Empty buildings in small towns are often empty for a reason, and that reason is often that they need work before any business could use them. Remodeling costs can be astonishingly expensive, so people often ask where they can find grants, loans or other funds to help them.

Here are some of my favorite “usual suspects” for finding funding to remodel or renovate old buildings in small towns in the US:

• USDA Rural Development has an often-changing list of programs that serve rural areas. The Community Facilitates funds are a good place to start. But don’t stop there. Keep digging for more leads. Talk to your state or regional staff about your plans. They’ll know more about what might apply. Get all the Rural Development info here.
• RURAL LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation) Community Facilities Fund provides loans “to help develop and improve essential community facilities in rural areas.” That includes health care centers, hospitals, educational facilities, and other nonprofit and public facilities in rural communities with populations under 20,000. Find out more with this info sheet (PDF).
• EPA Brownfields offers funding (some grants, some loans) to assess any potential environmental issues and start on cleanup. Check into this BEFORE transferring, selling or buying the property, because there is some legal protection if environmental issues are handled before you acquire the property. Check out the Brownfields program here.

Ask smart people

Next, ask other smart people for more leads and programs that could work for you. Here are some good sources of information in your state:

• State Main Street program
• State historical society
• State department of commerce, economic development or the equivalent in your state
• Statewide community foundations
• Building or construction contractors who work on historic projects

That last one, building contractors, is sorta sneaky. Contractors that have worked on other historic projects may know where the funding for those projects came from. You will have to ask around to find the right companies and then to find the people inside the companies who know, but they can be an excellent source of info.

Investigate special local funds

You’ll have to dig to find any local-only sources. Read the local news. Trawl through the back issues of the local paper at the library. Pay attention to council, board and organization agendas, minutes and meeting reports. Watch for any mentions of how projects got funded

• Local community foundations
• Local economic development boards, and funds that may offer incentives for new or expanding businesses
• Special tax set-asides designated for community or economic development
• Local utility companies

The special tax set-asides don’t exist in every county, but they can be amazingly well funded. For example, a commissioner from Cloud County, Kansas, told me they set aside part of the property taxes each year from a wind turbine farm to use for economic development.

Local utilities have a vested interest in growing their customer base, and many cooperatives offer loan funds for business expansions or startups. Check with all the utility providers in your area.

Who owns the building?

Some of these leads I’ve mentioned will work with for-profit businesses, some only with non-profit or public entities. It’s worth thinking about whether you need to own the building yourself, or if it may make sense to transfer ownership to the city, county, tribe, or a non-profit. Maybe it makes more sense with cooperative or community ownership. Don’t dismiss these options until you’ve looked into all the available sources in your area.

Share the costs with more investors

Consider whether you can rally a group of locals to invest together.

• Waynoka, Oklahoma, renovated buildings in their downtown using a nonprofit foundation, then sold the buildings
• Minneapolis residents remodeled buildings in small neighborhood business districts (which are a lot like small towns) using a cooperative as the ownership structure

Do you have any ideas?

I’d love to hear your own ideas for finding money. Leave your thoughts in the comments, or hit reply if you’re reading this in your email.

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Are expensive code enforcement issues putting a “DO NOT ENTER” sign on your rural downtown? Photo by Becky McCray

Many small towns face an incredibly expensive hurdle to saving and using their downtown buildings: code compliance costs.

Most municipalities have adopted one of the standard international building codes. Which are, well, standard. And no matter who does the inspections or enforcement, everyone thinks their compliance person is over-zealous. I can relate.

One smart move you can make to reduce the costs is to adopt one of the many building codes designed specifically for renovation and reuse, rather than mostly new construction.

Here are a few resources I’ve found online. You can use these as examples to consider changes in your own local codes.

• 2018 IEBC – International Existing Building Code
• California’s State Historical Building Safety Board
• New Jersey Rehabilitation Subcode – “Common sense rules for the restoration and re-use of existing buildings in New Jersey”
• Seattle Existing Building Code (SEBC)
• Los Angeles Adaptive Reuse Ordinance

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has tons of resources on reusing rather than demolishing old buildings. There’s a lot more than just code info here.

