Today, I’m going to show you 19 different marketing strategies that have a proven history of success for small businesses.

Half of these options will probably be viable growth strategies for your unique business.

Four of them are probably worth testing out over the next month.

And one of them has the potential to skyrocket your growth over the next year.

These work really well if you want to find inexpensive ways to promote your mobile app.

Once you’ve achieved product/market fit, your growth is simply a matter of smart marketing on the front end and a good customer retention on the backend. By the end of this article, you will know exactly what to do next with your marketing.

But before we get started, let me share a secret with you.

There Is No Magic Marketing Strategy

There is no magic bullet.

The goal of marketing is to connect your business’ value to the right customer base. It’s a simple concept but it can take on a million different shades.

• What demographics make up your customer base?
• Where do they live?
• Where do they hang out online?
• How do they look for products in your niche?
• Who do the listen when making decisions relative to your product?

The answers to these questions determine which marketing strategies will be viable and which will be a waste of time.

In other words, the key to success for your business is not Facebook Ads.

It’s not SEO.

It’s not conference networking.

There is no magic, universal strategy that will revolutionize your business. I have literally no clue what will work for you, because I don’t know you. I don’t know your business. I don’t know your customers.

But fortunately, you DO know your business! You DO know your customer base!

And after reading this guide, you will have an expanded awareness of viable marketing channels, any of which could hold the key to your future growth.

Eight of the channels we will discuss are strictly digital strategies, which will be conducted online. The other eight are a bit more general, with strategies that can be conducted offline (although many have online applications as well).

Let’s get started.

1. Facebook Advertising

Two million small to medium sized businesses advertise on Facebook; it’s an inexpensive and effective way to market to virtually any audience.

Image Credit: ibisinfotech.com

Facebook ads excel at advanced targeting. They allow you to target a specific audience based on location, interests, age, sex, online behavior, and many other factors.

Creating Facebook ads is very easy. You just need a solid headline, a bit of descriptive copy, one image, and a link.

Promote your app icon here as well.

The Facebook Ads Manager also makes it fairly simple to run and test multiple ad sets, allowing you to hone in on a winning formula and reach profitability without needing advanced technical expertise.

That said, many new users have a lot of difficulty succeeding with their initial campaigns. It takes some persistence, but on the plus side, Facebook’s popularity has produced numerous 3rd party tools that can help you succeed.

If you decide that Facebook is the right channel for you, I’d recommend using a tool like AdEspresso to run your campaigns and speed up your journey to positive ROI.

If you run a business that has a strong visual component, it might be worth trying out Instagram Ads instead. As a subsidiary of Facebook, Instagram Ads benefit from the same data base and targeting options, while allowing you to connect with an audience that is better primed for visual sales.

Additional Reading

1. Facebook Advertising Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide by Neil Patel
2. How to Run App Install Ads On Facebook by Aki Merced

2. Google My Business

Ranking your Google My Business (GMB) listing is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business.

In fact, if you run a local business targeting local clients, I would dare to say it is THE most powerful strategy available to you.

For example, if someone searches for a “Portland contractor”, this is what they see:

What you are seeing here is one paid ad, followed by THREE Google My Business listings before we even see the normal organic search results. If you can rank your GMB listing in these top 3, you can pull in large numbers of highly qualified leads day in and day out without needing to spend a dime on ads.

Google My Business combines all your different Google platforms into one central place, which includes your Google+ profile, Google Maps profile, your Google reviews, access to data on Google Analytics and Google Insights, and more.

If you have a unique brand name, you can even get a large display like this to show when people search for that name:

GMB immediately gives your business credibility and visibility, and as I said before, if you run a local business, it should be #1 on your priority list.

And best of all, ranking your GMB listing is really not that hard. It simply requires you to optimize your profile and then collect reviews and citations.

Additional Reading

1. How to optimize your Google My Business listing: expert tips by Graham Charlton
2. 7 SEO Mistakes That Leak Money From Local Businesses by Jacob McMillen

3. Google Adwords

There are more than 40,000 search queries on Google every second. No other advertising method has the potential to get your business before that many pairs of eyes.

Google Adwords is sort of the godfather of online marketing channels. It’s been around a long time. It’s competitive. It’s expensive. And if you know what you’re doing, it can work very, very well for you.

Despite being a paid channel, Adwords’ goal is still to deliver relevant search results to users, and as a result, it will be less expensive for you when you are utilizing proper on-page SEO.

Google assigns a quality score to your ad, which is dependent on CTR (Click Through Rate), relevance and the landing page your ad sends traffic to. This quality score factors into the bid rate you will need to get an ad displayed, with higher scores lowering the bid cost.

Unlike many of the channels we will discuss today, Adwords is a remarkably symbiotic channel that can be paired with many other strategies to maximize output. As a paid marketing channel, it also allows you to obtain immediate results and can scale as far as your budget allows.

Additional Reading

1. The Complete Google AdWords Tutorial by Jerry Banfield
2. The Iceberg Effect: How Your AdWords Strategy Is Slowly Drowning by Johnathan Dane

4. Content Marketing

18% of marketers say that content marketing has the greatest commercial impact on their business of any channel in 2016.

Image Credit: SmartInsights

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and drive profitable customer action.

Unlike paid advertising, content marketing focuses more on long-term results. The initial payoff tends to be low, but the long-term, sustainable growth in visitors, leads, and customers can single-handedly carry a business.

Content marketing is not easy, however, and requires every element to be done right:

• Quality content
• Relevant topics
• Optimized for SEO
• Optimized for readers
• Consistent content creation & promotion

Content is not limited to blog posts. It includes videos, podcasts, online courses, and a host of other mediums in which people consume information.

It’s important to understand that every small business can rely on content marketing. From food delivery apps to B2B consulting, professional services, white label apps, and more, content marketing is versatile for every possible use case.

If you are considering this strategy for your own business, make sure you have the time and capital needed to get going with no initial ROI, and then DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Too many businesses these days are just wasting resources creating mediocre content with no payoff, now or ever.

Additional Reading

1. Getting Started With Content Marketing by Content Marketing Institute
2. Why You Need a Growth Model For Your Blog (And How to Create One) by Devesh Khanal
3. How to Start a Blog in 2020 (and Make Money): Free Easy Guide to Start Blogging Today
    by Ryan Robinson

5. Organic Social Media

Using social media for business is really a non-negotiable.

67% of consumers use social media for customer support, and 33% prefer using social media instead of the telephone. If people can’t find your business via social media, they will look for your competitors who ARE present on preferred social channels.

