This is the ninth year that Rural Lifestyle Dealer has compiled and shared the most comprehensive look at equipment trends in the rural lifestyle market. We summarized the findings from our 2015 Business Trends & Outlook Report in our winter issue — sharing that nearly 84% of the responding dealers expect revenues to be as good as or better than last year.

Since 2011, Mahindra USA has tripled its revenues, doubled our market share and exceeded the market growth by 4 times in 2014, says Cleo Franklin, vice president of marketing, product development and strategic planning for Mahindra USA.

The same Tractor Supply that opened 107 locations in 2014 alone faced the business reality of closing a store this past week.

As more and more big and mid box stores open nationwide, the announcement about Tractor Supply closing in New Holstein, Wis., stands out.

A recent editorial ("Your #1 Ally Against Big Boxes") shared research that says that customers want smaller, independent businesses to win over big box stores and I suggested strategies to take advantage of that.

Doug Nord has been using Facebook since about 2007 and says he has always been interested in new technologies to reach customers.

Small is good, big is bad and your customers want small to win. That's the takeaway from a recent study, titled "Positioning Brands Against Large Competitors to Increase Sales."