Admit It: You Have No Marketing Budget

It’s a dirty little secret of small business. If you run a small company, you know what I’m talking about: You don’t really have a marketing budget.

It’s OK. You don’t have to admit it to anybody but yourself. Very few small businesses have a formal, consistent marketing line item on their budget. If they do, they fail to base that number on a solid rationale, considering what’s normal in their industry, how much their competitors spend, and other relevant factors. Most take a much more haphazard approach to marketing budgeting.