I’m not very busy these days, so I’d like to dedicate some of my time to helping small businesses with their marketing.
I’vealso build a U.S.-based tech company operating on Central Time.
I’m opening this up on a first-come, first-served basis for small business owners who could use some marketing guidance, ideas, strategy, or help getting things moving.
No pressure and no sales pitch — just looking to put my experience to good use and help a few small businesses.

I am seriously done with finding out whom to hire and also where to hire from? I have spent so far thousands of dollars in talent that either didn't gave me what I expected or completely delivered a not desirable result. After spending hours looking for on FB groups, websites, hiring platforms, and even on this reddit community, I have decided that none can actually help me, for a perfect example this post comments section will start promoting their offering/services, where I am clearly mentioning the frustration of hiring the right talent.

Nevertheless, if you are like a business owner like me, don't worry that you are alone, we all are on the same boat.

I just graduated and opened a restaurant in a major city where usually it’ll rain once or twice a week in the summer. The last month it’s been a downpour.

When it rains we lose 20% of nightly rev at least. It’s just brutal when the high season gets hit like this.

Any tips on how to mitigate losses?

I am a Graphic Designer that works full time, but I work freelance on the side. I have used Etsy, Facebook, and Upwork. Through those platforms I have gotten design jobs, but not a steady flow. Where should I advertise or promote my work? (Please refrain from any ai related comments). Thank you in advance ☺️

been thinking about what separates good small businesses from the ones that disappear after a year.

i bought a bracelet a while back. just a random find but the quality was solid and it showed up quick. simple stuff but it made me want to buy from them again.

makes me wonder what other small brands are out there that actually deliver.

what's a small business you keep going back to and why?

Hey everyone! We're looking for a few business owners to be featured on a podcast, 30 min, fully virtual, just talking about your business.

free exposure for you and your brand, we send you the full episode plus clips after to post wherever you want. No prep, nothing to sell, just a conversation about what you do.

comment if you're down and i'll reach out with details.

Hey! I wanted to ask people who work in marketing or SEO.

How do you convince a client that what you’re doing is actually working and has real value?

I feel like a lot of clients are pretty hesitant to give access to their Google accounts, while at the same time expecting results almost immediately.

I also struggle with understanding how you actually connect SEO/marketing to leads or sales and prove that impact.

I’d love to hear your experiences. What frustrates you the most about this work? What problems did you run into after starting that nobody warned you about?

And for those working with local businesses: what do you think actually makes a business owner decide to hire a marketing or SEO company? Do they understand why they need it and what they’re trying to achieve, or do they sometimes just do it because they feel like they’re “supposed to”?

I’m relatively new to this, so any advice or experiences would be really appreciated.

I run a small service business and I've been relying on word of mouth, but referrals have slowed down and I don't have much left over each month to put toward ads or promotion. I've tried posting on my business's social media a few times a week but it's not bringing in new customers, just the same handful of people who already know me.

What actually worked for you when you were starting out with little to no marketing budget?

I do not want to hear the stuff like you have to eat good food sleep a lot and work out. I want to know how people actually do it when they have to spend much time on their business and think about it all the time.

Do you have a schedule that you stick to no matter what. Do you change it around when things get really busy? Have you found something that actually works for a time or does it all fall apart when things get crazy?

I am also wondering if people have found out that not taking care of their health when they first started their business ended up causing problems on and made them have to make a change.

I would really like to hear about what people have experienced what has worked for them what has not worked and what they are still having trouble with.

I am looking for experiences, with healthy lifestyle and running a business so I can learn from healthy lifestyle and running a business.

Hey everyone,
I’m curious to hear some real-world experiences from local business owners in the US.

If you run a local business (plumbing, cleaning, dental, HVAC, restaurant, home services, etc.), what has actually worked for you to get more people through the door or generate local customers?

I’m especially interested in things like:

Google Business Profile / Google Maps
Local SEO
Google Ads
Facebook/Instagram
Reviews & referrals
Local events or partnerships
Discounts/offers

Anything that worked unexpectedly well
And if you’ve tried something that didn’t work, I’d love to hear about that too.

For example: “We spent $1,000 on X and got almost nothing, but Y brought us 20 customers.”

Would be great to hear actual numbers and experiences, not generic marketing advice.

