can make your week more interactive.

Remote worker and artist Andrea Cook said, “Today’s social revolution is in need of a reality check and the independent professional is in desperate need of true community.”

Andrea helped pioneer Jelly Week events to support co-working and independent workers in her community.

Attend other in-person events in town.

Join the chamber of commerce. Invite friends for networking. Become part of a group. Attend all kinds of performances and events locally just to get out of the house.

More local chambers are actively reaching out to home-based businesses and independent professionals, and that includes remote workers. Some chambers, like the one in Caldwell, Kansas, do report more home-based businesses joining as members, but they don’t participate in events and activities.

Chambers and other organizations can do more to create the projects, events and activities that connect with what remote workers want and need. Start by listening to remote workers to find out what those are.

Practical steps for Zoom Towns and becoming remote work ready

Find more practical steps you can take in our video Remote Work Ready: Zoom Towns. Everything you’ll learn is do-able, affordable and scaled for small towns.

Is your town remote work ready? Get practical steps in SaveYour.Town’s Zoom Towns video

How small towns can attract and support remote workers

What successful towns do to attract remote workers:

• offering financial incentives
• providing coworking spaces
• building a community of remote workers

Providing co-working and alternative workspaces

One of two top ideas for small towns is to provide places to do remote work. This doesn’t have to mean a formal coworking space. Small towns can start by identifying and sharing alternative workspaces from within the community.

If you don’t have a coworking space in your town now, there are small steps you can take now. Find creative alternative places where remote workers can connect with each other and get some work done.

Where can you find unofficial coworking spaces?

• Start with the public library. They have work areas.
• Maybe a local hotel, motel or bed and breakfast has a workstation or two for guests.
• Whatever organization or business you work for, could you set up a guest workstation in your office? Economic development groups or chambers might be first to volunteer.
• Look for businesses that aren’t using all of their space.
• Maybe an insurance company has some open space up front.
• Maybe an attorney has an extra office they don’t use.
• What about the church fellowship hall or youth center? Would they accept folks for coworking?

As you share your lists of alternative work spots, you’ll be starting to build your remote work community.

Make more of the internet service you already have by improving public wifi coverage

Rural internet is exceptionally variable. Even places that look like they are served on coverage maps may in fact be dead spots. Just crossing the street in a small town can mean the difference between 30mbps and 3mbps service.

That makes public wifi even more important to supporting remote workers. Here’s how to improve the coverage of public wifi in your rural community right now.

1. Find out where free public wifi is available now. This can be as easy as driving around town with a wifi finder app or even the list of available networks on your phone.

2. Let people know about the wifi you found. Make big, consistent, simple and easy to read signs. Everywhere you find public wifi, ask them to post one of the signs.

3. Pursue more wifi. Encourage businesses of all kinds to add guest wifi. Encourage your local government to get involved. Does your local telecom offer any free wifi spots? Give them a push to start.

In places where you find wifi is locked down, ask if they can open it or provide a second network for guest access. Many routers make adding a guest network as easy as checking a box in settings.

More tips for Zoom Towns: Remote Work Ready

These tips are part of the Zoom Towns: Remote Work Ready video from SaveYour.Town. Co-founders Becky McCray (hey, that’s me!) and Deb Brown lead you through a 31 minute video. You’ll learn to position your small town for the future of remote work, without breaking your budget.

Learn More: Zoom Towns video 

Cited in:

Balancing Act: Preserving Historic Fabric and Enhancing Economic Vitality in Towns in the Metropolitan Periphery, Planning Practice & Research, John Accordino & Sarin Adhikari, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2021.1995970

Rural people may be the remote workforce urban employers are looking for. Photo via picnoi 

Brother released their small business trends for 2019, and two struck me as particularly good for small towns and rural businesses.

Remote workforces will continue to rise

Brother says: “2018 was a pivotal year for remote working and as we head into 2019 that is not going to slow down. Good talent is becoming increasingly difficult to find and sometimes business owners are not able to find the right people for the job where they are. Hiring remote workers that are the best fit for the business will not only improve your business, but also significantly cut down costs on things like office space.”

Small town implications: We are the remote workforce! 

