S5:E3 - Making Small Towns Idea-Friendly

You are listening to the Growing Small Towns Show, a podcast dedicated to supporting you, the person who really cares about the future of your small town. We believe when people get better, everything gets better, and our episodes offer the ideas and actions that prioritize people and small communities. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you're here. Our guest on today's episode is Becky McCray. Becky is the co-founder of SaveYour.Town, and she joins me today. We are live. We were together. She's from Oklahoma. I'm from North Dakota, and we met in my great state's capital and had this awesome conversation about not only her entire body of work— we used that phrase a couple times— over the 10-year period that they've collected through their survey of rural challenges, which we talk about that, but also the idea of friendly Method, which is something that they developed a long time ago and provides such a beautiful, simple framework for anybody in any size town to get stuff done. And that's what we're all about. So enjoy this episode with Becky McRae. Becky McRae.

Rebecca Endem.

Sitting in my presence, my physical presence.

This is only the second time that you and I have been in the same room together.

Yeah. And now we're in my hotel room together. Man, that escalated quickly.

That did go quickly. Oh my gosh. Loan me an item of clothing and we'll be engaged.

It's super cool. It's super cool to have you here. And, um, so we're in Bismarck, North Dakota. Um, and you were the keynote speaker at an event that we were both at yesterday. Do you wanna just plug a bit about what you were talking about? So again, for anybody new listening, um, Actually, let's start there. Like, who are you? You've been with us before, but it's been a while. It's been a few years, actually.

Yeah, it's been several years. It was probably right after the time that you and I were together in person previously at Rolex. And then I came on the show, I think, right after that.

Yep, I think that's right. So go ahead, tell us a bit. Who is Becky McRae?

I'm Becky McRae. I'm from Hopeton, Oklahoma, population 30 people, not really a town, but you can walk down the street and count how many people live there. There is a house for sale. So if you are wanting to move to Hopeton, this is your opportunity.

Hopeton, like H-O-P-E-T-O-N?

That's exactly correct. Good job.

I'm all about towns with the word hope in them. That's so fun.

I love to give towns their correct names because so often the weather people give them some weird name or they pronounce it wrong because they're not from our part of the state, right? And so they get it wrong. Hopeton usually goes okay. There's a town near me that's Alene, Oklahoma, and people say it as A-line or various other things. You're like, you're not from here. You don't say it the way we do, which is a very rural thing.

It's a very rural thing. Okay, so.

I'm from Hopeton, Oklahoma. I'm a former retail store owner. I'm a cattle rancher along with my husband there in Oklahoma. We started SaveYour.Town in 2015. That's me and Deb Brown, who is from Iowa, but now lives in Mississippi. And between us, we bring a wealth of experience, as Deb likes to say, in small towns and rural areas.

And we're not going to count up the collective years.

I don't think so.

That's okay. We don't have to. A wealth.

A wealth.

Like my favorite, like a vast body of work.

A vast— we have a large body of work. Now we have, we have that, we have a wealth of experience. We really do. Because between us, we've done lots of different things and lots of different places. And I've mostly been based in northwest Oklahoma throughout my professional career of— and professional career is such an interesting term in a small town. That means like, I worked for a nonprofit, and I was a city manager at one time, and threw it all as cattle. And then 2006, I went online and started publishing a blog about small towns and business. And that was the point at which things changed from being primarily about Northwest Oklahoma to being on a larger scale.

Sure. So that is what brought you to North Dakota yesterday. And so we're going to get into kind of the timeliness of— you've got some data points that our audience absolutely should know about. And then a webinar, a joint webinar that we want to make sure we plug that's coming up on Wednesday. This is going out on a Monday. It'll be on that Wednesday. So we'll get out to all of that. But What is, um, so I, I'm familiar with the idea of Friendly Method. Um, I've, I've seen it, I've heard it, we've talked about it, and then I got to actually kind of be a part of a workshop where you facilitated that yesterday. So do you wanna share maybe, I mean, if I don't know how much of that you wanna share or just, you know, save your dot town, right? Uh, no one else is gonna come and do it. Like that's very clear. This is very much like we want to equip you with what you need. To dig in and make your community better, right? Which in essence saves it. What's— why, why? Okay. Why small towns and why, where did the idea of Friendly Method come from and share as much of the model as you want. I don't, you know, that's up to you, but I just think it's, uh, it's really accessible, Becky. And that's what people in rural places need.

Why small towns is that wealth of experience in small towns. Mm-hmm. So it was inevitable that it was eventually it was going to be small towns for me, because no one pays that much attention to us, it feels like, especially, you know, 25 years ago, people really, we were just the last of everything. And having lived through that, having worked in that situation, having talked, I actually ran for office, and I talked to people in a 5-county area and knocked on doors, and listening to what people really need in the community. Made me feel like we need a lot more than what we're getting. And so it was inevitable that I would end up working with small towns. It was probably inevitable that Deb and I would do something together because we met online and continued to— we started with like, I invited her to a blogger's tour of a small town. And then we reconnected around another event. And we talked about small towns. And we ended up doing something together because we felt like we could give people tools, and ideas, and stories, and things they could use that was going to make it easier for them to do the things they wanted to do.

