Change can be activated in a society
by way of story.”

from the book Spirit Run

I just returned from Jackson County, Kentucky and the small town of Grayson, Kentucky. There’s a natural beauty in those mountains and winding roads. The people were kind, helpful and want to see their towns thrive. They shared stories of their history, the people and their dreams with me. Some had stories of failure and are working on raising up out of that despair much like the phoenix did. When I’m on an Idea Friendly onsite visit, I look for ways people can take small steps, to volunteer in a small way. I also look for the stories of locals already serving their well-loved communities. The power of story has the ability to change the outcome of a town.

Jackson County

This is a story to be told, often.

I met a couple in Sand Gap, KY who bought The Whistle Stop Express and there was a large building that came with it. They’ve turned it into a community center and the folks in town are welcome there with open arms. There are meals for the hungry, hugs for all, opportunities to belong to a community. There’s been a problem with drugs in town, and several residents are no longer the people they were before drugs ruined their lives. These owners treat everyone with respect and care. But even more than that, they treat them with love. They set an example every day of how to treat our fellow human beings.

Here’s a one day job volunteering that he did willingly.

One gentleman showed up at the community center the day I was there dressed as the Easter Bunny. He had been at the local jail, the community center, the gas station – anywhere that needed some cheering up.

Here’s another short term opportunity to volunteer.

We took a driving tour around Annville, KY and noticed this housing place nestled among the mountains with a babbling brook and park space behind it. Shame on me, my first thought was “why do people keep trash like that outside of their homes?” It was pointed out to me that the grandmother who lives there is raising her grandchildren and doesn’t have the wherewithall or physicality or time to clean up that small mess. The woman giving us the tour stated this would be a great half a day volunteer opportunity for a bunch of ninjas. And said she’ll get right on that. Two other people in the car said they’d help.

Talk to each other

The first evening I was in Jackson County they held a gathering for anyone who wanted to come and hear about ways to save their community. Erik from Backroads of Appalachia made available the small historical site at Big Hill to gather. The image below is just 1/3 of the room. I don’t go to any town, bring a template with some big city idea on it they can dumb down. I ask folks to tell me who they are and what they want in their community. Then we talk about it.

Here’s one story of many folks who volunteered in a small way to help a new business get started.

Kathy pictured in the lower left wants to start her own outdoor business providing items to use to traverse the region. But she only has one side by side. We talked about just getting started with that one item. And one lady offered her canoe for Kathy to use. This started a conversation around the room of how she could start now, using what others offer and they would help her too.

How volunteers can work together in partnership

The couple next to Kathy are farmers, who used to run a dairy. Dairy farming is hard, and they had to try something else. He has converted the dairy barn into a space where he can do woodworking. He also wants to really use that space, and make it available for others to use. We talked about the Old Geezers Club in Akron, Iowa. Several others in the room had ideas for them and wanted to help. There were artists in attendance and were grateful for a space to work on their art, and also sell it. They could also volunteer to be in the space sometimes to help run it.

Your officials need to hear your stories

McKee, KY is the county seat and also has the fastest internet speed in the United States. That’s because the Peoples Rural Telephone Company and their leader Keith Gabbard have made it so. You can read about how that happened in The New Yorker article. This group met and had a lively discussion with me. Keith is the guy on the far left. Tim Truett, the 89th district state representative was there too. He’s also the elementary school principal. Small town folks wear many hats. Many of these folks have been trying to establish a lodging tax. However, a magistrate has to ask the fiscal court to review it. And no magistrate would do that. Funny, you mention the word ‘tax’ and people get nervous. Tim, along with the tourism board, got the fiscal court to look at it at their next meeting!

Talking about what you want can lead to volunteer actions that make small things happen

One gentleman was fed up with the trash and illegal dumping in the area. Another artist in the room proposed using the old cars and create a transformer art exhibit. There were stories of folks who’ve worked in the region making their parks available to all. We found out there are 200 rooms available for visitors to use, but not an updated list of where these Airbnb’s and cabins were located. This week I received a spreadsheet with that updated list! Talking about what they wanted led to volunteer actions making small things happen. The power of sharing your story shines through.