To be ready, we need more and better training for modern technology talents. LinkedIn points to 2019 needs in AI, machine learning, blockchain, and data science, but also emphasizes the need for soft skills like time management.

The other big factor: BROADBAND. You can’t be the remote workforce unless you can work over broadband.

Side-hustles will become the main-hustle and there will be a surge in self-employment

Brother says: “With millennials making up much of today’s workforce, the modern workplace is shifting drastically. The millennial workforce places a heavy emphasis on personal satisfaction, so striking out on their own is rewarding. Self-employment brings a sense of increased control over your work-life balance, the work you are doing and overall happiness. This year, we will see a spike in the number of home offices and self-employed workers.”

Small town implications: Entrepreneur development is rural economic development

Old school rural economic developers may still cling to recruiting businesses or chasing after chain stores, but modern rural economic developers are entrepreneur developers. Rural areas have long had higher self-employment, and we can expect that to continue. If you want your small town to prosper, help your local entrepreneurs to prosper. 

What trends are you watching in rural business?

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It’s cool to be rural, don’t be part of the brain drain. That’s the message to students at a career day event in Texas. Photo shared by Jimi Coplen, Haskell, Texas

Guest post by Jimi Coplen 

Executive Director, Development Corporation of Haskell, Texas

In rural America, we know the “Brain Drain” is a real issue. We do a great job educating our kids, teaching them good work ethic, and turning them into amazing adults. Then, they leave for college, never to be seen again. Employers are left scrambling to find available workforce, communities have to depend on the same five people to do everything, and it makes it tough on small communities to thrive. But, what are we doing to tell our kids we want them back?

Our local Workforce Solutions organization hosted a WOW (World of Work) event for high school students. This event showcases a variety of careers that can be done throughout the region. It puts real-world business people and occupations in front of high school students. They can ask questions about the various careers, participate in some simulated activities, talk to experts, etc. It’s a great event.

This year, five community economic developers from small towns joined together to host a booth. But, rather than telling students what economic developers do, our booth shed some light on the “Brain Drain”! (Of course students were not familiar with this term, nor did they know they were part of the brain drain.)

We sent the message loud and clear to 3000 students that after college, trade school or whatever they decided to do, we want their brain back in rural Texas someday! We let them know their community is counting on them! We also gave them a list of jobs currently being done in our small communities with estimated salaries. Despite what they may think or are told, there really are good jobs in rural communities.

The highlight of our booth was a large brain built by one of our colleagues. We had students “pick our brain”. They reluctantly stuck their hand through a hole, and on the other side were small, brain-shaped-stressballs that read, “Working Rural is Cool!” We also had a selfie station with a variety of selfie frames promoting, “See You in Rural Texas!”

We took this opportunity to plant a seed and to make sure someone was sending the message to these students that they are the future of their community. It’s okay to go out and see the world, get an education, but someday, we want them back!

The communities represented in the “Brain Drain” booth were Tye, Haskell, Seymour, Gorman, and Snyder, Texas, along with our regional organization the Texas Midwest Community Network.

See more photos from the booth here.

Special thanks to Jimi Coplen of Haskell, Texas, for sharing this story! 

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Kevin Rubash started at Interior Spaces as an apprentice. Now he owns the business. Photo by Deb Brown

Any rural business owner can offer an apprenticeship

Kevin Rubash is now the owner and designer at Interior Spaces which is a interior home design business in Webster City, Iowa (population 8,000). Kevin designs interiors for homes and business and sells everything from bedding to furniture to flooring and curtains.

He got his first chance at doing work he loves when the previous owner came to career day in the local high school. The owner asked who would like to apprentice with her. Kevin said yes and started as her apprentice 20 years ago. Since then, he continued to work with her at Interior Spaces. Two years ago Kevin bought the business from her.

This year Kevin continued the tradition and hired a young man to apprentice with him.

Any small business owner in a small town could make a similar offer to their youth. “Who would like to come apprentice with us?”

More ideas for retaining young people in small towns

This is just one of the stories that Deb Brown and I share in our latest webinar at SaveYour.Town, Attracting and Retaining Youth. We know this matters to you because in our Survey of Rural Challenges, you ranked retaining youth as one of the top two challenges.

