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Keep it simple

By Becky McCray

Successful small town businesses keep it simple.

Plain View Winery, Lahoma
Hart and Con Pekrul keep it simple.
The secret to long-lasting success. 

Here’s what I noticed in the back room at a local winery, run by Con Pekrul. All the equipment is simple. Barrels and buckets, second hand tables, a used refrigerator.

Here’s Con’s father Hart, filling bottles by hand. An automatic bottler would be too expensive, Con said. And Hart, a retired banker, won’t entertain such extravagant ideas.

The wine labels are still printed on plain paper in one color. There is only one label design, so each variety is stamped with a rubber stamp.

This careful attitude has helped them beat the predictions of their accountant and to build a strong business for more than seven years.

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
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  • Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
  • How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
  • The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
  • Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
  • Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
  • Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
  • Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
  • Economic self defense for small towns  - June 7, 2020

August 31, 2011 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, rural, success

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Comments

  1. murad abel says

    September 1, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    I like this concept of looking at small local businesses to see who produces products and earns money. It would seem there is a quaintness in simplicity. Perhaps we are too sensitized to advertisement and a simple label/design might attract us as more natural.

  2. Becky McCray says

    September 2, 2011 at 2:56 am

    Murad, I think you are right. We can be more attracted to simplicity.

  3. AshleyTravels says

    September 2, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    It’s all too easy for anyone to personalize things now days & “look official.” I think the intriguing thing behind small businesses such as the Pekrul’s, is that they really own their business & their products. It’s what draws us, as consumers, in. That personal touch – without all the fluff. It’s true, open, inviting. Like southerners inviting you into their home, their family. Great story, Becky. Thanks for sharing! (PS. I’d love to go see Pekrul’s place someday to meet them….. & taste the wine, of course.)

  4. Becky McCray says

    September 3, 2011 at 1:37 am

    Ashley, Con and Hart are absolutely down to earth. Good folks. You’d like them. Plain View Winery, Lahoma, Oklahoma.

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