(Herjavec) When you're driving into Wabash, Indiana it hits you.
Big cities tend to get all of the press, most of the glory
and a disproportionate amount of the money in this country.
Too often we forget about the 120 million Americans
building their homes,
their businesses
and their lives in small towns far from the limelight.
(Brinkman) I think a lot of Americans go through their day
feeling like we've lost something.
a sense of community,
a pace, and a size of life that feels manageable and kind;
an idea that we as human beings
are basically here to take care of each other.
But the more you get out in this country
the more you realize none of those things have disappeared,
they've just have been happening while we weren't looking.
(Herjavec) But something else happened while we weren't looking.
Our economy changed fundamentally
and no one was hit harder then small towns and small businesses.
(Brinkman) These towns have to reinvent themselves.
And if we don't help them do that
we will lose those communities and that way of life
and I think we'd miss it.
That's why we're here in Wabash,
because this is worth fighting for.
(Announcer) small towns across the country
are fighting for their survival,
with the odds stacked against them.
But what happens if we join that fight,
if we dedicate a little money,
a lot of experience,
and thousands of hours of work,
in the one small town;
focusing on the businesses at the heart of their main street.
Nearly 10,000 people wrote in
to tell us about their favorite community.
And the country voted for one winner.
Now, marketing expert Amanda Brinkman and her team at Deluxe,
are going to work for the people of Wabash, Indiana.
And they've brought along entrepreneur Robert Herjavec
to help revitalize the town.
Every episode we're working with a new small business
To see if we can change the odds.
If together, we can start a revolution.
(Brinkman) Here we are in downtown Wabash.
(Herjavec) I like these awnings.
- Yeah the awnings are great.
- Look at the buildings.
So gorgeous.
(Downs) I've been here since I was 11 years old.
My dad took a job here.
I went away to school,
and then made the decision to come back to Wabash,
to live, to raise a family,
and to start a career.
This was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.
- Right here on Market street this is kind of the main drag.
- This is small-town America.
It's gorgeous.
- Look at this beautiful courthouse
- Wow, I usually like not to go inside a lot of courthouses,
but that's a good one.
- That's a good rule of thumb.
(Haynes) you know there might be some debate,
best town in America;
I think we can wear that hat.
Why?
Have you met the people here?
- It's a good small community.
Everybody looks out for everybody else
(Emrick) You know I knew I could raise my son here
And he would be just as safe as I was.
I've traveled a lot,
but this is always been home.
(Flohr) Wabash is a small pond.
You're going to have a conversation with someone
who's maybe down and out on their luck,
you're going to have a conversation with the Mayor,
all on the same four block radius here,
it's the front porch of life.
(Long) Everybody can call me Scott.
Oh excuse me, no, Mayor.
And I'm like no,
I was Scott before and I'm going to be Scott after.
(Herjavec) I feel like I know everybody.
I'm just waving to everybody now.
That kid's like why did that weird man wave at me.
(Brinkman) This is the Honeywell Center.
- Oh wow, KC & the Sunshine band are coming.
What!?
(Morris) I love Wabash.
I have been here all my life
and I'll be 58 in September.
(Smyth) I think you'll go along way
to find people as friendly as they are here,
and is willing to help you out.
(Flohr) That's what I love about Wabash.
We are that neighbor who helps out,
but you have to be.
[train whistle]
(Downs) Years ago Wabash was booming.
And then like a lot of the Midwest
just started losing industrial base,
population,
and the entire community suffered.
Downtown started dying.
(Brinkman) so then right outside of downtown
you have a little more of kind of challenging neighborhood,
it's not filled with residents.
(Herjavec) We're only a block from downtown
and the buildings are all not in great shape.
- Right.
(Blocher) when the factories start closing
and people were moving out,
we lost quite a few people,
all at once it seemed like within a stretch of 10 years, or so.
(Long) We had a local tire factory that shutdown
and that was a loss approximately 800 jobs.
We saw a lot of mortgage foreclosures;
it was a story all over the country.
Over the last 20 years
the population has shrunk
from about 14,000 down to a little over 11,000 right now.
(Henderson) What do you end up with?
You end up with a shell of a community.
Walmart and a Target out on the edge of town
and no personality, no love.
(Long) How do you combat that?
We're like every other town in America.
