Dakota Angler & Outfitter opened as a fly-fishing shop and guide service in the historic Black Hills in 1996. After working there all throughout high school and college, Hans Stephenson bought the business and set out to modernize it in 2006. He shifted to online sales, which in turn helped…
Today’s major companies can provide many great lessons in public relations; most of them by showing you exactly what not to do. In fact, one of the best PR teachers is actually one of the worst offenders: Uber. The ride-sharing giant even has even earned itself a page on The Guardian with what was (at…
How Main Streets can still make sales while practicing social distancing For the majority of Main Street merchants, business as we know it has been seriously altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the U.S. now has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, “non-essential” businesses have been ordered to…
Funding and Informational Resources for Main Street Business Owners Impacted by COVID-19 Earlier this week, we shared how Main Streets can maintain sales while practicing social distancing (LINK). If you’re a Main Street merchant fighting to keep your head above water, know that you’re not alone. There are countless…
Tim and Cindy Tyler travel the backroads of Mississippi to curate the best handmade foods, art and home decor that their home state has to offer. The result is The Mississippi Gift Company, their labor of love and pride. The couple got the idea for the shop in 1993, when…
For Oklahoma moms Darcy Schein and Leslie Coale-Mossman, business began with one homemade pie at a time. “Leslie and I started out just spending time cooking for our kids,” Darcy says. “We quickly figured out that we had a lot of friends who wanted help in the kitchen. So in…
Jeff and Kristi interview the experts to give you the secrets to successful Main Streets, and a preview of the new Main Street Refresh Project.
How do you take opportunities and run with them? This is the most central question to businesses in every arena: striking while the iron is hot is the key to success.
Content is a powerful means of connecting with your customers. In fact, Seth Godin famously said content marketing is “all the marketing that’s left.” To produce effective written content, you must begin with a foundation of good writing, which isn’t as simple as it sounds. If writing doesn’t come naturally to you,…
Where I live in Los Angeles, I constantly see billboards for popular YouTubers, which tells me that Google is investing a lot of money into helping popular brands succeed. More and more frequently, we are seeing popular YouTubers transcend the internet with content and move into more traditional media and…