• ReUrbanism – National Trust for Historic Preservation

If you want to search for more examples, here are some search terms to get you started:

• “existing building code”
• “adaptive reuse ordinance”
• “building rehabilitation code”
• “historic building reuse”

Try searching on each of them. Let us know any great resources you find in the comments below.

Filling Empty Buildings

Code compliance is only one of the barriers that keeps buildings empty in small towns. Deb Brown and I will talk about more practical ways to get your buildings back in service in our SaveYour.Town webinar, Filling Empty Buildings. The deadline to register is June 19, 2018.

How many different ways can you think of to raise money for your small town business? Bank loans, of course, but then where?

Maury Forman with the Washington State Department of Commerce Office of Economic Development & Competitiveness has put together 27 different strategies for raising capital in an ebook called Startup Widsom.

Good news: it’s available at no charge to read online or download.

More good news: even though it says it’s for Washington State, it’s good for businesses across the USA, but probably also good for small businesses outside the US, as well.

Even if none of the 27 strategies work for you, you’ll expand your thinking.

Read Startup Wisdom online here.

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Wanting to open your own business soon? Here are two different online resources to help you get started. Photo by Becky McCray.

Everyone faces challenges when thinking about going into business. Being based in a rural area adds some special challenges. You may not have immediate access to anyone who can sit down with you in person. You can’t just drop in on a small business support center, because there probably isn’t one for 50 miles or more.

To help, I’ve picked what I think are the top two resources for rural people who want to go into business.

1. SBA.gov – U.S. Small Business Administration

The SBA offers a huge collection of articles, training and guides. Look for “Starting a Business” in the menu. This is a great place to go when you have a specific question to get answered as well as a great place to poke around and learn almost anything about being in business.

2. My Own Business

Started by a successful entrepreneur who saw the potential for business ownership to be a positive force in the community, My Own Business has grown into a free, comprehensive and graded online course on starting a business. It’s been teaching potential business owners for two decades now. This is a great place to go when you’re ready to take a course and learn in an organized way.

The course is also available in a Spanish language version.

I like this course as a potential tool for organizing your own entrepreneur training in rural areas. Groups of potential business owners could work on the lessons together.

 
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Artists of all kinds need help learning to market their art. Art is a traded business just as much as manufacturing. Photo by Becky McCray.

My online friend Rick Wolff asked about folks who educate artists on marketing their work. He drew lots and lots of responses.

I think artists are important businesses in small towns. We have plenty of creative and interesting people who paint, sculpt, make pottery, do all kinds of traditional arts, and that’s not counting our crafts people and performing artists. So yes, arts can be a traded business just as much as manufacturing.

The first resource I’ll recommend is HandMade in America.  They are focused on rural craftspeople, so you know their advice is free of urban bias.

I’ve also had a chance to look at the materials from ArtistINC, based in Kansas City. I found their business stuff to be solid and looked useful, but they mostly offer in-person workshops.

To help your rural artists market themselves, I’m passing along the resources that Rick’s friends mentioned. I’m not an artist myself, so I won’t presume to evaluate these. Find the one that feels like a good match for your creative soul.

Websites and online resources: 

• Cory Huff of The Abundant Artist
• Fine Art Views
• Fabeku Fatunmise
• Art Licensing Info with Tara Reed
• Bhavani Esapathi
• Laura C. George
• Mark McGuinness, Lateral Action
• Entrepreneur the Arts
• Artists Guild of America
• Leanne Regalla at Make Creativity Pay
• Eric Rhoads
• Kelly Pratt

Books:

• “How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist” by Caroll Michels. It was written before our current digital marketing, but still has relevant ideas.
• Art, Inc.

Your Ideas:

• I’m sure you have some! Let’s hear ’em.

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Forms, contracts, checklists — every business needs them. Photo (CC) by NobMouse.

A friend who is buying a business is needing a number of spreadsheets, contracts and legal forms. That got me looking for reputable and reasonable places to find sample business forms online today.

