Capital Access for Women

Although there has been tremendous progress during the past decade, women business owners’ use of capital – both credit and equity -- still lags behind men’s, according to a new study from the Center for Women’s Business Research underwritten by Wells Fargo. The study analyzes the key trends in business financing, capital availability, and equity capital for women business owners over the past decade.The Center for Women's Business Research has been tracking women business owners’ access to, and use of capital for more than ten years.

Access to Capital: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, is the first report to review this body of research from the Center and integrate it with data from outside sources and interviews with leading advocacy, business, policy and academic experts to document the changes. “Women business owners’ access to commercial credit increased by more than two-thirds between 1996 and 2003, from 20% of women business owners using commercial credit in 1996 to 34% in 2003. This increase is even more pronounced for the larger businesses owned by women. In 2003, 56% of these businesses were using commercial credit,” said Marjorie Alfus, President of Alfus Family, LP. and chair, Center for Women’s Business Research. “This progress is due in great part to the recognition on the part of financial institutions of the market opportunity presented by the growth of women-owned businesses. But it also reflects the increased financial sophistication of women entrepreneurs.”

Private banks have increasingly recognized the viability of the women business owner market. A number of national, regional and community banks have created substantial lending initiatives resulting in a greater range of financial choices available to women entrepreneurs. “Wells Fargo recognized early on that women-owned businesses were an under-served market and established programs to provide financial products and services to facilitate their growth,” said Joy Ott, regional president Wells Fargo Bank Montana and Wells Fargo’s women’s business services national spokesperson. “We hope Wells Fargo’s latest $20 billion lending goal for women business owners sends a clear and strong message that we intend to be their partner of choice, and are 100% committed to helping them succeed personally and financially.”

The larger, faster growing women-owned firms are more likely than other firms owned by women to use credit. For example, the women-owned firms with revenues of $1 million or more are more likely to access commercial loans or lines of credit than are other women-owned firms (56% vs. 31%). However, even these larger businesses owned by women lag behind their men counterparts in using commercial credit (56% of women vs. 71% of men). Furthermore, women owners of fast-growth firms are more likely than their men counterparts to rely on business earnings as their primary funding source (72% vs. 56%).The momentum has slowed and while in 2004, the number of loans to women-owned businesses had increased to 17,680, the share of total loans remained virtually unchanged since 2000 at 22%.

The public sector also contributed to the greater availability of credit and capital for women business owners. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of U.S. Small Business Administration (backed) loans going to women increased from 13% to 21% and the number of loans almost quadrupled (from 2,530 to 9,216).

Venture capital is another key area of business financing where women are making strides but still lag behind their men counterparts. Women business owners are relative newcomers to the venture capital markets, yet many have experienced great success. As of 2003, clients of Springboard Enterprises, a non-profit venture organization that brings together equity investors and women-led businesses, had raised over $1.7 billion in equity capital. Despite these successes, Venture One reports that in the first three quarters of 2004 only 3.8% of venture backed companies were women-led. Similarly, the Center’s research showed that in 2003 only 4% of the women owners of businesses with revenues of $1 million or more obtained or intended to seek equity investment compared with 11% of comparable men-owned firms. One factor may be the paucity of women in decision-making positions in institutional equity firms.

Women in leadership positions are much more likely than their men counterparts to consider deals with women-owned firms (86% vs. 70%) and more likely to have made an investment (67% vs. 40%). Women are experiencing higher than average success in certain industry sectors. For instance, according to Growthink Research, in the healthcare sector, women-led companies received 55% of venture funds. Women-led firms also raised 17.5% of the total dollars invested in agricultural biotechnology, 14.2% of human resource (HR) software dollars, 14.1% of imaging technologies dollars, and 11.5% of email/messaging software dollars. When considering where women business owners have been with regard to access to capital and where they are going, a panel of experts affirmed that great progress has been made and that the future is bright. The momentum must be sustained. Their recommendations were in two categories – for the financial services industry and for women business owners:

• Banks must build relationships with women entrepreneurs not just focus on selling;

• Women business owner initiatives must permeate the entire organization at all levels and in all lines of business;

• There must be opportunities for women to move into positions of influential decision-making in banking and venture capital;

• Women business owners must position their businesses for potential growth from the very beginning; • Women business owners must be better educated about the appropriate forms of financing for each stage of business growth.

• Women business owners must network with financial decision makers.

