I was talking to a friend a few days ago and he mentioned that he was having some difficulty perfecting his elevator speech. It wasn’t long before I realized why. Like most new entrepreneurs, he was eager to tell the whole story about what his company can do and all of the situations that could be improved with his product. On one hand he was right, because he is enthusiastic about a great product and an innovative business model, but on the other hand, he was wrong, because if his prospects get bored before they get to the good part of his story, the chance of them becoming customers is pretty slim.

So how do you avoid making the same mistake? Simply narrow your business down to one sentence. For example, if someone asks what we do, my first answer is “We specialize in helping companies like yours to compete with the bigger companies and win.” Then once I have their attention, I can get into some of the details on how we do what we do or what we’ve done for similar companies.

It’s easy for your enthusiasm to dilute your message, but if you take the time to develop a simple, focused sentence to explain what you do, you’ll have plenty of time to tell your prospects everything about your business.

There are an unlimited number of ways that you can market your business, however, with a new or small business your options may be limited by your budget. Guess what? That is a myth. Your options are limited only by your imagination.

You may not be able to invest in a large scale direct mail campaign or a series of powerful television commercials, but there are still a lot of ways to reach your prospects and clients on a smaller budget. The key is to leverage low-cost and free ways to reach your market on a smaller scale, and then use the additional revenue generated to increase your marketing budget.

Start off with your business cards . Most people have a hard time going through 5,000 business cards in a year, but if you’re serious about generating new business, you should be able to use them up in just a few months. Hand them out at every chance you get — and don’t just hand out one at a time. Give each person three cards and ask them to give the other two to someone that they feel may need them. After meeting with a prospect for the first time, send them a thank you letter with three cards enclosed with the same request. You can also enclose a business card or two in each bill that you pay by mail. Do you take your clothes to a dry cleaner? Leave a card in the pocket of a garment or two. The employees check the pockets before laundering your clothes and for just a few pennies, you may reach the owner. Another method is to tuck a business card into some of the books that your prospects may be interested in at the local bookstore. Be sure to leave a card on your table when you leave a restaurant too. There are so many ways to distribute your business cards and it’s such a cost effective way to reach people that you should take every opportunity to do so.

Do you have a web site? There are some pretty simple ways to drive more traffic to it that require nothing more than some of your time. MySpace is an online community that is growing by leaps and bounds. Many entrepreneurs are beginning to take advantage of this by creating a profile for their business. Include links to key pages within your web site and then start networking with other MySpace members, and before long, you will start seeing your traffic increase. Don’t forget blogging. You can set up a free account at Blogger and begin posting information relevant and useful to your prospects without a lot of effort. The more frequently you post, the greater the effect will be. As with MySpace, include links to relevant information within your web site as well as other web sites and your visitors will begin to view your blog as a valuable resource. You can also participate in online forums, and by placing a link to your web site in your signature, other members will be able to easily visit your web site by clicking on the link included in each of your posts. Squidoo is another new and growing tool that you can use to create more exposure for your web site.

By attending a variety of networking events in your area, you’ll have the opportunity to reach prospects in a comfortable environment. All you need is a handful of business cards, pen and paper, and a winning smile. The more you network, the larger your sphere of influence will become and the easier it will be to develop new prospects. Ask your local chamber of commerce about their networking events, but don’t forget to ask friends and associates about the events that they attend. A quick search on Google will provide you with a wealth of additional networking events in your area. If the opportunity to speak at one of these events comes up, ignore your fear and take advantage of it. Aside from the obvious exposure and credibility you’ll develop, you’ll also improve your self confidence and your ability to interact with others.

This foundation will get even the smallest businesses running with their marketing. Remember, this a marathon, not a sprint, so focus more on consistently marketing your business and you will see far greater results than if you try to make a big impact right off the bat.

We’re often asked by clients to help them generate word of mouth for their product or service. One of the things that we suggest they do is blog on a regular basis. Now, keep in mind, we install, design, and configure the blog for them and then train them to use it. Despite the fact that everything is done for them and they simply have to write about something that they know inside and out on a fairly regular basis, the response we often get is “No, I don’t want to talk about our product, I just want to get other people talking about it.”

If you’re not passionate enough about your product to talk about it, what makes you think anyone else will be? Marketing is not magic. If your staff is not enthusiastic, marketing can not make them appear as though they are. You can’t make someone else excited about something that you yourself are not excited about. Effective word of mouth exposure is created when people become excited about an innovative product or service and tell other people about it. For that to happen, the excitement has to start at the core — you and your staff.

We’ve all gone on a sales call that didn’t result in a sale. Sometimes the reason is apparent, and other times it can be more elusive. More often than not though, the weak point in the sales process is related to qualifying your prospect. This is because once a prospect shows signs of interest, most people immediately start trying to close the sale without ensuring that they truly have all of the information that they need to do so successfully.

The next time you’re out there on your sales calls, take the time to really find out what your prospects decisions are based on. What problems are they attempting to solve with your product or service? What would solving these problems mean for them? What have they tried before and how did it work for them? The idea is to collect the information you’ll need to close the sale while getting them thinking about the effect that not having a suitable solution is having on them, and then benefits they will enjoy when they do achieve a solution. In doing so, your sales process can often seem almost effortless. In fact, your prospects may even feel that they guided it and you were merely a bystander.

We’ve all run into situations where we’ve tried time and time again to reach a particular prospect who always seems to be busy. This can be frustrating when you’re the one trying to reach someone, but it should be seen as a good thing because often, the busiest people are also the most successful people. In reaching, and then converting these people into paying clients, you can significantly increase your revenue and improve your status.

If you’re thinking “That’s all fine and well, but what does it matter if I can’t reach them?” then you’re in the same boat as most business owners or sales people. The solution, fortunately, is fairly simple. It’s no coincidence that many successful business owners are hard working men and women that often put in extra hours before and after the work day, as well as during weekends and holidays. Contacting them during these times will increase your likelihood of reaching them, because chances are they won’t be tied up in meetings or on phone calls and the gatekeeper will be gone.

You’ve got an opportunity to do just that tomorrow on Labor Day, and if you put in just a few hours in the morning, you’ll still be able to make it to that cookout in time!

To clarify, it’s not just Hotmail, but Yahoo, Gmail, and any other free email service out there that we’re talking about. You see, while these email services are fine for your personal email, they present a poor image for a business. To your prospects, it can appear as if you are out of touch with the world of business because you still haven’t invested in your own domain yet, or worse yet, that you don’t take your business seriously enough to invest in your own domain.

You can get a domain for less than $10 and hosting for just a few dollars a month. While this is slowly beginning to sound like one of those old Sally Struthers commercials about feeding some kid for the price of a cup of coffee, you really can’t afford not to have your email coming from your own domain. It’s a small investment considering the image it presents.