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Barry Moltz gets small business owners unstuck by unlocking their long-forgotten potential. With decades of entrepreneurial experience in his own business ventures, as well as consulting countless companies, Barry has discovered the formula to get stuck business owners going again.
Barry has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years. After successfully selling his last business, Barry branched out into numerous entrepreneurship-related activities. He founded an angel investor group, an angel fund, and is a former advisory member on the board of the Angel Capital Education Foundation.
His first book, You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business, describes the ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business. It is in its fifth reprint and has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Korean, and Thai. His second book, Bounce! Failure, Resiliency, and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success, shows what it takes to come back and develop true business confidence. It has been translated into Korean and German. His third book, BAM! Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World, shows how customer service is the new marketing.
Barry is a nationally recognized expert on entrepreneurship and has given hundreds of presentations to audiences ranging from 20 to 20,000 people. As a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he also has taught entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Barry has appeared on many TV and radio programs, such as The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, MSNBC’s Your Business,and The Tavis Smiley Show. He hosts his own radio show, Business Insanity Talk Radio. He blogs regularly for the American Express Open Forum and Crain’s Chicago Business.
Becky McCray has been called “the small town Seth Godin” for her savvy combination of rural entrepreneurship and marketing skills. She started her first business venture in junior high school and has been going ever since. Currently, she and her husband own and operate a cattle ranch and a retail liquor store. Along with Sheila Scarborough, she co-founded Tourism Currents to teach tourism professionals new marketing skills. Like many rural entrepreneurs, she has pieced together multiple lines of business to build a career.
Becky is a recognized expert in small business and social media and has taught nearly 1,000 classroom hours and more than 100 workshops and speeches on small business subjects. She has been featured in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Inc., Entrepreneur, Niche, Winning Workplaces, Reimagine Rural, Community Developer, and the Agurban. Becky publishes one of the top 20 small business blogs in the world, Small Biz Survival, which is focused on small town small business.
What makes all this possible is her wide experience in small town business, community, and government. That includes work as a small town administrator, a non-profit executive with the local workforce development and Girl Scout councils, an antiques store owner, a business and computer consultant, and a newspaper reporter. For nine years, McCray spent her evenings and weekends teaching a variety of computer and business classes at local technology centers, making her the fourth generation of her family to teach. In 2004, she was an unsuccessful candidate for the Oklahoma House of Representatives. She believes we learn from both our successes and our failures, even when those failures are printed in the local newspaper.
Introduction | p. 1 |
Surviving Difficult Economic Times for the Big and Small | p. 7 |
The Change: Economic Meltdown | p. 8 |
Impact on Brands | p. 10 |
Shifting Markets and Public-Relations Mistakes | p. 11 |
Major Product Disasters | p. 12 |
Chasing Trends and Shiny Objects, Too! | p. 12 |
Why Small Towns Survive | p. 14 |
The Small Town Rule: Plan for Zero | p. 16 |
Question Assumptions | p. 17 |
Know the Seasons and Cycles | p. 18 |
Invest Long Term | p. 21 |
Applying Small Town Rules to Big Brands Survival: Planning for Zero | p. 23 |
Planning Ahead Is a Survival Strategy | p. 24 |
Summary: Things Don't Always Go Up | p. 24 |
The Small Town Rule: Plan for Zero | p. 24 |
A Look Ahead | p. 25 |
Powerhouse Small Town Brands | p. 26 |
Winnebago Industries | p. 26 |
Forest City, Iowa: Population 4,100 | p. 26 |
The New Normal: Profiting When Resources Are Limited | p. 29 |
The Change: Resources Are Now Limited | p. 30 |
Impacts on Big Brands: Low Consumer Demand Hits Where It Hurts Everyone | p. 31 |
Why Small Towns? Because Resources Have Always Been Tight for Rural Business | p. 32 |
Lower Consumer Demand | p. 34 |
A Shortage of Skilled Workforce | p. 35 |
The Small Town Rule: Spend Creative Brainpower | |
Before You Spend Dollars | p. 35 |
Creative Financing | p. 35 |
Being Frugal | p. 38 |
