As more people in rural America find themselves laid off or working reduced hours, the idea of starting a small rural business or expanding the one you already have is something to consider. Here are several online resources to help you think things through.
In Advice for the Accidental Entrepreneur, Dr. Jeff Cornwall defines who ‘accidental entrepreneurs’ are and the types of businesses they often create:
The recession is creating many “accidental entrepreneurs” — people who suddenly find themselves out of work with no viable option except to make it on their own through self-employment or starting a small business.
A question I am frequently asked these days is, “What kind of business can I possibly start?”
The best business opportunities come from things people already know something about. They come from our work experiences, our hobbies, or our everyday lives. Find something from your experiences that is also a need for others.
How passionate do you need to be about your new business? Take a look atWhy Passion is Overrated: The Secret Truth to Creating a Successful Business.
To give us a ‘pep talk’ with an historical twist, The Silver Lining of Economic Downturns provides a short list of innovations that entrepreneurs introduced during tough times, providing it can be done!
And although it can be a different and difficult time to launch a new product, there are some actions you take to improve your chances of being successful, provided in Starting Up: Four Ways to Get Customers to Buy Your New Product.
What kinds of rural business start ups are you seeing in your town?
Sometimes when you innovate,
you make mistakes.
It is best to admit them quickly,
and get on with improving your other innovations.
Steve Jobs
Founder & CEO, Apple Computer
Whether you’re speaking to customers, your employees or the local Rotary Club, odds are you’ve got stories to tell. Not tall tales, untrue and uninteresting. But stories that can inspire, influence, motivate and even turn negative situations around.
Stories are often more memorable and more effective than just facts or directives. What are some of the things we remember most from our own childhood? STORIES. How or why you started your business is far more interesting to hear about when you tell it as a story, rather than simply reciting your resume. Visitors to a rural small business are often interested in the whole rural experience, and what it’s like to create and run a small business in rural America. Stories are the perfect way to share this information and entertain at the same time.
In her book ‘Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins’, Annette Simmons describes six different type stories that work in the workplace: stories that tell who you are, why your business exists, that reinforce a learning point, inspire hope, share values or state your understanding of another’s perspective (like your customer’s perspective).
In Business Story Telling - Using Stories To Inspire, the Mindtools website shares several tips from Ms. Simmons that a business owner should keep in mind when telling stories:
* Be authentic - The best storytellers talk from their hearts, so don’t try to fake an emotion that you don’t feel. Your listeners will probably see through this, and your story will crash and burn.
* Pay attention to your audience - Stories that are too long are generally boring. Tell the story well, but don’t go on forever.
* Practice - Try to practice before you tell the story. Even if you tell it to yourself just once in front of a mirror or video camera, this can help you when you’re in front of your real audience.
* Create an experience - Remember that when you tell a story, you’re creating an experience for your listeners. Don’t just use sound (words), but the other senses as well. Show your listeners the picture you’re painting, don’t just tell them.
What are some stories you can tell about your own business?
NPR Radio offers a ‘Business Story of the Day’ each weekday, available as a podcast and as well as in print on their webpages.
These stories are not focused on rural and small businesses, but include them occasionally. The stories are always short and to the point, and instructive about many different industries and situations.
The artwork pictured here to the left is ‘Marsha’s View,’ an original pastel painting by artist Kay Gordon of Marshall, North Carolina.
In recent weeks I’ve featured collaborative marketing partnerships among those in crafts.
In Collaborative Marketing for Rural Small Business I introduced the idea of increasing your power to pull visitors to out-of-the-way rural locations by joining with similar local businesses and promoting yourselves as a group.
I featured two groups of potters in North Carolina that work together on their marketing efforts to drive traffic to their individual studios: The Potters of the Roan and The Penland Potters.
And in Handmade Collaborative Marketing,I described the team support system that Etsy has created for its individual sellers.
More artists than ever before are exploring collaborative marketing. Art Marketing Through Partnerships: A Marketing Tip written by Kim Cady describes how artists can take a subject or theme they like painting (in her example, cats and dogs), and joining hands with community organizations and businesses that share that theme.
As Ms Cady points out, the new year is a good time to re-think our businesses and how we might reach out to others and create win-win situations for all involved. Finding ways to promote your artwork locally is especially important for artists, whose work can celebrate that ’sense of place’ in ways few other businesses in a region can.
Marketing Your Art Locally: 7 Reasons to Market Your Artwork Closer to Home encourages artists to take advantage of the stronger motivation many customers have to ‘buy local’ these days, and to enjoy the advantages that being the ‘big fish’ in the smaller pond could bring.
Painting historic homes and buildings or capturing the spirit and energy of your town’s festivals in your art will create value-added products that local businesses and community organizations can sell for you, increasing sales for everyone and allowing you to continue creating.
Many small businesses in rural and small towns proudly feature the work of their local artists by selling not only their originals, but giclees (fine quality productions) in all sizes, and even refrigerator magnets and postcards. Tourists, in particular, often prefer to purchase handmade art and crafts as souvenirs of the places they visit rather than mass-produced memorabilia.
What partnerships or collaborative marketing efforts can you explore for your business?
