Dorrigo in New South Wales, Australia, population 1100, created an entire event to support local makers. David from the Red Dirt Distillery told us about Made in Dorrigo Day, where everything offered for sale had to be made, grown or produced in their local 2453 postcode area.

Back in 2014 when they started, David said, “Like with everything, it is just up to a few individuals to run the whole show BUT, we are doing something and it does make a difference.. even if it isn’t a “roaring success, financially” it does provide all those other immeasurable things – pride in community, and even [the feeling of] “community” sooooo important in our small (struggling) towns…”

As I write this in 2021, they’re still doing Made in Dorrigo Markets several times a year. They’ve taken small steps to build something meaningful out of their local arts, crafter, makers and manufacturers.

Holding “Made in” events helps redefine how people see your town. We just aren’t aware of how many different things are made, grown or produced locally. Getting them all together in one place can really make an impression on people’s thinking.

You’ll be influencing the growth of your future maker entrepreneurs and your future creative workforce.

Bonus: This would make a great tie in with MFG Day or Manufacturing Day in October.

Get more ideas for building your local maker economy with SaveYour.Town’s rural craft entrepreneurship video.

How do we convince the mayor and economic development group?

Big old factory buildings can be intimidating to revitalize. Should you start with grants? Make a presentation to the economic development leaders? The Idea Friendly Method can help. Photo by Deb Brown

The empty factory building

A reader wrote in to ask about converting and dividing up a huge old building. Because my answer isn’t quite what the reader asked for, I’ve taken the details out. This could be your town, too, couldn’t it?

I absolutely love your articles about turning vacant buildings into small shops and creating a retail space to revitalize small towns. Honestly, I have long thought something like this would do well in my small town. There was once a manufacturing plant that has been shut down for years. The building is huge, yet it is slowly falling into disrepair because it has been sitting empty.

I think this would make a wonderful shopping area if it were broken up into smaller shops. Not only that, but there is a large covered area that would make a great covered farmer’s market.

However, we live in a small rural town where most of our officials in the city office as well as the economic development authority, do not really think outside the box. I would like to pitch this idea to them; however, I do not think they will be receptive if I do not have information such as possible grants or an expert’s advice.

So my question to you is:

1) Can you give me some ideas on where to search to find grants for vacant building restoration?

2) Can you give me examples of other towns/cities that have offered incentives to potential businesses to fill up the spaces? and

3) If the first two options are not persuasive enough, would you be willing to come in and give a presentation to the economic development association and mayor?

Any assistance you can lend would be greatly appreciated. I would really like to help our town become a better version of itself for my children to grow up in.

Where not to start

Most chamber events skip over the non-retail businesses. How can foundries, insurance agents and other non-retail businesses promote themselves through events? Photo provided by Deb Brown.

Events that showcase your non-retail small business 

You want people to learn about your business. Events sometimes help with that. You’re just not sure how to create an event for non-retail businesses that people will come to.

Who goes to the insurance agency if they don’t need insurance?

Who goes to the packing plant unless they work there? 

When the chamber of commerce or other groups put on business events, they don’t usually feature non-retail businesses. 

One event that can work is something like A Walk Around Town Event featuring non-retail businesses. The object of the event is to set a time frame for people to visit businesses in town.

We have a Foundry in my town, Webster City, Iowa. They love to do events. The office staff put hard hats, safety glasses and heavy aprons on everyone (and make sure you have closed toe shoes). Then the boss takes the visitors around the plant. I got to see the hot steel being poured and how it turns into a product by the end of the visit. Employees on the floor explain the process and answers questions. Everyone gets a small steel gift.

These backroom kind of tours are fascinating and create a new, fun learning experience for more people to learn about your business.

Imagine if you could combine your backroom tour with several other businesses, so people could tour more than one business in a day? That could be your Walk Around Town event!

This could be tricky to plan by yourself. Mainly because each business involved will have a different outcome in mind. You might be looking or employees. The insurance firm is looking for new customers. The construction company wants referrals. All those outcomes are related – they require people to know more about you first. Having an event to showcase your business is a great way to get started. 

You don’t need the chamber or economic development people to do all the work for you. You don’t need permission to plan an event!

Then how can you create events that people will attend? Here’s the secret: don’t plan it all yourself. Leave it half planned and have room for the other businesses to step up and add to the event. Gather your crowd, ask other non-retail business owners to join you for coffee or a beer. Talk about the big idea – having an event to bring people to your businesses to see what you do. 

Ask each other what kind of things you need to have this event. Can you do it on the same day as a community event? See if  someone has connections to the chamber or others who are doing events so you can check their schedules. Maybe check the school and sports schedules to avoid overlapping an important event there. Do you need a bus to take people around? Someone can find the bus or use their own work bus. This is building connections, and often you might use these connections for other things too.

Finally take some small steps. Not all the business owners will want to be involved. That’s ok. This kind of event works if there’s only a couple of businesses involved. Ask the business owners who are participating to prepare some hands-on activities that tour visitors could do. Remember, you are not doing all the work, they are.  Each non-retail business is responsible for their business. 

Maybe some of these businesses don’t have any idea how to create interesting or exciting activities. Why not ask your employees for ideas? Offer them the opportunity to plan it out and make it happen. A small step could be to tell your Chamber about it and see if they want to help with the marketing part of it. Another small step is to tell your Economic Development folks too. They might have some people in mind they’d like to invite on the tour. You might even want to partner with another business. Are you going to serve coffee and cookies? Is there a business in town that could help with that? 

SaveYour.Town has a video this month that focuses on creating events that people will attend. You’ll get more ideas from events I’ve planned to promote businesses in my community, and how I let go of some control and half planned events in cooperation with others. This video is available for purchase only until September 15, 2019. You’ll get two weeks to watch the video with as many folks and as many times as you want.

Photo (CC) Jason Taellous, on Flickr

Some of you may remember the Ford slogan of the 1980’s, Quality is Job #1.

That slogan was true then for businesses. And it remains true today.

Yet, quality sometimes remains hard to find. For example in the last year, two households in my family had to purchase dishwashers. Two different brands were purchased but, to our amazement, both of them had production mistakes that needed to be fixed during installation. The chances of that happening just seem to beat the odds. Neither company seemed to live up to the quality expected.

Will the companies that produced the products survive? Probably. They are large and can overcome it. Large companies have shown time and again they have the capacity to overcome mistakes, although not without some pain.

Small businesses, however, may not have the resources to overcome quality issues. And small businesses in small communities are even more likely to get hurt as word will quickly spread if expectations are not met.

Quality was, is and will remain key to building a successful small business.

When thinking about it, remember:

• Quality is not a cost – It is possible to cut costs and retain quality to a point. But at some point, that relationship will no longer hold true. And as many companies will attest, short-term gains can turn out to be large long-term losses.
• Quality is not a statistic – You may think that 99.9% success is a great number. It’s a good number but would we accept 12 babies a day sent home with the wrong parents or 1300 calls per second going to a wrong number, one other than what was dialed.
• Quality is not a buzzword – Talking about quality or including it in your slogan does not make it happen. Quality is a culture. Quality means giving people control and responsibility.

Quality counts in your small business. Make it part of every task and included each day in your work.

Quality opens doors and builds life-long customer relationships. Make it a key part of your business.