Nobody's beating down our door to locate their factory here.
So, do we need to reidentify who we are?
(Downs) If the downtown is going to come back to its full potential,
it's going to happen through small business owners.
Our goal is not to make it like it use to be.
Our goal is to make it better than it is.
(Brinkman) when we open this Main Street contest up to the public,
we were honestly kind of shocked by the number of people
who voted for their favorite small town.
And I don't think Wabash won because of their old buildings,
or picturesque Main Street;
though they do have all of that.
I think they won because so many people saw themselves in Wabash's story,
and then they saw this small group of people
who are willing to do
whatever takes to save their town,
that's what we want to be apart of.
(All) Good morning.
- Christine nice to meet you.
- Robert, Mayor Long. Welcome to Wabash.
- Steve Downs, welcome to Wabash. Glad to have you here.
(Herjavec) What would you say the biggest challenge,
if I was a small business owner here
and you woke me up in the middle of the night
and you say "what your biggest challenge as a business owner"
what would I say? What do you think people would say?
(Downs) Lack of population base,
I mean, we are not big enough.
You can't support all of these stores
strictly on what's here in Wabash.
- Is the average age of the population rising?
- Yes.
Absolutely, no question about it.
- I'm in the tech business
and one of the number one thing that attracts young people
is quality of life.
- And that's what we're going for,
I mean over the last few years
we've really focused on revitalizing the downtown area
economically and aesthetically.
And once we get that going and bringing people in,
then it will expand and kind of help the entire community.
- But you have to have a job.
- That's number one.
(Long) One of the things this community was so dependent on
for years was the automotive industry;
we have to diversify.
- I think you have to look at the small businesses.
If you can have a sustainable small business culture
within Main Street then that lasts.
(Flohr) But that's the gap I keep seeing.
We are really great at rallying around small businesses
to help them start.
But then all the not so shiny parts
of running your business and turning the open sign on...
- Reality sets in.
-We aren't offering that kind of support
that's the sustainability piece.
How can we ensure them access to the help that they need?
(Brinkman) I love that idea because I mean,
you know part of what we're here to help with is the marketing piece,
but there's the legal or account piece, there's inventory,
there's so many other things that they need to be thinking through.
Wabash isn't alone in being a small-town
that has small businesses
that might have a passion for what they're doing
but maybe not have the business training to run a business
are there things that we can do to equip them to still live that dream.
(Weaver) Good Morning Wade Weaver along with ya
on 105.9 the Bash and the My Bash Morning Jam.
Big day in Wabash.
We want to give a Hoosier welcome
to Deluxe's Amanda Brinkman and TV's Robert Herjavec,
here to give our little town a Main Street Revolution.
You may see them touring the downtown this afternoon
kind of getting the lay of the land,
and make sure you say hi to them if you do.
And also come by First Friday tonight
for some good food and local shopping
and the official Main Street Revolution kick off at the Eagles Theater.
See you tonight.
(Hayness) I love that they've named it The Small Business Revolution
and I don't think that they realized
that it was going to be the kind of revolution that it really is.
(Brinkman) It's kind of amazing to walk in to town
and see businesses already painting their facades
or working on their awnings,
just sort of excitement over having won the contest
it makes me feel like we've definitely ended up in the right place.
(Downs) I've live here over 50 years
and I've never seen anything like this
the town has really come together.
(Jolly) Everybody was getting on every day and casting votes,
trying to help out it,
was a wonderful thing to win it.
- What are these stores?
- This is one of the most well-known dress shops
in the area...
- This is another great store Thriftalicious,
Ellen's is another...
- This buzz of excitement,
it's really been an awesome thing for the community.
(Downs) A feeling of neighbors working with neighbors,
of friends being friends, of supporting one another;
I don't presume that we can solve the national problems;
but I think this is where it starts.
This building here is number one
on our endangered buildings list,
because of its location,
its appearance,
is simply one we feel that we've got to save;
they're old buildings,
virtually all have to be gutted and rebuilt...
- Wow that's a real challenge.
- Can we take a peak what this one looks like on the inside?
- You'll appreciate more what we're up against here.
If we can't save these buildings
and they start falling down
then we loose the possibility of bringing more people into the community.
If we can't keep bringing people into the community
these small businesses are not going to make it.
- How do you ever get your money back?
