If you are a self employed entrepreneur or SOHO, chances are you don’t have the type of business that attracts financial backers or entails teams of employees or contractors working for you. It’s just you and your wallet and the sweat of your own brow. That’s okay. You can work with that and still achieve business growth.

Your main challenge is likely to be sales and marketing. Maybe you hate networking and don’t have much time to spend going out to meet potential clients. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable in those situations, or maybe you have some other life challenges that makes it difficult to get out and attend networking events. That’s okay. There is more than one way to market your business, and for the financially challenged, ways that cost very little.

These ideas won’t suit every business type, but think outside the box and ask yourself how you could adapt the ideas to suit your line of work. For starters, do you have a corporate client or contact? Leave some business cards with them and ask them if they’d mind mentioning your company to their contacts/clients. You can also leave your business cards on the counters of other local businesses, such as the local vet. Be creative!

Is your business the type that you can invite some clients together in one place, perhaps offering them a free seminar or an informational meet and greet occasion? If so, do it and encourage them to bring a friend. If your business is “virtual” – suggest an e-group situation in which they can openly share and discuss issues relevant to their business and again, allow them to invite friends. In this way you introduce your business to potential customers, while servicing existing clients.
Ask your existing clients or contacts for referrals. Encourage their participation by offering them something in exchange, like an incentive scheme. This could be discounts for your products or services, free samples, or gift vouchers. If you don’t like to ask outright, design a “Referral Form” and include it with your invoices, but don’t send it with the first invoice! Prove yourself first. Ask them if they have any leads for you to follow up, and to really make this an offer they can’t refuse, suggest you may be able to put business their way too, using the same methods.
Affiliate yourself with other companies/entrepreneurs who can put business your way in exchange for you offering referrals for them. A kind of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours situation. Even appropriate links on websites can be useful, but make sure you are linking to a professional site to safeguard your reputation.
Whether or not you have a referral program, when you do get a new client from a referral, always thank the referrer. Send a thank you note and a small token of your appreciation – it might be a gift voucher or even a lottery ticket. If you haven’t got a referral program in place, whenever you gain a new client from a referral, remember to send a thank you and a small gift to the “referrer” – even a lottery ticket! They won’t mind sending you referrals!
Consider joint ventures. For example, if you are a hair dresser, find a beauty salon or other related business who would be willing to market you to their customers in exchange for you marketing their business to yours. You can offer each others clients special deals and prices that only your and their clientele can get. Find ways to add value to each other’s customers and you will both benefit.

Use the press. Align yourself with a local charity dear to your heart and the next time you do something that benefits them, invite the local journalists or send a press release yourself to your local papers.

Use social media. It may not be the promised answer to everyone’s marketing prayers but at the very least it gets your company name out there and known!

There are as many strategies for promoting business growth as there are types of business. Think outside the box, keep your eyes open for opportunities, experiment and be creative!

If you are a small business owner searching for ways to boost your business growth, here are five simple, yet effective, rules that will help put you on the starting line, facing in the right direction:

1. Be “in business”
Unsuccessful small businesses, especially SOHO’s and network marketers, often don’t think of themselves as business owners. Some don’t even have the business basics like a dedicated phone line, fax machine, business name, domain name, letterhead, business cards, brochures, merchant status to accept credit cards, contact management software, etc. How can you expect people to do business with you if you aren’t really in business? You must commit 100%. You are either in business or you are not. There is no grey area. Well, there is… that’s where you find people who are dabbling at being in business and failing. There is a huge difference between a hobby and a legitimate business. Once you make that commitment you must have a business plan. These are not inflexible and will change as your business needs change.

2. Know your products and services
Have you ever tried to buy something from someone who couldn’t answer your questions about their product or service? Hardly confidence inspiring, is it? Your customers expect you to be an expert about whatever it is you are selling. If you don’t know everything there is to know about it, who would? How can you compare what you offer to your competitors, to stay ahead and remain competitive? Customers want to know facts and figures and they want all the features and benefits explained to them in terms they can understand. That’s where you come in. If you don’t deliver, they will take their business somewhere else where they have more confidence, and this applies whether you are selling widgets or services.

