Small Business Trends

Many of you who frequent the small business blogs are already familiar with our latest guest expert, Becky McCray.

Becky is a small town entrepreneur. And like many of today’s entrepreneurs, she runs several businesses simultaneously, with one of the most varied backgrounds you could ever hope to encounter.

She is the co-owner of a small town retail liquor store.

She also owns a small cattle ranch in Oklahoma.

And if that weren’t enough, she is a consultant. She helps other small businesses maintain their web presence. She also helps rural nonprofits and governments with project management.

In addition to being a well known online figure in the world of small business, Becky is a noted speaker on entrepreneurship, rural tourism, and using interactive marketing.

Now when you hear the word “rural” you don’t think of someone who is savvy about social media. Ah, but you see, you’d be letting a stereotype get in the way of truth. Interestingly, Becky is one of the first people I followed on the social site Twitter, being a very active member there with over 11,000 updates as of this writing.

She’s also down to earth. I happened on this quote she gave about what she had learned from cattle ranching:

“The cattle ranch is all about working with nature. You can try fighting against nature, but that’s a losing game. So the lesson is to pay attention to what works naturally, and use that to your advantage.”

Well, that seems to sum up Becky’s pragmatic approach to business.

She writes Small Biz Survival about small business and rural issues — as she says “based on her own successes and failures.”

Becky’s first post here is Trends for Rural Small Businesses for 2009.  Please give Becky a warm welcome.