Not every small business wants, needs, or can afford the luxury of a marketing agency.
I say that as someone who’s worked in client-side and agency marketing for many years. Agencies have their place, but they’re not always the right fit. Especially if you’re running a small business where your time, energy, and budget are a decidedly finite resource.
What I frequently hear from clients are concerns like:
The problem with agencies (for small businesses)
Agencies are very much built for scale and have processes, packages, account managers, reporting cycles, layers of approval. That structure works well for larger organisations with full-time marketing staff and budgets to match.
For small businesses, it can feel cumbersome and unecessarily obstructive when you just want to pick up the phone and have a quick conversation.
You might end up paying for services you don’t really need because they’re part of the package, explaining your business over and over again for each new account manager, or trying to fit your work into someone else’s system. There’s also a pressure to keep the wheels turning, even when what you really need is a pause, a rethink, or a simpler approach.
Most small business owners I work with aren’t looking to outsource their thinking. They’re creative, intelligent people who know what they want and need. And what they want and need is support that fits around their business.
Sensible support without losing creative control
There’s a huge gap between “do everything yourself” and “hand it all over” when you’re a small businsess owner. If you’re used to having the final say and full creative control, working with an agency probably won’t sit well. On the other hand, you’re well aware that marketing isn’t your area of expertise and you could do with a guide!
A sensible, experienced marketing mentor who “gets” you and your business can be a great sounding board to help you make informed decisions. This sort of marketing support adapts as your workload changes and 100% respects the fact that some months you’re riding the wave, while at other times you’re just about keeping the lights on.
Marketing mentor support ditches the fancy pitch decks in favour of conversation, context, and continuity.
What marketing support looks like in practice
Good marketing support isn’t about telling you what you should be doing every five minutes. It’s about helping you work out what’s worth your time right now.
That could mean:
This sort of marketing support is highly practical and firmly grounded in how your business operates IRL. In short, it’s made for you, not to fit into an agency template.
Why a marketing mentor beats generic advice
There’s no shortage of marketing advice online. In fact, it’s all a little overwhelming, even if you’re an experienced marketeer. There are oodles of courses, templates, and reels hollering about the “one thing you must do this week that is guaranteed to maximise your business!”. And seriously, don’t even get me started on marketing “gurus”…
Most of the marketing advice on the internet is generic and ignores the unique context of you and your business. It can’t tailor because it doesn’t know you.
A marketing mentor works with your business reality, not an abstract version of it. They bring experience, pattern recognition, and perspective that you won’t get from AI or a Google Search. They’ve seen what tends to work, what usually doesn’t, and where small tweaks can make a disproportionate difference.
Crucially, they don’t disappear once the plan is written! A good marketing mentor stays involved as things evolve, questions come up, and priorities change.
That sort of continuity makes the world of difference as your business grows.
Finding the right marketing support for you
This approach to marketing support works best for small business owners who are already capable and invested.
The sort of people who care about their work, want to gain a deeper understanding of how to market their business, and really value honest feedback. Business owners who definitely don’t want rescuing or fixing, but do want a second brain, a steady presence, and someone who understands the wider picture.
There’s no single “right” way to get marketing support. But for small businesses that want to stay close to their work, their customers, and their decision-making, a thoughtful, human approach tends to be the one that sticks.
Marketing support without the agency baggage
If you’re a small business looking for marketing support that’s human, flexible, and rooted in real-world experience, this is very much my thing.
I work as a marketing mentor to small businesses who want thoughtful support, not a glossy agency setup.
If you’d like to talk through what support could look like for you, get in touch and we’ll start there.