3. Fear of Marketing
You won’t experience business growth if you sit back waiting for customers to materialize and come to you. You have to not only let your potential customers know you exist and how to contact you, you also have to tell them how they can benefit and how your product/service will solve their problems. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your product or service is, it just won’t sell itself.

4. Fear of Selling
Many small business owners have stories of used car salespeople swimming around in their heads and they equate sales with being deceitful or pushy. Well, unfortunately, there are people in the world like that, but you don’t have to be one. In fact, you will taste success more quickly and easily if you are NOT like that.

You need to communicate the features and benefits of your product or service without exaggeration or dishonesty. You must develop strong inner beliefs that support serving others, sharing your products/services, secure in the knowledge that you are doing them a favor, being in business and bringing them great products and services. Coming from a place of trying to push people into buying will only push people away. People hate to be manipulated and they can spot a phony a mile away. Wanting to sincerely serve others will attract people. Think “serve”, not “sell”.

5. You Don’t Fully Believe in Yourself
When you doubt yourself and your ability to be successful, you set in motion circumstances that will hold you back and stop you from achieving business growth. You will hold back from investing in your business and spending money on areas vital to your business success. And if you don’t truly believe in your products or services, this will reflect in your sales and marketing (or rather, lack of) and rather than attract customers, you will make them doubtful and go elsewhere. Surely, you have been to a business where even the atmosphere screams the owner isn’t really all that interested? You must be interested and believe you will be successful… because it influences how others see you.

Challenge your beliefs. What is really behind your fears and doubts? Are these truly your stories or have you allowed other people’s doubts to infiltrate your better judgment? Yes some businesses are facing challenging times right now, but there are also businesses who are thriving, and yet others who are coasting along comfortably.

Ever heard of Dream, Believe, Achieve? When you believe the dream can be real, nothing will stop you.

I don’t have an affiliate deal with them. I just am sitting at my desk today thinking, “Where would my business be without them?” and I am feeeeeeeeeeling grateful.

What I love about this company, Vervante (http://www.vervante.com/) is how easy they are to work with and how quickly they make my products ready for distribution, send out my products and handle any problems customers may run into.

Prior to using Vervante I was spending my valuable time duplicating CD’s and DVD’s or having to pay virtual assistants to do this task. Then someone had to go to the post office and ship things out. Having Vervante not only gives a professional look and consistent look to all my products it gives me full service support, helps me establish my branding, and takes a load off my mind as every order is automatically fulfilled by them as they come into my shopping cart!

Here’s another reason I recommend Vervante (http://www.vervante.com/ ) … they also print all my products on demand! I don’t have to pre-pay or sit on huge inventory. I teach all my clients and coaching students and business owners that the only way to publish these days is using on-demand publishing and distribution for their books, CDs, DVDs, training and coaching programs, and information products. Vervante allows you to share your products with the world by having high quality products at super competitive prices.

In fact the company takes great pride not only in producing high quality products it also has helped hundreds of my clients see their dream of being published come true.

You can contact them here: customerservice@vervante.com or sales@vervante.com and although there is no affiliate relationship please tell them I referred you so they will know how much I value their services.

If you have any questions about Vervante, just post them in the comments below. Or, if you have suggestions about other services, please share them.

It’s important that you begin to take a look at higher priced products or services that create value for your clients, that you can add onto. This is the best way to serve your clients on a better and bigger level and to make a lot more money while creating a lot less sales. Enjoy the process. It works.

One loan program that I’m familiar with is the SBA Loan Queue. What is that? It’s money that President Obama signed in, I believe it was September of 2010. It’s the Small Business Jobs Act – and so there’s money there with the Small Business Administration helping to finance small businesses.

The second one that I know about is 7(a) Loan Program. That’s financial help for your business, and it does have some very specific requirements.

The third loan is one that has been around forever; it’s called the CDC/504 Loan Program. What is that? It’s long-term financing, and it’s to develop the economic growth within a community. Lots and lots of my clients and people that I have coached over the last 30 years have gone in that direction.