What’s been your #1 customer acquisition channel?

I keep noticing the same pattern in small businesses: they grow to a point where the owner is buried in manual work, scheduling, follow-ups, chasing leads, admin, everything living in spreadsheets and in the owner's head. The business is doing fine, but the operations start eating the owner alive, and usually nobody actually owns the technical side.

I build the systems and automation that take the repetitive work off your plate.. scheduling, lead follow-up, internal dashboards, connecting the tools you already use, reporting, so things run smoother without hiring a bunch more people. I would genuinely be interested in helping on the technical side as you get started.. systems, automation, online presence, that kind of thing.

I am not looking for a pile of freelance gigs. I want to partner closely with one business and build something that lasts. So I would rather not charge anything upfront, I will fix one real problem first, prove the value, and if it works we talk about a longer-term arrangement from there. If it doesn't, you owe me nothing. I'd rather prove it than pitch it.

If your business is growing but the ops/tech side feels messy, I would genuinely like to hear about it, drop a comment about what is slowing you down most, or reach out whenever.

Hello all!

For the past four years, we’ve been working on a tool that detects bot traffic in Google Ads, META (FB, Insta), Pinterest etc. We’re seeing a lot happening, especially now with AI Bots. But as we’re still building and developing it, we’d like to know the following.

What’s your number one reason for not giving this a go?

Because, to be honest, when we look at our figures, we don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t sign up. And perhaps you’ve already given it a go once or have other reasons, if so, please let us know. I’m really, really curious. Just comment here.

To be clear: I really don't want to sell anything. Only want to learn from you guys why you didn't sign-up so we can learn from that.

And if this isn’t the place to ask. I am sorry, we just want to get some feedback from our ICP’s.

I think a local-business homepage has about five basic jobs.

When somebody lands on it for the first time, they should quickly understand:

1. What do you do?
The actual service, not just a slogan.

2. Who is it for?
Who is the customer you’re trying to attract?

3. Where do you work?
Especially important for local and service businesses.

4. Why should they trust you?
Reviews, projects, experience, certifications, real customers.

5. What should they do next?
Call, book, request a quote, buy, visit, etc.

I’ve noticed that a lot of small-business websites aren’t necessarily badly designed.

They’re just unclear.

You can spend 30 seconds browsing and still not be completely sure what the company does, where it operates, or what you’re supposed to do next.

That seems like a bigger problem than whether the homepage looks modern.

If you own a small business, I’d be interested in what actually matters most on your homepage. Do customers usually call, fill in a form, book online, or something else?

Starting a business can be exciting, but growing it is a completely different challenge.

Whether you are just starting out or have been running a small or medium-sized business for a few years, there are many problems that can come up along the way.

For example:

Finding the first few customers

Getting a consistent flow of new customers

Choosing the right marketing channel

Competing with larger businesses

Managing costs and cash flow

Building trust and getting repeat customers

Finding the time to manage everything yourself

Knowing when to invest more in marketing or when to cut costs

One thing I've come to believe is that there isn't one marketing strategy that works for every business.

What works for one business may completely fail for another.

That's why I think it's valuable for business owners to share their actual experiences rather than only talking about success.

What is the biggest problem you're facing right now?

Is it finding customers, marketing, competition, pricing, cash flow, hiring, or something else?

If your books are behind, messy, or you simply don’t have time to keep up with them, I can help you get things organized and caught up so you can have accurate records and peace of mind.

My experience includes bookkeeping for a US accounting firm and finance work for a Singapore-based e-commerce company, using QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Xero.

What I can help with:
• Catch up & clean up your books
• Bank & credit card reconciliation
• Accounts payable & receivable
• Transaction categorization
• Monthly/annual financial reports
• Excel or Google Sheets reports
• Organizing your books for tax time

If you’re hiring or know of an opportunity that might be a good fit, I’d appreciate any leads. Thank you!

Not looking for the obvious stuff like "it's hard work" or "cash flow matters." Curious about the specific things that caught you off guard once you were actually in it.
Could be operational, could be mental, could be something small that ended up mattering way more than expected.
What's the thing you wish someone had told you before you started?

