Jack Schultz: A Man with 7 1/2 Keys to Small Town Success (cont.)

Not what you’d expect

When it comes to figuring out what makes one town prosper while another nearby is withering on the vine, Schultz says he was surprised by what he found.

“As I was doing research, I started out with a bias of what ‘good’ towns were going to look like, of what resources were really going to be critical. The really good towns were going be near a major metro area, were going to lie on an interstate – probably two – and they were going to have a four-year college. And in the research, I was shocked to find that those aren’t necessarily the things that define success or lack of it,” says Schultz.

“On my list of what I consider to be the top 100 small communities in America, 70 of these lie over 100 miles away from a major metro area. Fifty-nine of the top 100 are over 25 miles away from a single interstate, and only 16 had a four-year college.While those are great resources, they aren’t necessarily going to determine success or failure. It’s more about attitude,” he says. “You’ve got to work with what you’ve got.”

Another surprise for Schultz was a turnaround in his thinking about the importance of downtowns. “I have confessed in my talks that when I first got started in economic development, I viewed downtown revitalization as throwing good money after bad,” says Schultz. “I’ve really had a 180- degree turn from that.What I’ve seen is, the really good communities have figured out a way to leverage their downtowns and to create a unique sense of place, which I think people and companies are looking for.

“You don’t create a sense of place in the lobby of a big box store. You create it in your downtowns, in your schools, in your parks. Anyone who is looking at where they want to live isn’t just looking for a house or school; they are looking for a community. That sense of place is becoming more important in my mind as people look at where they want to live and raise their families.”

He sees downtowns as important for other reasons as well. Pride of place fosters a sense of ownership and inspires leadership and involvement. In addition, many of the businesses in a downtown area are small and entrepreneurial in nature. Finally, there’s the curb appeal factor. Boarded up and vacant buildings don’t communicate success; they create a bad impression for both residents and outsiders.

The importance of branding

Schultz believes that the concept of branding is not well understood; it’s more than a marketing ploy. As he writes in Boomtown, “It’s a personal message about the product, company or person. It promises something; you expect the same thing from that product, company or person every time.” He talks about branding as something that almost arises naturally out of hard work in other areas.

“A lot communities think, ‘Well, we’ll just come up with a slogan,’ but it really is more than that,” says Schultz. “Some of the better examples that I’ve seen around the country are Leavenworth,Washington, which has done a good job at branding itself as a Bavarian village in the Northwest. On a national and international basis, probably the best town is Branson,Missouri, ‘the live music show capital of the world.’

“Another one that has done a great job – a little different from the other two – is Mooresville, North Carolina, which in 1989 branded itself as ‘Race City USA,’ even though they only had one race team located there. But today they have 60 race teams headquartered in Mooresville because of the quality of life and because they established themselves as the place to be. It’s one of those chicken and egg things – did the drivers locate there, or did the people who take care of them locate there first? They’ve got 150 entrepreneurial businesses that have started up to take care of those race teams – to supply them with decals and computers, tires, rebuilt engines, trained pit crews and all the things you need if you’re a race team.

“I think the risk is that if you don’t brand your community, other communities can brand you in a way you might not like,” he says, giving the example of towns that are known for little more than being the home of the state penitentiary.

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