Then the fourth is a microloan. If you don’t know what a microloan is, it’s a smaller, short-term loan to a business that certain businesses can qualify for.

Again, I want you to go to http://www.sba.gov and check these out. I just want to familiarize you with the options for small business loans. These are four very, very available for you, and you ought to check them out, get some information and see if having a loan is right for you.

What I recommend you do is go for referrals. Go off of personal referrals, business referrals of other people who have used attorneys that they’re pleased with. You may also get referrals from your local or state chamber of commerce, and if you belong to any organizations or associations with your particular industry, that’s another good place to get referrals.

And finally, if you belong to any networking groups, I would ask the other business owners for folks they’re satisfied with. When choosing an attorney, choose someone whose personality also matches the kind of person that you want to work with. Hope those tips are helpful.

It’s okay if you can’t answer those questions positively, because there’s so many other things you can do. It’s much better when you match your expertise with your passion in an industry where you have credibility. It makes it easy and effortless to grow your business. Right now, do a check in. Are you an expert in the field or do you have expertise in the field, where is your passion, and do you have people that you know in the field that you can contact.

Before you go hiring someone, I want you to think about all the tasks that you need them to do, everything. Make a list. Some people even use them for personal tasks, so be really clear on what they’re going to do. That way, you can see what their skills are.

Not only do you interview them based on experience, but I recommend that they spend a day with you in your office, an entire day shadowing you. That way, you not only get a feel for their sense of detail and organization, but you can get a sense for their personality. Is this someone you’re going to like to be around day in and day out, or is this someone who gets under your skin?

These are important things to notice. Take time in hiring an assistant. Don’t hire the first one that shows up. This person is critical to the success of your business.

The other thing is you can get free legal advice and free business advice. How can you do that? You can barter with people who provide those services, or you could go to http://www.score.org.

The other thing that you can do is run a business online. It’s very easy to not spend a lot of money. For starters, you can get a domain name, set up a blog for free with WordPress, and you can join Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for free. You don’t need a logo. Believe it or not, I even tell people that I work with individually, you don’t even need business cards. We use something other than business cards that costs no money.

If you don’t want to get a merchant account with a credit card, just go through Google Checkout or PayPal. There’s a way that you can get a shopping card if you want one that’s not very expensive, or you could even, if you have physical products, you could do it through a Yahoo store.

If you get into a business where you coach, train, teach or consult, think about setting up a WordPress website. You can talk about your experience and use a lot of testimonials.

If you are going to sell books or CD’s, you can self-publish them at http://www.lulu.com. They do print-on-demand, there’s zero up-front cost for inventory.

You can even use your webcam. Create educational video products, or you can use a digital camera. If you want to record your screen, you can use Camtasia or for Mac users, there’s iShowU.

Don’t bother investing. If you don’t have money and want to start a business, don’t invest in a retail location.

Another inexpensive way that you can advertise your business is through a Meetup group. Go to http://www.meetup.com.

You can install a toolbar that’s called StumbleUpon toolbar, and then you can also see what other things are out there that really teach you about the kind of business you’re in.

If you do want to get business cards, Vistaprint is very inexpensive. You can use Craigslist to post your offers.

Think about doing videos on YouTube. You can share the videos out there with something like TubeMogul. You can put articles out there for free with EzineArticles.

For just $10.00 – very inexpensive – you could try and use Google AdWords.

I’ve given you a ton of ideas. My response to those of you going, “I want to start a business, but I don’t have any money”: Come on. If you really want to start a business, go ahead and do it. There’s a lot of ways to do it. Get started.

I suggest that you set up bookkeeping systems, and that you make sure that there’s double systems so that errors are minimized. I also suggest you make sure to carefully review the books. You can begin to look at what expenses you can eliminate. You should be looking at bank statements and profit and loss statements, and you should also be studying the numbers for trends.

You should also be very careful about buying equipment or buying items outright. Quite often it is a better for you to lease things or to take out loans so that cash flow can be better managed.

One last tip! If you offer cash discounts to your clients and customers, patients, whoever you’re serving, that can actually increase your cash flow quite a bit. And I’d like to see you with more cash in your pocketbook.