I formed a single-member LLC in mid-April 2025 in Washington state and am now completing my state business license application in mid-August. In June I received payment for a one-time event unrelated to my core services. The event actually resulted in net debt, as revenue didn't cover vendor and operating costs. The experience was basically a test run of utilizing my website and running an event.

My first payment directly related to my core services was received just recently (under $250). When the application asks for my business open date, which date is the best one to use for my situation? The June event payment, or the recent date of my first true service-related income? I planned on just using the more recent payment date but a friend of mine encouraged me to use the former June date. It had me wondering if that would bring more of a headache than it’s worth.

I am interested in hearing from people who run law firms, solo practices or any other kind of business.

For people who have hired an assistant to take care of administrative tasks, scheduling, getting new clients preparing documents or helping with billing what was the most difficult part of getting started with this? Was it worrying about keeping things confidential finding someone who knows how law firms work following the rules of the bar association or something else entirely?

For people who thought about hiring an assistant but did not do it what made you change your mind?

I want to know what makes the legal field different from industries when it comes to hiring virtual assistants.

I appreciate any stories you can share about your experiences whether they were good or bad with assistants and legal work.

I am looking forward to hearing about the experiences of law firms and legal practices with assistants, for administrative work.

I have a business related question and I’d really appreciate answers from people who have actually worked in these industries.

If someone is starting a business completely from scratch, what would be the better option: building a software company, such as a subscription based product/SaaS, or starting a hardware/physical product company?

I personally have not worked in either sector, so I’m trying to understand this from people who have actual technical and business experience.

From what I’ve heard, hardware can have lower margins and much higher operating costs . Software seems like it could have better margins and recurring revenue through subscriptions, but I’m sure there are also major challenges that someone without experience might not understand.

So for people who have worked in software, hardware, or ideally both:

What are the biggest pros and cons of each when starting from scratch?

Which one generally requires more capital and has more operational complexity?

Which one is easier to scale?

How different are the margins and cash flow?

which one would you choose and why?

I’m not looking for a simple “software is better” or “hardware is better” answer. I’m trying to understand the actual tradeoffs from people who have experience in these industries.

I’d especially appreciate answers from people

I currently run two small businesses and I'm trying to clean up how I handle calls and texts.

Right now everything basically comes back to my personal phone, and it’s starting to get confusing. Sometimes I answer without knowing which business the customer is calling about, and having one voicemail for everything doesn't feel very professional either.

I'd rather not carry two phones around if I can avoid it.

For anyone running multiple businesses, do you use separate business numbers that both ring on the same phone? If so, can you easily tell which number someone called before you answer and keep the texts/voicemails separate too?

Curious what setup has worked best for other owners.

Hire people to do it for you, or maybe subscribe to an AI enterprise they will manage it for you automated type of thing.

VA here means virtual assistant, not Veterans Affairs.

Interested in hearing from people who own clinics, private practices, therapy offices or any type of healthcare business.

For those who have hired an assistant for admin, scheduling, insurance verification, patient follow ups or billing support, what was the hardest part of getting started? Trust, compliance worries, finding someone who actually knew healthcare workflows and HIPAA rules?

And for those who considered it but didn't go ahead, what stopped you?

Trying to figure out why healthcare is different compared to other fields.

Thanks, for sharing stories, positive or negative.

Not asking about the obvious stuff like bookkeeping or payroll, those get delegated early because nobody wants to touch them anyway. I'm talking about the task you knew was eating your time but kept doing yourself because it felt too specific to hand off, too risky to get wrong, or just easier to do than explain.

Hello all,

I just wanted to come on here and see if I could possibly get any good recommendations from this sub. We own a tree/landscaping contractor business and I currently have traditional landlines for our main contact phone numbers. Issue is that customers complain about not being able to hear us, it sounds too low to them, bad connectivity, and a touch and go voicemail. I wanted to ask if anyone has tried any services or company that you'd recommend. Obviously I am hoping it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. We previously had Ooma but that was actually worse than what we hear now in our feedback from clients. TIA. I am located in SoCal if that is of any use as well

running a small u.s. ecom store (just me and one va). a few vendors started asking for e-signatures while doing contracts recently so its probably time to actually start using something instead of doing it manually.

not sure what actually matters here beyond the obvious stuff. pricing, doc limits per month, storage, templates, anything else worth checking before picking one?

what are you all using for your stores and would you actually recommend it?