Blog
From the Workshop to the World
By Teasha Cable
An LLC is easy to file... and easy to forget. But even if only a few of those business are real, those are business a community can help grow.
A county official once told an economic development specialist the county had maybe half a dozen micro businesses. Then someone pulled the registrations.
There were 500.
Sure, not all of them were active, because an LLC is easy to file and easy to forget. But even if only 25 are real businesses nobody knew about, that is 25 companies a community can help grow.
For rural Oklahoma, that math changes the strategy, because a town that believes nobody is coming stops looking at what is already there, and that is the most expensive assumption in the room.
On a recent episode of the Dynamic Decisions Podcast, I spoke with [Jamie Nichols](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlnichols/?isSelfProfile=false), the regional development specialist for **North Central Oklahoma at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce**, and the author of **The Honest Economic Developer**.
She is just one of seven specialists covering 77 counties, which makes one thing obvious: the state cannot find every maker, artisan, and quilter alone.
Communities have to do it with her.
Finding the Businesses No One is Counting
The leather maker shipping to Colorado, the artist selling their jewelry to buyers around the world, the gifted quilter with a faithful following: none of them show up in county business patterns, because there is no payroll to count.
Jamie’s method is not a data tool. It is simply asking people...then asking them again.
Start with the mayor, the city manager, and the city clerk, who know who does what. Check the town Facebook page, where makers sell their work Walk the vendor fairs at street festivals
You just have to start asking people, ‘Who do you know?’ And then you reach out to those people and find out what they’re trying to do, what their goals are, where they need help and where the gaps are, so you can connect them to the resources that they need.
Supporting What You Have, Without a Fight
Jamie says getting rural leaders to shift from attraction to expansion is rarely a fight. Why? Because small towns doubt anyone will move there.
The shift is getting them to see local businesses as assets worth growing.
When a strategy needs challenging, she does it gently. Bring the data, show what has worked elsewhere, and work inside the current framework while nudging toward retention.
"Baby steps," in her words. She lets the numbers lead, then tells the story behind them, because a city council lost in a spreadsheet or glazing over at the numbers have already stopped listening.
And when the state templates emphasize job counts, she leads with community resilience, since a town that is not resilient will not be adding jobs anyway. Read that 2x.
Nobody’s gonna come here anytime soon, but you have all of these assets, and it’s getting them to view them as assets that we need to support and grow. That’s the mindset shift.
Know What You Own or Have
Jamie’s sharpest point may be the least glamorous. The biggest issue for rural economic development, is knowing what the community owns:
Which buildings and lots are available, and whether each has electric, gas, water, and internet.
The small business that has outgrown their at home shop will need to grow somewhere. If your town has no ready space, you can bet the county next door will.
That is where state support helps. The Oklahoma Department of Commerce can run retail leakage and gap analyses that a small town can't be done easily, or on their own, while other agencies can tackle problems like water infrastructure.
The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is free, and Jamie urges community leaders to ask what it would take to bring one in.
If their business is growing, either it will grow in your area because you have a building, and a readily available workforce...or that business will head to the next county because they have the resources and assets.
She also wants young people connected to local employers long before graduation. Her boss often suggests that the small business owner parks their employees nicest trucks and cars out front when they hold a student tour.
This will flip the switch for young people who can envision a real career here (and the possibility of a nice car too).
The Learnings
Here's my learnings from this conversation. Before the next recruitment pitch, do three things.
Count the businesses you already have, including the ones with no storefront Inventory your available buildings and their utilities
Turn what you learn into a story your leaders can understand, and act on
Jamie writes about this on her Substack, The Honest Economic Developer, and at econdevops.com. You can also find her on LinkedIn or at okcommerce.gov.
Listen to the full episode of the Dynamic Decisions Podcast, and ask yourself what your own community is not yet counting.