How to support small or locally-owned businesses

The state of economy has provided an unparalleled opportunity for many traditional workers to go into business for themselves.  A global study on entrepeneurship shows that it's a factor in economic growth, particularly for the most heavily industrialized countries.

 The days of people retiring after 40 years working for a company are over.  Gen-Xers are probably the last to even consider a long length of service as being desirable.  And so many people have lost jobs or have had difficulty finding adequate employment that the idea of going into business for themselves becomes more appealing or necessary.

I know of many entrepeneuers here in the Atlanta area - many are friends or people from whom I've received services.  These people are highly talented in their field and have much to offer.  The problem is, most neither have the time or resources to do much self-promotion for their companies or services.  That's where you come in.  You are the supportive energy to help drive the growth of these businesses. 

Here are a few things you can help them and in turn, help sustain your local economy:

• Make use of their services whenever possible.  It's hard to recommend a business or services if you've never tried them out.
• Recommend them to friends and colleagues. 
• If you belong to a local/neighborhood list-serv, post a message about the good experience you had.
• Follow them on social media.  Retweet their business-related tweets and share their posts on Facebook with a personal stamp of approval. 
• Write a testimonial - either for their website or for any business pages they may have set up on sites such as Yelp, Yahoo Business or Google.
• Share feedback with them about what you love about their business and what you would appreciate seeing them offer in the future.

As a small business owner, I appreciate it when people support me by doing any or all of these things. All of these little actions add up and helps me understand what I'm doing right so I'm focusing my energies where it makes the most sense.  All small businesses appreciate and benefit from your word-of-mouth support.  And it really doesn't take a lot of effort.

Here's a good example.  I have a friend named Christine who started her own pet-sitting business and relies heavily on word-of-mouth to obtain clients.  Most people don't want to pick a name out of a directory when it comes to having someone care for their pets when they're at work or out of town.   At my suggestion, Christine put up a simple web page advertising her services and posted the link on Facebook.  Nothing fancy, but it did the trick.  I saw it  and shared it, along with a personal recommendation because she has done pet-sitting for us before.  Not 30 minutes after it appeared on my Facebook profile, she texted me saying that two of my friends had called her to request pet-sitting services!   

Go forth and recommend!  The local small businesses need your support -  and appreciate it!

Photo taken by NomadicLass and featured on flickr: Creative Commons.