Right, right. I, you know, I don't even know if I ever knew the origin story of like how you and Deb actually met. So you met online?

We did. Chris Brogan's blog. If you know Chris Brogan, he was big years ago. He was this huge force in blogging. I met him early, like before he took a meteoric rise in the social media for marketing and professional social media kind of world took over. So Chris's blog had a comment section. And at one point, he like talked, he mentioned me at some point, and like, then I was in the comments. And then Deb's like, I need to follow this gal. So she follows me on Twitter. She had moved home to take care of her dad because her dad had been ill. She'd moved home to Iowa. She had some time to be online. And so she was teaching herself all this social media stuff, which is an incredible thing to do when you're old enough to be coming home because your dad has become sick and you need to take care of him.

Right.

And so she's stalking me online, and we end up meeting, right? Like, we talk on Twitter, and then I invite her to come to the thing, to the bloggers tour in Hutchinson, Kansas. And from there, then I think we both ended up doing some work with Jeff Pulver and the 140 Conference events. Which we did small town versions of those. Each of us did those in our communities. And where did we go from there? Oh my gosh, I can't even remember what was next. Met at the SOBCon conferences, which is Successful Outstanding Bloggers Conference, the SOBCon. You're an SOB. Liz called me an SOB. I like that. So there's this whole series of like, we met online and we became friends.

Okay, so before we move on, I just want to like pause on that for a moment. Because That also is, um, still a tactic that could work today for any single one of our listeners. It really is cool, you know, how, how you can forge and develop real relationships even if their genesis is online. And I think, you know, social media is definitely not as lovely as it maybe once was. Like it's, it's definitely taken a turn in some respects, right? But I think those of us that are out there using it in the right way and for the, the best reasons with good intentions and all of that, I think it's still just, it is actually to me one of the reasons where, why small towns, we don't have to constantly feel like we're being left behind because we have access to that just like everybody else. And you really can make true, meaningful, amazing connections and relationships, right? And then it's, you also did something that I think I wanna call out because again, I think sometimes the loneliness and isolation is something that Um, is real for certain people in small communities. It just is. And so to, to form those relationships and then to be going to a thing and then invite your friend to come and you met up together in a thing, uh, neutral location for both of you. Kansas doesn't belong to either of you. Like that's, that's just really cool. I mean, and you ha— clearly you have an innateness about that, Becky, but like, that's again, a, I think of that as a skill cuz that's connection building, coalition building. Networking, if you will. And I just want to make sure people hear that. And you did it way— you were way ahead of your time in terms of that, like 2006.

Yeah, people were still making fun of me for being from a small town and on social media. Like, how could you be this big in social media when you're from such a small town? Like, you know, we have electricity and everything.

I know, can you believe it?

But that was 2006.

I just tied up my horse outside and then came into this this internet cafe. I mean, come on.

I have walked into conferences and had to kick the manure off my shoes, tried to struggle for the polite word there, before going in. Because we really are cattle ranchers.

I know.

I know.

And this is just part of who I am. And people have sometimes had a hard time accepting part of that. But the small town people gravitate together.

I agree.

Yeah. You're not going to do that on Twitter anymore, because there is no Twitter.

Yeah.

But I think as, as our online contacts fracture, we find our communities where they are.

Yeah, I agree.

You know, we have talked about the online communities that exist that are great for rural people. And there are very, very few. So, right, it's, you know, there's I think that there will be one that develops where it becomes that safe haven where rural people can kind of connect together. I think that will happen.

I, if I have anything to do with it, will make that happen because that's important, you know? But I think just like the idea of just admiring a comment that somebody makes and saying to yourself, like, I want to know who this person is. I feel like that happens a lot on LinkedIn still. Um, that still feels like kind of a, a safe, a safe-ish place. I'll say ish, I don't know, but you know, like less, maybe less wild, wild west than some of the other platforms. But I just think it's a great way to continue to round out and build out your, your broader network.

LinkedIn is the only place that I remain active that you would call a social network.

Yeah.

And I do see it happening there.

Mm-hmm.

Same.

But it's, it's more in a, a, of course it's going to be more on a professional line.

Right? Yep. Okay, so you and Deb— SaveYour.Town.

SaveYour.Town. I knew we'd get back to it.

Oh, I know we would too.

All right.

It's what we do here.

Deb picked the name SaveYour.Town. The .town addresses had just come into effect for websites. You could be instead of a .com, you could be a .town. And she— We were— We had decided we were gonna do something together. We didn't know what. And we're at Deb's house, and she's looking— we're like, we were in person, this matters, right? Like, because I'm from Oklahoma, I had come to visit her. And she's like, Dot Town is a thing. I'm like, all right. And she's like, Save Your Dot Town is available. I'm like, I hated it, because it sounds like somebody's gonna save you, or you need to be saved. And I don't like that aspect of it, that It's implying you need to be saved.

Right.

But we, if your town is doing great, you may or may not need to read my stuff. Like if you're doing great, great, wonderful, I am so excited for you. And I want you to continue to do great stuff. But if you've been feeling like you want more for your town, or it does need to be turned around or saved, or you do need to change the way some things are, then the person who's going to save your town is you. And so it's a, it's a, it's a direction. You save your town.

