Hi Katherine, I’m new here, and I hope you don’t mind a long comment on this older post. I am fascinated by your writing on the realities of running a local business.
I have been immersed in these exact questions for the last few weeks, ever since I purchased an online course about how to make profitable online courses. The #bossbabe teaching this course is someone I’ve followed for years and whose writing and spunk I really admire. Like you, I am quite familiar with the content creator economy, but more from the spectator standpoint rather than active participant. Until just now, really, when I decided to maybe give it a go. But not without some serious second thoughts.
Like you, I have been beating my head against the brick and mortar of local business (of which I am a 30-year veteran, with many battle wounds). As you said, “Maybe it's a deeper fear that there is no place for independent retail without scaling, because **there just isn't enough money in it on its own***”.
After reading your article, and juxtaposing it with one I recently read by the author I mentioned above, I offer the following observation, which may shed some light on why creating and hawking online content is tricky for those of us deeply entrenched in the brick & mortar culture.
This other author —after being a digital nomad for many years— recently settled in a small community, and she was extolling its virtues, including genuine neighborliness, and the fact that everything wasn’t “transactional”. She offered this startling revelation: “I have been sourcing my community online since 2009. I didn’t think I needed real people. … This has been another unexpected joy of moving to the countryside: how much I actually…like people? I thought I hated people! (Mostly—ha.) But, as I am discovering, people bring meaning to an otherwise arbitrary world. And, in-person relationships are a whole different vibe.”
And this^^^ is precisely why we, as local, physical business owners are loath to take certain risks that are much easier to take with the anonymity that a purely digital business offers. We actually know our customers in person. Our kids may go to the same school, we may run into each other at the library. You would recognize me on the street, and you may have spent enough time talking with me that you can actually glean something about my personality, or my values. And this is why, I think, we resist business tactics that are purely transactional, seem to compromise our principles, and promise to deliver something that maybe isn’t really attainable.
A Slow Floral Summit, or a class offered at your shop (I’m with you on discontinuing those, BTW) are, after all, not simple money making schemes; they also foster community, and are therefore somehow more “noble”. One-day Business Breakthrough is purely transactional, and the promised results are dubious.
And yet, and yet…. I’m sure you’ve noticed that your customers don’t seem to have any problem generously spending money online, in some cases maybe even on things they know they can buy locally from you. At the same time, they may hold you to a higher standard, to not be a “sellout” to be more principled (eg. “No cheap Chinese labor”, etc.).
For myself, to address these issues, I came up with two possible scenarios that I am currently evaluating and exploring: (1) start a purely online, content-based business that is entirely divorced from my B&M biz and caters to an entirely different audience; or (2) figure out an online component that compliments my business, but does not deal with warehoused physical products or services (ideas under consideration are affiliate sales and some kind of intellectual property offering) **and** be really upfront and transparent with my customers about the fact that I am doing this, and why.
This, and maybe start my own Substack. The discussion you’re initiating needs to be had.
Hi Katherine, I’m new here, and I hope you don’t mind a long comment on this older post. I am fascinated by your writing on the realities of running a local business.
I have been immersed in these exact questions for the last few weeks, ever since I purchased an online course about how to make profitable online courses. The #bossbabe teaching this course is someone I’ve followed for years and whose writing and spunk I really admire. Like you, I am quite familiar with the content creator economy, but more from the spectator standpoint rather than active participant. Until just now, really, when I decided to maybe give it a go. But not without some serious second thoughts.
Like you, I have been beating my head against the brick and mortar of local business (of which I am a 30-year veteran, with many battle wounds). As you said, “Maybe it's a deeper fear that there is no place for independent retail without scaling, because **there just isn't enough money in it on its own***”.
After reading your article, and juxtaposing it with one I recently read by the author I mentioned above, I offer the following observation, which may shed some light on why creating and hawking online content is tricky for those of us deeply entrenched in the brick & mortar culture.
This other author —after being a digital nomad for many years— recently settled in a small community, and she was extolling its virtues, including genuine neighborliness, and the fact that everything wasn’t “transactional”. She offered this startling revelation: “I have been sourcing my community online since 2009. I didn’t think I needed real people. … This has been another unexpected joy of moving to the countryside: how much I actually…like people? I thought I hated people! (Mostly—ha.) But, as I am discovering, people bring meaning to an otherwise arbitrary world. And, in-person relationships are a whole different vibe.”
And this^^^ is precisely why we, as local, physical business owners are loath to take certain risks that are much easier to take with the anonymity that a purely digital business offers. We actually know our customers in person. Our kids may go to the same school, we may run into each other at the library. You would recognize me on the street, and you may have spent enough time talking with me that you can actually glean something about my personality, or my values. And this is why, I think, we resist business tactics that are purely transactional, seem to compromise our principles, and promise to deliver something that maybe isn’t really attainable.
A Slow Floral Summit, or a class offered at your shop (I’m with you on discontinuing those, BTW) are, after all, not simple money making schemes; they also foster community, and are therefore somehow more “noble”. One-day Business Breakthrough is purely transactional, and the promised results are dubious.
And yet, and yet…. I’m sure you’ve noticed that your customers don’t seem to have any problem generously spending money online, in some cases maybe even on things they know they can buy locally from you. At the same time, they may hold you to a higher standard, to not be a “sellout” to be more principled (eg. “No cheap Chinese labor”, etc.).
For myself, to address these issues, I came up with two possible scenarios that I am currently evaluating and exploring: (1) start a purely online, content-based business that is entirely divorced from my B&M biz and caters to an entirely different audience; or (2) figure out an online component that compliments my business, but does not deal with warehoused physical products or services (ideas under consideration are affiliate sales and some kind of intellectual property offering) **and** be really upfront and transparent with my customers about the fact that I am doing this, and why.
This, and maybe start my own Substack. The discussion you’re initiating needs to be had.
I totally feel your pain. Thank you for sharing your insight.
Interesting as always. Thank you.
Where does franchising fit in ... isn't that the original pyramid scheme. Not a question just observing.
Could you just start "printing" those watering cans in your own unique "colorways" tag 'em and call yourself a manufacturer?