The real question isn’t whether you should have active social media accounts, it’s how much time and resources you should be investing in growing your social audiences.

For some businesses, it makes sense to invest heavily in organic social media growth.

For example, Instagram users that follow fashion influencers are actively looking to purchase new styles. By building an active, fashion-savvy audience, a clothing retailer can build a consistent direct sales channel.

For other businesses, investing in Instagram might not make sense.

The key is identifying where your customers are and how they like to be approached. If social media is the answer to both those questions, it’s the perfect channel for your business.

Additional Reading

1. 7 Step Beginner’s Guide To Effective Social Media for Small Business by Jamil Velji
2. The Ultimate Guide To Creating The Perfect Social Media Calendar by Sandrine Sahakians

6. Coupon Deal Sites

Whether you sell a product or offer a service, you can use coupon deal sites like Groupon to quickly promote your business.

Coupon deal sites amass massive audiences, grouped by location, and then allow local, regional or even national businesses to offer limited-time discounts to their members.

Benefits include mass exposure, targeted local advertising, increased brand awareness, and an influx of new customers. The cost comes in the form of low revenue per sale. In the case of Groupon, you are required to discount your product by at least 50%, and at least half the revenue goes to Groupon.

In other words, unless you are running a 300% markup, you will lose money on your Groupon deal. It’s essentially paid advertising.

The primary purpose for using coupon deal sites is not sales. The more significant your discount, the more popular your deal will be. The goal is to get people in your door or trying your product, and from there, your customer retention strategies kick in.

As an added bonus, many new potential customers will browse your website even if they don’t decide to purchase the deal.

But be warned!

If your deal gains traction, you can quickly be overcome by more customers than you are prepared to handle, and if you don’t do the math correctly, you can lose a lot of money. It’s important to be ready and to have a plan for handling different tiers of new business.

It’s also important to have flawless customer service during the period after running your deal, with the expectation that your coupon-driven customers will be even harder to please than normal customers.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Follow deals going on in your area and see how they play out. If you can, talk with fellow business owners who have run deals and learn from their experience.

And make sure – for the love of all that is good and decent – make sure you do the math.

Additional Reading

1. Doing The Math On A Groupon Deal by Jay Goltz
2. The Real Cost of Groupon and What it Means to Your Marketing Planning by Mana Ionescu

7. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the cornerstone of digital marketing.

Most of the people who visit your site will not buy from you immediately. Capturing contact info for additional marketing and “lead nurturing” is the best way to sell in 2016, and email remains the highest converting channel for interacting with leads.

Email marketing funnels begin with a “lead magnet”. This is something compelling you offer your website visitors in exchange for their email address. Possible options include a free digital download, a free service trial, a “seat” at a webinar, site membership, a coupon, etc.

Here’s an example from HubSpot:

HubSpot offers a reliable and feature-packed email marketing tool that’s suited for growing businesses — for free. The tool allows you to create professional marketing emails that engage and grow your audience. You can start from scratch, with the easy drag-and-drop email builder, or use one of the goal-based templates available. 

Other benefits of email marketing include:

• Low cost
• Global reach
• Easy to automate
• Easy to segment
• Immediate communication
• Easy to setup and run
• Easy to track and optimize

There are a lot of marketing channels that are hard. As you may have noticed from the above list, email marketing is one of the few that can be described as “easy”.

Additional Reading

1. How to Build Your Email List: The (Better Than) Ultimate Guide by Aaron Orendorf

8. Webinars

A webinar is essentially a seminar that takes place online. It can be in the form of a presentation, demonstration or discussion.

Image Credit: boss.influxentrepreneur.info

Webinars are often used as lead magnets for email marketing and the right topic can drive a large batch of new subscribers to your list. It can also be used to build credibility with your current subscribers.

Webinars can also be recorded and used as standalone products or even a series of products. They are a great medium for both live and recorded training.

Webinars tend to be more engaging than simple videos, even if they are used in exactly the same way. The actual start time and live Q&A tends to make people feel like they are receiving significantly more value than if they were watching a video with the exact same information.

You will need webinar software to run a webinar that utilizes the following functions:

• 2-Way Audio – the presenter speaks while the viewers are muted, but the presenter can “turn on” individual viewers so everyone can hear their question
• Screenshare – the presenter can share their screen or switch to video for whiteboard teaching or live demonstration
• Polls – the presenter can invite viewers to take a poll or provide feedback in other ways

Webinars work very well in certain niches. You’ll have to test one out to see if it works with your target audience.

Additional Reading

1. Webinar Marketing: 15 Steps to Revenue Generating Webinars by Georgiana Laudi
2. How to grow your business with webinar marketing by Ross Beard

9. Promote A Free Consultation

When it comes to professional services, people want access to expertise.

If you have done a good job of positioning yourself as an expert or authority in your niche, promoting a free consultation is a great way to generate new leads. If you have a good interpersonal sales process in place, it also sets you up to close a large percentage of leads.

A lot of service providers worry about disclosing too much info in a free consultation. They feel like potential clients will just take the info and run.

In reality, the exact opposite is true. While freeloader types might grab and go, they were never going to buy anyway. The type of people interested in paying for quality will be impressed by the value you provide in the consultation.

After all, if you can provide so much value in 30 minutes to an hour, they will believe that your claims are true and that hiring you is the right decision.

This can be used both online and offline. It can be advertised via pamphlets, newspapers, signs, or even word-of-mouth. And it can be prominently displayed on your website and social media channels.

This strategy won’t be ideal for every businesses, but if you offer an expert service or a high-priced service, it is very much worth considering.

Additional Reading

1. Should You Offer Free Consultations? by Courtney Johnston
2. 6 Ways To Make Free Consults Work For You by Laura Simms

10. Offer Staff Incentives

Referrals are one of the best ways to find new customers, and who better suited to obtain referrals than your current staff?

Your employees know your product or service. They know your customer base. Some of them will take initiative without financial motivation, but most won’t, and those you bring in new business should be encourage to repeat the process with financial or otherwise meaningful reward.

Offer incentives to your staff members who refer new clients. Research proves that it doesn’t necessarily have to be monetary; incentives can even come in the form of:

• A sleep-in day: staff get to to sleep in late for a certain period of time.
• Membership to publications (of their choice).
• Vouchers for massages, movie nights, restaurants.

Like any type of compensation, incentives are about matching your business’ goals to the goals of your employees. If you can find out what they want most, you can motivate them to help grow your business.

