Why starting a small business gives your small town more resources
There’s one more reason I want you to start your own successful small business. It’s the only way I can help your town.
The assets in your small town are different from the assets in mine. The big problem in your town is different than in mine. It doesn’t matter if we’re a thousand miles apart or just ten. Each town is different.
I can’t save your town. I can’t help you build on your assets or solve your problems. But if I can help you start a successful small business or be more successful in your business, you can put more resources back into your town.
That’s why I publish small business articles at Small Biz Survival. That’s why I believe in the Small Town Rules. That’s why I do everything I do. I want to help more small town businesses prosper, so they can help their towns prosper.
The more successful businesses you have in your small town, the more money and other resources you have floating around. These are the resources you need to solve local problems and to tackle cool local projects.
What do these resources look like?
- Your business runs money through the local bank, giving them resources to turn around and make more local business loans.
- Your business pays utilities, and utilities are usually a big source of revenue for the local government so they can provide essential services.
- Your business buys supplies locally and pays for local services like accounting or pest control. Those local businesses in turn are putting resources into the community just like you are.
- Your business may have employees, and that means your payroll is putting more money into the community when employees spend their check on utilities, groceries, and so on.
- Your business donates to local causes, putting resources to straight to work on local projects.
- Your business may even turn a profit, and then you plow that profit back into the business or take some out for yourself.
And these are resources you control. They don’t come with strings attached from some outside funder like grants, they don’t have some timetable to be paid back like development loans, and they don’t get taken out of the community for some faceless shareholders in some other state like chain businesses. In other words, your business is part of a local economy. And that matters in a small town.
For small towns, the best solutions always come from within.
It’s never the expert from the big city who solves the problem. It’s not the expensive consultant who creates the new successful project. It’s not me. It’s you. You know what needs to be done in your town, and you’re the one who makes it happen. And you make more of it happen when you succeed in your business and bring more resources home to put to work.
Becky
PS – If you have an event in the works that calls for an expert speaker (you know, someone from at least 50 miles away), I have openings on my calendar and I am at least 50 miles from most of you. I can’t solve your problems for you, but I can help pass along some of what we talk about here. Communities have had me come in to keynote annual meetings, tourism conferences, and economic development events. Sometimes, a group of communities has banded together to bring me in.