Right.

And idea-friendly is the way you're going to do that. Because we know from Iowa State University studies that the towns that are open to new ideas are the ones that survive and thrive the best. That's just— and it makes sense because the problems are continuing to change. The challenges we've always had are still here. New challenges are arising. There's less money to do it with, fewer people. How are we gonna do all this? We're gonna need some new ideas.

Right, right. So it's, it's kind of, we're kind of talking about innovation, which is a fancy word for what you're talking about.

It is a fancy word.

But it is the word, right? And I think recognizing that, um, as all of these things are changing, the people are changing, the world is changing, the problems are changing, but that also means the solutions have, have to change. And that's hard. That's hard internal work for people. Like it is. And I think it's funny, I, I think it's, it's a tendency of mine and I'm really trying to work on this because I don't wanna label people as closed-minded or open-minded. I think we're all on a spectrum of that.

You're, you are a very nuanced thinker. I, and I wanna be, I think this is a place where it applies particularly because We're all open to a certain amount of ideas. And we're open to ideas from certain people, or in certain situations, or that address a certain issue that we're dealing with. So no one is completely closed to new ideas. As long as you're still alive, new things are going on. But the question is, how can you be more open to new ideas? And you and I talked last night about describing everything in terms that anyone, anyone can understand.

Exactly.

Which is why I don't say innovation and empowerment. And I don't talk about social capital. Although I have read about and learned about all these things. But I'm going to always put it in everyday language. And that is why idea-friendly says idea-friendly and not innovation excellence continuum strategies.

Right, right. Yes, totally get it. Totally get it.

Idea-friendly.

And that's really important. I mean, it's important.

It is. Because first of all, we don't need to spend any extra mental cycles understanding something. And if you want to go explain it to people in your community, whether that is kids in your grade school, that is folks at the senior center, that is people in your family, that is people that you want to work with. You don't want to have to try to think, how do I put this in terms the 5th graders will understand or that the seniors will understand? You just— so I put it in terms anybody can understand, and then you can just take it and use it.

Right.

So idea-friendly. Gather your crowd. There are— you have an idea for your community. So you're going to use that idea and say, This is the idea. And you're going to gather the people who are interested in that, not the ones who are not interested in it, or who hate it, but start by just trying to gather your crowd, which are your people. And then you're going to turn that crowd into a powerful network by building connections where you hold those conversations, you, you talk to each other and say, who else would be interested in this? And they're going to introduce you to other people who are outside your initial crowd who are going to join the network. And you're going to say, who has the resources we need? We're going to need to have this and we're going to need money, we're gonna need help figuring this out. Who knows somebody at City Hall that can help us find out exactly only as much rule as we need to comply with? You know, the whole part.

Yep.

Of what you need for your community, that is building connections. So that's turning that crowd into a powerful network. Mm-hmm. And then the last part is you're gonna do the thing. And so you're going to take small steps. And this is the reminder not to wait until you have everything perfect and then try to launch it. Or wait until you can do the giant part of the idea.

Right.

Start with the smallest, tiniest, itty-bittiest piece of it that you can test immediately. Mm-hmm. So you can find out whether that idea will work.

Right.

Yeah.

It's, um, it's very simple.

Good.

Yeah. I mean, it's, and it's, I would say it's simple. It's not always easy. There's, there's things.

No.

There's things within all of that that create complications. We know this, right?. And, but I, I just think this, the simplicity of the model is what makes it accessible and usable.

Absolutely. And it's a replacement for hold a meeting, write a plan, find the resources, then try to execute the plan.

Yeah.

And hammer people cuz they didn't do their part. Instead, Idea Friendly says there is a replacement for that. You don't need a third vice president. You don't need a 4-year term on the board. You do not need minutes. You do not need accountability. This is an association of willing adults who are trying to make something happen. In small towns, this is in your spare time— Of course. —which you have so little of, and with your spare money, of which you do not have very much. And so that formal structure invented by the railroads in order to coordinate activities over a distance is not as useful as simply a way for people to connect with each other. Right. And so this is the simple replacement for the way you were trained to do things before and the way we're going to do things now, which is as simply as possible because we just don't have a lot to waste. And because we're small town people and we're frugal and we hate to waste anything. Right.

And I think I want to go back to the gather your crowd because you said gather the people that want to see your idea happen, not the people that don't or that hate it. Can you say a bit more about that? Because, um, the negativity committee or whatever, we all have names for what, you know, who these people are. We know who they are. They exist in every community. And, um, I don't hear you telling us that we should like go toe to toe with them.

Duke it out.

Or that we should, yeah, it's like, you know, yeah, arm wrestle them for, you know, like you're, you're, and you're also, you're also actually, I mean, if I'm hearing you correctly, you're, you're not suggesting necessarily that we invite them to the table. Talk, talk to me about, talk to me about that a little bit.

First of all, we spend a lot of time thinking about those people and what they're going to say before they even say it. Right. Like, so they're already in your head. Right. Which is inappropriate because they're not helping. Right. They're not going to help in your head. They're not going to help in the real world. They're not going to help now. They're not going to help in the future. So they're not really your people. Right. So don't, don't spend your brainpower on people who are not your people.

