We spoke in the last article about three ways to market yourself in a low cost or free way. Here are four more.

1. Set up joint ventures

Use joint venturing where you have one asset, and another business has a complementary one. You approach your clients (or theirs) jointly, and split the profits. For example, say you have a great product on how to decrease your golf handicap and you know the owners of a golf course who has a good list they can promote to, you get them to talk glowingly about your product. Each subsequent sale you make is more than you would have done otherwise, so it’s worth splitting the profits.

Say you sell cars: you could promote someone’s insurance and each time you sell the package, you get a ‘reward’ (payment). From the insurance firm’s point of view, they get another sales team that’s costing them nothing until you secure them a sale. Look out for non-competitive businesses that have the sort of customers you want to reach. You win because you’re getting a virtually overnight expansion of the amount of people you meet. They win as they get an immediate additional income stream and their customers are pleased.

What joint ventures could you do and with whom?

2. Email your ‘list’

Emailing your ‘list’ (the customers and prospects you have email addresses for and who have agreed to hear from you) at least twice a month. Split test your offers, content and types of emails. Personalised, simple emails are more read than long, convoluted newsletters. Of course, you could send out hard copy letters, but this is more time consuming, slower, and a lot more costly.

What offers could you email your list with?

And, if you don’t have a list, what steps will you take to build one?

3. Speak in public

This is a great marketing skill, so go and get training if needs be, or pick on a colleague who likes doing it and ask them to step in for you. Wherever you work, the chances are there are plenty of places crying out for speakers. So, go and give a 40 minute presentation to a group on your area of expertise: you’ll have a whole group focused on you – a marketer’s dream!

Give them a talk that will help them: for example, ‘The Ten Best Ways to Market Yourself’, or ‘Seven Things You Can Do to Ease a Stiff Back’. You can show the audience how your knowledge/product/service will help them, but keep the sales pitch to a minimum and put it at the end.

Do include a call to action, and make sure they take away your details. Say you’ll send them the seminar notes and a bonus report (or gift) if they sign up to your newsletter. DON’T go on about how long you’ve been in business, etc. The audience won’t care; they’ll want to know what you can say that will help them with their problems.

Research online, and at your local Chamber of Commerce, networking groups, library and tourist information office. Look further afield too. Somewhere out there your prospects will be meeting in groups: overweight teenagers, smokers, vintage car buffs, metal work enthusiasts, people with no clue how to fill in a tax return, rock climbers, whatever. It’s a numbers game – try 10 and get two, and keep at it. Your reputation will spread, you’ll be seen more and more as the expert to turn to (and buy from) and your diary will be full.

Which groups could you approach that would like to hear a presentation from you, and what would you speak on?

4. Improve your sales skills

(Or improve your sales team’s skills.) Yes, this is marketing: it’s marketing through talking, either face to face, over the phone, or through the written word. Read How To Master The Art Of Selling by Tom Hopkins and books by Richard Denny and Brad Sugars. Also read books by copywriting masters such as Dan Kennedy (and also apply what you learn about selling through the written word to what you say to your prospects).

Rather than leaping into trying all techniques at once, practice one skill at a time until it becomes second nature. Then work on the next skill. Most people aren’t prepared to put in the time to improve their sales skills, preferring to ‘wing it’, so if you’re willing to spend the time learning, you’ll have a great competitive advantage. There’s an initial investment, but thereafter your sales skills improvements can make a rapid improvement in your profits for no extra cost.

What step could you take this week improve your sales skills, and what will you start to sell?