8 Innovative Rural Business Models – Happening Tomorrow!

Wednesday, March 16 at 6 pm Becky McCray and I will host a webinar discussing 8 innovative rural business models.   Entrepreneurs are using these smaller scale experiments and tests to learn what works before making a huge investment. That’s tomorrow night, and you can tune in from the comfort of your home while eating…

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Save Your Town – Session Four of 5 Stories

Each week Becky McCray and I review 5 stories and make comments about them over at blab.im.  Here are the five links to the stories (italicized comments are mind) and the video is posted below. Small Business Owner Sandy Higgins’ Old-Fashioned (they mean small town) Methods Yield Modern-Day Success http://buff.ly/1LVNZa1 Hat tip to Miss Dazey for the…

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Iowa Blogger Conference – March 19, 2016

Iowa Blogger Conference is 10 days away.  It’s not too late to register and attend!  http://www.iowabloggerconference.com/   It will be held at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Reasons to attend: 1. It’s a one day educational conference for beginners and intermediate bloggers.  You will learn about bloggers and take home a digital tool…

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SaveYour.Town: 5 Stories – Session 3

Every Sunday Becky McCray and I share 5 stories found online and comment about them on blab.im.  Here’s what we shared yesterday. How a small town in Kentucky revitalized its struggling Main Street with local food, local business http://buff.ly/1TcCcX2 Population 7,300 – 20 new businesses – this is just crazy – it fills my heart. Wall…

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Eloy, AZ – Part Three

Someone has to be first.  It takes a brave person, or group of persons to step up to the plate and say “We’ll go first.  We believe in this town.  We think our business idea is sound and we want to open a business here.” The first group of folks got together and opened up…

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SaveYour.Town 5 Stories Session 2

Sunday afternoons Becky McCray and I, as part of our SaveYour.Town project, are talking about 5 stories found on the internet during the week.   Here are the links to the stories we covered this week and the 10 minute video discussion. Agritourism Toolkit – Oregon Tourism Commission http://buff.ly/1RnaZNZ Focus on business fundamentals first, then…

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Eloy, AZ – Part Two

You don’t need to be born and raised in a town to believe it can be the best town to live and work in. Mark Benner, the Chamber Director moved to Eloy to help take care of his mom. Jon Vlaming, the Community Development Director for the City has only been there for a year.…

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Five Stories – Session One

Becky McCray and I have started a series at Blab.  We are discussing five stories that address some viewpoint that can be used in some way, shape or form to help small towns.  Todays stories were: The State of Entrepreneurship in 2016: U.S. is on the Verge of an Entrepreneurial Boom http://buff.ly/1QnB4zp – for the focus on…

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Eloy, AZ – Part One

Eloy, Arizona is a town of about 16,000 located 50 miles northwest of Tucson. Mark Benner is the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce and Mark took advantage of our Tour of Empty Buildings Toolkit at www.saveyour.town. I was in Tucson for Chamber professional development and had the opportunity to head to Eloy one…

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Toulouse-Lautrec on a Barn

I saw the article in the paper and promptly forgot about it.  Then my friend asked if I wanted to go take a picture of it.  I didn’t realize it was so close to where I lived, just west of Dayton on Highway 175. What a great story!  How often do you see the Peter…

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