Today, we are learning from Becky McCray.

Becky is a lifelong rural entrepreneur, cattle rancher and co-founder of SaveYour.Town. Her own hands-on successes and failures as a retail business owner, city administrator, nonprofit executive and community volunteer—all in small towns—make her a sought-after expert on rural communities.

Becky created the influential Survey of Rural Challenges, published biennially since 2015 and used by agencies, educators and businesses to better understand and serve rural people.

She makes her home in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a community of 30 people. Her goal is to deliver practical steps you can put into action right away to shape the future of your town.

Let's get started...

In this conversation with Beck McCray, I learned:

00:00 Intro - SOBCon, our mastermind

04:05 What is rural?

05:20 8 people per square mile and 80 cows per square mile.

07:45 Depending on your neighbours in a time of need. Interdependent.

09:40 Neighbouring is the process of being a good neighbour. Similar to the Achterhoek dialect word, noaberschap.

10:22 Move your activities to the front yard instead of the back yard.

11:25 Simple over convenience.

12:40 How do we choose to design our communities?

16:40 The shift from entrepreneur-friendly to idea-friendly.

22:15 The idea-friendly method flips the script.

23:35 Gather your crowd and build connections.

26:05 Working together in a meaningful way.

26:30 A calendar session to learn more about the people in your community.

31:30 Community is the goal.

38:20 The impact on a community when a large factory leaves a small town and the impact of the work of Deb Brown with the tour of empty buildings.

44:44 This is what the new book, The Idea Friendly Guide, is about and who it is for.

47:15 This is how Becky created the book, with great ideas on how you could use this process too.

54:20 How the book started with sharing thoughts and ideas in a blog.

55:45 The small town connection that affects global business today.

56:35 Without a traditional publisher she now has full control over the book.

59:05 The ideas for when the book has been published, like mini books.

1:02:15 The ecosystem of talks, workshops, webinars, videos, the book, mini books.

1:06:40 Survey results are a great tool to share with other people who serve the same audience.

1:07:40 This is how you can start a survey for your business.

More about Becky McCray:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckymccray/

smallbizsurvival.com

beckymccray.com

https://Saveyour.town

https://ernohannink.com/becky-mccray-rural-entrepreneurs-prosper-small-towns/ the conversation Erno had with Becky in 2012

Books:

Small Town Rules - Becky McCray and Barry J. Moltz

The Idea Friendly Guide - Book by Becky McCray

Resources we mention:

SOBCon 09 – The ROI of relationship - Liz Strauss

Hopeton, Oklahoma - Wikipedia

Luther Snow

Deb Brown

DIVISIVENESS | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

This Dying Rust Belt Town Quietly Saved Itself - video on YouTube

Webster, Iowa - Wikipedia

The Mom Test book

Write Useful Books - book

Claude Sonnet (The AI tool she used for the book)

You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Own Business - book by Barry Moltz

From possibility to reality: Save your small town - book by Deb Brown

Survey of Rural Challenges 10 Year report - the survey by Becky and Deb

Video of the conversation with Rukmini Iyer

https://youtu.be/6J0bjM-y6hI

Watch the conversation here https://youtu.be/6J0bjM-y6hI

Transcript