What's it like to run a rural business? A panel of experts recently discussed the benefits and drawbacks of starting a business in the countryside
Carolyn Frank is vice-chair of the Helmsley in Business group
Social media is even more important in rural areas: I think social media is essential as a small business tool, and is especially beneficial in rural areas. It overcomes isolation - think of it like your office community. Use it to find services, trial ideas, make contacts and cheer yourself up on bad days.
Make the most of your community: We know all our postmen and women by name, and get a great service from them. It's the same in the local shops - you don't just get a tin of paint, you get advice on what type to buy, how to use it, how to clean up afterwards and so on. That goes for most products in all our local shops.
We have looked into group buys by starting Helmsley in Business, where more than 40 diverse businesses have grouped together. This is extremely helpful, for example when buying advertising from large magazines we have got better rates for all of us. When you are in rural business you aren't alone, but you have to talk to other local businesspeople to move forward.
Chris Hillary is the founder of Fitness Frenzi, a Zumba fitness provider
Rural businesses have their benefits: I have purposefully chosen to work in rural areas because urban ones tend to be well catered for within the fitness sector. I wanted to be niche.
Also, the fees I pay for the use of village halls tend to be so much lower. For me, rural is a plus, but I can imagine that online businesses would find broadband speed a major issue. The other benefit I find from rural locations is the parking is rarely an issue. My customers can park for free most of the time.
Tim Stanger is the owner of Vinyl Clocks, an internet retailer turning vinyl records into clocks
Do your research: The issue of broadband speed was certainly the most important for us, as you can imagine. Before we set the business up in its current location we had to ensure that there was sufficient connection speed. There is a postcode search available, which will give you the expected speed, but there is nothing better than talking to other businesses or residents in the area to validate these figures.
Barney Jones is head of brands at XLN Business Services
Work around your broadband issues: If broadband is critical to your business, find out the local speed before you locate. Ask a specialist business provider what speed to expect and the availability of fibre-to-the-cabinet, as you'll get a sales person used to dealing with commercial premises and concerns. Also check the physical location of the telephone exchange. If it physically very distant, that could be a problem.
Make sure any internet connection is set up properly in your premises. We still see quite a few problems where WiFi is used but with physically thick walls blocking coverage or where filters have not be placed on phone sockets.
Target your advertising: With Google Adwords you can set a very small radius for your keyword advertising which might help.
Mike Cherry is national policy chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)
Parking is also worth considering for some businesses: We want people on the high street, yet if they have free parking in an out-of-town shopping centre, they aren't incentivised to shop elsewhere. At Christmas we saw a number of local authorities provide free parking on a Saturday or for few hours after work to encourage people to shop on the high street, but is that really enough? Our survey figures show that more than 50% of small firms say the availability of parking negatively impacts their business, and 49% said the cost of parking negatively impacts their firm.
Murdoch Mactaggart is managing editor of Ingenious Britain
Running a rural business needn't be more challenging than an urban one: Perhaps the central issues for any business are firstly, who are the customers; and secondly, how does one contact and deal with them. Do these customers need to visit a shop? If they do then it's harder for a business based in Hammersmith to attract customers from Hackney, than it is from Yeovil to Bridport for instance.
Can the product or service be delivered by person or by carrier? Is it a knowledge-based service, in which case it doesn't matter in the slightest (broadband provision excepted) where you are? I live in west Dorset, liaise with a publishing company in north London, with a designer even further out and with clients all over the UK for a magazine (Ingenious Britain) printed in Sheffield.
Community incentives are great for rural SMEs: The village of Shipton Gorge took over their local pub a couple of years back when it was going to close down. Apart from drinks and meals the pub now carries small supplies of bread, milk, butter, tea and the like, and also deals with prescriptions, dry cleaning and some other things from Bridport or elsewhere. There are many hundreds, thousands even, of these types of community initiatives throughout the UK and these can often work well with other local startups or small rural businesses.
Diane Hannah is a co-founder of Herdy, a giftware business
Being rural is an asset for some businesses: When we launched five years ago we found that being located in a rural area, albeit in a national park, became a real asset. Visitors from all over the world come to the lakes and we found that this gave our brand enormous exposure, far more than if we'd been located in say, an industrial town. Initially we were selling to shops in the local area but retailers visiting the Lakes on holiday saw our products and enquired if they could sell them in their shops once they returned home. We now supply retailers from the Shetlands to Cornwall.
These are extracts from the live Q&A we held last week, which focussed on the issues affecting business owners in rural locations. You can share your experiences or suggestions in the comments section below.
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