06: The Hidden Reason That Keeps People Coming Back to Small Town Businesses

SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while, a conversation introduces you to an idea that seems obvious the moment you hear it, and yet somehow you've never considered it before. That's exactly what happened to me a few weeks ago. And since then, I found myself looking at businesses, communities, and even small towns a little differently. I've been paying attention to the places people return to, the places they recommend, and the places that seem to become part of the story of a community.

And the more I pay attention, the more I think there might be something important hiding in plain sight. Welcome to Small Town Stories, the podcast exploring the business behind main streets and the people shaping small towns across Canada, the U.S., and beyond.

I'm Jan Ditville, top right podcast host, marketer, and small town local. And every Thursday, we're diving into honest conversations about entrepreneurship, creativity, marketing, reinvention, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in a small town today. From local storefronts to growing brands, community builders to nationally recognized names, this is where modern business meets small town life. Let's get into it.

Well, hello, and welcome back to Small Town Stories. I'm your host, Jan Ditchfield, and I'm really glad you're here. A few weeks ago, I was driving down a long country road with a podcast playing through the speakers of my car when I heard a phrase that's been quietly following me around ever since. The podcast was called the Heirloom Podcast, and it's one of my favorites.

And the episode was about hospitality and economic development. And now, if I'm being completely honest, that is not the sort of episode title that would normally stop me in my tracks. It sounds more like something you'd expect to find on the agenda of a municipal planning conference than in the middle of a podcast playlist. And yet, somewhere in the conversation, the host began talking about hospitality as a driver of economic development in small towns.

They spoke about the role hospitality plays in shaping how visitors experience a community and how these experiences influence whether people choose to return. And they talked about greeting visitors on the street, thanking them for spending time in their town, and recognizing that in many small communities, tourism is not simply a nice addition to the local economy, but an important part of it. What struck me was not the economic development part, it was the word hospitality.

And as I listened, I realized that hospitality is not a word that I hear very often in Canada. At least not related to business. We tend to talk about customer service instead. And we talk about whether a business provides good service, whether staff are helpful, whether somebody answers the phone, or whether a restaurant gets the order right, or even whether an experience meets our expectations.

Customer service is a familiar concept. And most of us understand what it means, and most of us have opinions on whether it's improving or declining. Hospitality, however, feels different. It's a word that seems to carry a broader meaning, one that extends beyond transactions and into relationships.

And while customer service and hospitality are often treated as though they're interchangeable, they're not actually describing the same thing. Customer service is concerned with what happens during an interaction, and hospitality seems to be concerned with how somebody feels during that interaction. And that distinction may sound subtle, but once I noticed it, it became difficult to ignore. And this episode got me thinking because I started thinking about the businesses I've been visiting while recording this podcast.

And I thought about the places people gather, the places they seem to recommend to visitors, and the places that somehow become part of the identity of a community. And then I started thinking about the business owners I've spoken to over the past several weeks and about the role their businesses play in the lives of the people around them. And all this thinking led to me wondering whether some of the most successful small-town businesses are not necessarily the ones that provide the best customer service, but the ones that understand something larger about hospitality.

And not hospitality as an industry, but hospitality as a way of making people feel welcome. That idea stayed with me because the more stories I collect in small towns, the more convinced I become that people rarely remember a place simply because of what it sold them. They remember how they feel when they were there. They remember the conversations they had, they remember the atmosphere, they remember whether they felt noticed, acknowledged, and comfortable enough to return.

And in many ways, that's true of communities as well. We often talk about what attracts people to a town. And we talk about the buildings and tourism, the businesses, the festivals, the events. And then we get deep into amenities and infrastructure and all the economic development strategies.

And all of those things do matter. But before any of those things can have a lasting impact, people have an experience of a place. They decide whether it feels welcoming, they decide whether they enjoy being there, they decide whether they'd like to come back. And it's made me wonder whether hospitality might be one of the most important things small towns have to teach all of us.

Part of the reason that I found myself returning to this idea over and over again is because I've spent most of my professional life working in fields that revolve around people. Before I ever built an online business and became a podcaster, and before I spent my days talking about entrepreneurship and marketing and audience growth, I worked in the nonprofit sector. My career was built around fundraising, community engagement, leadership, bringing people together around a common purpose.

And looking back, it strikes me as somewhat ironic that I spent decades working in relationship-based industries without hearing the word hospitality very often. And perhaps that's because hospitality sounds almost too simple. It's not a particularly impressive word. It does not sound strategic.

It doesn't sound innovative. It certainly doesn't sound like something that belongs in a conversation about economic development. But I began noticing that many of the people and businesses I admire most seem to understand it intuitively. One of the things that I've enjoyed most about creating small-town stories has been the opportunity to spend time observing the rhythms of this community again that I live in.