For US-based businesses, I found these three:

1. BizFilings.com Business Owner’s Toolkit 

Lots of checklists useful for going into business, a nondisclosure agreement and a large selection of employee/HR related forms. Financial templates are useful, but ignore the US tax forms. Go straight to the IRS forms section to get the current ones.

2. Bloomberg BusinessWeek Toolkit

A good selection of sample forms, spreadsheets and contracts covering many different industries and needs. The documents here are provided by DocStoc so the full versions are offered for sale. However, plain text previews are available and may help answer basic questions.

3. SCORE 
The Tools and Templates includes lots of business-plan related forms and articles mixed together. You can sort them by business stage (startup, growing, exiting). They also have a section En Español, however it seems to be all 60 second guides, without the forms and other goodies.

UK and Australia friends, do you have any favorite sources for business forms online?
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@beckymccray any tips on finding business info and demographics for my town? Do ppl keep records like biz’s that opened/closed ths yr?
— Micah Choquette (@meetmicah) November 14, 2012

This is a tough question, because most small towns lack this kind of basic economic data. Two online resources can help, though they aren’t perfect.

YourEconomy.org 
YourEconomy includes county level data including establishments (businesses, etc.) and jobs. Start with the Composition and Growth tab. I checked out my home county: Woods County, Oklahoma. Because the data only goes through 2009, it doesn’t show the current oil boom growth going on.

Try clicking on either graph to see more details. And if you notice in the bottom left corner, there are links for Composition, Time Series, and Comparison. Try those out to see more detail on your county.

Watch for the links that say “How to get the most out of this page.” They open useful explanations.

If you’re in a big enough town to be a Metropolitan Statistical Area (most small towns aren’t), you can find out rankings and more details on the Rankings tab.

SizeUp 
SizeUp has business intelligence by industry and by town. Sometimes, there is not enough data for a report on a small town, so it will take a bit of experimenting to get results. Try a nearby bigger town, for example. Since Alva, Oklahoma, may not have enough data, I’ll use Woodward, Oklahoma, which is nearby and more than twice our size, but similar enough to be helpful.

SizeUp also includes some fascinating consumer expenditure data. Example: How much do Woodward County residents spend on whiskey consumed at home? 

Source
I found both of these through smart guy Dave Shideler, curator of Oklahoma Extension Development Resources.

Where do you go for numbers on your local economy?

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We can work from anywhere,
and so can our assistants.
This was my workspace in
the Stormberg Mountains
in South Africa.

This article comes from my friend Stephanie Ward. She’s originally from Oklahoma, but currently lives in The Netherlands. She wants to help you become a more meaningful entrepreneur, making a difference in the world. 

While this article isn’t specifically written for rural entrepreneurs, I think outsourcing is a small town issue. Outsourcing doesn’t just mean big companies sending hundreds of jobs overseas. It also means entrepreneurs contracting with other professionals to take on tasks from administrative support to programming and development. 

In small towns, many of us feel like we work in isolation: we may not have anyone in our town or area who can handle a given task for us. Some small town entrepreneurs make their living by providing freelance or virtual assistant services through these methods or others. And several large rural firms specialize in “rural sourcing,” providing remote IT services usually to large urban firms. 

I’d love to hear in the comments how you feel about this issue. Do you object to hiring help from outside the country you live in? Do you seek out other small-town or rural providers for remote help? Do you provide services like this yourself? Speak up and share your story and your opinion. 

By Stephanie Ward

As a business owner the one thing that is a limited resource is your time. You can make your life more fun and your business more productive by outsourcing activities. These days it’s super easy to delegate both personal matters as well as business activities.

Almost anything you are currently doing can be delegated or outsourced. Doing what you’re not good at or what you can pay someone else to do for much less than your hourly rate, is draining the life out of you and holding your business back.

The point of delegating some of what you do to someone else is so that you can focus your precious time on the things that you do well and enjoy and that allow you to create the most value.

Delegation does not equal dumping. Initially, it will require extra time to describe what you want done and how you want it done. In the end you will save time and be more profitable.

You will have a more profitable business if you outsource the things that are not the best use of your time, and you use that additional time engaged in high value activities.

