How to save a small holiday-centric business in a quaint hometown

If you're a big-city businesswoman heading home for the holidays, University of Missouri business professors have advice on how to save the beloved business that's about to go under, writes Kathy Deters on Show Me Mizzou. (If you're looking for a flannel-clad widower with a small child, they can't help with that.)

Mizzou experts were asked to revive a cherished local bookstore.

A toymaker remembers her "why"in Hallmark's "Christmas CEO."

Katie Essing, assistant teaching professor of marketing, suggested setting up a website for "omnichannel retailing" with a paid search strategy.

"We would make our social posts unique by sharing personal recommendations by the bookstore owner and team, with a content calendar for the holiday season to include gift-giving ideas and ‘The 12 Books of Christmas'," she writes. During the holidays, marketing "would include holiday book readings with cocoa, gift wrapping services, a visit from Santa, pet night with photos, and live music featuring local artists and carolers."

Other ideas: "Invite local children to draw pictures of their favorite holiday stories and feature them in our large glass storefront," and sponsor donations of books to local schools, hospitals and senior centers.

(When I was doing readings of my charter school book at bookstores, I'd ask a local charter school what books it wanted for its library, alert the bookstore and urge people who came to the reading to buy an additional book to give to the school. Bookstore owners loved me.)

The business could launch a monthly book club with discounts on selected books, themed appetizers and décor from local businesses, promoting other independent retailers and broadening the store’s customer base, writes Courtney Cothren, an associate teaching professor of marketing.

“Additional events could include readings from local authors or even a Scholastic-inspired book fair."

Open a coffee shop, says Sophia Rivera Hassemer, assistant director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It's a classic model because it works.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce finds timeless business lessons in Hallmark Christmas movies.

For example, Check Inn to Christmas teaches it's wise to learn from the competition. Julia's family's inn is competing with Ryan's family's inn. They work together to save their businesses from the Evil Developer. And find love.

Mistletoe Murders teaches the importance of "niching down," finding your specialty in a crowded market. Emily Lane succeeds with Under the Mistletoe, a year-round Christmas store, and solves crimes with a good-looking detective (with a daughter) in scenic (but homicide-prone) Fletcher's Grove.

Holiday rom-coms are relentlessly NIMBY, writes Jerusalem Demsas on The Argument. People who want to create new jobs and build new housing are villains, redeemable only if they abandon their plans to keep the town just as it is. These movies "reiterate the pervasive trope that what ails communities, families, and tradition is change, growth, and dynamism."