It’s also important to give them the tools they need, whether that’s a customized landing page, printed coupons, a special discount for employee referred clients, or whatever.

Hold training sessions and teach your staff how to effectively promote your business, but remember that this form of marketing will only work if they genuinely feel good about your business and are properly motivated to pitch it to friends, family, and acquaintances.

Additional Reading

1. How to Create a Referral Program that Boosts Retention & Rewards Employees by Joe Flores
2. Determining The Most Effective Rewards For Employee Referrals by Dr. John Sullivan

11. Advertise In Niche Print Media

While much of the world has moved online, print media still exists, and in some niches, it still thrives.

In fact, as recently as 2014, retail consumers cited printed materials as the chief sources of information behind their purchasing decisions.

As print media continues to decrease in overall popularity, pricing for ad placement lowers as well. In the right niches, it is now possible to run effective ads at incredibly affordable prices.

That said, print media is rarely effective as a solo marketing strategy. It is best used in conjunction with online marketing strategies, with the two channels arranged to compliment each other and create an engaging experience for potential buyers.

Additional Reading

1. How To Combine Print And Digital Marketing Campaigns by Jeff Bullas
2. Is Print Marketing Really Dead? by Chris Holloway

12. Write A Column

If you are a decent writer, sharing your expertise in the form of weekly or monthly write-ups can do wonders for your brand.

This isn’t usually a situation where you get paid, but it’s also not a situation where you have to pay. These columns give you the opportunity to make consistent contact with an audience, building an actual relationship with the publication’s readers. That audience then begins to think of you when they think of experts in your field.

On the more accessible end, local newspapers or non-profit magazines are often looking for quality contributors. One the more exclusive end, publications like Forbes, Inc, and Fast Company are made up almost exclusively of unpaid expert columns.

But believe me. These experts make bank thanks to their place on these influential platforms.

Make sure that what you write about is valuable to the target audience. This isn’t lowkey advertising. It’s a chance to access and build trust with an audience someone else worked really hard to build.

Plus, even if you don’t land a column, you might be able to land a guest post, which can be incredibly valuable as well.

Some ideas for articles you can write include:

• How-to guides
• Current events commentary
• Interviews with interesting people
• List posts
• Reporting on trends or events

Additional Reading

1. How to Secure Guest Posts on Big Publications (WSJ, Forbes & HuffPo) by Sujan Patel
2. How I Wrote for Fast Company, Copyblogger,& Entrepreneur by Aaron Orendorff

13. Join Local Business Groups

Joining local business groups will give you the opportunity to meet up with other like-minded people who already share some common ground with you: owning a business. While a lot of more general entrepreneur groups exist, there might also be some niche-specific groups and meetups in your area.

These groups are a great opportunity to bounce ideas off other smart people, share referrals, find talent, and identify new opportunities.

They are also a major catalyst in expanding your network around the city in which you live. Connections tend to multiply, and if your group takes networking seriously, you can leverage your seemingly minor connections into much significant ones.

While these groups are typically best found online, it’s preferable to have in-person meetups for the bulk of your interactions.

Lastly, these groups can lead to joint ventures and profitable partnerships, which we will discuss more in the next section.

Additional Reading

1. Top 10 Business Networking Groups You Should Join by Brian Morris
2. How To Find A Mastermind Group by Pat Flynn

14. Partner With Other Businesses

Teamwork is always more effective than singular effort, and combining resources with another business can help you do things you could never accomplish on your own.

It’s typically best to target companies in your local area, even if your clientele isn’t local. Your goal is to work out a complementary arrangement that provides mutual benefit for both businesses.

Some joint venture examples include:

• A PPC agency could partner with a CRO agency to refer clients to each other.
• A coffee shop could offer free coffee vouchers to a plumbing company’s customers.
• A marketing company could partner with an accounting firm to recommend each other’s services during new client onboarding.
• A real estate agent app that features vendors for photography, staging, or cleaning companies.
• A beauty therapist could offer free manicures for a hair stylist’s clients.

There is really no limit to what’s possible. Simply identify crossover in your audience and a non-competitor’s audience and then find a way to tap into that crossover in a mutually beneficial way.

Additional Reading

1. Why Small Businesses Should Partner Up With Other Brands by Web Smith
2. 5 Tips To Partnering Alongside A Business For The First Time by Deborah Sweeney

15. Direct Mail Marketing

Like print media, direct mail marketing is not dead.

As online channels become more and more saturated with content, fewer companies look to direct mail, and that means opportunity for you.

Like with any marketing strategy, success comes down to targeted creativity. You can’t just spam people and expect a return on your investment. Just like you need to compel people to click your blog post headline, you need to compel mail recipients to open your letters.

Start with the envelope, which will never be opened if it looks like a run-of-the-mill promo piece. Stand out. Use a colored envelope. Use an unusual shape, size or material. Make it look interesting.

If possible, handwrite the address on every envelope or include something bulky inside to make the envelope lumpy – anything you can do to grab attention

Compare this envelope:

Image Credit: Freelogoservices

With this one. You’re more likely to open the following envelope, right?

Image Credit: KezzysCreations

The next thing to focus on is the content. If you want the best results, your headline has to be enticing, and your copywriting needs to hold the reader’s attention through the duration of your pitch.

Like most offline campaigns in 2016, direct mail is typically run in conjunction with an online marketing funnel.

Additional Reading

1. How to Create a Direct Marketing Campaign by Entrepreneur.com
2. How to Plan Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign by George Oliveira

16. Speak At Events

In terms of branding and establishing yourself as an authority, few things are more impactful than being a speaker at popular events in your niche.

While invitations to speak at larger events are often extended as a result of accomplishments or visible influence, you can also work your way into these opportunities by becoming a talented speaker and delivering great talks at smaller events.

Or you can simply use it as another marketing channel, by speaking at some of these types of events:

• Local clubs – think Rotary, Lion’s, Chamber of Commerce.
• Business networking groups.
• Specific interest clubs (photography, hiking, sewing, etc.)
• Browse local events on Eventbrite.com and Meetup.com.
• Schools.
• Churches.
• Check events in your local newspaper and magazines.
• Big companies and their employees.

Be prepared, and treat every event like a big deal.

Additional Reading

1. How To Start Speaking At Events by Chris Brogan
2. Why I Get Invited to Speak at Events (And How You Can Too) by Rohit Bhargava

17. Small Business SEO

Small businesses are often tempted to give short shrift to SEO in their overall marketing, perhaps because mega-corporations such as Walmart and Amazon invest millions in dominating the search game. While it’s true that there will always be a competitor out there who has built a better small business SEO operation, it’s also true that today’s small business owner can’t afford to neglect search.