(this article was copied and pasted from www.WomensCalendar.org )

Small Business Tax Tips

By Jennifer Openshaw
Last Update: 7:30 PM ET Feb 15, 2007

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- If you are an employee, you have little control over your tax destiny. Starting your own small business could change that a lot.

As a salaried employee you can play with 401(k) deferrals, cafeteria plans or maybe a health savings account or some other retirement plan if you qualify. Owning a rental property might also help. Other than that, you're pretty much locked in.

EARLY BIRD TAX GUIDETotal tax help

Our Tax Guide offers tips and stories to lead you through the filing season for your 2006 return, and get you ready for 2007.• 5 tips to make most of deductions• Navigating the unfathomable AMT• Don't miss these tax-law changes• Your Form 1099 may come late• Did you move? Take a tax breakGet Taxing Times newsletter free

But here's a secret -- and believe me, I know from experience: If you start a legitimate business, even a small one, the new tax levers you'll get can really work to your advantage.
Why? Small business and entrepreneurship are part of the American Dream, and Congress wants to help out. Make no mistake -- their real hope and desire is that some of those small businesses become big ones that hire lots of people and generate more tax revenue down the road.

Upshot: you might be surprised at what you, as business owner, can write off.
Here's how it works. With a "Schedule C" business, named for the tax form used to account for it, all legitimate costs of doing business are fair game to be written off. Now, especially if your business is home-based, the natural commingling of personal and business expenses opens new possibilities.

A few examples:

Operating expenses and supplies. Anything purchased to help in your trade counts. As a part-time business or marketing consultant, or even a real estate agent, costs of a Wall Street Journal or relevant magazine subscription can be deducted. Or, as a weekend wedding photographer, you buy a ladder for better shooting angles. That counts too -- even if you also use it to remove leaves from your gutters.

Travel. Depending on your business, travel may be deductible. Attend a conference or meet with a client -- and take the family along. Write off your individual expenses -- and since you'll need a hotel and rental car whether you're one or four, the family shares in the subsidy.
Vehicles. It's hard to write off an entire vehicle, but you can take the mileage deduction, currently 44 cents a mile, for legitimate business activities. Combine personal trips with that business purpose -- i.e. go to the post office and make other stops on the way, the whole trip counts. Ditto for that city trip to meet a client.

Home office. You need to do business somewhere, and if that somewhere is a separate room in your home you can deduct costs to outfit that room, plus a prorated portion of all home expenses. So if your office is 10% of your home and you spend $5,000 to repave the driveway, write off $500.

Other facilities. You have business records and computer backups that need to be stored somewhere. So rent a storage unit -- and if Grandma's old dining table ends up in there too, it still counts.

For those with a family and especially children old enough to perform business tasks:
Hire the kids. Your 12-year-old computer whiz could be a tax bonanza. Hire him or her to install software, back up computers or produce DVDs of your work. Pay a reasonable wage and expense it with no worries so long as the dependent's earned income stays under the standard deduction (currently $5,350). Sweeping floors or other more traditional pursuits also qualify. And don't forget Grandma and other relatives -- their deductible wages also stay in the family.
Fund an IRA. Extending the "kiddie" theme, instead of paying cash, you can fund their IRA. You get the deduction and they get off on the right foot financially.

Now, a caution: none of this is automatic. You must be prepared to justify expenses. This means good record-keeping. Special rules for vehicles, home offices and other items require familiarity. You'll have to allocate business use of some items like computers. If you use a PC to invoice once a month, and Junior plays "World of Warcraft" the rest of the time, be careful.

Having a Schedule C return makes you two to three times more likely to be audited. Enough said.
Is it really a business?
Start a business, and write off some of your life. Without earning one thin dime. Is that really possible?
Not quite. Just having receipts and records won't do it, especially if you're reporting a loss. Congress is no fool on this one -- everyone would start a business if it never had to be profitable.
So the rules, known as "hobby business" rules, stipulate that to write off business expenses, the business must earn a profit -- or at least have reasonable profit prospects. Translation: your business must be a real business.

For most businesses, the "3 in 5" rule applies. If a business turns a profit in 3 out of 5 consecutive years -- no questions asked; you're legally presumed to have a profit motive.
So if you run a loss for three straight years, you might invite a watchful eye. But you may still win the argument -- the IRS and tax courts have given leeway to businesses that by nature take longer to achieve profits. And it helps to keep a serious, professional look -- records, permits, licenses etc. An auditor needs to see it's more than a hobby.