The lesson on Attracting and Retaining Youth is available on-demand starting Tuesday July 17, 2018, and it is only available for two weeks. If you sign up now, you can also participate in the live Q&A session July 24. We welcome your questions, stories and examples from your own town.

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 challenge Mike shared with us: “Getting people to live here or come here for the jobs we have open NOW!” 

Mike’s not the only one with workforce challenges. It was one of the top answers in our Survey of Rural Challenges, and is mentioned often as a rural economic development challenge. You’re not the only one caught between businesses who can’t fill the jobs they have open and young people who say there are no jobs here.

I know Mike said “NOW!” but I want to look at three time frames: short term, long term, and the future.

Short Term 

Short term it’s a matter of working with the people you already have. (We’ll get to attraction, but it takes longer.) You start by building better connections between the people you have and the jobs available. Sure, there are already some connections between the employers and the educational system, but there’s a problem: things change.

Think about this for a second: how much have the jobs and types of jobs available changed over just the past five years? A lot? If that’s true, then it seems likely that you need to spend some time updating the old connections, making sure teachers, students, organizations, schools, career techs/vo-techs, community colleges, 4 year colleges, big universities based in other towns that cover your area, and every other educational institution actually knows what jobs are here and how students can connect to them.

Then it’s time to turn that around. How much do the businesses know about what has changed in all the schools in even the past 5 years? Do the businesses know about other businesses in town that might be a good source of trained workers? Are there connections or collaborations that can help address each others’ needs?

Another part of short-term work is to reach out to diverse groups in your community. Who is slipping through the cracks of your current system? People already in your community are a ready resource, compared to people who would have to be convinced to make a move.

To get inspired and take action on the short-term work, watch this extremely informative TEDx talk: Small town big change: Mayor Dale Williams at TEDxAuckland. He took on the “no jobs!” “no workers!” conundrum, and won.

Long Term

Long term, the answer is to make your town a better place to live. If you want people to move to town to take jobs, you have to make it a town people want to move to. The good news is you have potential partners for this effort all over town: artists, real estate professionals, economic development people, tourism groups, churches, and a lot more. Figure out how to start bringing these people together and building connections!

For practical steps toward attracting new people, check out my piece on If it’s a nice place to visit, it’s a nice place to live.

I’m sure you noticed the Idea Friendly platform under this: Gather your Crowd, Build Connections, Take Small Steps.

The Future

And that leads us to the future. What will the jobs/workforce question look like 30 years from now? I think jobs will be far less relevant. We’ll have a lot more people who create their own business or work on their own terms. Automation will take over a lot of what economic developers used to call “good jobs.” Creative expression, craft skills, and personal contact will be far more important. Work may be short term, changeable, and tied to projects rather than lifetime careers. Then again, I may be way off target. No one knows, not yet. So best for us to be open to new ideas, and experiment our way into the future.

This article originally appeared in Becky’s email newsletter, A Positive View of Rural. Sign up here.

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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 was one of the responses to our Survey of Rural Challenges.

You don’t. That would be my answer. You will have to re-imagine and remake those jobs.

Let’s look at a lumber mill, a real one in a real small town that friends from Oregon told me about. It has a reputation of churning through people. No one wants to stand on their feet for an 8 hour shift of meaningless work in a noisy and unpleasant environment. People don’t even last a full day; many quit after their first break on the first day. This leads to comments about “kids these days” being weak, and not able to tough it out.

The same family that owns that old mill also just built a new mill in a nearby small town. It will turn out just as much production, more or less, of an innovative new product. But it’s nearly all automated. Instead of 450 jobs, this mill will have 50. And instead of all being those meaningless, noisy, unpleasant and tough jobs, most of the 50 will be clean, more comfortable and at a higher level of responsibility for production.

It’s not just mills. It’s every job. All jobs, all work is being automated at a fast pace.

Millennials have gotten the reputation of refusing meaningless, soul-sucking work. They’re breaking our old mindless system that ground people down. And with automation also coming at us fast, they’re not a minute too soon.

Rather than trying to attract good employees for low level jobs, break those low level jobs apart. Automate the crappy parts. Figure out how to make the important stuff also interesting and useful.

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