I don’t want you to get overwhelmed by all of the choices here. So decide on one activity you’d love to outsource and then compare your options for getting that done. Start small, you can always outsource more later.

1. ODESK

At oDesk http://www.odesk.com their motto is, “Get the right contractor. Get the job done.” They work globally and you can post your job offer for free. They offer contractors in the following main categories:  Web Development, Software Development, Networking and Information Systems, Writing and Translation, Administrative Support, Design and Multimedia, Customer Service, Sales and Marketing, and Business Services.

Their key selling points are:

1. Hire on demand – Build a flexible workforce based on skills, ratings, and reviews.
2. Manage the work – See work-in-progress screenshots, time sheets, and daily logs.
3. Pay with ease – Rest assured with safe global payments and The oDesk Work Guarantee.

2. ELANCE

Another well-known option is Elance http://www.elance.com. They work globally and you can post your job offer for free. Most Popular Skills: Programmers, Designers, Writers, Admins, Marketers, Consultants, Accountants, and Mobile Developers. They boast over 1,800,000 rated and tested professionals to choose from and highlight the following benefits:

1. Get candidates right away
2. Approve work before payment
3. Staff up and down as needed

3. FANCY HANDS

Fancy Hands http://www.fancyhands.com is available worldwide only in the English language and assistants are located all over the United States. You pay per request, not per hour. They offer a subscription based model, you pay monthly. See all packages on their home page.

4. GET FRIDAY 

Get Friday http://www.getfriday.com works around the clock 24/7 and caters to busy individuals and small businesses in 30 odd countries across different time zones. You can choose from monthly plans or task based plans. They offer the following service categories: Calendar Management, Customer Interaction Management, Home Assistance, Online Research, Purchases, Phone, Travel, Data Entry, Database Management, Follow Up and Reminder, Secretarial, and Personal. For more detail visit this page: https://www.getfriday.com/?module=services&action=getfridaycanhandle.

5. BRICKWORK INDIA

Brickwork India http://www.brickworkindia.com/virtual-assistant/ offers services in Remote Executive Assistance (Business Support Services, Accounting and Taxation Support), Research and Consulting (Business Research, Investment Research, Healthcare Research, Procurement Consulting India Strategy Assessment, Legal Services, Content Development), and IT Services (Graphics and Animation, Opensource and Microsoft Technology, Internet Marketing Services).

6. ASK SUNDAY

Ask Sunday http://www.asksunday.com/ does currently service members from around the world but the requests must be English-based (they can’t call a shop in Germany and speak to them in German). Request Types include: Data Analysis/Entry, Internet/database research, Outbound calling, Social media management, Real-time remote login for technical and general support, Continuous processes, Document Editing, Uploading content onto websites, Managing online postings, Email correspondence, and Miscellaneous – get creative. They are open 24/7 and offer a free trial. Services are sold in blocks of hours per month, more on this http://www.asksunday.com/dedicatedplanspricing.

7. INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS ASSOCIATION

International Virtual Assistants Association http://www.ivaa.org offers a directory where you can search to see if there is someone in your area.

8. TASK RABBIT

Task Rabbit http://www.taskrabbit.com is currently only available in The United States: Boston, San Francisco Bay Area, San Antonio, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and Orange County, New York City and soon it will be in the United Kingdom. Task Rabbit offers many specific services under each of these main categories: Delivery, House Chores, Shopping, Office Help, Handyman, Moving Help, Virtual Assistance, Event Help, and Skilled. There are even more categories, see the complete list here: https://www.taskrabbit.com/all/tags. For more on how it works see this page https://www.taskrabbit.com/how-it-works.

9. NICHE PROVIDERS

You can also search for specialized niche providers related to your industry. For example, a wonderful friend of mine is the owner of NGO Office Support http://www.ngoofficesupport.com. As the name communicates, she provides office support for NGO’s and she offers this virtually and in person.

I hope I’ve convinced you that there are a multitude of effective options for outsourcing some of your workload. Make the decision today to choose one activity to delegate, take action to find the right partner, and get it done. That way you’ll have more time to focus on the activities that create more value for your business.