Grayson, KY

You can stop if you want

Grayson was not to be outdone. We started at the Grayson Art Gallery early in the morning. A big tables worth of people showed up at 8 am. They were there to hear what they could do to help their small town. Many of them stayed for the rest of the day, spent with a walking tour of downtown, lunch and a driving tour of the region. The folks in the picture below know how to volunteer.
There’s the local college president, the mayor, a city council person, a couple of business owners, a state senator, a high school student and the Main Street director. We talked about partnerships, taking small steps and getting in action right away. The state senator told us a funny story, well, kind of funny. They used to have a master gardener’s group that was active. But they got older and less willing to do the work. So they created fundraisers … to pay others to do the work! Oh, the irony.

Idea Friendly: kill the committees, get to work and have fun with taking small steps

The mayor kept notes on his phone, but just the notes that pertained to him. (Yes, I gave him assignments.) The Main Street folks plan to set up an Art Trail and involve the artists in town. And the two of them won’t do it all themselves. The artists and building owners will be involved. As we walked around, we got some permissions on places to put murals.

There was a discussion about adding EV stations downtown in a parking lot. One of the attendees will find out how to make that happen. The mayor put on his list to work on lighting up the parking lot at night, so store owners can park there safely instead of in front of their stores. The high school student is going to bring her friends to city council meetings. The mayor thinks adding a nonvoting student to the council is a great idea and will pursue it. There are many opportunities for everyone to volunteer, without setting up committees, in the ways that they want to help.

Volunteering can be easier and with more people, yet make such a big difference in a small way

I started this letter thinking about the importance of telling our stories in our own communities. That change will come when our good reasons why are out there for more people to know about. Then I found a common theme amongst these stories – how volunteering can be easier and with more people, yet make such a big difference in a small way. Many people in small towns are not aware of the various ways they are already volunteering, or the many other ways where volunteers are needed. If only for a few hours.

Telling our stories, sharing our ideas and asking for help make change possible, and sooner.

Thanks to the kind folks in Kentucky for welcoming me with open arms!

At the Main Street Now Conference in Boston, I joined a trolley tour of the six Dorchester Main Streets.

We got a chance to walk through The Guild‘s expansive building. While this space is only one of many projects of The Guild, it was the one that caught my attention as useful for small towns.

The building was furnished and opened in less than 5 months for less than $100,000. It’s intended as a healing space, a calm space where anyone from the neighborhood can come in and relax for a time. They also hold special events for the community. Not weddings or parties, but more community oriented gatherings.

The art is from local artists. Many of the earth-toned wall hangings are dyed with the actual dirt from this neighborhood, that’s how rooted this is in the community.

• You could pop-up a similar community healing space temporarily, and for a lot less money. I bet small towns could borrow just about everything they’d need, including the building.

Which feels better downtown: a calming space or an empty building?

Vacant buildings, especially formerly significant ones, are reminders of loss, Trinity Simons Wagner of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design said at the Placemaking Conference.

That empty building as a reminder of loss adds negative weight to everyone’s perception of your downtown. Your people deserve a calming space like this much more than yet another empty building.

This also ties into the Wellness Travel trend we’ve mentioned. Wellness appeals to both locals and visitors. maybe pop this up around the time of a big event.

Photos by Becky McCray.

What do you think about doing this in your community?

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April is traditionally Move Your Money Month in the shop local community. Bank Local and Invest Local are the financial parts of the shop local movement.

In 2023, the timing couldn’t be more noticeable. High profile bank failures, lots of talk about other banks in trouble, and a serious debate about the financial system (AGAIN!) make Moving Your Money to a local bank more attractive than ever.

Local banks still exist in many small towns, and some of you have multiple local bank choices. If you don’t have a locally owned bank, regional banks may be a better bet than the giant banks.

If you have concerns, talk to your local or regional bankers. Some like Jill Castilla of Citizens Bank in Edmond, Oklahoma, (admittedly in a suburb, but still a great role model) go to great lengths to be accessible to their community.

Find your bankers online or at community events. Ask questions about how they manage the kind of risks that brought down big banks recently. See what you think of the answers. (Hint: they’re much more careful.)

Move Your Money

Really, it’s not that hard to move your money to a local bank. You’ll likely get all the important services you’ve come to rely on like mobile deposit and online bill pay. Even the bank in my tiny community of 30 people is online-savvy. (Shout out to Hopeton State Bank: Shaped by the past, Focused on the future.)