Here’s why:

• It works. A well-planned and executed SEO strategy will yield results in terms of increased organic traffic and better positioning.
• It’s cost effective. Compared to pay-per-click, social media marketing, and even purchasing email marketing lists, SEO delivers a respectable return on investment.
• It dominates market share. About 90 percent of consumers search a product or service online prior to making a purchase. They won’t find your business if it doesn’t show up in search.  
• Mobile search is exploding. This year, Google announced that mobile search outpaced desktop search for the first time, and in fact, Google Search is the 4th most popular app in the United States.

Of course, if you operate a local business, you really can’t afford to ignore SEO in your marketing plan. Google’s latest algorithm favors local businesses in its search results in an effort to deliver the highly relevant and individualized results today’s consumers demand. This is especially true for consumers who use Google on their smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices.

If your business has a mobile app, give yourself kudos for being ahead of the curve for marketing and SEO. The exponential growth in mobile search is a huge boon for businesses who capitalize on the SEO advantages of a mobile app.

Your mobile app helps SEO in two distinct ways:

• Google is now treating as a “universal” result in mobile search. Apps with optimized titles and good ratings and reviews will float to the top, displacing even mobile websites with top organic rankings.
• Google considers “high quality” apps to be a positive factor in ranking mobile search results. This means that deep links between your app and website could improve your mobile search rank.

If your business markets to a highly mobile audience or relies on mobile search for traffic and leads, you might want to consider adding a mobile app to your marketing strategy.

18. Link-Building for Small Businesses

The Google algorithm factors the quality and quantity of sites that link to you in your search rankings. In fact, some SEO consultants even recommend that fledgling businesses actually buy links to boost their ranking. That tactic, however, may do more harm than good.

There is no question that high quality links build authority and credibility, ultimately improving your ranking, but changes in the Google Penguin algorithm actually penalizes sites containing too many low-quality or “spammy” links. The key is building links the old-fashioned way—by creating useful, relevant content that people want to share.

For SMEs, this means investing the money and resources to develop highly shareable, top quality content. Long-form blog posts and in-depth articles, infographics, and video tutorials are examples of high performing content likely to garner links.

19. On-Page Optimization

If keyword research is the foundation of your SEO strategy, on-page optimization undergirds the rest of the search infrastructure. On-page optimization includes everything from optimal keyword density to site load speed that helps Google evaluate and rank your page. Great keywords won’t deliver results without good on-page optimization. Here’s a look at the basics:

• Title Tags

Page titles should have an H1 tag (most content management systems do this automatically) and include a keyword and your brand name, if applicable. Limit your title to about 55 or 60 characters, which is all that displays in search results.

• Meta Descriptions

While metas aren’t technically factored into search, they do give the searcher more information, entice them to visit, and often serve as a call to action. Limit them to about 150 characters or so.

• Site Load Speed

Use Google’s Page Insight tool to see how your site stacks up. Aim for a score of 85 or better and make any recommended changes or fixes marked with a red exclamation point. If time and resources allow, make “yellow” fixes, as well. 

• Schema Markups

Adding schema markups is one of the most powerful ways to boost your website in the SERPs. Schema tells the search engine what your content means, not just what it says, which changes the way the content is indexed. Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper makes it easy to add schema markups to your site.

• Keyword Density

While there is no “optimum” keyword density percentage, there are some best practices to follow, such as including keywords in the title, meta, and anchor text, and avoiding keyword stuffing on the page. Use natural language and aim to drop the keyword at least once in the first 100 words of copy on a page.

• Social Sharing Icons

Social media has a prime place in small business SEO; Google bots make a direct connection between your website and your social media profile pages. Include relevant social icons on your web pages—it not only improves your search, it adds credibility for visitors who land on your site.

Be sure to look at all your pages, including landing pages, product pages, and your company blog and implement SEO best practices across the board. Don’t forget ALT tags for images on your site; while the impact is small, the cumulative effect could make a difference in your rankings.

Conclusion & Summary

Well, that’s the scoop: 16 proven marketing strategies that have worked for thousands of businesses and can work for you.

Here’s the full list:

1. Advertise on Facebook
2. Rank your Google My Business listing
3. Use Google Adwords
4. Invest In content marketing
5. Grow your organic social reach
6. Run a coupon deal
7. Build an email marketing funnel
8. Host a webinar
9. Offer a free consultation
10. Incentivize employees to refer new clients
11. Advertise in niche print media
12. Write a column
13. Join a local business group
14. Partner with other businesses
15. Launch a direct mail campaign
16. Speak at events
17. Small Business SEO
18. Link Building
19. On-Page Optimization

While only half of these are probably worth considering for your unique business, I’m guessing at least four of them are great fits, and as I said at the beginning of the article, one of these channels has the potential to skyrocket your growth this next year.

Evaluate the criteria I talked about at the beginning.

• What demographics make up your customer base?
• Where do they live?
• Where do they hang out online?
• How do they look for products in your niche?
• Who do the listen when making decisions relative to your product?

Use the answers to select four viable channels from today’s list of marketing strategies for small businesses, and then run small tests with each strategy to see what fails and what performs.

When you’re just getting started with your small business, simply deciding which goal to tackle first—and knowing what to do and when—can be a job just by itself.

None of us are born with business smarts or an entrepreneurial playbook pre-printed into our brains. It’s stuff that we’ve all got to figure out along the way, and that most of us make some sort of horrible mistake over.

And especially when we first get started in business—when we don’t have years of experience to help us make smart, educated guesses—business management tips and advice from others can be incredibly helpful.

So today we’re going to focus on management tips—people management, time management, money management—you name it.

But they’re all tips that’ll help you as a new small business owner manage your business better so you can avoid unwanted headaches and just push forward to the progress you want.

 

1. Set Up an LLC (or Some Form of Official Business Entity)

Even if you’re totally self employed, don’t have anyone else working for you, and are 100% self-funded from your own pocket, you need to set up your business as a separate taxable entity from day one.

Some service professionals like writers, designers, and coaches feel safer skipping this step while they’re still ramping up their client base, but it usually costs $1,000 or less and almost instantly protects your personal assets from any legal trouble your business might get into.

I’m not saying your business will get into legal trouble—most small businesses never do.

But just in case you accidentally used a name that was copyrighted elsewhere in your state or get a totally horrible client that completely screws you over even though you have a contract… the worst thing that can happen is your business dissolves.

