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.

For rural entrepreneurs, authenticity is rooted in their craft, the traditions it stems from, and the genuine narratives behind each product. Photo by Deb Brown

Why Rural Craftsmanship Resonates in Online Sales

Guest post by Tance Hughes

In today’s digital age, the online marketplace is bustling with options at every click. Amidst the buzz of big brands and flashy advertisements, there lies an understated yet profound power: the allure of authenticity. For rural entrepreneurs, this authenticity is rooted in their craft, the traditions it stems from, and the genuine narratives behind each product.

A jar of jam preserving the flavors of a bountiful summer harvest can embody more than mere utility.

Handcrafted Goods: Beyond Just a Product

Each handcrafted item carries with it a story of its origin. Whether it’s a quilt stitched during the quiet hours of a winter evening, or a jar of jam preserving the flavors of a bountiful summer harvest, these items embody more than mere utility. They represent hours of labor, generations of passed-down knowledge, and a deep connection to the land and community.

When consumers purchase these goods, they’re not just buying a product; they’re buying a slice of history, a tale of dedication, and a bond with the artisan. This level of personal connection is something mass-produced items often lack, no matter how high their quality might be.

Telling the Tale: Narratives That Captivate

For rural entrepreneurs looking to stand out in the online market, the key is to emphasize these narratives. Detailed product descriptions that talk about the craftsmanship, the traditions that inspired the product, or even anecdotes about its creation can captivate a potential buyer’s imagination. High-quality photos and videos, showcasing the product in its natural rural setting or in the process of being made, can further enhance this narrative.

Platforms like Etsy or ArtFire thrive because they promise products imbued with authenticity.

The Modern Consumer: Seeking Genuine Connections

Modern consumers, bombarded by generic advertising and overwhelmed by choices, are increasingly drawn to authentic experiences and products. A survey by Cohn & Wolfe found that 91% of global consumers value honesty from brands most. This means that rural artisans, with their genuine products, have a competitive edge. Their offerings stand as a beacon of genuineness in an oversaturated market.

Moreover, the rise of platforms like Etsy or ArtFire, which specifically cater to handmade and vintage goods, attests to this growing consumer trend. These platforms thrive because they promise products imbued with authenticity.

What Does This Mean For Me?

The digital marketplace might seem vast and impersonal, but therein lies an opportunity for rural entrepreneurs. By leveraging the inherent authenticity of their crafts and effectively communicating the stories behind each product, they can forge deep connections with consumers. In an era where genuineness is increasingly cherished, rural craftsmanship is not just a relic of the past but a vibrant force shaping the future of online sales.

About the guest author

Tance Hughes is The Ruralpreneur, empowering small town entrepreneurs to expand their product-based businesses through e-commerce. Sign up for his regular newsletter at The Ruralpreneur.

Having trouble getting customers in the door? Consider these tips. Photo by Becky McCray

If you have a retail store in a small town, you know how difficult it can be to attract customers in the door. With so much online competition and limited resources, it is hard to get people in the store and buying your products. In this article, we’ll share some of our best ways to get customers in the door of your retail store.

In our recent Survey of Rural Challenges, one store owner said, “Our challenge is getting customers in the door. They assume the selection and prices will be better at big box stores. If we can get people into the store they see that we have better quality at better prices, and we get the sale.”
Another said even bribery wasn’t working: “People who live in town have never walked through the door. Even when I sent them a $20 gift card to entice them.”

Check your store’s product selection. Is it what people really want these days? Photo by USDA

Do you have what they really want?

Make sure you have what your customers want. All the promotion in the world won’t drive customers to a business that doesn’t offer what people want.

The first retailer above said if customers do come in, “we get the sale.” That’s a good indication that you’re on target.

Limited business hours are the Number One complaint against small town businesses. Most of us don’t live on this schedule any more. Photo by Becky McCray.

Are you open when they’re shopping?

They can’t come in the door, if the door isn’t open.