And that it's more than a tax dodge.

What kind of business?

So what kind of business? That's another article. Small, part time home-based businesses that involve the whole family are a good place to start. Another natural path is to do something related to your current profession. According to "Weekend Entrepreneur" co-author Michelle Anton: "The best entrepreneurial businesses grow out of your special talents, skills and interests."

It's nice to make a little extra money. And deducting the expenses, if nothing else, makes that income nearly tax free.

But you may have greater ambitions. Naturally what you start today may turn into something really big someday. This magic lamp may lift you out of the "employee" world altogether.

Jennifer Openshaw, author of the upcoming book, "The Millionaire Zone," is CEO of winningadvice.com. She is also host of ABC Radio's "Winning Advice with Jennifer Openshaw" and appears frequently on such shows as the CBS Early Show and Good Morning America. E-mail her at Openshaw@winningadvice.com.

15 Ways Other People Can Promote Your Company

Put your networking circle to work for you with these 15 guaranteed ways to generate new business.

By Ivan Misner

Has anyone ever said to you, "If there's anything I can do to help you with your business, let me know"? Did you respond, "Thank you. Now that you mention it, there are a few things I need"? Or did you say, "Well, thanks, I'll let you know"?If you're like most of us, you aren't prepared to accept help at the moment it's offered. You let opportunity slip by because you haven't given enough thought to the kinds of help you need. You haven't made the connection between specific items or services you need and the people who can supply them. But when help is offered, it's to your advantage to be prepared and to respond by stating a specific need.Systematic referral marketing requires that you determine, as precisely as possible, the types of help you want and need. There are many ways your sources can help you promote yourself and your business and generate leads and referrals; we've chosen to discuss fifteen of them. Some are simple, cheap and quick; others are complex, costly and time-consuming.

1. Display your literature and products. Your sources can exhibit your marketing materials and products in their offices or homes. If these items are displayed well, such as on a counter or a bulletin board, visitors will ask questions about them or read the information. Some may take your promotional materials and display them in other places, increasing your visibility.

2. Distribute information. Your sources can help you distribute your marketing information and materials. For example, they can include a flyer in their mailings or hand out flyers at meetings they attend. A dry cleaner attaches a coupon from the hair salon next door to each plastic bag he uses to cover his customers' clothing; a grocery store includes other businesses' marketing literature in or on its grocery bags or on the back of the printed receipt.

3. Make an announcement. When attending meetings or speaking to groups, your sources can increase your visibility by announcing an event you are involved in or a sale your business is conducting, or by setting up exhibits of your products or services. They can also invite you to make an announcement yourself.

4. Invite you to attend events. Workshops and seminars are opportunities to increase your skills, knowledge, visibility and contacts. Members of personal or business groups that you don't belong to can invite you to their events and programs. This gives you an opportunity to meet prospective sources and clients.

5. Endorse your products and services. By telling others what they've gained from using your products or services or by endorsing you in presentations or informal conversations, your network sources can encourage others to use your products or services. If they sing your praises on audiotape or videotape, so much the better.

6. Nominate you for recognition and awards. Business professionals and community members often are recognized for outstanding service to their profession or community. If you've donated time or materials to a worthy cause, your sources can nominate you for service awards. You increase your visibility both by serving and by receiving the award in a public expression of thanks. Your sources can pass the word of your recognition by word of mouth or in writing. They can even create an award, such as Vendor of the Month, to honor your achievement.

7. Provide you with leads. A source can help you by passing along information she hears about someone who needs the kind of product or service you provide. Following through on such leads--for example, a rumor about a new company moving into the area or a news item about the troubles another business is having--could result in new business.

8. Provide you with referrals. The kind of support you'd most like to get from your sources is, of course, referrals--names and contact information for specific individuals who need your products and services. Sources can also help by giving prospects your name and number. As the number of referrals you receive increases, so does your potential for increasing the percentage of your business generated through referrals.

9. Make initial contact with prospects and sources. Rather than just giving you the telephone number and address of an important prospect, a network member can phone or meet the prospect first and tell him about you. When you make contact with the prospect, he will be expecting to hear from you and will know something about you.

10. Introduce you to prospects. Your source can help you build new relationships faster by introducing you in person. She can provide you with key information about the prospect. She can also tell the prospect a few things about you, your business, how the two of you met, some of the things you and the prospect have in common, and the value of your products and services.