Which would suck, but at least you wouldn’t have to foreclose on your house just to pay off what you’re getting sued for… you know?

Headaches saved:

– Business financial troubles seeping over into your personal finances

– The IRS breathing down your neck

– Getting sued for everything you own

 

2. Separate Your Personal & Business Finances

Let’s say for some reason setting up a legal entity isn’t an option.

Or for some reason your paperwork is being held up, but you just can’t wait to get cracking on your business.

Please, please, please, by all means, don’t accept payment in your personal business account or put business expenses on your personal credit card.

Most banks will require official business paperwork to open something up in your business’s name, but at the very least, you can open separate personal accounts that are designated for only business transactions.

Regardless, even if getting your LLC paperwork was a breeze, this is something you have to do.

Since you and your business are separate taxable entities, you need to have separate finances. Otherwise things just get messy and you might as well assume you’ll have to deal with an audit—even if you’ve got nothing to hide.

Headaches saved:

– More trouble with the IRS

 

3. Pay for Accounting Software

A lot of brand-new business owners—especially those who are bootstrapping—are constantly looking for ways to save money.

So much so that tasks like accounting and bookkeeping—or keeping track of money in/money out—is something they assume they can do on their own.

But honestly, there’s no need to go full-out and hire an on-staff accountant. At least not at first.

There’s so many options for good, easy-to-use accounting software, that it’s just silly not to use them.

And honestly, for as little as they cost, they almost always pay for themselves with time saved.

You can get basic versions starting at $10 to $20 per month, and if sending invoices are a thing you do, they’ll look so much better and take so much less time to make than if you tried to fumble around Excel and do it yourself.

Headaches saved:

– Losing receipts

– Forgetting about your major expenses

– Not looking like a 7-year-old “playing business” while sending an invoice

 

4. Invest in Your Education

Heart-to-heart right now: the best money I’ve spent on my business has been on my own education to further it.

If I don’t know how to do something, I know it’s silly for me to keep trying to Google solutions, go through months and months of trial and error, and maybe get it right after that.

Instead, it makes a lot more sense to pay a few hundred dollars (sometimes even a few thousand, depending on the skill) to have someone who’s been there, done it, and been successful at it teach me how to do it right the first time.

Because even though those courses cost money upfront, they more than pay for themselves in return on saved mistakes alone… not to mention how much they help me actually make more money because of the things they teach.

I’ve done courses on how to set up my business, how to manage clients, how to market, how to advertise, how to write, how to pick colors and do basic web design, how to network, and how to create an info product.

Free courses are available yes, but they only scratch the surface. Paying money to dig deep into the topic and really learn it goes so, so far. Trust me.

Headaches saved:

– Wasted time

– Wasted money

– Failed experiments

– Leaving sales on the table

– Googling for 13 hours straight while your eyeballs bulge out of your head

 

5. Train New Employees Well

Recently I heard John and Kate (the couple behind Entrepreneur on Fire, not the reality show stars with 8 children) on a podcast talking about how when you hire someone, you should actually expect a temporary increase in work instead of immediately being able to offload responsibilities and have the free time you dream of.

That’s because, even if you make the smartest hires in the world, they’re not going to understand and acclimate to your business right away.

Instead, they’re going to need time to learn the ins and outs, to understand your expectations, and to mentally put the puzzle together to see how all the small pieces add up to your larger goals.

They’re not going to hit the ground running on day one, and you shouldn’t expect them to.

Train them well to do their jobs—even if they’ve filled the same role five times before at five different companies and you assume it should all be the same. (It’s not all the same.)

If you’re not sure how to put together a training plan, check out this guide on Inc. and its dig deeper resources.

Plus, when someone feels more competent in their job, they feel more empowered and proud of what they do.

Headaches saved:

– Harsh firing

– High turnover

– No wasted time going back to un-do employee mistakes

6. Ignore Your Inbox the First 4 Hours of Every Day

No doubt you’ve read productivity articles that have advised you not to check your emails first thing in the morning.

Because it’s a piece of advice repeated so often by people doing nothing but parroting one another, it can be easy to ignore.

But, it does serve a purpose, and a good one at that.

The thing is, when you’re actively going through your emails, your brain feels busy. It is busy, actually, but not with the most important tasks of the day.

And studies have shown over and over again that decision fatigue as the day wears on and as our brains keep thinking is very much a thing.

Which means that if you spend the first four hours of your day weeding through emails from those SEO spammers, you’re burning your brain power out on things that don’t even matter.

Which means you’ve got a lot less brain power left over to think critically about important business decisions and situations that can actually make you more successful. (Unlike those fake SEOs.)

Plus, when an “emergency situation” pops into your inbox and you don’t see it until the afternoon, at least the majority of your to-do list is taken care of before you have to handle it.

Headaches saved:

– Not getting behind on your to-do list

– Not making decisions you regret

 

7. Invest in Marketing

An “Open for Business” sign on your front door and/or a website that’s finally gone live isn’t enough to get you customers.

It’d be nice, but that’s just not the world we live in.

The world we live in requires small business people like us to force our way in front of people, show them something valuable, and somehow have them listen to our pitch.

Because without that, ain’t nobody going to just be compelled out of the blue to buy from us.

So to invest in marketing properly, you’ll need to do a little research to find out what works best for your business model and your market:

• Renting a booth at a festival?
• Online content marketing?
• Ads in the newspaper?
• PPC ads in Google?
• Facebook ads?
• Network marketing and referrals?

Whatever it is, you’ll want to start doing it from day one.

Or if you’re really smart, you’ll use it to start building hype, loyalty and anticipation before day one.

But whatever you do, don’t sit around and twiddle your thumbs and then decide that maybe you should look into marketing when you realize your business isn’t as profitable as you initially planned.

Do it right away and you’ll thank yourself.

Headaches saved:

– Sore thumbs from too much twiddling

– Zero cash flow

– Going in debt because of no income

– No funds to pay yourself or your employees

 

8. Schedule Meetings With Yourself

As the business owner, you’ve got a ton of decisions to make.

You’re the one responsible for your company’s ultimate success or failure, you’re the one all your employees look to for direction, and you’re the one that’s got to see the big branding picture to know what moves to make next.

But because running a business—even a “small” business—requires so much work and such a long freaking to-do list, we often get so caught up in feeling accomplished by getting that work done and those to-do items checked off that we forget to check in with ourselves as business owners.