Bob Phibbs, The Retail Doctor, made a house call with us some time ago to talk through small town retail challenges. Here’s his advice about hours:

“Studies have shown that, in order, these are the best money making times for retail:

1. Saturday 11 am – 1 pm
2. Saturday 3 pm – 5 pm
3. Sunday 3 pm – 5 pm
4. Sunday 11 am – 1 pm

“If your store is closed on Sundays, you may be missing out on two of the top four money-making times! You have to test these against your store to see if it proves true.”

I ran a retail store for almost 13 years in a small town. We were open 10am to 9pm, Monday through Saturday. Sales from 5-9pm were always more than sales from 10am to 5pm. Almost every single day for over 4000 days, evenings beat day time for us.

If you’re willing to do some simple research, you can find out the best hours for a store in your town.

You have a lot of marketing tools at hand today. Use them to remind people over and over that your store is here and what you offer.

Invite them in again and again, at least 13 times

Our contributor Glenn Muske said, “Research has found that potential customers need to hear or see the name of a new business three to five times before they even recognize that the business exists. Thus, a one-time big advertisement will do little to bring in customers. Continuity in the early days is crucial.

“Knowing about the business is only part of step one, however. You now have to get customers in the door. Research suggests that potential customers may need another five to seven contacts with your product or service to recognize its benefits to them. Remember, the customer wants to solve a problem.”

Contacts with your customers can be all the times they see your ads, social media posts, flyers, online listings, signs or sponsorship of local causes. You don’t get to count the ones they don’t see.

You have to put your business out there a lot more than you think in order to get just one customer in the door.

Musicians on the sidewalk? Tool days in the parking lot? Dinner in the greenhouse? There’s no end to the experiences you can create in or outside your store that help you bring people in the doors. Photo by Becky McCray.

Create experiences with events

To survive in independent local retail today, you must provide an experience that can’t be duplicated by chain stores or online or in the big city. Events are one of the best ways to create a meaningful experience that is tough for any big store to duplicate.

Hold an event that is a real experience

The owner of a retail hardware store and greenhouse in rural Kansas started brainstorming ideas for events he could hold to create an experience for customers.

• Tool Days. Bring in the guy who does blade sharpening for the afternoon. Set up tents in the parking lot and have people teach how you use tools of all kinds. Do demonstrations and hands-on (appropriate) play with tools.
• Dinner in the Greenhouse. His well-stocked greenhouse is a wonderfully green and lush space in dry Western Kansas. There’s room for a couple of tables, and there’s a bubbling fountain. It’s great! Let’s have dinner there! Get a local eatery or aspiring chef to cater. Have fun with it. Use a jungle theme. Get creative. Since there are only a couple of tables available, turn it into a super-exclusive special thing that not everyone can do. Sell out early.

Do a bunch of mini-events

I’ve shared these ideas for mini-events for rural retail businesses before:

• Recruit anyone who gives lessons to hold a student performance (could be music, dance, martial arts, drama, writing, language, anything!) Students bring families, instant crowd
• Bring games, tables and chairs and hold a game night (board games, card games, dominoes, adult coloring books, you name it)
• Bring beach chairs and umbrellas and pretend you have a downtown beach (play beachy summer music for bonus points)
• Hold a tasting or sampling from any local winery, food business, or even cooking classes
• Read poetry or start community conversations on any topic you like (poetry slam?)

A local furniture store hosts two temporary businesses for a special shopping event, combining business-in-a-business and pop-ups to benefit everyone. Photo by Becky McCray.

Host a pop-up business inside your business

Invite another business to set up in a corner of your shop, as a pop up. This could be an artist, artisan, maker, crafter or tinkerer.
Look for those that are doing business from their homes. Maybe they are just beginning to think about making some money with their products or are just starting to get an online following.

Once they setup, make more of it:

• Hold a meet the artist event
• Have a party announcing your new acquisition
• Create a Facebook event and do something special to announce their arrival

Joann Schissel shared her pop-up event success story with me:

“My partner and I have a winery business (Nearwood Winery). He makes the wine, and I’m in charge of customer experience. We have a small tasting room on the square in Knoxville. We’ve found that pop-up shops or a one-time event seems to bring in customers. Our next community event is “Living Windows” which kicks off the holiday shopping season. We invited a crafter to set up her “shop” inside our wine tasting room for that evening. She sells hand made gift bags that hold a bottle of wine. Other pop ups we’ve had is book signings by local authors and art exhibits by local artists. All these type of promos seem to bring in customers. We try to focus on products/services that enhance the wine experience. Our motto is “where creatives gather.”