© Stephanie Ward, used by permission.

Stephanie Ward is the Marketing Coach for Entrepreneurs who want to create a meaningful and prosperous businesses. Grab your FREE copy of the special report ’7 Steps to Attract More Clients in Less Time’ plus business building tips, at http://www.fireflycoaching.com.

MORE RESOURCES: 
A couple of articles we’ve published before can help you with the question of hiring or contracting with an assistant.

• Hiring Your First Assistant
• How to work with a Virtual Assistant

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What if a nearby fire forced you to evacuate your business?

The news today is full of floods, tornadoes and even wildfires. We see businesses destroyed, damaged. We probably don’t think about the business owners who have to evacuate, with no warning. I’m sure none of them felt prepared. How many of them will be back in business?

So here’s that one mistake that might kill your business: not having a disaster recovery plan. 

It’s not enough to think, or to know, what might happen, if you don’t have a plan. Without a plan, 43% of  businesses don’t recover and never reopen after a disaster.

So how do you get a plan? Head over to Get Prepared from Office Depot. They have lots of resources to help you make that plan to recover.

Because you don’t want to lose everything you’ve built up.

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Cheap or Free Photo by Chris Brogan

The recent controversy within the social media community over Chris Brogan’s Blog Topics newsletter provides a pretty good example. I’ve known Chris for years, and we’ve done business together, but I have no connection with his blog topics service.

Charging for Blog Topics
Chris is offering a weekly e-newsletter of blog topic ideas and charging just under $10 a month for it. This caused backlash from people who didn’t like him charging for what seems like a very simple service: a list of blog post topic ideas. I heard it referred to as a ‘rip off’ since others offer blog topic ideas for free.

Charging money for something of value is not automatically a rip off, even if others offer a similar thing for free.

How does Chris compete with free? How does he keep it from being a rip off? He adds extra value to his service. Let’s see what we can learn from how he does it.

Adding Value

1. Over deliver on content. 
Based on the sample of his newsletter, Chris is not just emailing a bullet point list of ten blog topic ideas. He writes a paragraph description and direction on each topic. He includes a piece of writing advice in each issue. His goal apparently is to help people improve their blogs overall, not just through topics.
Make sure you pack your products full of extra valuable content. 

2. Build a community. 
Chris is connecting those who subscribe together with many interactive features. He describes it as “a writing group stuffed in your email.” He also added a Facebook Page to allow members to share their experiences. And by creating that group in a public place, others can observe. Never forget the Liz Strauss point: in social media there are at least three sides to the conversation: you, the person you are talking to, and the people outside observing.
You can give your customers ways to interact with each other. Do it publicly, if appropriate. 

3. Share the spotlight.
Chris is currently featuring some posts written by members of the blog topics community on his own blog, that ranks in the Advertising Age top 5 with over 200,000 unique views a month.
You should be the social media mirror to your community. 

4. Be committed. 
Chris has a strong incentive to keep this service going and high quality: 250+ paid subscribers as of this writing. Those offering free services have weaker incentives: support from their audience, exposure, and good feelings.
There is nothing like cold hard cash to build your commitment to your customers. 

5. Give access to you. 
Chris’s subscribers know they are part of a very small group, with much better chance of getting his attention. (It’s easier to be one of 250, than one of 200,000.) And paying customers always get a higher priority than non-paying customers.
People crave personal attention. Make your paid products one way to get more of it. 

How We Do It at Tourism Currents

Sheila Scarborough and I run Tourism Currents, to teach updated marketing skills to tourism professionals. We definitely over deliver on valuable content, tailored specifically to tourism. (Sheila simply will not stop stuffing even more valuable information into everything we do.) We make ourselves available to our paid members through email and a forum. (I’m thinking of re-working the forum into a comments section, but we’ll still be making ourselves available there.) But we can do more to connect our members with each other, and to be their mirror. During our charter offering, we used the commitment of paying customers to drive us to complete the course.

While there are plenty of free lessons and resources available on social media in general, we excel at customizing everything we create specifically to tourism, as well as adding value in these other ways.

Your Small Business

How are you competing with free?