In short, we get caught up in acting like an employee to such an extent that we forget to be the boss.

So every week—I schedule mine on Friday mornings—take 30 minutes to an hour to have a meeting with yourself as the chief strategist of your business.

To start off the meeting, acknowledge what your big-picture goals are and then for each of those goals, figure out if what you’re doing right now is aligned with making those things happen.

If it is, great.

If it isn’t, figure out what you can do to change it.

If it kind of is, but there’s room for improvement, figure out what that improvement needs to be.

When I do this, I often find that the things I’ve let myself get heavily focused on probably need to be set to the side for a week or two while I get something else in order.

And even though I don’t make progress on the thing I set aside for half a month, when I do pick it back up again, the progress is always smarter and faster because of these meetings with myself.

Headaches saved:

– Getting behind on your goals

– Not keeping up with the market or your competition

– Watching part of your business crumble

 

9. Pay Your Taxes Every Quarter

I’ll admit, this is something I didn’t always keep up with until this year.

And the reason I’m keeping up with it now was because when I filed my taxes last April, I had to pay a fine for not paying my minimum amounts on time.

I had every intention of paying my taxes, I just assumed it wouldn’t matter if I paid them ahead of time or if I paid them at the time of filing. But I was wrong. The IRS wanted your money within 3 months after I made it.

It makes sense… if you pay sooner they can make better use of your money and/or earn interest on it.

So if you’re not already paying your taxes on a quarterly basis, talk to your accountant to see what your quarterly minimums should be and make sure you send them in.

The best part is, you don’t have to do the filing paperwork every quarter. As long as you send in the checks (or pay online) and keep track of what you’ve sent, you’ll be good to go and now have any sort of fee to pay.

Headaches saved:

– Hard-earned money spent on unnecessary fees

– No IRS employees breathing down your neck

 

10. Ban Multi-Tasking

Because really, who are we kidding here?

It astonishes me that I still see job descriptions seeking “competent multi-taskers” when it’s been proven in one study after another that multitasking  is both impossible and that attempting to do it makes you about 3,000 times less productive.

So don’t let yourself or your employees multi-task.

Don’t think you can absorb the information in an instructional podcast while also blasting through your email inbox.

Or deal with your Twitter notifications while you’re on a conference call with your suppliers.

At any point you’re paying attention to one while the content of the other is just coasting right over your head without any cognitive recognition from your brain.

By doing one thing at a time—and only one thing at a time—you’ll find that you actually get more done in a day, that your work rises to a much higher quality, and that you’ll make fewer mistakes that you have to go back and undo later.

Headaches saved:

– Embarrassing typos in emails sent to important customers

– Having to go back and listen to the same podcast episode for the 3rd time

– That frazzled feeling in your brain when you have to constantly switch back and forth between tasks

– People not taking you seriously because they think you’re a space case

 

11. Have a Go-To Accountant

In addition to the advice to have accounting software that I talked about above, it’s also smart to have an accountant you can go to as-needed.

Again, I’m not talking about hiring one to keep on staff with you.

Instead, I mean finding a certified CPA who you can hire to do your taxes when the time comes and get financial advice from as and when you need it.

It also never hurts to have an accountant review your business’s cash flow to make sure you’re covered for a risky economic situation—even if it’s unpredictable. (Remember 2008?)

If you know your numbers and stay on top of them, you’ll always be in a better situation than if you kind of think you’re doing good enough for the time-being.

Headaches saved:

– You don’t suddenly find yourself in the hole

 

12. Leave 20% of Your Day Open

If you’ll be “at the office” for five hours, only schedule four hours of work.

If it’s 10 hours behind your desk, only eight hours of work.

Because the thing is, there’s always something that comes up last minute that you have to deal with. There’s always a phone call with a needy client that goes 60 minutes over it’s allowed 30 minutes. And there’s always something you thought would take an hour to finish, but it takes two.

And if nothing like that comes up one day?

Perfect.

You now have time to catch up on your emails, read up on what’s happening in your industry, or dedicate more time to your passion project within your business.

Or, you know, you could just take that time off for the sake of your mental health.

But by leaving 20% of your day open, you know that you can confidently take care of those last-minute things that come up without scrambling around and worrying how it’s going to affect the workload of the rest of your week.

Trust me.

I used to book my days, Monday through Friday, at full capacity.

I wanted maximum profitability, I was healthy, and I knew I’d have the weekends off, so I didn’t see any problem with it.

But when all of a sudden on Tuesday morning I realized I had to go to the store for an external hard drive to have enough space to store my videos?

Geez.

I started calculating in my head whether or not I should cancel Thursday night’s date or if it would really be that bad to work an hour or two on Saturday morning.

Not a fun problem to solve.

But now that I now the value of scheduling in white space, I don’t have that problem nearly as often anymore.

I still have packed and busy days, but I can usually get through the week without procrastinating something or having it suck up my precious weekends.

Headaches saved:

– Necessary weekend office hours

– Involuntary late nights

– Cancelled plans

– Your friends and family hating your workaholism

 

13. Use the Pomodoro (Or Similar) Technique

Productivity articles and advice are a dime a dozen, I get it.

But making sure you squeeze the most—and the most productive—work out of the time you’ve got is essential to meeting your goals.

The way I do this is by using the Pomodoro Technique.

Basically, it’s this: work for 25 minutes, break for five minutes, and repeat until you work four 25-minute segments.

Then take a longer break.

Then come back and repeat it again.

Each set of four lasts for about two hours, and I’d swear you’d get at least three hours or more worth of work done.

Because you can “only” work for 25 minutes before taking a break, you feel like you need to have something to show for that time, so you automatically stop wasting your time on Facebook.

Also, because it’s only a 25-minute work segment, there’s absolutely zero pressure to finish a project in one sitting, eliminating the stress of getting started and making it easier to make progress.

I started using this technique months ago and haven’t stopped. I get more work done, I stay on task, and I finish my work day earlier—leaving more time for myself.

Headaches saved:

– Procrastination

 

14. Be Relentless About the 80/20 Rule

While this rule makes 100% sense in theory, it’s one of the hardest things for us to implement as small business owners.

For one thing, analytics are never fun to set up or look at (for most people)—so that in itself is a huge barrier.

But also, we take a lot of pride in our work and don’t want to realize the things we’re passionate about and have been working on don’t pay off for us.

Believe me, I get it.

But the thing is, if you’re wasting our time marketing on podcasts and no one from the podcast-listening world ever converts on your website, it’s probably time to cut off podcasting from your promotion strategy.