Need the how-to-move list? Search or ask your favorite AI for a list of steps to move to a new bank.

Source: People First Economy

Run a Move Your Money campaign in your community

Join the Move Your Money movement at AMIBA (American Independent Business Alliance). They’ll email you with resources throughout April. Check the Top 5 Reasons to Choose a Community Bank.

Get inspired by the resources page from The Local Crowd in Monadnock, NH: Move Your Money

Advocate for change with the policy-level info from the ILSR on Community Banking.

Discover more about local banking and local investing

Beyond shop local is bank local, 2010

Local investing could solve several rural business problems, 2011

Local investing will change the face of small towns, 2012

Small Town banks know lots that big banks don’t, Small Town Rules, 2013

Community banking is critical to small towns, audio, more from Jill Castilla (mentioned above), 2014

Economic self defense for small towns, 2020

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Will you run a Move Your Money campaign? Send us your small town business stories, and let us know what questions you have.

Decide for Impact coach Erno Hannink studies the stoic philosophy and says not to worry about this kind of issue. Focus on what you can control, including your own skills and your own business. Also, don’t over-monitor the news.

I said that I tend to think less about recession and more about my exposure to risks. Look at your income streams and decide which ones may be affected by the risks of a possible recession. Take any action you need to better protect your income or assets.

Business and marketing mentor Stephanie Ward said especially in difficult times, we should all stay connected. Reach out to your network of people. Make introductions and help others. Pay it forward.

As a group, we felt “stay the course” was the best advice for us. Know your goals and strategies. Keep working your plan.

What are you feeling, and what practical steps are you taking?

Guest post by Rob Hatch

My dear friend John Grossman and his wife Dawn own the Holyoke Hummus Company in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I’ve marveled at how they grew from setting up a small folding table at a local park selling falafel sandwiches to acquiring a cart. Next, they outgrew the cart and bought a food truck. They eventually opened a restaurant.

I appreciate their growth because John tested each stage and grew based on the results.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy, and some steps tripped him up, but each stage built on the success of the previous one.

Pandemic Adjustments

In the early days of the pandemic, restaurants shut down. So, like many others, John made the switch to pick-up or delivery orders. But maintaining a full, sit-down restaurant didn’t make sense financially. [Read our October 2020 story on Holyoke Hummus.]

John adjusted quickly. He moved his food prep operations to a co-kitchen. Then, he partnered with a new cannabis dispensary where he could park his truck and serve. This spot became the new pick-up (and walk-up) location.

It was great. Locals could venture to the truck to grab a bite, and the online delivery orders kept coming.

Of course, that changed when restaurants reopened. Suddenly those pick-up orders slowed down.

So, John adjusted again.

Not going back to a restaurant

He stopped his truck service at that location and shifted his focus to his business’s catering and events side. He continued to use his food truck and food trailer, which are far more profitable than the restaurant.

While this was all happening, John hired a food scientist to replicate his hummus recipe for large-batch preparation and eventual supermarket distribution.

From the outside, owning and operating a restaurant has all the indicators of achieving a certain level of success. But, in reaching that point, it might be tempting to hold on to it too long for fear of having to do what feels like a failure or at least take a step backward.

John’s story is different. First, he did what he could to make adjustments and stay put through the pandemic. But when it became clear that wasn’t going to work, he changed his model.

Shift to What Works

The phrase Fail Forward gets used a lot. And while I get that, it seems like that’s what is happening here. But I’m not sure it is.

At its core, the Holyoke Hummus Company makes and sells delicious food. They have a variety of proven methods for getting that food to their customers. And when one of those methods stopped working, John shifted to something else; something that had worked for him before.

And the shift did work until it didn’t. So John shifted to something else that has worked.

We spend so much time worrying about our failures or attempting to mine them for precious lessons.

Maybe we need to change that approach and shift to what works.

Find out about Rob Hatch’s coaching

One of the Small Town Rules is to spend your brain power before spending dollars. Be creative about how you handle challenges rather than to throw money at the problem.

Venture capital vs. Bootstrapped

We’ve all heard about startups that have been funded by whatever venture capitalist or angel that has just dropped a truck load of money on them, so they’re just throwing money at every single challenge that comes up. They burn through all that money without doing the creative thinking.