Three local stores cooperated on this joint ad, marketing their stores together. Photo by Becky McCray.

Cooperate with other businesses

Leverage your relationships with other businesses to put together a tour of businesses, or an experience that includes more than just your business.

Joann did this, too! She created a local fashion show:

“I reached out to our business owners that had fashions or a tangent business. I know a jewelry designer that will match her product with the clothes from the boutiques. A local photographer will take photos of the models and the event. A fabric designer that makes her own jackets will model her creations.

“I charged $5 advance tickets (available online or at the shops) and $10 at the door. The first beverage is free, so there is very little ‘risk’ to the guests, but allows me to gauge interest and attendance. We had 15 models (includes kids) and friends/relatives were in the audience. I am focused on ‘gathering my crowd’ strategy and catering to established groups of people that have their own crowd. I loved working with the women business owners and promoting their products.”

The retail store owner’s dream: so many customers, they can’t all get in the doors at once! Photo by Becky McCray

Keep trying and keep trying

After more than a dozen years of small town retail experience, I understand how it feels to stand in an empty store and wonder where all the customers went. But today, we have so many tools to market our businesses, serve customers in new ways, and create experiences they can’t get anywhere else. Our best bet for survival is to keep trying new experiments and keep the ones that work best. Then try more new experiments.

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Get Customers in the door, Atchison County Development Corporation Newsletter, (Missouri) Spring 2023

Guest post by Rob Hatch

My dear friend John Grossman and his wife Dawn own the Holyoke Hummus Company in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I’ve marveled at how they grew from setting up a small folding table at a local park selling falafel sandwiches to acquiring a cart. Next, they outgrew the cart and bought a food truck. They eventually opened a restaurant.

I appreciate their growth because John tested each stage and grew based on the results.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy, and some steps tripped him up, but each stage built on the success of the previous one.

Pandemic Adjustments

In the early days of the pandemic, restaurants shut down. So, like many others, John made the switch to pick-up or delivery orders. But maintaining a full, sit-down restaurant didn’t make sense financially. [Read our October 2020 story on Holyoke Hummus.]

John adjusted quickly. He moved his food prep operations to a co-kitchen. Then, he partnered with a new cannabis dispensary where he could park his truck and serve. This spot became the new pick-up (and walk-up) location.

It was great. Locals could venture to the truck to grab a bite, and the online delivery orders kept coming.

Of course, that changed when restaurants reopened. Suddenly those pick-up orders slowed down.

So, John adjusted again.

Not going back to a restaurant

He stopped his truck service at that location and shifted his focus to his business’s catering and events side. He continued to use his food truck and food trailer, which are far more profitable than the restaurant.

While this was all happening, John hired a food scientist to replicate his hummus recipe for large-batch preparation and eventual supermarket distribution.

From the outside, owning and operating a restaurant has all the indicators of achieving a certain level of success. But, in reaching that point, it might be tempting to hold on to it too long for fear of having to do what feels like a failure or at least take a step backward.

John’s story is different. First, he did what he could to make adjustments and stay put through the pandemic. But when it became clear that wasn’t going to work, he changed his model.

Shift to What Works

The phrase Fail Forward gets used a lot. And while I get that, it seems like that’s what is happening here. But I’m not sure it is.

At its core, the Holyoke Hummus Company makes and sells delicious food. They have a variety of proven methods for getting that food to their customers. And when one of those methods stopped working, John shifted to something else; something that had worked for him before.

And the shift did work until it didn’t. So John shifted to something else that has worked.

We spend so much time worrying about our failures or attempting to mine them for precious lessons.

Maybe we need to change that approach and shift to what works.

Find out about Rob Hatch’s coaching

One of the Small Town Rules is to spend your brain power before spending dollars. Be creative about how you handle challenges rather than to throw money at the problem.

Venture capital vs. Bootstrapped

We’ve all heard about startups that have been funded by whatever venture capitalist or angel that has just dropped a truck load of money on them, so they’re just throwing money at every single challenge that comes up. They burn through all that money without doing the creative thinking.

