Guest post by Becky McCray
New Book Coming in April: Small Town Rules
at your neighborhood bookstore!
The old lines between rural and urban are blurring.
For all of U.S. history, small town people have moved to big cities. I’ve heard urban business people say they prefer to hire people from small towns because of their work ethic.
But today we have more trends blurring the lines:
- Urban people are moving back to small towns
- Small towns are paying more attention to urban planning and livability
- Rural areas are being swallowed by urban developments
In the midst of all this cross-pollination of ideas from rural and urban, Barry Moltz and I wrote Small Town Rules.
We took the seven rules we think make small town businesses especially successful, and we applied them to the most urban small business and the biggest brands.
These are rules like Plan for Zero. In small towns, we know there will times when income is zero, periods when growth is zero, and cycles when there is zero activity. Turns out, that applies to big brands and urban businesses, too.
And Spend Your Brainpower Before Your Dollars. Small town businesses are notoriously cheap. We’ll recycle, reuse, scrounge, and do without before we’ll spend money. Some big businesses have been built with a similar frugal ethic, like IKEA and even Walmart. And frugality is starting to make headlines as a new trend for big business. We know it’s not a “new trend,” but we still think it’s a good idea.
It’s not just about money; it’s also about communication. Small town businesses must communicate directly with customers, one on one, respectfully, in order to thrive.
Customer Driven Communication is the small town rule. Big city businesses are now having to learn these same skills because technology has forced them into communication with customers. Every business now has to learn multiple methods of communication because customers are now using a huge variety of tools to talk back.
And society has shifted as well.
Where once more people trusted big businesses for stability and consistency, now more consumers trust small businesses and want to support their local economy.
Be Proud of Being Small is another small town rule that applies to all business today.
Brands of all sizes are struggling to follow the last small town rule: Build Your Local Connections. Brands are going local. SoLoMo (Social, Mobile, Local) technology brings brand offers to consumers at the right moment based on their location. American Airlines sent email ads to AAdvantage Miles customers in Chicago with deals at local Chicago restaurants and retailers.
The conclusion is that people in small towns have a lot of smarts to share with businesses of all sizes, no matter where they are located.
Right on, Becky! — Katie
BIO:
Becky McCray shares more small town lessons useful for urban and rural business in the new book, Small Town Rules http://smalltownrules.com written with Chicago entrepreneur Barry Moltz. She also owns a liquor store and a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, in the U.S., and is a recognized expert in small business and social media. She publishes the popular website Small Biz Survival http://smallbizsurvival.com on small town business, and she and Sheila Scarborough co-founded Tourism Currents to teach tourism professionals new ways of marketing their destination. Her professional life is clearly an example of Small Town Rule #3: Multiply Your Lines of Income.