And with the time you save from not podcasting, you can use it towards areas that are actually growing your bottom line and generating a profit for you—like guest blog posting or working on your Facebook ad strategy, for example.

Because the thing is, when you implement the 80/20 rule, you have less wasted time and you make more money.

And with more money and time, you can always leverage your business for even more growth.

Headaches saved:

– Wasted time

– Missing out on potential profits

 

15. Once You Train Your Employees, Avoid Them

Okay, I’m not talking about not helping your employees out once in a while.

But like we discussed above, if you’ve got a good training program in place, once that training is finished, they should be empowered and competent enough to make most of the decisions that fall within their job role on their own.

Plus, if an employee has constant access to you—especially if he’s new and doesn’t have a lot of experience—he’ll take advantage of it.

So set up structures that allow your employees to contact you in ways that don’t interfere with your own workday.

In the beginning, using email can work—that way you respond when you have time.

As things get more sophisticated, a project management software where you can collaborate with multiple employees without everyone having to sit together in a meeting to decide on one thing can be a great idea.

Don’t get me wrong, weekly face-to-face meetings definitely still have their place. You still want to maintain the feeling of working in a team as much as possible.

But at the same time, the reason you hired your employees was for them to be able to do work you didn’t want to do or didn’t have time to do… so having them suck up your time just doesn’t make any sense.

And if you have a separate office, set certain office hours where people are welcome to come and knock on your door for help. (In other times, it’ll be off limits.)

Headaches saved:

– Annoying, repeat questions

– People constantly knocking on your office door

 

Conclusion: It’s a Lot to Take In, But You’ll Get it Down (I Promise)

Okay, I realize I’ve just totally inundated you with a lot of “do this!” and “now do this!” and “don’t forget to do this too!” kind of advice.

And I realize that you’ve already got a to-do list a mile long, but if there’s anything on this list that you haven’t done yet or that you haven’t incorporated into your management style, consider adding one item at a time to your to-do list until you get them all checked off.

There’s no rule that says you have to master everything all at once. (Thank goodness, right?)

So take a deep breath, pick one thing off this list to tackle, and forge ahead with the confidence in yourself that you’ll take care of the rest later. (So no need to stress over it right now.)

There’s nothing close to a shortage of free small business advice online.

Just Google the term and you’ll be inundated with more than you could ever possibly read.

This isn’t a bad thing—it feels great to know that the people on the internet have your back and are ready and willing to offer you advice when you need it.

But at the same time, since most of this advice is written in an article or recorded in a video, the person giving the advice doesn’t know your exact situation.

They’re giving advice based on assumptions of what happens in most business, so the advice isn’t tailored to your specific situation.

They might be giving you great advice and telling you to make sure you have an email autoresponder in place to sell people an introductory offer as soon as they download your lead magnet—but what if you don’t have an introductory offer yet and the only services you sell are really expensive?

What do you “sell” them on then?

Or they might tell you to make more money, you need to raise your prices.

But what if you feel like you’ve already maxed out your prices in your current market and are too scared to jump into a new market without a security net to catch you?

What if they’re telling you to outsource your easy-to-replicate processes to a VA, but you’ve already tried it a few times and it was a complete failure?

The advice in and of itself isn’t bad, but the fact that it isn’t tailored exactly to your business and your current needs inherently means it will fall short at some point.

And while hiring a personal business coach to see you through these problems is always an option, it starts to get pricey after a while—especially when you’re a small business without super gargantuan profits.

Fortunately, there’s places you can go to get personalized attention and advice (for free!) to grow your small business, get past your challenges, and learn how to start off on the right foot in your new venture.

Don’t worry—I’m not going to suggest any blogs or online forums where just anyone can log in and give half-assed advice.

In fact, if it’s online—for this post anyway—it’s off-limits. (I do make one exception, but you’ll see why.)

I want to show you places where you can go to get free, personalized, in-person business advice from people who’ve been there and done it.

 

1. SCORE

SCORE, which stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives, is the ultimate place to get free, quality advice from people who already have a lifetime of experience growing successful businesses.

Every member of SCORE is a retired executive or entrepreneur.

They’ve had incredible successes, experienced crushing mistakes and failures, and have kept going and kept their businesses profitable. And they’ve got a wealth of information, experience, and advice they’re ready to share.

Their core work is to connect small business owners and entrepreneurs to mentors who can guide them in building a successful business.

And better yet, it’s free.

It’s sponsored by the Small Business Administration and a slew of other sponsors like Google, Intuit, Microsoft, Staples, Office Depot, Vistaprint, the Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

With such high-level names backing the project, you already expect it to be incredible. And from my personal experience, it is.

Where I live, SCORE members are hugely involved in the local entrepreneurial and business community and are always looking for ways to reach out and help us.

Since making my first connections with SCORE members, I’ve been asked to speak at some of their events and received a free panel review from a small handful of retired executives to help me spot how to take the next step in my business when I was feeling stuck.

But even if you haven’t run into SCORE members in person yet, you can still take advantage of their free, personalized advice by requesting a mentor here.

And the advice is there for anyone at any stage of business—not just for people getting started.

For example, Designing Digitally had been in business for 10 years, and though they were successful, their owner was facing new challenges like process, production, planning, sales, marketing, and managing his own task list. So he got in touch with SCORE for some advice.

“Once the mentors helped us work through improving our processes,” the owner said, “we focused on building a stronger pipeline between the sales person and the production team.”

With twice-weekly meetings with their mentors, the company is taking on more workloads and hiring and training sales staff to take them to their next level of success.

 

2. Community College Small Business Centers

Most community colleges will have a small business center that’s funded at least in part by the government.

The reason they’re there and that the government invests in them is to support the local economy and help bolster its growth. And many times, the best way to do this is to offer support to motivated individuals, as it often proves to be an incredible investment with a great ROI.

The Small Business Center page from the community college in my city sums it up pretty nicely: “We aim to increase the number of viable businesses across the state by providing high quality, accessible assistance to small business owners, which in turn, leads to job creation and retention.”

And one of the main services they offer to help do that is professional business counseling—given at no charge.

They’re there to help you with legal questions, planning, growth, cash flow, setting goals that make sense, and reaching those goals.

They even offer free services like HR, accounting, patents, web design, marketing, and business management.

 

3. MeetUp – Startup Planning Sessions

I’ll admit: this strategy for getting free, quality business advice is a little more hit-and-miss than the two options mentioned above.

