Author: Becky McCray

A new reader named Diane wrote in to tell me about her small town. She just retired and moved back to the town where she graduated high school. She wants to be near family. That’s good. Except the town hasn’t made any progress between when she graduated and when she retired. 40 years, no apparent…

When you think of small town business, you probably think about a downtown retail storefront. But businesses in small towns are testing out a wide variety of new business models, far beyond the traditional storefront.  Here are six innovative ways of building a business in a small town. As you read through these, take time…

We all know what rural towns need, right? They need jobs, and to recruit some manufacturing, and they have a huge poverty problem. Right? Well, no. At least that’s not what rural people told me. Earlier this year, I ran a survey of subscribers and visitors to SmallBizSurvival.com. Over 200 people who identified themselves as…

Because you care about the future of your town, I’m sure you read and hear a lot of examples and stories. And despite being interested in what other towns can do, you’re skeptical. Rightly so. You know what your town and your people can do right now. But there’s a trick.  Those big stories and…

Have you counted the empty buildings in your downtown? Does the number scare you a little? Deb Brown did that. Around the time she first started as the chamber of commerce director in Webster City, she counted empty buildings and found 14 in a town of 8,000 people. That scared her a little. So you’re…

I’m a fan of business fairs. These are the kind of event where different businesses come together in one place and set up booths or displays. Good fairs bring together business people with new customers and with each other. It’s good for everyone.  In my area, we often see craft fairs where people who make all…

In my email this week was a question about outside food trucks invading a town of about 2,500 people. It’s a good question, and I’m glad to have a chance to share it with you.  I am having a hard time in our small town with food trucks wanting to set up for a couple…

Mandan, North Dakota, has this great downtown. There’s all kinds of housing right downtown, so that’s a big asset keeping people spending time downtown. There’s a mix of new and old retail space downtown, so there is room to expand on what they already have. And that’s a problem: the new retail space is sitting…

With a statewide population of 740,000 people, spread across 69,000 square miles, North Dakota is spread out. That’s a statewide average of 9.7 people per square mile, or 4.1 people per square kilometer. Since more than half of the people live in urban areas, that leaves a lot of empty territory.  Except it’s not empty….

“We tried that once.” It’s like the ultimate small town insult to your big ideas.  My friend Deb Brown has the best comeback. She always answers with, “Great! What did you learn?”  “We already tried that” often comes off as a personal attack. “You’re too stupid to realize we already tried that.”  The reality is…

A downtown retail store owner told me she closes at 5 pm because she hates to stay later. She gets to work at 8 am most days, and so at 5 pm she’s ready to go home. She doesn’t like to delegate at all, she told me, and she wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything…

Last weekend I got see an idea made real. Jeanne Cole and the Waynoka Chamber of Commerce took the ideas from our Pop-Up Mini Course and brought them to life in their downtown. It was only 18 miles from my house, so of course I had to be there. And I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all…