Right. What if those are not your people? What if a person that's not our person is like a mayor?

They're still not your people. And that's fine. You do things that don't require them to be involved in it. Right. And that's why we start small, right? Like, if it's the mayor, then, and you start really small, and you gather your crowd, and it gets a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger and more people, you're building connections. And so more people are coming in, you keep taking small steps. By the time it gets big enough for the mayor to notice, you want it to be that freight train. Yeah. And I stole that line from you. You want it to be a freight train that they're like, and I'm totally in favor of this.

Okay, right. Exactly. Like, it builds, it builds enough grassroots, local momentum. Mm-hmm. That you actually would almost look like an idiot to, especially if you're in an elect— you're in an elected official's position. Right. Right. And I don't want, I'm not saying we're like belittling our elected officials here, but I think what I love about this is just the reminder that I think far too often we, we tell ourselves that we can't move forward with something until they say yes. And then, then there's no agency, there's no power, and the thing you most wanna see happen in your town won't happen.

Don't invite the haters until late in the process.

Yeah. Right. I, I talk about this a lot too. Um, I didn't, I didn't go about it this way for myself personally. And, um, you don't do anything the easy way. No. Tough, tough lessons to be honest. Yeah. Um, but valuable lessons, right? I just, and so now my whole hope is like, okay, if I can help anybody Do it with a little less pain. That's the goal here, right? Like there's still, it's, it's hard doing these things in small towns is hard, whatever it is that you're trying to do. But I'm not, I, I think there is an easier path and primarily it's protecting. So I, I a lot of times talk about this, like you have a spark of an idea and there are literally people that are just dying to snuff out sparks of ideas. And so don't. Expose yourself like that. Yeah. Right. Protect, protect that until it grows into kind of a bit more of a flame and get people that are gonna fan it. Right. And those are, that's your crowd. Those are the people that wanna see this thing happen and wanna participate and wanna actively work on it too.

The best way to snuff out your own spark is try to convince someone else. Mm-hmm. You can entice others, right?. And that's, that's how you fan your flames. Right. But if you want to, if you want to kill it off, then go try to convince other people that it's a good idea. Right. Because they can't see that it's going to work yet. But if you've been taking those small steps, and you have, can demonstrate, look, it did work, it's continuing to work, it's growing, then you don't have to convince anyone, they're going to be enticed because they want to be a part of what is already going on. They do not want to be excluded from your community. And so, when you get to the point that they feel enticed, and you can let them in, then they join in. But if you go to them upfront and try to convince somebody of changing their mind, we know that is the number one way to get people to close down and to back off. So, people cannot be idea-friendly when you're in their face trying to convince them. But they can be open to a new idea when they see what's going on and want to join in and be part of it. That is entice, not convince.

Right. And I will just say there are people that will never be enticed. Absolutely right. There are people that will watch something and on some sort of crazy backward thinking principle will be like, didn't like it from the start, don't like it now. They're not your people. Let them be right. Because I think that's the other thing that's really, to me, kind of interesting about this work, community development work. It's recognizing that like everybody actually has the right to want what they want for their town, which means they also have the right to not want what they don't want for their town. And so your idea might be something that other people don't want, and that's actually okay. Cuz if it makes, I think for me this just, it's, and it's because I personally experienced it, right? And I think lived experience has a, has a role to play in some of these things. The, the thing that I did in my town actually made me fall more in love with my town. It made it a better place for me to live. Now, I don't think I'm the only one that's benefited from it, right? But if you're the person that's going to take charge, spearhead, do something, no matter what the thing is, if it makes your, makes you love your place more, then that's worthy of exploring. Right? I mean, that's, that's the thing. I think there are people that are gonna be listening to this that said they're like, they walk by, maybe they walk by something every single day and they think, oh man, I just wish, or like the what if they go, well, what if we did this there? And it doesn't really let go in their heads or in their hearts. Like, do it then and do it this way. Do it the idea-friendly way and do it, do it small and see if there's anybody else that would wanna see that thing happen. We did this with a park in my community. As un— it's unbelievable. It is, Becky. It is unbelievable what it looks like. Next time you come to North Dakota, you're gonna have to come to Oakes and I'll show you these things. You've gotta show me your building. I know, but it's the, it's, and it became, it became again, the other thing that's cool about it is once a bunch of other people were invited to be a part of it and they all took different pieces and there's youth involved and there's older folks involved, it was just, it became way better than it would have been if we had just been like, here's our plan and here's what we're doing.

And right, if you had started by forming the committee to improve the park, yeah, holding a lot of meetings, yep, sharing a lot of ideas, going out for public input, having engagement sessions, showing off drawings. All right, so then you go out to the architect, you get the actual drawings drawn up, the engineering firm has their say.

BTW, all costs real money.

