If you’ve read the State of Small Business Report and thought, “Okay wow. That felt personal.” You’re in good company.

I recently hosted a panel with a handful of small business owners from the Enji community (aka: people who actually do their marketing—snaps to them). We talked through the findings that hit the hardest, what surprised them, what made them feel validated, and what they’re changing because of it.

Meet the small business panel

• Danison of Bowtie and Brush—a live event artist (water color guest portraits, calligraphy, engraving) based in Portland, traveling everywhere.
• Amy Pearson—a Dubsado systems and automation consultant helping creatives work less and make more.
• Sydney Garvey of Garvey’s Gardens—the owner, farmer, and florist behind the flower farm, flower shop, and wedding business in Western Colorado.
• Rachel Kumar—founder of Rachel K Group and vice chair of Business For Good (a justice-oriented chamber of commerce in San Diego).

The small business stat nobody liked: 81% of small business owners experienced burnout in 2025

Rachel kicked it off with the stat that felt equal parts shocking and unsurprising: 81% of small business owners reported some form of burnout in 2025. And what made it worse? The survey went out in September—meaning there was still a whole quarter left in the year for people to get even more cooked.

So the vibe of the virtual room was basically we are not okay…but at least we’re not alone.

The validation stat: Having a marketing plan makes you 3x more likely to feel successful

Danison shared another stat that actually made him feel very validated in his own experience: Business owners with a documented marketing plan are three times more likely to say their marketing is working.

Because he talked about how he didn’t have a marketing plan in 2024, but now he does. And the stat matched how he felt: “I do feel three times more successful with my marketing now because I’m not just following vibes.”

The takeaway? Having a marketing plan doesn’t just make you more likely to have marketing that works, it also boosts your confidence.

“Wait, everyone is doing this alone?!” 7 out of 10 owners do their own marketing

Sydney was the one small business owner who doesn't do all of her own marketing on the panel and learning that she was in the minority surprised her the most. Because 70% of small business owners do all their marketing themselves. But because Sydney is in the 30% who do outsource their marketing, she talked about the moment she realized she needed to hire help as well as what specifically she does.

Here’s why Sydney decided to hire marketing help: Her business has multiple moving parts (farm, shop, weddings), and she realized that if marketing was left to “whenever I have time,” it would fall off a cliff.

So she came up with a plan to get help with her marketing:

• First she outsourced branding photos (in exchange for flowers)
• Then she a grew a content library so content wasn’t getting created from scratch
• And eventually she hired a marketing assistant to execute consistently

But there are still parts of marketing Garvey’s Gardens that Sydney does do herself. She still writes her email newsletter (because she genuinely likes it), and she credits email marketing as one of their biggest revenue drivers.

And when asked what small business owners should outsource first, here are some things the panel said they would do without hesitation.

• Rachel said she’d outsource execution first. Because you can have a great strategy, but if you’re not executing it, what is the point? (Sydney’s story backed that up: execution was the first thing to slip when business grew.)
• Amy (who currently doesn’t outsource marketing) said social media content creation is the first thing shed outsource

The takeaway? Outsourcing doesn’t have to start with a huge spend. Sometimes it starts with one smart trade and a system.

When it comes to tracking KPIs: “Numbers don’t lie and that’s why we avoid them.”

One of the most important findings in the State of Small Biz report is the fact that small business owners who use metrics to make decisions are 2.8x more likely to say their marketing is effective. So why does “data” make so many small business owners panic-sweat?

Danison (an accountant by background) explained it perfectly. “Businesses are personal. They’re our babies. And numbers are like toddlers—they tell the truth whether we’re ready or not. So if the numbers dip, it can feel like failure. So, we avoid looking at them all together.” (The proverbial "we". Danison tracks his KPIs every month.)

But the reality is that avoiding data comes with a price. Because how do you make your marketing better if you don’t know what to work on?

Sydney shared that tracking KPIs wasn’t new for her but centralizing the data was. And Amy admitted she has always tracked finances but marketing metrics were a new thing once she started using Enji.

The takeaway? Tracking KPIs isn’t the finish line. Using the numbers to make decision is.

When it comes to marketing budgets, small business owners feel like “I can’t afford to spend on my marketing”

Cue the collective eye-roll from small business owners everywhere because another important stat from State of Small Biz report was small businesses spending $1,000+/month on marketing were significantly more likely to rate their marketing as effective.

But $1,000 a month on marketing can feel very out of reach for a lot of small businesses. So Danison gave some very grounded advice: reverse engineer it because marketing has to be treated like a necessity—not an optional extra. And if your business can’t support even a modest marketing budget, it might point to a bigger issue. Your pricing may be too low for the true cost of operating your business.

Sydney added a helpful nuance: marketing budgets can be seasonal. Because her flower shop’s marketing spend before Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day always looks very different than what she spends on marketing in July.

The takeaway? Visibility costs money.

The most statistically significantfinding from the State of Small Biz report? 6–10 hours/week is the marketing“success zone”

Small business owners who spend 6–10 hours/week on marketing are 6x more likely to rate their marketing as very/extremely effective.

And the panel? All of them were in that range.

• Amy: ~6 hours
• Danison: ~6 hours (1.5 hours/day)
• Rachel: ~10 hours + outsourced support
• Sydney: 2–3 hours personally + 8–12 hours from her assistant(10–15 total)

But then came the real question. Why don’t small business owners set aside the time to work on their marketing? Because 57% only spend 1-5 hours a week on it; it’s just 19.8% that is working on their marketing for 6-10 hours a week.

Danison went straight for the psychological jugular to explain this one:

• People don’t know what to share
• They don’t think what they have is worthy
• They’re afraid to put themselves out there

Sydney talked about a very tactical mistake she used to make. Because putting“marketing” on the calendar is useless. It’s too vague. Too big. Too easy to avoid. And doesn’t give you a sense of what you should even do. What worked for her was turning it into specific tasks (a.k.a. having a marketing plan). Because the magic is in the micro-steps. That’s what doing your own marketing asa small business owner really looks like.

The takeaway? When the task is clear, you don’t need to make a CEO-level decision about your marketing every time you sit down to work on it.

If you’re thinking “Cool data, but I’m still doing nothing.”

To wrap up the panel discussion, I asked the question every small business owner needs to hear the answer to: What would you say to the person who reads the State of Small Biz report and changes nothing about how they do their marketing?

• Amy: “If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you got.”
• Rachel: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results…you know what that’s called. Insanity”

The bottom line was clear: If you’re truly happy with your results—carry on. But if you’re tired, stuck, or guessing…doing nothing is a decision but it’s an expensive one.

Your next step as a small business owner: don’t just read the report—use it

The point of the State of Small Biz report isn’t to make you feel bad. It’s to do the opposite:

• Normalize what you’re experiencing as a business owner
• Show you what’s actually working for small businesses as a whole
• Give you a path forward that doesn’t require more hustle

If you haven’t downloaded the State of Small Biz report, that’s your next step. Then use what you learn about where your marketing is in line with best practices (and where it’s not) to make changes to your marketing plan!

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Tayler Cusick Hollman

Enji Founder and Small Business Marketing Expert

Tayler is one of the Founders of Enji (marketing tools for small business owners who need to plan, do, and review it themselves). With over a decade of marketing experience, she has helped thousands of small business owners create simple marketing plans that help them get results. When she isn't thinking about how to solve the "I do my own marketing" problem, you'll find her skiing, mountain biking, or climbing rocks somewhere.

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