11. Arrange a meeting on your behalf. When one of your sources tells you about a person you should meet, someone you consider a key contact, she can help you immensely by coordinating a meeting. Ideally, she will not only call the contact and set a specific date, time and location for the meeting, but she will also attend the meeting with you.

12. Follow up with referrals they have given you. Your sources can contact prospects they referred to you to see how things went after your first meeting, answer their questions or concerns, and reassure them that you can be trusted. They can also give you valuable feedback about yourself and your products or service, information that you might not have been able to get on your own.

13. Publish information for you. Network members may be able to get information about you and your business printed in publications they subscribe to and in which they have some input or influence. For example, a source who belongs to an association that publishes a newsletter might help you get an article published or persuade the editor to run a story about you.

14. Serve as a sponsor. Some of your sources may be willing to fund or sponsor a program or event you are hosting. They might let you use a meeting room, lend you equipment, authorize you to use their organization's name, or donate money or other resources.

15. Sell your products and services. Of all the kinds of support that a source can offer, the one that has the greatest immediate impact on your bottom line is selling your product or service for you. Your network member could persuade a prospect to write a check for your product, then have you mail or deliver the product to your new customer. If you do so swiftly and cordially, you may gain a new lifelong customer.Suppose a customer you know well tells you a friend of his wants to buy your product. How should you respond? By telling him to have his friend contact you? By asking for information about the friend? The correct answer is neither. While your interest is still hot, let your friend, the customer, take your product and sell it to his friend, the prospect (if he plans to see his friend in the near future, of course).

Editor's note: This article is excerpted from Business by Referral http://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-Referral-Ivan-R-Misner/dp/188516727X---------------------------------------------------Ivan Misner is Entrepreneur.com's http://www.entrepreneur.com/ "Networking" columnist and the founder and CEO of BNI http://www.bni.com/, the world's largest referral organization with thousands of chapters in dozens of countries around the world. Ivan's also a New York Times bestselling author--his latest book is Masters of Success: Proven Techniques for Achieving Success in Business and Life

Top 10 Ways You Know You’re An Entrepreneur

Ben Yoskovitz February 11th 2007 - 12:27

Posted in Entrepreneurship

Are you an entrepreneur?
You might be. Inside you there just might be an entrepreneur waiting to tear out.
Here are the top 10 ways to know if you’re an entrepreneur. (And for those of you that are already entrepreneurs, you can nod your head as we go along…Or disagree with me! Or add your own points!)

You’re passionate. Passion counts for a whole lot when it comes to being an entrepreneur. Without it, you’re dead before you even start.

You’re always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an opportunity.

You always think to yourself, “I can do that better.” You might know nothing about the retail business, but every time you walk into a big box store you have a thousand ideas on how to make it a better experience. Combined with your eye for opportunity, you can’t help but believe there’s a better way of doing things.

You want to live your work. Work isn’t a means to an end. It isn’t a way of collecting a paycheck and going home. You’re dreaming of something more than that, where you can live and breathe work. Not because you want to work more, you want to work smarter. You want your work to mean something. You want to experience something more than shuffling to the office at 8am, leaving at 5pm and forgetting what happened for that day.

You’re dreaming miles ahead while focused on what you’re doing right now. You’re a dreamer, but not a daydreamer. You’re dreaming a plan ahead while working constantly at achieving success on the details today. You’re a big-thinker but you don’t lack the ability to focus on details. Accomplish the little tasks is moving the ball forward for you…towards the big dream.
You’re an ego-maniac. You look at your boss and shrug. You know things could be better, and you believe strongly in your own abilities. You’ve got a big, healthy ego. It’s not unwarranted, but it’s not proven just yet either. Still, ego is important - because it’ll help you take risks, power forward and succeed.

You’re prepared to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.” Your ego doesn’t preclude you from admitting that you don’t know something. Too many people fake their way through life, or duck their head when they don’t know the answer. Your response is to jump into it, learn what you can, move quickly and get some damn answers.

You’re a strategist. You’re not just thinking about tomorrow. You’re thinking much further ahead than that. This is a trait you share with a lot of people - career ladder-climbers and “cover your ass” employees. The difference is that you’re also a dreamer, and strategy + dreaming is very powerful indeed.

You’re a builder. You like to create things. You don’t care about recognition, praise from your boss, awards and money as much as you care about building something remarkable, and having others enjoy it and benefit from it.

