Starting a New Business in a Very Small Town

Starting a New Business in a Very Small Town

Q. I am transitioning to a new career after sixteen years to spend more time with my family. We moved to a very small town with less than ten thousand people. I want to start a coffee shop business and also offer PC repair. How can I investigate and then promote this business?

A. In a big city, you'll make decisions by numbers and neighborhoods. In a small town, you schmooze!

On the surface, everyone will be friendly, optimistic and positive.

Your challenge: Get below the surface and learn the true story. You might consider asking a lot of questions before you disclose your own intentions. Listen for, "I wish we had..."

1. Talk to others who have opened businesses recently.

What challenges have they faced? What works and what doesn't? Were others newcomers successful? If so, were they truly new or did they have deep roots in the town, such as a brother who lived here forty years?

If nobody's opened a business for awhile, dig deeper. Maybe there's no market. Or maybe they're just waiting for you to arrive! Sometimes a new business can generate latent demand. It's a judgment call.

2. Make a great first impression.

Promotion isn't hard in a small town. Ten minutes after you've opened, everyone will know! Some towns resist doing business with uppity newcomers. Others welcome new blood.

Regardless, your first impression will linger a long, long time. If you destroy even one computer after your PC repair service opens for business, you may have trouble finding new customers.

3. Uncover the town's market and memory.

Considering buying a business? Take time to discover the owner's reputation. When the local residents seem eager for a change of management, you'll need a new name and image. But if someone's just moved away and everyone misses them, you've got a wonderful opportunity. Where I live (Silver City, New Mexico), we need dog groomers and pet sitters.

But be sensitive to change. In one small town, three coffee shops failed. But suddenly the time was right! Now that town has four coffee shops, a wine bar, and a micro-brewery!

4. Search the fine print of local regulations.

In one small town, new businesses had to fight all kinds of red tape to get opened. One called City Hall to get help with a business that was new to the area. "It's not listed here," said the clerk, "so it's probably illegal." (The business has opened and thrives.) Another discovered his license hadn't come through because the Council forgot to add it to the agenda and they weren't interested in making last-minute changes.

Any time you serve food or drink, you know you're facing permits. Find out what's involved locally.

5. Prepare to do most of the work yourself.

In a small town, you can have trouble finding good help. The local work ethic may surprise you - in either direction.

6. Know your community.

Will your market come from second and third generation local residents? Or are you serving those who relocated recently from urban areas? Here I've met folks who think three dollars is way too much to pay for espresso drinks. But those who bonded with Starbucks will buy at least one cup a day, every day.

7. Build relationships.

If you can attract a town leader, you'll draw a following. Conversely, if you inadvertently alienate a key player, or if a local person's got an idea on the drawing board, you'll be miserable.

And in a small town, you'll be expected to be a super-citizen. Choose alliances and sponsorships carefully. Prepare for all sorts of friendly requests to donate time, materials and money.

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First Steps to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com "Ten secrets of mastering a major life change" mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com Contact: mailto:cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294

Q: When I start & shutdown my PC a dialog box appears which contains a drop down
menu with options- Log off, Shutdown, restart & standby. This dialog box
started to appear only when I added an extra password protected account in my
windows. After about a month, the account was deleted but my earlier start
interface, i.e. a blue image box containing 3 menus (Standby, shutdown &
restart) never returned. Under windows customization, I could not find any
options for reverting to original position.

Can anybody guide me how to bring back menu based interface during starting &
shutdown in my XP machine?

Ans: Sure, just click on Start - Control Panel - User Accounts then click
where it say's "Change the way users log on or off". Then just make
sure that both lines have a check mark in the box beside them. Now
since you only have one account and if you want to skip the log on
screen and boot straight to the desktop do this: Click on Start - Run
and type in "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes) and click on
ok. In the window that opens click on the line that says "Users must
use a user name and password to use this computer" and click ok. You
will then be asked to supply the user name and password of the account
you want to automatically log on with from that point on....