- Oh, no, no, no, no, this is not a business plan
that you would appreciate at all.
This is absolutely;
we have to find people with more money than sense,
it's not a practical decision,
a lot of it is not practical and I acknowledge that
but if you don't try you'll never get there.
- For sure
- And that's why we're here.
That's what the Small Business Revolution Main Street is about.
How can we make sure that these main streets come back
to the days of great?
- What makes this work is all of us together.
(Herjavec) You know it's funny,
if the town of Wabash actually came on Shark Tank
I'm not sure I'd invest in it.
There's a lot of challenges here,
but spending time with these people
you kind of stop thinking like that
and just start trying to figure out how to help.
(Brinkman) But we do have limited time and resources,
so if we're going to be effective;
we need to go in with some specific ideas
and a concrete game plan.
- What do you think we can do here?
- First of all I think that they already,
through the contest
and just who they seem to be as people,
it feels like they really banded together.
- I also definitely get the feeling
they want to change
that's a hard thing;
a lot of people are very resistant to change.
- They know they maybe need some marketing help as a city,
and that their small businesses could use that to really thrive
but are already in this really great starting place.
I feel like, it's not like we need to do a makeover.
I think we just need to kind of do an enhancement
and help them evolve a bit as a downtown.
- One of the things that really struck me
when we were walking around is,
they have this town center,
this theater call the Honeywell Center
that gets 200,000 visitors from out of town,
and I think that's a natural resource
we can help the business tie in to,
because it doesn't seem to be a lot of connection yet.
- It's just two blocks down right?
But it sounded like they're not bringing people
in to the downtown.
- Tony Bennett's coming here for goodness sakes,
I mean that's big.
- It is big, it sounds like they do draw from miles away.
- You know the other thing that struck me Amanda is
there is no signs,
like even the traffic flow from Market Street to,
is that Miami?
- Miami is there and then Canal.
- There was no sign.
There was nothing that said go this way for more great stuff.
So, I think when you want to attract customers,
not just outside, it could be from the next block
and I think we could really help them with that.
- Signs are a great idea to get people to go over
to the businesses on Canal,
'cause Market itself is so charming already.
- As we go through the town
let's explore some of these things with people.
(Brinkman) So we've got the beginnings of a plan.
We know we're going to be focusing on the downtown,
which is just a four-block radius.
We know we need to bring people in,
both tourists and Wabash residents
and we need to get them shopping local.
We think the Honeywell Center can help us do it
and we want to work not only with the town,
but with six individual businesses
that are really anchors for the community.
The Deluxe team and I can help them market themselves more effectively,
and work with local contractors on physical improvements,
while Robert focuses on the nuts and bolts of
operating a small business
But before we get any further
what we really need to do
is meet the people of Wabash.
[applause]
(Downs) Welcome Wabash.
Hello.
It is my very distinct pleasure to welcome all of you
to this afternoon's festivities.
We have two very special guests with us this afternoon.
Would you please give a warm Wabash welcome
to Amanda Brinkman and Robert Herjavec.
[applause]
(Brinkman) It is so great to be in Wabash.
These small towns are what make this country great.
So, we are about to go through a transformation,
a journey together.
And so wouldn't it be incredible
if we could inspire other small towns,
to band together the way you have.
(Herjavec) Isn't that great that you can grow up in a community
where you have support of other people.
And this is what you have in this town.
You have everything here
that you need to be successful.
It doesn't matter where you're from.
It matters what you do with what you're given.
(Flohr) How do we rebuild?
How do we go from a smokestack mentality
into something that is more culture driven,
more local?
You start with the core,
of where community began.
(Griffith) Nothing but amazing things are going to come from this.
We're in the movement of
bringing new generation of people in
and appealing to the younger generation of our community.
(Haynes) There's something different here,
There's something special here
These are people that really do care about each other.
They're willing to invest their lives
into making Wabash into something greater.
(Brinkman) We've got a lot of work ahead of us,
but being here,
I'm just overcome by this feeling
of how much we can accomplish
when we're really together.
I think sometimes we under estimate
how good people are capable of being.
or maybe we just forget.
Wabash is a good reminder.
Join us next time when we go to Harry's Old Kettle Saloon,
have a drink,
learn about the business,
and see what we can do to help.
♪
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