By Stephen Smoot
About an hour and a half up the road, and for rather colorful historical reasons, Keyser calls itself “the friendliest city in the USA.”
Local entrepreneurs, however, are saying that Franklin and Pendleton County may be one of the friendliest places for both new and established small businesses. They describe the warm relationships built between mutually supportive small businesses and craftsmen and women in Franklin and throughout Pendleton County.
“That means a lot to our county,” said Sherry Mongold with Seneca Rocks Regional Development Authority. She also cited the efforts made by Linda Johnston, who moved here four years ago from Washington State, to establish a business with her daughter, Alicia.
Johnston moved to the area after having worked for the Seattle Times and also having run small businesses there. In Franklin she helped her daughter to establish Iron Rose on South Branch Street. Alicia Johnston, who is also a combat veteran active with the Our Five Boys Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Sugar Grove, owns the shop and her mother helps in myriad ways.
The mother and daughter team knew that a motorcycle and leather themed shop would be unconventional in Franklin, but Linda Johnston explained the secrets to their success thus far.
“We’re doing things for the community,” she said, showing products produced by local businesses and artisans that she sells alongside “high end quality” motorcycle apparel and gear, as well as a wide variety of leather clothing. She added that “I don’t want to sell anything that other stores offer.”
Local products offered include Pendleton County made maple syrup from Dry Fork Maple Works, honey from Monterey, Virginia, and other items made within 50 miles of Franklin. They sell these items in what they call their “chaos room,” where motorcycle rider tourists and also local shoppers can get complimentary water on a hot day.
The Johnstons then described a customer who was searching for clothes with a particular style. Though they didn’t carry the items, they referred the customer to another Franklin business that did offer those options. They also happily refer those seeking food and drink to local outfits, such as the Korner Shop, the Star Hotel, Elevated Grounds, and elsewhere.
Most local businesses understand that success comes from supporting the entire community. Economists call it the concept of the expanding pie. A business can either see itself as trying to snatch as big of a piece of the market “pie” as possible while trying to exclude others – or they support each other and make the whole “pie” bigger, enabling more to thrive.
Mongold also explained the success of local entrepreneurs in this fashion, “People have that dedication. They dream it. They see it. They do it.”
Jason Rawson from Elevated Grounds, like the Johnstons with Iron Rose, also credits both the supportive business community and the innate drive of an entrepreneur for his and his wife’s success in Franklin’s historic downtown.
“The whole reason that I wanted to own a business was to give back to the community,” Rawson stated. He also noted that “community support is why so many local businesses have thrived.”
All the support in the world, however, only complements the hard work of the owner-entrepreneurs. “You have to have the drive to want to do it,” Rawson said, sharing that he and his wife also both work full time jobs in addition to running the coffee shop. He advised that one will never get rich doing it and that “you have to have the mentality to fight all the battles and never give up. There will be sunshine at the end of the storms.”
Developing a mutually helpful community of businesses and producers also drives the mission of the Pendleton County Farmers Market. During the past two years the farmers market has encouraged both local small businesses and area hobbyists alike to sell their wares there.
A grant last year helped the market to purchase a modern point of sale system to keep track of whose products were sold and for how much. “It worked. We liked it. Everyone enjoyed it,” said Annie Humes, director, last spring.
