On this episode of The Small Business Radio Show…

We first talk to wealth manager and financial planner Kathy Longo about the conversations you need to be having with your current or future spouse. Money is often the source of arguments between couples, and not knowing where your partner stands financially can mean big trouble. We’ll show you the questions you need to be asking and the conversations you need to be having with your partner so finances can become a strength, not a source of tension, in your relationship.

Then, learn what impact the connected economy is having on small towns. A lot has changed for people in rural communities, even in the past five years. We talk to Becky McCray, Small Town Rules co-author and small town business owner, about how small towns are embracing technology and how life there is changing because of it.

Finally, we continue our discussion on small towns with another small town business owner Colby Williams. Learn the advantages that small towns offer entrepreneurs and why you don’t have to move to a city to start a company.

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Segment 1: Kathy Longo is the author of Flourish Financially: Values, Transitions, & Big Conversations, and president and founder of Flourish Wealth Management®. She has over 25 years of experience as a wealth manager and financial planner. She was named one of the Top 50 Women in Wealth Management by Wealth Manager Magazine. She has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Money Magazine.

2:15 – Why does money often cause arguments between spouses?

3:30 – Why do couples enter a marriage without knowing where their partner stands financially, or how they value money?

5:00 – For couples that haven’t had productive money conversations, what are some questions or starting points they can use so finances become a strength in their marriage?

6:15 – Is it better for the health of a marriage to have a joint bank account or separate accounts?

8:45 – What are some of the main reasons spouses lie to each other about money, and how can that dishonesty be destructive to the marriage?

10:45 – How does a non-wealthy couple bridge the gap philosophically when they have opposite spending habits?

13:30 – What financial documents should couples periodically review together?

Segment 2: Becky McCray is a small town business owner. She and her husband, Joe, own a retail liquor store in Alva, Oklahoma. She shares insights from this real world experience at her highly ranked website https://smallbizsurvival.com and in her award winning book Small Town Rules. Her practical perspectives have been featured in three books and dozens of magazines, blogs, and podcasts. She makes her home in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a community of 30 people.

20:15 – Rural businesses aren’t just mom and pop shops anymore. What forms are they taking?

21:15 – What has changed in the last five years about running a small town business?

24:15 – Why now is a great time to live in a rural community.

26:15 – Are folks in rural communities embracing new opportunities or resisting them?

28:00 – Are young people from small towns more likely to stay in or return to their towns to work?

30:30 – Why you shouldn’t wait until you have “all your ducks in a row” before starting a business.

32:15 – Why building local connections can be the solution to political divisiveness.

Segment 3: Colby Williams founded Parengo Coffee in Sikeston, Missouri with his parents in 2013. Parengo was the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the year this year. It also won a Regional Entrepreneurship Award from the Missouri Innovation Corporation in 2016 and a Golden Bean Award for coffee roasting in 2015. Colby is the author of the new book Small Town Big Money.

38:15 – What is Sikeston, Missouri like?

39:30 – Why start a coffee shop in your small town?

41:00 – You don’t have to move to a city to start a company; learn the advantages that small towns offer entrepreneurs, such as cutting overhead and having a life available today that many entrepreneurs hope for “someday”.

44:15 – Small towns should get creative in their efforts to attract entrepreneurs. How?

45:45 – How out-of-towners can use small town stereotypes to their advantages to help their businesses grow.

48:00 – Why did you move to Sikeston, Missouri? What has your business strategy been?

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