Come on, we're not doing something yet. Hold on. So we've got to raise the money to pay for those. So we're going to be trying to convince people to pay for those. We're trying to convince people that this plan is the best one. By the time we present the plan to the public, there's no room to change it because we can't afford to go back for new plans. So now we've got the final set for what the plan— Now we're committed. —park is going to be. And so now we're trying to convince people to help us make these things happen. Right. And it all has to be because it's engineering spec now, then you can't help. I can't have 'Can you build the little bridge over the tiny little running water there?' Because that's not up to engineering standard, whereas you might have been able to volunteer to do that through a different method. All right, so that's the old way. So, there's a woman in Elkhart, Kansas. I visited Elkhart, which is far western Kansas, practically like near them is the border of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Panhandle. It's the three-corner there. So they are like way out. And there's not a lot around them. But there's a woman there. And she said, what I really want to do is have one of those community dinners where we shut down the street. Yeah. And everybody sits down. And we have the giant table on the street. She said, I just, I can just see it in my head so clearly. I said, that is awesome. How long have you been thinking about it? She said, 5 years. I said, get your card table. Call your friend, have a picnic on the sidewalk and entice people into this idea, right? So, if they start with their picnic on the sidewalk, people are going to be like, what are you doing? So, then you get to tell them, we are going to start a community dinner. It's going to fit, and she can describe it so clearly for them. And they're like, that's stupid. You go, thanks for standing, coming by. Have a piece of chicken. Go on your way. Like, and then here's your drumstick. Here's your drumstick. Thanks for being— thanks for playing. Go on. But other people will go, oh, that sounds so cool. How can I help?

The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy Johnston in Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout out on the podcast. Call 701-203-3337 and share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough, and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge, and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help help. Hell, you can basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you. Shout out to Lander County, Nevada. This awesome group of humans are making the most of a recent boom in gold mining. Seriously, gold mining. This is a present day shout out. And but just not just the fact that they're having this economic boom, but they're really focusing on how to make their community a better place to live. And you know how they're doing it? By just making it easy for people to clean up their own property or their own storefront. And they've even got this really cool incentive. The county has put some funds towards this. And I believe the, the number was $500. Like, you as a community member can walk in to the local, uh, hardware store and you have up to $500 to buy paint or to buy weed killer or to buy anything to clean up your property. Um, what an interesting and unique way to make a community better. Awesome job, Lander County, Nevada.

Next week, there's two card tables. That's right. Yeah. In 5 years, it's an established tradition and they shut the whole street down. Mm-hmm. So you can keep thinking about it. You can see it in your head so clearly, but that's not the same as making that first small step.

Can I also just say, as a person that often can see the big thing clearly, okay, like that's, that's how I'm wired. Um, and I'm not, and I don't think that makes me like special. It's just different. It's, there's, you know, people that are big picture connector people and there are people that are just boots on the ground, detail, detail, detail people. Right? I'm a, I'm a big picture person. So the thing, the thing that it's so important to remember is that not everybody can, like truly not everybody can see the big thing. And I, I literally had a woman say to me, and this, in this it, it was like my building was already built. But it was, it, it struck me so, it struck me hard cuz I thought, oh, like, well, that makes sense. So she says, um, Rebecca, she said, I always wanted to believe in what you were doing. So like, she liked me as a person, right? We had some history or whatever. Um, she said, but I think like, I couldn't, I actually couldn't picture what you were talking about because She said, you know, I don't know if you knew this, but like, people just can't really picture things they've never seen before. And I know that sounds really simple and dumb, but to a big picture thinker, it doesn't occur to— it doesn't always occur to us that people can't. Or I've seen it before. That's the other thing. Like, if you've been other places and you've seen something, maybe, maybe a first step could even be bringing some of your crowd to, if, especially if it's like within a driving distance or something, like help people see it. Cuz sure. You know what I mean? It's, so it's just kind of fascinating cuz what you're talking about is giving them something to physically see and be in. Absolutely. And that's, and that's, it's just valuable because not everybody can see it. And she goes, I'm so glad you didn't quit. You know, she was being, she was being lovely about this, but she was just saying like the, the, challenge for me was I couldn't picture at all what you were talking about. And I was just like, I suppose not.

So for you, the tour of other facilities that look like what you would like to do makes perfect sense. For the dinner, community dinner down the town, downtown. That's not something you'd have to do, right? Like, you can, like, here we are on the sidewalk and say, imagine if we were all down the main street, right? And by the time they need to ask the city to use the street, they're going to have that groundswell. Well, yes. Right, right, right.

So yeah, I didn't mean to, yeah, I didn't mean to say, yeah, that like that, but yes, that's what we're talking about though, is physically giving them a way to be in it with you and see it.

One more story about that. Yeah. There's a number of communities that are having to replace their pools because they either had like a WPA pool or their old city pool has had it. And so it's gonna have to be replaced. Mm-hmm. Or they're going with a splash pad or whatever.

These are massive projects. These are massive projects.

So again, and it's hard to picture what you want. Either we're going to do exactly like what we used to have, which we can picture because we grew up in it, or you're trying to do something else and we don't know about that. So this is another Deb story. So she was the first one to come up with this idea, which is go to the side of the pool where the pool is or was, take your lawn chairs, bring your kids and your kiddie pools, your little dollar store kiddie pools. And you set them out and you fill the kiddie pools with water, the kids play. And then on your phones, you start looking up options for splash pads and what have other towns done with their pools. So the adults are sitting around on their lawn chairs, pulling up ideas, sharing photos with each other and talking about what they want to do with this space and for the future of their children. Mm-hmm.

