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Community Spotlight: Cash Mobs in Main Street Las Vegas
MainStreet de Las Vegas has been successful in helping save their local small businesses, reporting no business closures during the pandemic. One of their secrets for success? Cash Mobs.
“The Las Vegas NM Cash Mob seeks to meet some of the challenges presented by the new coronavirus,” said Michael Peranteau, Executive Director of MainStreet de Las Vegas. “These challenges are unprecedented and therefore require our community to come together in equally unprecedented ways. Cash Mob is one of the ways that we have come together.”
Using Facebook Live to host a QVC-esque online sales event, MainStreet de Las Vegas’s approach has given their community a new way to safely support local businesses. By the end of August, the Las Vegas NM Cash Mob had hosted events for 10 different local businesses over the course of 10 weeks. These events are widely popular, attracting hundreds of viewers from their local community, other New Mexico towns, and even neighboring states. In addition to impressive engagement, these cash mob events have also been impressive financially. Since their first event on June 17th, they have raised over $40,000.
The Las Vegas NM Cash Mob focuses on highlighting one business a week, ranging from antiques stores to candy shops. The operations for each virtual event is set up inside the small business. A camera and small crew are joined by the small business owners and the event’s hosts—usually two MainStreet de Las Vegas Board members. The event is kicked off by introducing the small business owners, hearing their small business stories, and then giving the viewers at home a tour of the interior and exterior of the store. These elements create the intimate feeling of being physically at the local business.
Over the course of the event, items for sale are held up with an item number and price tag. Oftentimes, the small business owner will share more about the items—a description of the local artist, where the product comes from, how to further customize an order. Viewers at home are then able to comment throughout the livestream, indicating the items they wish to purchase.
Viewers’ comments are more than just the ordering of items—they crack jokes, share advice, or further recommend items to one another. That social element is another great bonus of the cash mob approach, said Peranteau. “Not only do we sell really well, but it is a way for people in this rural area to stay in contact.”
“It is so easy and so successful,” said Peranteau. “I don't know why more small towns are not doing Cash Mobs.”
MainStreet de Las Vegas gives special thanks to the Santa Fe Community Foundation, their volunteers, all of their merchants, their cameraman Jacob Erickson, and the Main Street de Las Vegas Board of Directors. The Las Vegas NM Cash Mob was founded by volunteers Jeanne Marie Crockett, Patrick Alarid, Sara Jo Mathews, Reina Fernandez, Adolfo Castillo, Rose Contreras-Taylor, and Executive Director Michael Peranteau.
Unique weekly posters for the Cash Mob event. Photo credit: MainStreet de Las Vegas
In this episode, host Matt Wagner sits down with husband-and-wife duo, Phoebe and Jonathan Carpenter Eells, co-owners of elSage Designs in Mount Vernon, Washington.
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Calling all small business owners: tell us about the wins you've had in 2024, the challenges you face, and the types of support from the Main Street America network that would help you most. Take our latest survey today!
Join host Matt Wagner as he welcomes Kaycee McCoy, co-owner and creative lead at Pawsnickety Pets in Norfolks, Virginia. Kaycee and her best friend, Shizuka Benton, launched the all-natural and organic pet supply business in Norfolk at the start of the pandemic, but have used their combined talents to keep the business growing and thriving over the last four years.
In this episode of Main Street Business Insights, Matt interviews Patrice Hull, the owner of Stuff We Wanna Say Custom T-Shirts and Apparel and c2bn / Created to be Noticed, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
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This specialized learning experience, sponsored by U.S. Bank, combines interactive classroom sessions and a hands-on course project to equip local leaders with insights, strategies, and a a distribution-ready small business guide to foster entrepreneurship, support small business owners, and retain local businesses. Registration closes on Friday, August 30.
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We are asking small business owners across the country to share their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges they're facing as summer approaches.
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In the last episode of season two of Main Street Business Insights, tune in as host Matt Wagner breaks down how to understand and synthesize local market data.
Sterling Main Street launched a brick and mortar retail incubator spaces. Executive Director Janna Groharing shares lessons they learned about organization, fundraising, and outreach.
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In this episode of the Main Street Business Insights podcast, Matt sits down with Casey Woods, Executive Director of Emporia Main Street in Emporia, Kansas.
In this episode of Main Street Business Insights, Matt sits down with Nicole Fleetwood and McKinzie Hodges, co-owners of Scratch Made Bakery in Amarillo, Texas.
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In this episode of Main Street Business Insights, Matt sits down with Tiffany Fixter, owner of Brewability, an inclusive craft brewery and pizzeria that employs adults with disabilities based in Englewood,
In this episode of Main Street Business Insights, Matt sits down with Bobby Boone, founder and Chief Strategist of &Access. Based in New Orleans, La., &Access creates data-driven and design-centric retail real estate solutions for historically excluded entrepreneurs and under-invested neighborhoods.
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This May marked the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We explored the impact and legacy of this tragic event.
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We heard from 289 business owners in 35 states plus the District of Columbia in our new text message-based survey of small business owners across the network.
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For Black History Month, we want to recognize and celebrate the Black business owners and entrepreneurs who have overcome challenges and obstacles in launching and running their own businesses, thanks to resilience, creativity, and hard work.
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Detailed findings from our follow-up survey on the impacts of COVID-19 on small businesses to better understand the continued challenges businesses face as the crisis evolves.
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Small Business Saturday promo pic from Downtown Goldsboro, North Carolina, showing all the folks who took the pledge support a small business in their community.
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Being the only person in the know can be fun, exhilarating even. Except when you are the one person out of 600+ in a room and you know bad news is coming.
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Main Street Iowa, a program of the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s Iowa Downtown Resource Center, created a one-of-a-kind three-year program to provide help for performance venues located in Main Street districts.