The opposite of that is bootstrapping. Startups funded only by their founders are more likely to say, “I’m going to do it on all my own money, and I’ll figure out how to make it work. Because it’s my money, I’ll make it go as far as I can.”

The free solution

The example I like to share is from my liquor store. When my mom took over the store back in the 1990s, she started carrying a lot more wine than the previous owner had. She needed a place to store the extra wine in the backroom on its side to keep the corks moist and preserve the quality of the wines.

Mom didn’t have any of the specialized wine racking that was available for sale. That costs money. This was for the backroom, so appearances weren’t important. It just had to work. My mom was not about to spend money she didn’t have to.

She dug around and found old bookshelves she already had. Then she took the divided cardboard boxes wine was shipped in, put them on their sides on the bookshelves, and made wine shelves for the back room. It cost her nothing to do that. We were still using those cardboard boxes on shelves 20 years later. We hadn’t spent money on commercial shelving, and it worked just fine.

Why buy expensive commercial wine racking for the back room when you can make your own for free? That’s spending your brainpower before your dollars. Photo by Becky McCray

Have you filled out the Survey of Rural Challenges? Find it here. 

How Holyoke Hummus stays Idea Friendly through a crisis

One of the first small steps: a used minivan and a tiny food cart. Photo courtesy of Holyoke Hummus Company.

John is the owner of Holyoke Hummus in Massachusetts, along with Dawn and their family. Like a lot of food entrepreneurs, John started by cooking for friends and family. He grew through a series of small steps and experiments, from selling at a folding table at a event, through a tiny food cart, a mobile truck, and pop-ups at more events. Eventually, he opened a cafe in downtown Holyoke across from city hall.

Holyoke isn’t a small town, but you have seen this same type of experimentation by entrepreneurs in small towns that you know.

This was a perfect example of the Idea Friendly Method in business. You start with your big goal. You use that goal to Gather Your Crowd. You turn your crowd into a powerful network by Building Connections. And you and your newly-powerful network accomplish that goal by Taking Small Steps.

Through each step, John was Gathering His Crowd as he built a following. He was Building Connections networking to find resources and answers before taking each step. And of course he was Taking Small Steps.

Business was up and down, mostly good, until COVID hit and closed down the downtown around him.

John didn’t stop. He closed his dining room, of course, but he kept experimenting. As soon as mobile dining was allowed, he converted his cafe to a production base for his food truck. He is also exploring opening it as a shared kitchen for other food businesses needing a base for their mobile operations.

Another small step, the food truck. Before investing in a custom paint job, a small banner held on with bungee straps was good enough to test the market. Photo courtesy of the Holyoke Hummus Company.

Since the downtown location wasn’t working anymore, he wanted to test a new location for his food truck in a nearby community, but there’s a local regulation that doesn’t allow selling from food trucks on the streets. John found the owner of an empty muffler shop building. He asked him for permission to park on his parking lot, and the owner said yes. So he’s setting up shop on the empty parking lot and building a new customer base. Another Small Step.

It’s not easy to keep a business going when a crisis hits, but the Idea Friendly Method makes it possible to move forward without knowing all the answers.

Thanks to our friend Rob Hatch for sharing updates on his friend John and the Holyoke Hummus Company.

Update: 2022 Growing again

Holyoke Hummus is still adapting to changing times. Read how they’re growing without going back to a restaurant.

Idea Friendly means you don’t have to know it all

You don’t have to know all the answers. You just have to be open to new ideas.  

Being open to new ideas requires us to let go of worrying about whether the idea will work. Lots of those ideas will fail. In fact, most ideas will fail. By keeping the tests and trials very small and immediate, we can reduce the cost of failure to almost nothing.

Author Clay Shirky says “Failure is free, high-quality research, offering direct evidence of what works and what doesn’t.”

It will never go back to the way it used to be. You have to start from here and go forward, one small step at a time.

Get the Idea Friendly Method Video

At SaveYour.Town, we’re offering a special video on using the Idea Friendly Method to make your community a better place. Learn more about the Idea Friendly Method video at SaveYour.Town.

