How to support a small business for free

Buying from a small business is not the only way to show your support!

Maybe you have a small business owner in your life that you’d like to support, but their business doesn’t apply to you. Maybe you’re not financially able to purchase from them right now.

Try these tips as alternatives:

Listen to the audio:

Thanks for supporting small business!

If you are looking for ways to support a small business for free, first of all, thank you! We definitely could use all the support that we can get and we really appreciate it.

There are lots of ways that you can support us without spending money that are really important.

Here are some ideas of ways that you can show your support, love, and appreciation.

1. Spread the word

The first way that you can support a small business is to spread the word. Tell people about that business.

This looks like providing a testimonial, especially somewhere public like on Google or Yelp, so that other people can see the amazing things that you have to say about that business.

Refer that business to your family and friends. Recommend that business to people. It's very important when you are trying to support entrepreneurs that you mention their names in situations of opportunity, because that makes the biggest difference.

You never know who is listening or which opportunities might lead to other opportunities. So promote that person as much as you can.

2. Promote them on social media

The next thing that you can do is to promote that business on social media. You can do this in multiple ways.

1. You can comment and engage with their content. The more that you engage with their content the more other people are going to see their content, so definitely do that as much as possible.

2. You can post about them and tag them. You can share their content to your stories so that other people see it.

3. Tag people that you know on posts that you think would be relevant to them or share posts directly with that person.

4. Make sure you are following that business’s accounts.

3. Support their other content

Another thing that you can do to engage with their content and support them is subscribe to their newsletter if they have one.

So many small businesses have an email newsletter, so if you are actually opening their newsletter and engaging with it, then that helps boost their numbers.

Make sure you are forwarding their emails to people that you think would benefit from them.

This also gives you notice of any sales, promotions, or special events that that business has, so it's a great way to stay in the loop as well and have more things that you can forward to more people.

There are also businesses that have blogs, YouTube channels, etc., so find all the different places that this business has content and make sure you're following them, engaging with it, and sharing it.

4. Support their events

Another way that you can support small businesses is by supporting their events. This could be any number of things.

They might have in-person events, or they might do online events like workshops or webinars. Whatever it is that this business does, if they do any sort of special events being in attendance, being attentive, positive, asking questions, and generally being supportive is a great way to help promote this business even more.

Honestly, it's so heartbreaking as a business owner if you create and promote an event and no one shows up, so even just being a bum in a seat at that event makes a big difference.

5. Be kind

In general, one of the biggest things that you can do in a non-monetary capacity to support a small business owner in your life is to just be kind, caring, understanding, and appreciative.

If you do not own your own business, you may not have an understanding of how much work it is. We have to put in long hours sometimes. We often work nontraditional hours, so our business often takes up more of our time than a traditional job might. It is a lot of work and sometimes you do not see the return on that hard work.

If you can be supportive and caring in your interactions with that business, it goes a long way.

If it's a friend who's a business owner, give them a little bit of flexibility and understanding, especially if they're in a busy season.

Tell business owners when you think they're doing a good job and when you appreciate things that you've bought from them or things that they've done for you. It goes such a long way, because we don't always get those kind words and we don't always get to see our impact.

We really appreciate when we get to know what a difference that we have made to you or just even get some kind words, because sometimes we get the opposite and it really sucks.

Thank you again for looking for ways to support the small business owners in your life!

If you have any questions, let me know down in the comments or feel free to reach out.