The opposite of that is bootstrapping. Startups funded only by their founders are more likely to say, “I’m going to do it on all my own money, and I’ll figure out how to make it work. Because it’s my money, I’ll make it go as far as I can.”

The free solution

The example I like to share is from my liquor store. When my mom took over the store back in the 1990s, she started carrying a lot more wine than the previous owner had. She needed a place to store the extra wine in the backroom on its side to keep the corks moist and preserve the quality of the wines.

Mom didn’t have any of the specialized wine racking that was available for sale. That costs money. This was for the backroom, so appearances weren’t important. It just had to work. My mom was not about to spend money she didn’t have to.

She dug around and found old bookshelves she already had. Then she took the divided cardboard boxes wine was shipped in, put them on their sides on the bookshelves, and made wine shelves for the back room. It cost her nothing to do that. We were still using those cardboard boxes on shelves 20 years later. We hadn’t spent money on commercial shelving, and it worked just fine.

Why buy expensive commercial wine racking for the back room when you can make your own for free? That’s spending your brainpower before your dollars. Photo by Becky McCray

Have you filled out the Survey of Rural Challenges? Find it here. 

How Holyoke Hummus stays Idea Friendly through a crisis

One of the first small steps: a used minivan and a tiny food cart. Photo courtesy of Holyoke Hummus Company.

John is the owner of Holyoke Hummus in Massachusetts, along with Dawn and their family. Like a lot of food entrepreneurs, John started by cooking for friends and family. He grew through a series of small steps and experiments, from selling at a folding table at a event, through a tiny food cart, a mobile truck, and pop-ups at more events. Eventually, he opened a cafe in downtown Holyoke across from city hall.

Holyoke isn’t a small town, but you have seen this same type of experimentation by entrepreneurs in small towns that you know.

This was a perfect example of the Idea Friendly Method in business. You start with your big goal. You use that goal to Gather Your Crowd. You turn your crowd into a powerful network by Building Connections. And you and your newly-powerful network accomplish that goal by Taking Small Steps.

Through each step, John was Gathering His Crowd as he built a following. He was Building Connections networking to find resources and answers before taking each step. And of course he was Taking Small Steps.

Business was up and down, mostly good, until COVID hit and closed down the downtown around him.

John didn’t stop. He closed his dining room, of course, but he kept experimenting. As soon as mobile dining was allowed, he converted his cafe to a production base for his food truck. He is also exploring opening it as a shared kitchen for other food businesses needing a base for their mobile operations.

Another small step, the food truck. Before investing in a custom paint job, a small banner held on with bungee straps was good enough to test the market. Photo courtesy of the Holyoke Hummus Company.

Since the downtown location wasn’t working anymore, he wanted to test a new location for his food truck in a nearby community, but there’s a local regulation that doesn’t allow selling from food trucks on the streets. John found the owner of an empty muffler shop building. He asked him for permission to park on his parking lot, and the owner said yes. So he’s setting up shop on the empty parking lot and building a new customer base. Another Small Step.

It’s not easy to keep a business going when a crisis hits, but the Idea Friendly Method makes it possible to move forward without knowing all the answers.

Thanks to our friend Rob Hatch for sharing updates on his friend John and the Holyoke Hummus Company.

Update: 2022 Growing again

Holyoke Hummus is still adapting to changing times. Read how they’re growing without going back to a restaurant.

Idea Friendly means you don’t have to know it all

You don’t have to know all the answers. You just have to be open to new ideas.  

Being open to new ideas requires us to let go of worrying about whether the idea will work. Lots of those ideas will fail. In fact, most ideas will fail. By keeping the tests and trials very small and immediate, we can reduce the cost of failure to almost nothing.

Author Clay Shirky says “Failure is free, high-quality research, offering direct evidence of what works and what doesn’t.”

It will never go back to the way it used to be. You have to start from here and go forward, one small step at a time.

Get the Idea Friendly Method Video

At SaveYour.Town, we’re offering a special video on using the Idea Friendly Method to make your community a better place. Learn more about the Idea Friendly Method video at SaveYour.Town.