While the kids play. And while enjoying what that future community will feel like when it happens. That's what's so different about that, right?

And so do you see how this is gather your crowd? So we've pulled together these parents and their kids. We're building connections because we're having that conversation at the event and we're taking the small step of imagining what it could look like together. And in the old way, we know what it looks like. We form the committee to replace the pool. It's part of the city, so it has to follow open meeting rules. You start on the planning. And there's already people who are opposed before you even do anything. But I'm telling you what, whose permission do you need to do this pool party thing? Right. Nobody's. Nobody's. And if the, if the city finds out you're using city property to do it and they come around and they roust you out, then you go to somebody's yard and you do the same thing anyway. And by the time you have that groundswell, then the city is like, those plans are starting to look reasonable.

I also, I think it's really important because a piece of this too is that they are experiencing a feeling that's equi— at least partially equivalent to what they'll feel if they build a new pool. Yes. That's, so it's also, it's, it's that it's helping people tap into what does, what does this feel like? And that create, that creates emotion. It creates connection. It creates, humans are, we're very, As much as everybody wants to say they're rational, Becky, we are not. We're not. If we, if we make decisions based outta logic, it's because it makes us feel smart. It's feelings, right? People are emotional.

I'm very logical. I don't think you're right. No, but you like, I, I'm very linear thinker and so it has a veneer of logic on top of it.

Yes. But, but there's, there's something that feels good to you about being right. About feeling like you have your facts in order, and that's not a slam to you. I'm just simply reminding that like how we are wired as humans is emotion. And so even, even what you're talking about, it's not, it's not just it to me, it's, it's, there's the practic— there's the practicality of what you're talking about. Like you're physically gonna be doing this thing. It's a small step. You're testing it out. There's something happening to the people that are there.

Right. But we don't have to— And don't they want more of that? We don't have to sell that. No, no, no, no. In order to make the thing happen, right? No, no. So we don't have to explain to people, come down so that you'll feel like you will when we have a new pool. No, no, no. So you don't want to even go there with that.

But that's the value of creating an experience. Exactly.

And you'll notice that each of these that we've talked about, each example we've talked about, it is an experience. To go to the other building, right? Set up at the pool to set your card table down and enjoy the Main Street. Each of those is an experience. So you have something to talk about. No matter how big your idea is, there is a duct tape and cardboard version of it that can help people get an idea. If you're talking about housing, quit talking about it in the abstract. You know, cut out some— bring kids' playhouses down here and set them up and start the conversation around new housing in the community. Make houses out of duct tape and cardboard. Right. Drag in the demonstrator model from the manufactured housing person and set that on the main street and have conversations while you're at the place.

Right, right, right. Yeah. So of course not. I don't at all mean that that's what we need to think about. But I do think there's— it's— there's— that's where it becomes a bit magical.

Actually, it is. That is the magic that is behind it. And it's nice to understand that. It absolutely is. Right. And, and this also goes back to your background in, in understanding the professional development and the skills that go into, right, being a collaborative person. Mm-hmm. Um, and then my explain it where it works for anybody in the community. I'm just like, gather your crowd, build connections, take small steps. Yep. Yeah. And you'll figure it out.

Yeah. It's so great. Okay. So that's amazing. Let's talk about the survey. The survey of rural challenges. Yeah. Let's go on. What's going on with it this year?

It's kind of a. It's a special year.

It's a pinnacle year.

It is. Of some sort, right? Like I started it in 2015 because I had been blogging since 2006 on small town business and I was like, tell me. And I kept reading like, you should survey your readers. So I surveyed my readers of my blog, which is called smallbizsurvival.com. Still out there, still pluggin'. I still publish there.

Oh, I didn't know that. I would have thought you had kind of hung that up. Cool. I'm going to have to— I'm going to have to—

You think I'm going to give up all that SEO? You are wrong. Well, yeah, that's fair. If you search small towns, you will find my name eventually. You cannot avoid it. Yep. That's intentional. Mm-hmm. So Small Biz Revival is still out there. But I was just asking people like, so what are your challenges? Right? So what challenges you? So I gave them the multiple choice list based on what I had figured out about— and you had seen— the wealth of experience and the writing about it since 2006. Here's the multiple choice list. Tell me anything I missed. Tell me anything else you want to tell me. And the great thing was people checked off the things that I kind of figured. They added some other stuff in the comments. And then in the tell me anything else you want to tell me, they're like, here's what we're doing. Here's how we're taking action. Here's something great about our town. I'm like, you can't even ask them about their challenges without small town people going, alright, and we're working on it. We're trying, we're trying things because they want that recognition because we have all been told how deficient we are, how wrong we are, how much we lack. And so they want to put into the survey— that's my interpretation— is they don't want to just be stereotyped as only having lack. They want to also have their assets. So over the years, we do it every other year. And at this point, we now have 2,200 responses from all over the US and Canada and a handful of others from different places internationally. And people have told us— we now ask them not just for their challenges, but also for their assets. And that's an open-ended, just tell us what your assets are. And people describe all kinds of stuff. And so we have to like sort that down into big categories. Natural resources is always the top one. It's like our nature. We have— we're small, we're rural, we have access to nature. So there's taking all of the, the rounds of the survey and all of the responses. We've been able to figure out what the consistent trends are. You know, there are the challenges that are always the challenges. We're losing our young people, our downtown is dead. And those haven't changed. Right. No matter what's going on. Then we have challenges that have risen quickly. Housing. Housing. Childcare. Yep, right. And see, you know exactly what they are. Yeah, for sure. Because they have shot up and they are critical. They've come to crisis levels and nothing has happened to improve them. And then we have the slow building challenges. Some of these surprise people from outside rural because they just don't know what we're dealing with. And one of them is finding a usable building to put my business in. Right. And that has slowly— it started out kind of in the middle of the pack on the survey responses, and it has slowly built up over the years. And, you know, it surprises people from outside that more businesses say they have a challenge finding a building, a usable building, than say they have a challenge finding a business loan. We have umpteen loan funds. But when was the last time you heard of an announcement of a big initiative to help improve the quality of buildings to put businesses in rural areas? There wasn't. They're not.

