small business without spending a lot of money

Is it really possible to grow a small business without spending a lot of money?


Yes, it is possible -- in fact, it's advisable.

There are two types of investments you can make in your business; 1) Time, or 2) Money.

We would never recommend that someone spend a lot of money on their marketing unless they have already developed and tested their strategy and systems to the point where they are fairly certain that each investment they make will produce profitable results.

Many business owners mistakenly believe that it's necessary to invest hundreds, even thousands of dollars creating fancy, four-color stationery, and expensive advertising to get their businesses off the ground.

To succeed you must have a solid understanding of marketing

Others actually believe that money can make up for a lack of marketing knowledge.

That's simply not true.

Without a solid understanding of how marketing works, you stand a good chance of losing every penny you spend.

Here's an example from our files:

A few years ago a young woman wanted to start a catalog business, and borrowed $85,000 from her parents for the photos, printing and mailing of her first catalog.

Unfortunately, she had very little marketing knowledge, and her first mailing resulted in very few sales. All the money she borrowed was lost in one shot. Money can't make up for a poor marketing strategy.

Until you have learned how to develop an effective marketing strategy for your business, save your money.

There are many low-cost -- even free -- marketing methods that will just take an investment of your time.

Before creating our current Internet business, we had grown a very profitable offline consulting business without spending a penny on advertising. It was all done through simple, Give to Get Marketing techniques. We invested our knowledge and our time, not our money.

When we moved our business to the Internet, we used a free Web hosting service, designed our own Web sites for free, and used free marketing tactics to attract hundreds of thousands of prospects to our Web sites and then converted a good percentage of them into customers. All of these low-cost and free methods have helped us build a very lucrative business on the web.

Of course, as we grew, those free services no longer met our needs. But by then our sales could easily support our investments in more reliable and effective services.

As you grow your sales and develop your marketing systems with low-cost methods, you can then begin to accelerate your growth with paid marketing techniques.

By that time, you should know how to invest $1.00 and get back $1.50 or $2.00. Once you reach that point, there is no limit to how big you can grow.

Here are just a few of the ways you can grow your business with free and low-cost marketing tactics:

-- Do Networking
-- Generate Referrals
-- Talk to Groups
-- Write Articles
-- Get Interviewed in a Magazine or Newspaper
-- Get Interviewed on TV or Radio
-- Create Joint Ventures
-- Submit to Search Engines
-- Swap Ads with Ezines
-- Write a Newsletter
-- Submit News Releases

Here's an example:

Mary, not her real name, sells scrap booking supplies. How does she grow her customer list? By putting on complimentary scrap booking workshops where she shares the latest tips, demonstrates some of the new, cool tools and supplies.

By doing this, Mary attracts her very best prospects-- people who love scrap booking and buy the types of products she sells. She offers special packages to anyone who is interested in purchasing right at the workshop. They get a great deal for buying immediately.

But that's not all. She has the name, address, and email address of every attendee from every workshop. She follows- up periodically with those scrap bookers in the future. When they are ready to buy, guess who they think of immediately?

You'll find hundreds more low-cost and free marketing techniques that really work on our Web site. There's a wealth of articles, tips and real world case studies to help you grow your small business without spending a fortune.

Effective marketing isn't about wishing or hoping for good results. It's about educating yourself about how effective marketing works to attract qualified prospects to your business and convert them into happy, loyal, lifetime customers.

It really isn't that difficult to grow your sales once you understand the simple steps needed to attract customers to your business like a magnet.

It just takes a decision on your part to 'do it!'