small town advice
Brookings: Accelerating Business
What if you found a way to help entrepreneurs and small businesses repopulate a downtown district? And what if that made your community a place people would travel to from all over the state? Brookings, SD is off to a great start doing just that. Their city council just passed the Retail Acceleration Grant Program.…
Read MoreSmall towns: Change is coming
A pattern is emerging. I’m old school raised. You want something done there’s a process: you find the person or group to do it, you follow the rules, you do all the paperwork, you form a committee, you discuss it to death, you figure out the rules and regulations around it, you find the money…
Read More1 Million Cups in Brookings Review
Imagine inviting local business people to have coffee every Wednesday at nine am and there is one or two speakers that spend six minutes presenting a premise, talking about and then a conversation between the speakers an audience occurs for 20 minutes. You’ve just imagined what 1 Million Cups is like. The Children’s Museum in…
Read MoreLeClaire, Iowa – Worth a Visit
Roger Brooks of Roger Brooks International and the Customer Loyalty Expert says if you’re going to create a business that will bring in tourists, make sure there’s at least two other similar businesses. LeClaire has taken that advice to heart. Located in Central Iowa, on the Mississippi River, LeClaire is hope to the Cody Road…
Read MoreSunday Update: Goals and Accountability
There is great news from last week — I got four intense workouts in! That was the goal, and the goal was made. Goal setting does a couple of things: Creates focus on where you are going. You can say “I’m going to work out.” There’s no call to action there. Workout means what? How…
Read MoreIndiegogo to Save the Webster
The Webster Theater is closed. It took $24,500 to buy the building. It will take $80,000 to upgrade to the digital equipment. The nonprofit group HERO (Help Entertain and Restore Organization) has raised almost $50,000 towards the equipment. The local community has given and continues to give. SHIFT Happens is having a dodgeball tournament on…
Read More5 Ways to Build Loyalty
Small businesses often ask that we shop local, that we be loyal to them. I’ll be the first one to encourage you to shop local, and I’ll also be the first one to tell those businesses that they need to give their customers reasons to shop local. Chris Brogan, has a set of criteria he…
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