Especially since when you have a free, open-to-the-public group, you’ll inevitably get plenty of wannapreneurs or people who are all talk and no action.

But, if you hone in on the event descriptions of the MeetUp groups, you can really help yourself weed out the bad apples and go where the good (free!) advice is.

Because when you do get a hit, it can be one of the most valuable things ever.

Within entrepreneurial MeetUp groups in your area, look through their past events for these things:

• A healthy number of RSVPs
• Comments from attendees about how valuable the MeetUp was
• Each meeting as a topic of focus
• There’s workshop-style meetings happening where everyone comes to work on their business and not just talk about how great it is to be self-employed
• It’s a group that’s been going strong for more than a few months

And if you really need some good, solid business advice, I’d suggest really looking for and going after MeetUps that are labeled with “workshop” or “working group” or “working session” or something similar.

Another tip is to go for planning-focused sessions. In my city, there’s a MeetUp focused solely around the Lean Startup methodology, and every single meeting is focused around helping attendees plan out their business. The best part is, it’s led by people who have experience starting businesses and making them successful, so if you bring your ideas there, they can give you their own experienced input.

4. BusinessAdvising.org

Okay, is technically a website, but the “online” part only matters in that it’s how they match you with a volunteer advisor… and that the advising can happen virtually.

But I think we can all agree that meeting with an advisor (for free!) via Skype is almost as good (if not equally as good) as meeting with one in person—especially when that advisor is hand-picked for your specific situation.

And according to their home page, small businesses who work with an advisor via their program grow their revenues by 26% and create jobs 11 times higher than the national rate—which is not an opportunity to ignore, if you ask me.

The only potential drawback though, is they don’t serve brand new businesses.

The requirements are that you’ve got to have been in business for at least two years, have at least $150,000 in annual revenue, have a minimum of at least two full-time employees, and either be focused around creating jobs economically underserved communities or have a compelling social mission.

But, they do say they’re flexible, so if you don’t meet the criteria 100%, you can still get in touch. (It doesn’t hurt, and honestly, what do you have to lose?)

Each advisor is asked to commit to five hours per month per person they mentor—meaning that’s at least a one-hour call every single week.

Kipper Clothiers, a socially-oriented business that didn’t have the experience to scale as they got more and more orders, turned to BusinessAdvising.org for help when they needed it.

After working with a mentor, the founders restructured their marketing plan, gained new clients, and learned how to put on amazing events.

Angela T. Jones had never run her own business before she started Super Woman Productions and Publishing. And as her business started to grow, she realized she really needed some advice.

Her mentor helped her improve the marketing of her offerings, increase engagement with her target audience, and see the big picture of her efforts.

 

5. Avoo

Okay, I know I promised no websites or forums, but I’m going to include one because it’s just too good not to ignore.

Avoo is a company that helps business owners hire experienced lawyers to help them with their legal issues and problems.

But as a part of their site, they also have a page where you can submit a question and get an answer from a real lawyer for free—often within a day.

Which is perfect if you’ve been Googling yourself silly trying to find an answer to something you just can’t figure out, but you know it’s a question a lawyer could answer easily—so there’s no reason to hire one to consult with you for an hour.

And yes, it’s free.

Here’s the question form where you can request free legal advice without having to pay a lawyer’s hourly consulting fee.

 

6. Small Business Legal Clinics

Ironically, even though this post isn’t about focusing on websites, I don’t have a single website to point you to for uncovering information on this one.

All I can tell you to do is to Google something like “small business legal clinic + [city]” or “small business clinic + [city]” and maybe substitute “clinic” for words like workshop, center, class, support group, or seminar. “Pro bono” is also a good term to throw in there.

It’s a little bit of work and a little bit of an art, but it doesn’t take that long to figure out if there’s anything near you, and if there is, it can be a great place to go for free, quality business advice.

For example, when I Googled it, I found NC LEAP, which I never even knew existed before.

It provides services to low-wealth entrepreneurs for whom even bootstrapping would be a stretch—helping make sure they get what they need to succeed rather than becoming a statistic of another failed business.

Access to all the legal services for participants are pro bono, meaning the lawyers are offering them on a volunteer basis and they’re free to you as an entrepreneur.

Other events like this include things offered by independent law firms, B2B business who have Pro Bono offerings and events, and you’ll also probably see your community college and SCORE offerings (mentioned above) show up in this search.

 

7. Women’s Business Centers

The Small Business Association (SBA) started the Office of Women’s Business Ownership (OWBO) in 1979 to make sure women—who’ve been historically excluded and under-served in the entrepreneurial world—participate more strongly in the economy.

Beyond training and counseling, the OWBO also offers things like financial resources via business loans, access to procurement opportunities, and local offices where you can connect within your own community.

The tool on this page helps you find Women’s Business Centers in your state—complete with addresses and phone numbers so you know where to go and who to call if you find yourself needing help.

And because they’re a part of the SBA network, they’re also heavily connected with resources like SCORE and community colleges to help you get the most out of all the free resources available to you as a small business owner.

 

8. Veterans Business Outreach Centers

With 19 different participating centers across the United States, these centers are not as readily available as others, but if you’re a veteran with a small business, they’re definitely something to take advantage of—even if the closest one is two states away.

The program is designed for veteran entrepreneurs who either already own a small business in operation or who are thinking about starting one.

If you’re just thinking about starting your own business, they offer concept assessments, pre-business plan workshops that address issues of self employment, business plan prep, and feasibility analyses to predict your likelihood of success.

And once you’ve got a business up and running, they offer counseling, training on entrepreneurial skills necessary to keep a business growing, mentorship from experienced individuals, and access to services like international trade, online marketing, accounting, and franchising.

Better yet, it’s currently led by Barbara Carson, who herself has 20 years of military experience and who has been an entrepreneur since 2006. She’s someone who’s been there & done that in all aspects of being a military veteran and an entrepreneur, so she’s got your best interests at heart.

 

In Conclusion: Awesome, Free Advice is Just Waiting for You

So basically, as you can see, awesome, free business advice from kind people who’ve “been there, done that” is out there just waiting for you. All you have to do is take a little bit of initiative to uncover where it’s sitting in your city.

I’ve been floored about how forthcoming and nice people are about helping me when all I do is simply ask for it. And it’s definitely helped me see the bigger picture of my business outside of my own perspective, which has been crucial to planning smart next steps that make sense for growth and not just my own personal comfort.

If you’ve ever used any of these free resources, what did you think about them? (Personally, I think SCORE is my favorite from the list because the people are just so knowledgable and helpful.)