Not as somebody who grew up here, but as somebody who left and built a life somewhere else and then eventually found my way back. And there's a difference between living somewhere and paying attention to it. When I was younger, I moved through Merrickville the way most young people move through the places they grow up. I knew the streets, I knew the people, I knew which businesses existed and which ones didn't, but I wasn't particularly interested in examining why certain places seem to matter so much to the communities around them.

Now I find myself paying attention to things I would have missed entirely 30 plus years ago. I pay attention to the businesses people mention when visitors ask for recommendations, and then to the places that seem to draw people back again and again. And I notice where conversations happen, where neighbors run into each other unexpectedly, and where people linger a little longer than they need to. What keeps catching my attention are the routines that shape a community.

Not the big events or the obvious landmarks, but those small patterns that repeat themselves day after day. And it's the coffee shops like the Village Bean that people visit every morning. And the stores like Anarchy Gallery, where people stop in even when they don't eat anything. And then there are those places that gradually become part of the background rhythm of people's lives.

Because there is a difference between a business that serves customers and a business that becomes woven into the daily life of a community. The businesses that become part of people's routines occupy a different role altogether. They become the landmarks in people's personal stories. They become the places where neighbors run into each other unexpectedly.

They become the backdrop for conversations, celebrations, difficult seasons, ordinary Tuesdays, and all the little moments that eventually make up a life. The businesses that stay with people the most are rarely remembered because of that product alone. Sure, people might walk through the door because they need a cup of coffee or a gift or a meal, but the businesses that become part of the community story, well, they seem to offer something more difficult to define. Over the years, we've created all kinds of language to describe that experience.

We talk about customer service, customer experience, reputation, brand loyalty, and yet the word that keeps coming back to me is hospitality. I suspect, however, that hospitality has very little to do with industry and a great deal to do with belonging. It's the feeling that somebody is genuinely pleased that you're there. It's the sense that your presence is not an interruption, but a welcome addition to the room.

Perhaps that's why hospitality extends so naturally beyond business, because communities practice it too. In fact, many of our strongest impressions of a place are formed long before we buy anything. They're formed through the people we meet and the conversations we have, and the ways that a community communicates, whether intentional or not, whether there's room for us there. Visitors experience hospitality long before they ever step foot inside of a shop.

They experience it through the people they encounter. And they experience it through the conversations on the sidewalks, the directions offered to strangers, the recommendations that are shared freely, and the countless small interactions that shape our impressions of a place. And when I think about the stories people tell when they talk about the places that matter to them, what strikes me is that those stories rarely begin with infrastructure. People don't usually start by talking about economic development plans or tourism strategies, zoning decisions, or even municipal priorities.

Even though all of those things do play an important part in shaping a community, what they start with are the memories of businesses they visited as children, neighbors who check in during the difficult seasons, or the coffee shop where they meet friends every Saturday morning. And when people describe a place that mattered to them, they're often describing a feeling just as much as a location. And that feeling is difficult to measure, which perhaps is one of the reasons it gets overlooked so easily.

It's much easier to count visitors than it is to measure belonging. It is much easier to track economic activity than it is to quantify whether somebody feels connected to a place. And yet that sense of connection influences so many of the decisions people make. It influences whether they stay, it influences whether they return.

It influences whether they recommend a community to friends and family. It influences whether they choose to invest their time, energy, and attention there. Which brings me back to that podcast episode. The hosts who were talking about hospitality as economic development.

Well, at first I assumed they were describing two different ideas. The longer I sat with it, however, the more I began to wonder whether they're simply approaching the same idea from different directions. Economic development is often framed as a question of attraction. How do we attract visitors?

How do we attract businesses, investments, families, and opportunities? Hospitality asks a different question. Once people arrive, what kind of experience are we creating for them? Because growth doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It happens in places. And it happens among people. And people are far more likely to return to places where they feel welcomed than places where they simply feel accommodated. It's as though some of the strongest communities understand this instinctively.

And they understand that growth is not only about encouraging people to come, it's also about giving them a reason to return. That may be true for businesses and communities alike, and perhaps even for many of the meaningful relationships we've built throughout our lives. We all remember the places where we felt like we belonged. We remember the people who made space for us.

And we remember the communities that welcomed us. And perhaps hospitality matters because it shapes those memories long before we realize it's doing that. And perhaps that's why a conversation on a podcast has stayed with me for weeks after. Maybe hospitality isn't simply about something we offer to visitors.

Maybe it's just one of the ways we can care for the places we call home. Anyway, just something to noodle on until the next time we talk. Thanks for listening to Small Town Stories. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, make sure you're following the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

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All right, I'll see you next Thursday for another conversation about the business behind Main Street.