Right.

So those are kind of the slow building challenges. The other one is lack of volunteers, which didn't make a lot of play about 2015, but by 2025 is a top issue.

I hear that all the time. It literally, to me, it is, it echoes the workforce challenge that we're in.

It echoes the workforce challenge and losing our young people, lack of population, inability to recruit. Right, right.

It's, and then it's framed out a lot of times like nobody cares about anything anymore and nobody wants to volunteer. The young people don't have work ethic and nobody wants to work anymore. Like that's how they, that's how it gets reflected.

I hear bit I get bits of those from different people. Mm-hmm. A lot of like, well, younger people aren't doing it our way cuz we don't wanna do your committee business anymore. Right? Like we just wanna do things. Yeah. You, we'll get to that.

Yeah. You switched right into like, okay, well maybe, maybe what if, what if it's us? Mm-hmm. And that's, and that's, that's what I feel really strongly about too, because I'm not saying if, especially there are certain industries that are hard to recruit people for. Mm-hmm. I, I understand that. And that's just that there's some just historical facts. But there's also almost always something that you could do to become a slightly better employer. And by better, better, I'm simply saying better to work for.

And you can be looking at some of the challenges that are outside of the business building that are challenges for why you can't find workforce. And one of them is housing, and one of them is childcare, and one of them is education, and one of them is the number of people who, through circumstances, end up with a drug habit or a criminal conviction. Right. Who are now no longer part of the people that you will consider for workforce.

Yeah.

And so like, do you—

there's a lot to this and it's also legal immigration and which is kind of like, you know, people that aren't from here. Yes. And like completely not from here, like other countries, not from here. Right. But that's, there's, that's, that's an openness kind of going back to the beginning, like the communities. We have to be open to new ideas. These are tough. Some of these things are tough. Previously incarcerated individuals. Yes. Right? People that maybe have something on their record due to addiction or substance abuse, right? Those things. And then legal immigration. Hard, hard. They are hard.

Challenging. And they're difficult and they are hard to have conversations around. And if you do not have a member of your family that is affected by any of those issues, then you are an extremely fortunate family. Right. Because I have those issues in my family, plus poverty. Right. And I'm sure you have issues in your family, fine, upstanding people that they are.

Right. And that's, that's just it. Yeah.

And you know, my grandparents, both of my, both sets of my grandparents came up out of some extreme Oklahoma poverty. And their children and their grandchildren have been entrepreneurs, job holders, professionals, holders of PhDs, drug addicts, unemployed, the entire range of humanity. Right. And so to stereotype my grandparents based on the poverty that they experienced would mean you would miss out the entire range of people that came from them. Right. And there's good people. And there's people that have had a hard time in their lives. Right? Right. So these are very difficult issues that we never touch in small towns, because it's very complex. It's extremely complex. And people have— people will repeat things that are not helpful, but that they have heard from others without thinking about who they're sitting across the table from, who has a family involved in this question. Absolutely. And so it's not easy. Nope. It's not an easy conversation for anybody. And we let it go too many times. Right. So these are things we will— now, at the same time, it's hard to dig into those when you're also dealing with these things that are a little easier to dig into. Yeah.

And we have plenty to work on. Totally. I know, I never want to be like, oh, and then here's a problem. And, you know, I get it. I don't want to like pile on, right? But it's, that's why your survey is so important.

And I think the other piece is that as we learn to work together by doing the things that are easier to start on, if we will paint a mural together, if I stand next to you on a ladder, I'm on a ladder, you're on a ladder, we're painting the mural, we're going to laugh and joke a little bit. Right. And even if we don't even speak the same language, we're going to like, you know, there's going to be, oh, I got paint in my eye, and we're going to be able to recognize that no matter the language barrier, right? Yeah. So we're going to see each other as humans. From the top of these ladders while we're painting the mural, which gives us the opportunity to see ourselves as human in more complex situations. So starting with the easy things to work on together to build community, if you'll do it in that idea-friendly way where you're bringing people together across different groups, then you are changing the way that you have the ability to build a better community in the future. The way you get to dig into these really hard questions is by working on the questions that you can work on that are a little easier to work on. Yeah, right. Work on what, what calls to your heart. Your building called to your heart because you— and it wasn't about the bricks. It was not about the bricks.

