I’m a big fan of small businesses. After all, I’m one! But I also prefer spending my money with a small business over a big one. I’d rather walk into the Kona Kai coffee shop in downtown Kent and get a hug from Michael the owner than go to a Starbucks any day, no matter how cheerful the baristas. Same for Pat’s Bar and Grill, and the Peridot Nail Salon, and City Frame, and the Balanced Athlete, and all my other favorite small businesses in downtown Kent.

Yet as much as I adore them all, I see them all making the same mistake: not enough (or zero) marketing. They tell me they don’t have the time or money for marketing, but really, like with exercising, it’s about choosing how and where you’re going to spend that time and money.

For example, one business is currently adding all kinds of services in the hopes that they’ll bring in more people…but they’re not marketing their old services or their new ones. They collect email addresses, but don’t know what to do with them. They buy ads in the local paper, but don’t know if those ads are doing any good. They talk about putting up a Web site, but still don’t have one.

Adding all these services took an investment of time and money that could have been spent on email marketing and blogging instead, two extremely cost-effective ways for small businesses to market. (Especially when a blog can take the place of a Web site for some businesses.) But I guess their mindset is just that marketing is hard, so they’ll stick with what they do know (getting a liquor license, for example) than find out what they don’t.

How do we shift that small business mindset? Let me know what you think... leave a comment or email sharon@weknowwords.com.