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.

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Two small town guys, Scott Duehlmeier and Chris Brogan. Don’t check your accent at the door. Photo by Chris Brogan.

By Chris Brogan

I’m originally from Maine. Accents up there come through the nose. Most famously, people from Maine are supposed to say “Ayuh” when we mean “yes.” Midway through high school, I moved to Massachusetts, where you lose the nasal thing, but you also lose all “r’s” from conversation. “It’s hahd to sound smaht with a Boston accent.”

Like all people of a certain age and worldly intentions, I hid any trace of an accent in my professional life. Some people even guessed that I was from Canada. (I’ll take it!)

It Might Be Time to Drag Our Accents Back Out of Hiding

Listen, if you’ve heard Becky talk even once, you know she’s from Oklahoma. And unlike me, Becky has been proud of her accent every step of the way. She’s probably better suited for this next spin of the earth. Why? Because the world seems to be poised to want everything smaller again. At long last.

Small town and local purchases have been on the rise since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, that comes from necessity. On the other, it’s a concerted effort of people wanting to put their small town dollars back to work in the small town where they’re from to keep people in business and keep workers on the job.

Who you are and where you’re from just became a selling point again for the foreseeable future.

Putting the Folksy Back in Folks

Maybe the world got too big for a minute. Have you seen those stunning photos of how rivers and streams and even cities look so much more beautiful and crisp and clear now that cars have been parked in driveways for a few months? Sure, we need to get back to work. But do we need to fly all over creation? Do we need to take every trip we used to, just to get bigger and “better?” If we don’t need to drive to an office in the big city to work every day, where do we want to live?

Tourism is very hard hit during the pandemic. Being from Maine originally, people head up there in summer for seafood, and in fall to see the leaves. Boston is a pretty busy tourist attraction year round because of its ties to the American Revolution and its five professional sports teams. All that business is shut down now, but it won’t be forever. And what will people want when they come to visit? They’ll want a very genuine (completely fake but the way people want to remember it) experience.

Should You “Y’all” in Your Email Marketing?

Ah, the $44.93 question. Our accents and our quirks need to always be the condiment and not the meal. No one goes to a restaurant to order a plate of ketchup. You can slip a little phrase or two into your business communications, but if your writing ends up looking like a long lost script for the Beverly Hillbillies, maybe take it back a notch or two.

In the end, I say yes. People want us to be a bit more personable and regional. But sprinkle it on, don’t dump the bag on it all. Because as we’d say in Maine, you can’t get theya from heeya. (Which means about as little as it sounds like it does.)

Restarting Local Shopping

If you’re working on restarting people’s local shopping habits, take a gander at the new SaveYour.Town video called Restarting Local Shopping.

Creating a warm welcome to your business can include sharing simple videos online. Here are some simple ways to get started. Photo by Chris Brogan.

By Chris Brogan

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, it might be worth a thousand dollars, too. Over the last ten years, restaurants and bars who post their best dishes or drinks as photos on sites like Instagram have learned that people love seeing examples of what they’ll get if they drop by for a drink or a bite. As great as a photograph might be, I thought I’d talk a moment about why you should consider video as part of your selling toolkit, even if that feels a little scary to think about at first.

Video Shows People Your Business in Special Ways

No matter what you sell, a video goes a long way to giving your prospects and customers new opportunities to experience your business. If you have a service business, like plumbing or landscaping, spend time interviewing the team and give people a sense of the folks who work there. If you sell a product, show off that product, the making of, the behind the scenes. All that.

There are a few ways to do this. You can shoot videos that are somewhat generic to the business at large, which are great. But you might even consider putting together a few “for special customer” videos. Instead of a product video, it can be “Claire, I know you love when we get in new fabrics. You’re going to love this batch we just got from South Dakota.” My friend Mick sends kids that collect various comic books photos and videos of their specific Wednesday deliveries and that ups his sales a lot!

Is Video Hard to Make?

No. (Boy, I wish I could end this section right there.) You use a smartphone. There’s a video camera in there. If you practice even a little bit and learn to hold the phone sideways (landscape, they call it), you can probably shoot a video. There are free editor apps for iOS or Android aplenty. And you can upload it for free to YouTube (which is also free).

