Editor's Note: This and all other Bourbon County Monitor articles are free until Thursday, Aug. 20, when most will require a paid subscription of $7.50 per month. Click here to subscribe.
FORT SCOTT, Kan. — When Kate and Trent Freeman boarded a plane to Colorado for marketing expert Jon Schallert's Destination Bootcamp, they carried the weight of three downtown businesses with them: The Artificers, Bourbon County Clay and The Queen's Muse.
They came home with four pages of bullet points, a plan to work through every one of them — and a message for every other independent business owner in Bourbon County.
"I'd encourage any business, independent business in Fort Scott or even in the county to go attend this conference," said Kate Freeman, who sat down with the Monitor alongside Carpenter to talk about the trip. "It has just been so helpful for us."
The Freemans were joined at the boot camp by Fort Scott Community Development Director Rachel Carpenter, giving the city both a business and a government presence at the intensive retreat.
Schallert, a nationally known destination marketing consultant, described the boot camp as "my two-and-a-half-day class that teaches my entire 14-step process of how to make your business and community a destination."
"It took over four years and 10,000 business owners visited in 600 cities to develop it," Schallert said.
'We want to pull people from further away'
For the Freemans, the trip was about expanding the reach of their three businesses..
"We're wanting to make all of that a destination. We want to pull people from further away," Kate said. "We are currently pulling people from about two hours and we want to expand that out. And then also our online businesses need to go nationwide, plus pulling people in."
The goal, she said, is for customers to shop online from anywhere in the country — and then decide to make the trip. "We want people to shop online from nationwide, but then also be like, 'I want to go there. I want to see what this place is.'"
Since returning, the Freemans have been working step-by-step through Schallert’s training.
"He gives you tons of information," Freeman said, "but then it's very bite-sized information and then he tells you how to organize the information to make it happen so you don't feel overwhelmed when you get back."
Worth closing the doors to attend?
Since many Bourbon County businesses are owner-operated, the biggest obstacle is a practical one: attending the boot camp means shutting down for several days.
Freeman didn't hesitate when asked whether it was still worth the trip.
"Absolutely," she said.
The schedule, she noted, is more forgiving than it sounds — an informal gathering Monday night, full days Tuesday and Wednesday, and a partial day Thursday, with attendees able to be home by Thursday night or Friday.
"Technically you're only losing out on a few days that are probably your lower income days and you can get back," Freeman said, "but the gain is well worth it."
"You have to take that break for introspection and to be able to step back," Schallert said, noting the most recent class drew 34 owners who gave up four or five days of their time.
Carpenter framed it as an investment too many entrepreneurs never make.
"Oftentimes entrepreneurs, they don't invest in themselves," Carpenter said. "This is an opportunity to invest into yourself professionally, get away from the environment of the hustle of the day to day and really envision what you want your business to turn into.“
A city seat at the table
Carpenter said attending as a city representative gave her a ground-level view of what downtown businesses actually face.
"Understanding all the nitty-gritty stuff that the businesses have to go through helps me better support them and understand what's their next step," she said. "Do we need to work on your marketing strategy? Do you need to work on social media or your storefront?"
For the Freemans, the city's presence in Colorado sent an important message.
"It was very important to me and Trent to see that our city cared enough about our business that they would send someone," Freeman said. "We felt it very personally that Rachel being there was like, 'We care about you. We care about you as a business. We care to see what you're learning and to help you through this.'"
"I don't want any business to feel like they're on their own try to promote themselves," Carpenter said. "I want them to feel like the city tourism is a partner to be able to market them, and so in any way that we can collaborate, we are willing to support."
Strength in numbers
Schallert said the real multiplier comes when several businesses from the same small town attend together — pointing to Junction City, which sent 13 people to a single boot camp.
"What happens is you really start learning the same language and you end up developing not only rapport with your fellow business owners, but you start developing the entire vocabulary and a set of tactics that you can use to work collectively together to make the whole community better," he said.
Carpenter agreed the payoff extends beyond any single storefront. "From a tourism standpoint, it helps us to have a unified strategy to help promote these businesses," she said.
Her biggest takeaway was simpler still.
"Being a destination business is so attainable. It's just right there," Carpenter said. "I just think everyone just needs that little bit of hope. We can do it."
Schallert's next Destination Bootcamp is planned for the first quarter of 2027, with online classes and a portal for business owners available at DestinationUniversity.com in the meantime.