Murals add life and color to a downtown and are highly visible even to people driving through. The activity that goes into creating them generates more attention for downtown. Traditional wall painted murals usually cost a lot of money and take a long time to get approvals. The good news is that you can create cheap instant murals. You have or can scrounge everything you need to start now.

Make sheet murals.

Get cheap torn or stained sheets from the thrift shops, paint right on them, or sew them up into something decorative.

Hang them up downtown, maybe inside the windows of a building, outside hung over a railing or fence. Use magnets to stick them to any building with metal siding.

Find free wood to paint.

Paint on old boards you scrounge up from neighbors.

Paint on pallets that businesses can donate for free.

Pallets can usually be scrounged up at no cost, then painted for quick inexpensive art. Photo by Harmon County Forward, used by permission.

Display the painted wood inside the windows of empty buildings. Mount them on fences or railings downtown. Plant them in empty lots or vacant spaces.

Collect campaign signs.

After an election, collect the old campaign signs. Call the former candidates, and ask if they have extras they’d give you. Turn the paper signs inside out and paint on them. Take the colorful plastic coroplast ones and cut them up and re-assemble into fun mosaic designs.

Hang them from railings and fences downtown.

Use empty windows as a free canvas.

Use shoe polish on glass doors or windows, inside or outside. Start with the empty buildings.

Try a vine design on empty windows or glass doors. Photo by Becky McCray.

Make a chalk mural.

Any space you might paint a mural, you can make a chalk mural. It’s just temporary. Photo by Elaina Turpin, used by permission.

Check the thrift stores for cheap used sidewalk chalk. Ask around to see who has some they can donate.

Treat any smooth concrete surface as a possible chalk mural site. Yes, it will wash away in the next rains, but placemaking doesn’t have to be permanent. It’s the activity and visible change that matter. You can always replace it with a new chalk design next time.

Temporary art can be beautiful placemaking.

Instant murals make your downtown a more vibrant place right away without spending a fortune. After awhile, take down your fabric or wood murals, cut them into frame-able chunks and sell them off to raise money for the next project. 

Thinking that the solution has to be big and permanent is what keeps you from doing cool little things that only last a while.

The goal isn’t the mural itself or the artwork. The goal is to show life and activity right away so you can bring shoppers back downtown. 

Cheap Downtown Placemaking Ideas

Deb Brown and I found 39 practical placemaking ideas like this that you do for $100 or less right away. We put them in a video that you can buy and watch immediately. The video clip about sheet murals (above) is a sample from it. The full 30 minute video costs only $5, and you can find it here: Cheap Downtown Placemaking Ideas.

More cheap ideas

As Carlos Moreno points out, “they” are never coming to save us. Small towns are on our own playing economic self defense. Photo by Becky McCray.

Not everyone who says they’ll help your town is telling you the truth. 

If you want a resilient small town economy and prosperity for the people in your town, I have some self-defense ideas for you. 

Focus more on your own people, less on attraction. 

1. Stop paying people to bring business to your town that will drain resources out. Forget about retail attraction. Skip trying to attract outside entrepreneurs. Never, ever give incentives of any kind to chain businesses. Never even read the corporate site selection RFP list. 
   1. Instead, support your own local entrepreneurs. Cut down the barriers to entry so even a one square foot business idea is valued, encouraged and possible. Create more shared spaces. 
2. Stop fretting about what will bring people to town. Tourism comes after. Recruitment is best seen as being attractive. 
   1. Instead, focus relentlessly on being such a great place for your own people that others can’t help wanting to be part of it. 
   2. Be open to people’s own ideas and dreams. The town you want to live in is the town you could be building together. 
   3. Eschew formality, regulation and red tape. No one is attracted to the moribund. 
3. Stop letting the same ten people dominate your leadership. When you–without even thinking about it–expect people to have plenty of resources in order to participate, you miss out on some of your best people.
   1. Instead, reach out to everyone in town, every single one. Give people small but meaningful ways to participate.
   2. Actively connect to diverse people including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. You need innovative ideas to survive, and you’ll find more innovative ideas when you bring together people who don’t all share the same backgrounds and all think the same.
   3. Involve people with disabilities and people with less financial resources by giving even smaller but still meaningful ways to participate. Not everyone can do the same things or afford the same things. Everyone has gifts to share.