You want control. You watch the world spin, shake and bumble around you and want to harness that more. You watch your boss and co-workers shuffle around each and every day and you want to rattle some chains. You want control. Seth Godin calls them torchbearers. You want to bear the torch.

So, are you an entrepreneur?

Tags: business strategy, ego, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, passion, seth godin, starting a business strategy

About 'Top 10 Ways You Know You’re An Entrepreneur'
This entry was posted on February 11th 2007 by Ben Yoskovitz.
It was posted in Entrepreneurship

What is a Press Release...

What is a Press Release and How Can it Benefit My Home-Based Business?

A lot of home-based business owners don’t fully understand the concept behind press releases, or realize the impact a simple press release can have on their small business. A press release is an announcement, such as a business name change, upcoming event, a special sale, etc., or it can be an account of a news story that is sent to newspapers, newsletter and website publishers, and even local television stations. What are the benefits of press releases?Free publicity. If you send a copy of your press release to your local newspaper, and they decide it’s newsworthy, they may print it in their paper. Or if you get really lucky, they might even contact you to do a more in-depth story. To get your home-based business picked up, target the smaller newspapers because they are more likely to run it. Best of all, this is free advertising!Improve your search engine rankings. The more incoming links you have pointing to your website, the better your rankings will be. If you plan to submit your press release online, always include your website address (with the http://) for the search engines to pick up on, and as a way for readers to visit your website for more information.Spread the news. If you have something special happening with your business, such as a charity event, a new business name, etc.

A press release is a great and easy way to share the news with your current and potential clients or customers. Instead of contacting people individually or doing a mass postal mailing, which can be expensive, add the press release to your website, include it in your email newsletter, post it on your blog, insert a copy in outgoing orders, and even tack them on bulletin boards around your community.Keep your business fresh in the minds of your customers.

Use press releases to remind your customers or clients that you are still in business, whether you are announcing a special event, a new employee, or even a sale, you can send out a press release to get exposure. This gentle reminder may come to them at the perfect time, and they may very well take advantage.

To achieve the best results from your press release, use the correct format to write it. If you don’t know how, you can easily find the information you are looking for online or you can hire someone to write it for you. It’s imperative that you understand the quality of the press release will reflect on your business, so ensure that it is well written.It’s also important that you keep track of the press releases you send out, because doing so will help you comprehend the kind of response you are getting to them. You can do this by setting up a special link or email address that only people who read your press release will know, or offer a discount to the visitors who mention your press release or enter, a special coupon code can also be setup to track who is ordering as a result of your press release.If you are not currently using press releases as a part of your advertising campaign, it’s time to start. It doesn’t matter if your business is small and home-based, you can reap the same benefits as the large businesses.

Article by: This article is brought to you by Writing From Home: Helping work at home moms on a budget improve their website content, traffic, and search engine rankings through unique, high-quality keyword articles, content, product descriptions, copywriting, press releases, and reviews. Visit today for more information, http://www.writingfromhome.com/. As seen in the Wahm Team Ezine, http://www.wahmteam.com/.

Creativity isn't limited to any age

By DAVID W. GALENSON and JOSHUA KOTIN

First published: Sunday, February 4, 2007

At 76, Clint Eastwood is making the best films of his career.
"Letters from Iwo Jima" has been nominated for four Academy Awards -- including best picture and best director. ("Flags of Our Fathers," which Eastwood also directed last year, received two nominations.)
New York Times film critic A.O. Scott recently named him "the greatest living American filmmaker." Such accolades are the latest development in East-wood's creative ascension. Two years ago, his "Million Dollar Baby" won best picture and best director, a repeat of his success with "Unforgiven" at age 62 -- his first Oscar after making movies for more than 20 years.
Sculptor Louise Bourgeois is 95. Later this year, she will be honored with a retrospective at London's Tate Modern museum. Last November, her "Spider," a sculpture she made at the age of 87, sold at auction for more than $4 million, the highest price ever paid for her work and among the highest ever paid for the work of a living sculptor.

Is such creativity in old age rare?

Eastwood and Bourgeois often are considered anomalies. Yet such career arcs -- gradual improvements culminating in late achievements -- account for many of the most important contributions to the arts. That society does not generally recognize this fact suggests that many are missing a key concept about creativity.

