Simple and Affordable Marketing Ideas For Your Small Business

With the never-ending birth of small businesses, it becomes difficult to market your business in an effective manner so that it stands out for people to take notice. It seems that the only way to market your small business effectively is to spend on expensive marketing strategies. With this knowledge, a lot of small business owners set out to spend their savings in marketing their business, placing their hard-earned money and the future of their business in the hands of a very costly marketer. The individuals, who don’t have the money, either give up or consider their business to be doomed.

This doesn’t have to be so, there are numerous affective ways to market your small business that are affordable and let you decide how you want to portray your business. 

• Become visible: Network with people, join clubs and organizations in your community to spread the message about your business. Talk to the people who may be connected to the services you provide so that they can recommend you to their customers.
• Use the internet: Join online communities that relate to your business. This will not just help you market but you can also learn a thing or two that you could put into practice. Write in blogs offering suggestions in areas relating to your company.
• Create a Website: There are a number of free, easy-to-use tools that can help you create an appealing website. Make your site stand out by using eye catching photos, writing a good description of products and services offered, and make it easy to navigate.
• Provide information: Provide information to your customers absolutely free, the more people understand your business; more are the chances of them talking about it and availing your services. Getting a toll-free number and advertising that number is a very big help because people can then call you to find out about the business rather than having to read about it.
• Offer incentives: Apart from creating discount strategies, offer additional benefits for the customers who get more customers. This is an incentive for them to not just bring more people but also to keep coming back themselves.

Small business owners—do you have any tips to share on effective and affordable marketing strategies?

As social networking sites such as Facebook become more popular, do you find them to be a great marketing tool?

Thanks to Sunbelt, Good Company Steakhouse Finds Perfect Buyer



From left to right: Steve and Cynthia Shann (Former Owners);
 Michael Naprawa, President of Sunbelt Business Brokers in Nanaimo;
Francis Hoogendoorn and Edwin van Duist (New Owners)



From the Netherlands to Canada! A successful European restaurateur embraces the beauty of Vancouver Island. Edwin van Duist is the previous owner of the renowned river-floating pancake restaurant on a ship and the new owner of Good Company Steakhouse in Duncan. It was a fairy tale transaction but the happy ending didn’t come without a few bumps in the road.



Edwin and his family originally made the continental voyage for another business, but the deal fell through. After months of searching, Edwin contacted Sunbelt Nanaimo. Here’s where the story accelerates. “Early one Saturday morning, I received an inquiry from Edwin about one of our business listings,” says Michael Naprawa of Sunbelt. “We met that morning spending two hours discussing his needs & skill set…it was clear that the business he had first inquired about was not a good fit. But I knew of a potential match—only a couple weeks earlier we had a call from a Duncan restaurant owner who wanted to sell, but the listing process had not even begun! By that Friday, an offer was prepared, accepted the week after, and the entire transaction closed within 7 weeks of that first meeting!”

Michael Naprawa who is the owner of Sunbelt Nanaimo says that after five years in the business brokerage industry, Sunbelt has established relationships with a pool of qualified buyers. Their “matchmaking” process between buyers and sellers of businesses makes timely transactions like this one increasingly common. “We were prepared to wait 1-2 years for the business to sell and couldn’t believe it sold so fast,” says Steve & Cynthia Shann of Good Company Steakhouse, who are exceedingly pleased with how Sunbelt handled the smooth transaction. Both parties describe their experience with Sunbelt Nanaimo as “very efficient” and highly recommend Sunbelt Nanaimo for selling or buying a quality business.

As for Good Company Steakhouse, the original owners will stay on during training and transition and business will continue as usual. Drop in for a good meal and experience a warm Dutch welcome from the new owner, Edwin! This is just one of the many success stories that buyers and sellers have had with us.

If you are contemplating the sale of your business, or considering small business ownership, contact the Sunbelt Nanaimo office at 1-877-289-0969.