They're beautiful though, Becky.

They're— bricks are beautiful. I get it. I do. They are imbued with meaning at this point. They are. And but you start with the piece that calls to your heart. Right. And that is because that's the place where your heart is. So start with that. Start with a really tiny duct tape and cardboard version of it. So that you can start to make that happen. Get your card table, sit out on the sidewalk and talk to people about it until you get enough people enticed into it that you can start to make it happen. Turn it into that inevitable steamroller of a gorgeous thing that's happening in your community that no one can say no to because it happened and it's real and it's already here. Right. And that builds the ability or capacity of your community to do more things together. You are making it possible for someone else to reach the dream of their heart because you took on the dream of your heart.

And ultimately, that builds belonging. It does build belonging. And belonging is what makes people stay. Belonging is the thing. It's that connective tissue that makes it harder for people to leave. Like, there's always reasons. Yes, there's always reasons like, you know, that maybe people have to leave your community, whatever. But like, it makes it sad. We want, if people are gonna choose to leave, we want them to be sad that they're leaving. Right. Right. And that's what creates that, that sense of belonging, that sense of community, that sense of meaningful work. Who I am has a place, has a place here. Yes. And I can make an impact.

Community. Community. Mm-hmm. Belonging, meaningful work. Yep. If you can provide that, the more opportunities you have to provide that in lots of different ways. Right. The stronger your community will be. And it will— this is just how it is going to end up working.

Yeah. Okay. So as we kind of wrap here, talk to us about your webinar. The webinar.

We're back to the webinar. So the webinar is we're going to share— Deb Brown and I will do— we'll present parts of the survey results over the past 10 years. We'll talk about these persistent trends, the ones that have really shot up, the challenges. We'll talk about our assets and we'll share action steps because we never share any of this without action steps. Right. So there'll be action steps for local people. There'll be action steps if you work for an agency or organization that serves rural, for media, other groups. Like, we have action steps. Like, we don't care who you are, we have action steps of what you can do with this. Right. And then we're going to be joined by Andrew Button, who is from Nova Scotia, and he has spent the last 10 years supporting rural entrepreneurs across the US and Canada. So, when he told us, I've just pulled together my 10 years of data on these entrepreneurs I've supported, we're like, we have 10 years of data. Let's do a thing. So, we're going to, he's going to come and share what he has learned about the untapped potential entrepreneurs, this massive number of people who could be entrepreneurs if we stopped expecting them to be able to buy and refurbish a building as a starting point.

Right.

This information is really exciting information because he knows, because he's worked with these entrepreneurs, he has discovered the ones and helped them get off the sidelines and into entrepreneurship in their communities. And so he's going to bring that and we're going to present all of that. And then we're saving time for questions and we're going to do it in an hour because we are awesome. So you are awesome. That is coming up. It is on Wednesday, February 26th. Perfect. It's free. And then we are recording. And if you are hearing this after February 26th, you can come to Savior.town and get the recording.

Okay, I was gonna ask if you have to actually register ahead of time to get the recording. But it's basically once, once the live event is over, it will be available. It will be available.

Okay, that's wonderful. If you know you want to come live, please register in advance so that we know how many are coming. And then also, if you are planning to just— if you just want to be sure you don't miss it, then go ahead and sign up. There's no cost. You have an opportunity to sign up for our newsletters, which is a great chance, right? Like, you totally want our newsletters. They're packed. Every week, Deb and I write to you. We take turns. Right. And you get practical information you can put into action right away to shape a better future for your community, which is the whole thing that we do. That's all this is about.

And we were lucky enough here in North Dakota to have you share all of this with us in person yesterday. And I'm just so happy to know you.

Did you know that Idea Friendly, I shared it the first time in North Dakota? I didn't know that. It was in Washburn. There was a Commerce, Department of Commerce event was held there called Small Towns, Big Ideas. And I was at the time before that, I was sharing the Entrepreneur Friendly Framework and I was like, oh, if this is about ideas and it's a lot more than entrepreneurship, I have to make this broader to encompass being friendly to any idea. And that was the first Idea Friendly thing. Yeah. 2015. That's fantastic.

Cuz I mean, that's the truth of it. It's again, if we talk like, language and lingo, we call that an entrepreneurial mindset. What your idea-friendly method is, an entrepreneurial mindset. That's it. That's what it is. And it doesn't mean you have to start a business. No, it literally, it's what makes us more open to creativity and problem solving. Like that's it. That's all it is. And every small town needs that. And the people that are, again, if you're waking up every day and you're walking by something and you're envisioning something for your community, what are you waiting for? That's, I feel like that's the takeaway for our listeners today, right? Like, what are you waiting for? Get the duct tape, get your cardboard, gather, gather your crowd, build connections, take small steps, just start. Absolutely. Thanks so much for joining me, Becky.

It was so great. Thank you so much for dragging your entire mobile studio over here to this work.

This was an easy setup. And it was, it was super, super fun. And, uh, just again, I encourage everybody to follow along. We will of course ping everything that we talked about. Everything will be in the show notes. But if you're not following Becky and Deb at SaveYour.Town, that's another, what are you waiting for? Get after it, everybody. Thanks so much, Becky.

Thank you, Rebecca.

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