Focus more on trying ideas in small ways, less on paying others to pick ideas for you. 

1. If you can test an idea with duct tape and cardboard, you don’t need a feasibility report. 
2. Never pay for predictions. A professional guess is still a guess. 
   1. Instead, your own people can and will run experiments once you get out of their way. 
   2. Crowd source the answers you need by testing tons of different ideas.
   3. Tiny failures are almost free, high quality evidence of what doesn’t work. Big failures are evidence you didn’t experiment small enough.

Focus more on local investing, less on creating profits for outside people 

1. Create a local investment team to take these actions: 
   1. Buy up rent houses, so outside real estate investors won’t destroy their value for profit. 
   2. Loan money to local businesses in tiny amounts that big banks can never touch. Loans under $50k are economically infeasible for banks, but arguably the most important for your would be tiny businesses.
   3. Fund community projects with a bias toward tiny individual informal experiments, and away from existing formal organizations. 
2. Move your money to local banks and credit unions. Run a campaign to get more people to join you. 
3. Drive out payday lenders. 

You probably know that I don’t normally cast my opinion in such strong language.

While I was working on videos to help small towns recover, I couldn’t get away from the bad economic decisions we see town officials make over and over.

And I wanted to help you avoid some of those.

What I want most is for your town and your people to prosper. I want you all to build a town together that you are happy to live in. I want you to create something so amazing together that other people want to join you. I want you thrive together.

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By Chris Brogan

As the world starts to ask what’s going to happen when this pandemic is finally over and we can look at what it will take to jumpstart the economy again, one venture capitalist says we have to save Main Street and not bail out banks and hedge funds. Chamath Palihapitiya said in a CNBC interview that the way back requires a different perspective.

“On Main Street today, people are getting wiped out. And right now, rich CEOs are not, boards that had horrible governance are not, hedge funds are not. People are.”

You know that we spend no time here at Small Biz Survival pointing fingers or laying blame, and we’ve been here with you for years helping rural and small town businesses navigate the world, and that’s why this interview might prove interesting to you. It’s an important voice telling the nation that your business is who needs the help.

Don’t Wait for Handouts

As with all things, anything the government intends to do to help your business won’t come quickly enough for most people. It’s your job to rebuild and get your business back to thriving. Don’t wait for the handouts at all, but when they come available, don’t let your pride get in the way of filling out a few forms to get some “wiggle room” on the way to your recovery. You’ve worked hard and deserve that money more than the usual people who get bailed out.

Get to the Core Business

Over the years, maybe you’ve added and added and added to your business. Coming out of this pandemic might be a time where people will want the core of what you do more than anything else. Everyone is dealing with information overload, choice fatigue, and overall world-weary feelings. Make everything easier by offering your core service. If you do people’s taxes, offer your tax time services and monthly/quarterly bookkeeping. That’s it. Don’t get all that heavy into the other offers. Look at what makes your business important and strengthen that, keep the the “extras” and choices to a minimum.

Upgrade Your Payment Methods Now

Make it easier to accept payment from different sources, such as PayPal, Venmo, CashApp. As people struggle to make ends meet, smaller and faster money transfer technologies are used more. It’s worth your time to get your ability to be paid in multiple ways up and running faster than not. Never forget that YouTube has plenty of free videos to walk you through the setup and use of any new app you don’t yet understand. It’s a lot easier than you think (with a little guidance).

Reach Out

When times are tough, we tend to clam up and go inside. We don’t want other people to know we’re going through a bad spot. And it’s fine not to highlight that too loudly, but rest assured. The entire world is in this with you this time. Everyone out there is missing a payment here and there. People are digging into their life savings more often than they want. You’re not alone.

Reach out to your buyers. If someone hasn’t been in lately and you know how to reach them, do it. Ask if you can help. Offer different arrangements, if possible and if that helps. Don’t cut your prices. Everyone has to eat. You’re not a charity (unless you are). But connect with people and make sure they know you’re here to help. Send mail if you have their email address. Call if you’ve got a number. Keep your customer base warm.

You’re Valuable

We’ve said it all along. Small town businesses and rural companies are the backbone of what makes this nation run. Don’t wait for the cavalry. You’re the one who will save your business and you’re the one who will put this country back on its feet. Go get it.