If you want to edit on your computer, Microsoft Photos has editing tools on a PC and iMovie works easily on a Mac. When I say “edit,” realize that most of the time, I don’t mean much more than learning how to cut and paste a little bit. That’s all. (You can search YouTube for “how to edit movies using ____” and you’ll see tons of free tutorials.)

Small Town Business Runs Better on Video

When I was a kid, my grandfather lived out on a farm in rural Maine. There was an old timey general store about two miles from the house, but any full-line stores were about 45 minutes away. “Going into town” was something of a pilgrimage. Sometimes, we’d be smart and call ahead to a store if we wanted something specific, like when we needed rock salt to make a hand churned ice cream turn out just right. Other times, we’d forget and drive all the way into town to find they didn’t have what we needed.

The world searches online before they go anywhere these days. And that means big companies try to take your customers at every turn. One way to compete is to get video of your products and of the people in your company up online so that people develop a relationship with you. If it’s a choice between some faceless corporation and “Old Alva’s Garden Supply,” there’s a chance you can win over buyers who will trust your advice over some faceless competition.

Let’s Run This Down Really Quick

Pretend I’ve convinced you. Here’s what to do:

1. Get a free YouTube account (name it after your business or yourself – either way.)
2. Practice shooting brief videos (1-3 minutes tops usually goes best)
3. OPTIONAL – If you’re you’re feeling clever, learn to edit a little, and turn a series of clips into one video.
4. Upload your videos to YouTube
5. Promote them by posting on your website where it makes sense, and/or by pointing to the videos through your email marketing efforts.

And that’s it. If you ever get stuck or have a question, you know you can always ask me. My email is chris@chrisbrogan.com . Feel free to drop me a line. And hey, show me your videos!

These Webster City, Iowa, business owners get together informally to share and support each other. That’s the basic model also used by Shop Hopping Around Brownsville. Photo by Deb Brown.

Getting local businesses to cooperate can be a challenge in any small town. Everyone is busy in their own business, and few have time to dedicate to working with other businesses.

Whether it’s a formal project put on by a group like the Chamber of Commerce or an informal get-together, there are big benefits from local businesses connecting with each other. So how do we get them to do it?

One of our readers Yolanda Almaguer wrote about her local group in our comments.

I’m from Brownsville, Texas, and we have a Small Business Group that we call Shop Hopping Around Brownsville. We get together once a month at everyone’s location for about an hour on the first Monday of the month.

We have a couple of re-sale shops, a baker, restaurants, massage therapist and boutiques.

How can you get busy store owners to find time to cooperate? Let them set the time and keep it informal. Photo by Deb Brown.

We get to see what the others have to offer, where they’re at and we sometimes end up buying from each other. Plus we get to send our customers over when in search of a particular item especially because we know firsthand that this particular business has it. That is the only time we get to see each others place of business. We’re all busy, and our hours of operation are usually at the same time.

It works for us. We don’t charge dues, we do our own ribbon cuttings, we invite people over and have a great event for that occasion. In numbers we were able to buy an ad with Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau, we have flyers made listing us all, and we have our business cards at every ones business location. It just helps in promoting each other. We started this 3 years ago. This year as a group we were also able to get our city to issue a proclamation in recognizing and making Small Business Saturday an official Day in Brownsville. :)

The only stipulation for joining our group is that the business be in Brownsville and they must have a business location that is not their home. That means they took the extra step and are paying rent, taxes, etc. etc.

I think several factors make this model work so well

1. It’s informal. No dues, no officers, very little overhead of keeping it going.
2. They meet in business back rooms. That taps our human curiosity to draw people in.
3. There’s power in numbers. They can do things together that no one business could do alone.
4. The conversation supports informal learning. I’m sure that people use this chance to ask each other questions about business and get answers to their most pressing issues.

In Webster City, Iowa, three local businesswomen started meeting informally. Two were experienced retailers, one was starting a new retail business. Those informal mostly backroom sessions supported the new business and strengthened the existing businesses.

I’m starting to see this informal “shop hopping” backroom model as a better solution to almost all projects that call for the cooperation of local businesses.

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