How to Support Small Businesses Without Spending Money?

How Can Small Businesses Avoid Failure And More.

1. Have you heard about Pooja Milk Centre?
2. If you are a social media enthusiast, you probably haven’t missed the long video advertisement of Facebook.
3. A beautiful tear-jerking story with ounces of hope filled-in, Facebook's Pooja Milk Centre ad aptly shows what each one of us can do for the next door small and medium businesses in these uncertain times.
4. While over 7 lakh stores had shut down and around 12% of start-ups were bound to hold on to their businesses during the lockdown.
5. About 52,000 new companies were set up during lockdown as per reports by Financial Express.
6. In this new normal, people are thinking anew, refreshing their business model, keeping in mind the consumer’s needs, and changing consumer behaviour.
7. While we adapt to new ways of living life, it’s always going to be a little bit more difficult for some.
8. It’s not easy to follow one’s heart and run a business.
9. But your one small act of kindness can take things far for these business owners.
10. You never know how one can turn around things, even in adverse situations.
11. All one needs is courage and some support.
12. And what can you do to help these brave-hearts who are fighting a pandemic to make their dreams come true?
13. In these tough economic times, we have put guardrails on spends, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot help that aunty who had finally mustered the courage to open her bakery or the uncle who sells unique hand-made art and crafts!
14. Look around you, and you will see there are so many small and medium businesses.
15. If you think spending on these businesses is the only way you can help them grow, then you are wrong.
16. There are so many ways you can help them.
17. In return of which, you will earn a lot of good wishes and blessings.

Things You Can Do For Small And Medium Businesses Without Spending Money

Be An Advocate Without Being A Buyer

• Word-of-mouth is still the best and most effective way of marketing a product or a brand.
• If you believe in the creation and know that the friend is doing an excellent job with it, spread the word.
• When you are meeting people, talk about it.
• Talk about your friend’s journey if you know that person well to others or talk about how the brand was built from scratch.
• Create a sense of intrigue around it and make people interested in it.
• If you are a talker, then this should be a cakewalk for you.

Engage With Local Businesses On Social Media

1. Pick up a local brand and start following them on Facebook and Instagram pages.
2. Follow them, share their pages on your profile, tagging your friends so that the word travels faster.
3. Like or love their posts and pictures.
4. Post useful comments appreciating their effort or saying something nice about their products.
5. This will help the page to reach out to more people.
6. On Instagram, you can share the pages through Direct Messaging with your friends.
7. You can also add their posts on your story tagging them.
8. Create a follow train so that more people come to know about this brand.

Visit The Store

• If you want to support a local bookstore, then go, and drop by once in a while.
• Take lots of pictures and post them with a write-up on your social media handles tagging the store.
• Your recommendation can bring in new customers for the store.
• A little bit of kindness has never harmed anyone.

Review The Brand

1. We all like to take opinions before investing our time and money in someone.
2. That’s how we are psychologically wired.
3. And a well-crafted review can make or break a brand.
4. But to review a business, you have to study it properly.
5. Talk to the stakeholders, understand the people’s journey, how it came into being and the brand’s exciting facts.
6. You get to learn so much from just talking to people.  
7. Take a sample of the product, try and experience it and then write an honest review.

Recommendation Of Products

• You can also help a business by merely sampling their products.
• Every product first needs to be tried and tested.
• If it can win your heart, you will not think twice about spending money on it or refer to your friends.
• Wear the t-shirt, drink that coffee, use that tea bag, take a bath with that hand-made soap, light up your room with that DIY lights, etc.
• Experience the product, share your experience with your friends, and promote the business.

Write A ‘Thank You’ Note

1. The small business owners are the most hard-working people and always work under a lot of stress.
2. A little bit of encouragement can help them stay motivated.
3. Once you have visited the store or you have experienced their product in some way or the other, write them a ‘Thank You’ note appreciating the people who have put in so much effort to give you a super product.
4. A hand-written note will add more human touch to the act, so you can try doing that.
5. Or you can write a nice note and post it on your social media pages tagging them.
6. This small act of gratitude will undoubtedly make them feel better and boost their moral confidence.

Help In Networking

• As you know, every business needs stable funding which will help them grow, a handful of contacts will always help them.
• If you are in contact with any influential person who can invest in small and medium businesses or has a good network of people, introduce a small business owner to him/her so that the business can be benefitted somehow.

Use Your Skills To Help

1. If you are good with designing and have a Saturday afternoon free, you might as well try and design branding collaterals and help the business.
2. In many cases, the small business owners do not have the budget for investing in marketing and advertising, but these are equally important.
3. If you are skilled in strategic thinking, you can also give the businesses a few suggestions which might help their business grow.
4. You never know when you can also make some money out of these.

Act As A Reference

• Suppose your friend is hosting a small house party and she needs a catering company to help her out with, and you know whom to refer precisely.
• You can also refer to the restaurant or café as a place to host events or parties.
• One reference and both of your friends are benefitted. Instead of giving all the business to big money-makers, they provide a chance for the local businesses to bloom.

Subscribe To Their Newsletter

• Make sure you subscribe to the newsletters or email marketing to learn about their brand constantly and help them grow their footfalls or in this case, digital footprints.

Online Workshops

1. Help a small business arrange for a workshop online and participate in it.
2. Spread the word, promote it on social media, and bring in as many numbers as possible for the workshop.

Most Importantly, Be kind

• If you can help even one person, it can lead to many others’ welfare.
• Apart from all the things listed up, you can always lend an ear to listen to their problems.
• Hear these people out.
• They must be going through a lot of anxiety, tension, and stress.
• Allow them to open up; a short session can be of immense importance for that person.
• Or hear out from unemployed people.
• You can then exchange information among those who need it.
• Be alert, be kind, be generous, and you can surely bring a lot of difference in one’s life without losing anything.

Also Read:

1) How To Reduce Your Taxable Income?
2) How To Stay Ahead of Your Competition?
3) How To Create Business Cards?
4) How to Claim LTDC for Your Business?
5) How To Find The Average Price Of Your Business Product In The Market?