Reducing Startup Costs | p. 39 |
The Labor Force: Be Creative | p. 40 |
Being Creative Means Doing Whatever It Takes | p. 41 |
Big Brand Solutions and Examples | p. 41 |
Conserve; Stop Spending for Stupid | p. 41 |
Growing Slowly, with the Cycles | p. 42 |
Getting Creative in Tough Times | p. 44 |
Summary: Resources Are Now Limited | p. 45 |
The Small Town Rule: Spend Creative Brainpower Before Dollars | p. 45 |
A Look Ahead: Will the Rule Be Relevant Tomorrow? | p. 46 |
Powerhouse Small Town Brands | p. 47 |
Viking Range | p. 47 |
Greenwood, Mississippi: Population 18,000 | p. 47 |
Adapting to the New Economic Realities of Self-Reliance | p. 49 |
The Change: No Sure Things (A Job, Income, or Help from the Government) | p. 50 |
Impact on Brands: No Sure Thing | p. 51 |
Why Small Town Businesses Survive | p. 51 |
The Small Town Rule: Build Multiple Lines of Income | p. 54 |
How to Manage Multiple Lines of Income | p. 55 |
Diversifying Online: Selling Expertise | p. 56 |
Market Online to Diversify | p. 58 |
Big Brand Solutions: Extending Brands for Survival | p. 59 |
Summary: No Sure Things (A Job, Income, or Help from the Government) | p. 61 |
The Small Town Rule: Multiply Lines of Income to Diversify Your Risk | p. 62 |
A Look Ahead | p. 62 |
Powerhouse Small Town Brands | p. 64 |
Walmart | p. 64 |
Bentonville, Arkansas: Population 35,000 | p. 64 |
Adapting to the "Anywhere, Anywhen" Business World | p. 67 |
The Change: Geographic Advantage Is Shrinking, and Competition Is Everywhere | p. 68 |
Impact on Brands and Big Business | p. 70 |
How Small Towns Gave Up Geographic Advantage Long Ago | p. 71 |
The Small Town Rule: Work "Anywhere, Anywhen" Through Technology | p. 73 |
Broadband Internet Makes Working Anywhere Possible | p. 73 |
"Anywhen" Makes Time-Shifting as Valuable as Work-Shifting | p. 74 |
Putting It All Together to Be Location Independent | p. 75 |
Digital Distribution Extends Reach | p. 77 |
Forget Outsourcing, Think "Rural Sourcing" | p. 78 |
Applying the Small Town Rule to Big Brands | p. 78 |
Summary: Geographic Advantage Is Shrinking, and Competition Is Everywhere | p. 80 |
The Small Town Rule: Work "Anywhere, Anywhen" Through Technology | p. 80 |
A Look Ahead | p. 81 |
Powerhouse Small Town Brands | p. 82 |
L.L. Bean | p. 82 |
Freeport, Maine: Population 7,800 | p. 82 |
Forget Advertising: Learn Customer-Driven Communication | p. 85 |
The Change: Technology Allows All Customers to Easily Communicate with Each Other | p. 86 |
Impact on Brands | p. 86 |
Why Small Towns Already Work This Way | p. 89 |
Rural Regions Lead in Social-Media Adoption | p. 90 |
Social Media Is Like a Small Town, Everyone Says So | p. 90 |
The Small Town Rule: Treat Customers Like Community | p. 92 |
Treat Customer Service as Though It's All You've Got | p. 92 |
Use Social Tools to Connect with Customers | p. 93 |
Applying the Small Town Rule to Big Brands | p. 95 |
Summary: All Customers Can Communicate with Each Other | p. 96 |
The Small Town Rule: Treat Customers Like Community | p. 97 |
A Look Ahead | p. 97 |
Powerhouse Small Town Brands | p. 98 |
The Grasshopper Company | p. 98 |
Moundridge, Kansas: Population 1,600 | p. 98 |
How Big Brands and Small Businesses Are Thinking and Acting Small | p. 101 |
The Change: Society Is Cycling Back from Big to Small | p. 102 |
Impact on Brands | p. 103 |
Why Small Towns Create Community Interaction on a Human Scale | p. 104 |
The Small Town Rule: Be Proud to Be Small | p. 105 |
Build Community Through Involvement | p. 106 |
Network to Build Power and Accomplish Goals | p. 112 |
The Antidote for the Negatives | p. 116 |
Move Past Connecting and On to Building Relationships | p. 119 |
Build Community Among Customers | p. 121 |
Keep the Business Small | p. 123 |
Apply the Small Town Rule to Big Brands | p. 124 |
Summary: Society Is Cycling Away from Big to Small | p. 128 |
The Small Town Rule: Be Proud of Being Small | p. 128 |
A Look Ahead | p. 129 |
Powerhouse Small Town Brands | p. 130 |
Longaberger Baskets | p. 130 |
Dresden, Ohio: Population 1,529 | p. 130 |
Going Local, Even When You Are Big | p. 133 |
The Societal Change: The Local Movement Is Here | p. 134 |
Impact on Brands | p. 135 |
Small Towns Define What It Means To Be Local | p. 135 |
The Small Town Rule: Build Your Local Connections | p. 136 |
Connect with Your Culture and Place | p. 137 |
Using a Local Story to Build Engagement Like Milk | p. 138 |
How to Build a Shop Local Campaign | p. 139 |
Apply the Small Town Rule to Big Brands: How Brands Can Go Local | p. 152 |
Summary: The Local Movement Is Here | p. 154 |
The Small Town Rule: Build Your Local Connections | p. 154 |
A Look Ahead | p. 155 |
Resources for Implementing the Small Town Rules | p. 157 |
Business Ideas Inspired by the Small Town Rules | p. 171 |
Afterword: The Small Town Rules | p. 183 |
Endnotes | p. 189 |
Index | p. 199 |
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