We often presume creativity is the domain of youth, that great artists are young geniuses, brash and brilliant iconoclasts. Arthur Rimbaud, Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot, Orson Welles, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jasper Johns all revolutionized their artistic disciplines in their teens or 20s. Picasso created the first cubist paintings at 25, and Welles made "Citizen Kane" at 25. These artists made dramatic, inspired discoveries based on important new ideas, which they often encapsulated in individual masterpieces.

But there's another path to artistic success, one that doesn't rely on sudden flashes of insight but on the trial-and-error accumulation of knowledge that ultimately leads to novel manifestations of wisdom and judgment.

This is Eastwood's and Bourgeois' path -- and it was the path for a host of other artists: Titian and Rembrandt, Monet and Rodin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, Mark Twain and Henry James, Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop, to name a few. Twain wrote "Tom Sawyer" at 41 and bettered it with "Huckleberry Finn" at 50; Wright completed Fallingwater at 72 and worked on the Guggenheim Museum until his death at 91.

Paul Cezanne is the archetype of this kind of experimental innovator. After failing the entrance exam for the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he left Paris frustrated by his inability to compete with the precocious young artists who congregated in the city's cafes. He formulated his artistic goal, of bringing solidity to Impressionism, only after the age of 30, then spent more than three decades in seclusion in his home in Aix, painstakingly developing his mature style trying to represent the beauty of his native Provence. Finally, in his 60s, he created the masterpieces that influenced every important artist of the next generation.

Frost also matured slowly. He dropped out of Dartmouth and then Harvard, and in his late 20s moved to a farm in rural New Hampshire. His poetic goal was to capture what he called the "sound of sense," the words and cadence of his neighbors' speech. He published his most famous poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," at 49.

At 63, Frost reflected that young people have flashes of insight, but "it is later in the dark of life that you see forms, constellations. And it is the constellations that are philosophy."
These two creative life cycles stem from differences in goals and methods.

"Conceptual innovators" aim to express new ideas or particular emotions. Their confidence and certainty allow them to achieve this quickly, often by radically breaking rules of disciplines they have just entered.

In contrast, "experimental innovators" try to describe what they see or hear. Their careers are quests for styles that capture the complexity and richness of the world they live in.
The cost of ignoring Cezanne's example is tremendous -- and not only for the arts. Our society prefers the simplicity and clarity of conceptual innovation in scholarship and business. Yet the conceptual Bill Gateses of the business world do not make the experimental Warren Buffetts less important. Recognizing important experimental work can be difficult; these contributions don't always come all at once. Experimental innovators often begin inauspiciously, so it's also dangerously easy to parlay judgments about early work into assumptions about entire careers.
Perhaps the most important lesson is for experimental innovators themselves: Don't give up. There's time to do game-changing work after 30. Great innovators bloom in their 30s (Jackson Pollock), 40s (Virginia Woolf), 50s (Fyodor Dostoevsky), 60s (Cezanne), 70s (Eastwood) and 80s (Bourgeois).

Who knows how many potential Cezannes we are currently losing? What if Eastwood had stopped directing at 52, after the critical failure of "Firefox," his 1982 film about a U.S. fighter pilot who steals a Soviet aircraft equipped with thought-controlled weapons?

W. Galenson is an economist at the University of Chicago.

Joshua Kotin, a doctoral student in English at the University of Chicago, is editor of the Chicago Review. They wrote this article for The Los Angeles Times.

How to appropriately utilize Guerilla Marketing

33 Marketing Success Tips

By Al Lautenslager

Practice a few of these must-know marketing tips every day and build up your geurilla-marketing muscles.Part of the guerrilla marketing mindset suggests that you should be thinking about marketing all the time. Not just quarterly, not just monthly, not just weekly, but every single day. Really, it's not as hard as it sounds--there are quite a few ways you can incorporate marketing into your daily activities.It's often said that doing anything for 21 days in a row will eventually turn into a habit for you. And a marketing habit is a great thing for any business to have. So what I'm going to suggest is that you choose three to five things every day that are related to marketing for your business and do them at the beginning of the day before you start fighting the daily fires--and forget all about your planned tasks.If you work on this developing a marketing habit--and the proper marketing mindset--every day, you'll soon find that you're going above and beyond your "three to five things" limit. You'll find yourself talking and thinking in terms of headlines or talking, listening and thinking in terms of your customers and prospects' benefits. And the more you think marketing, the greater the chance you'll accomplish your marketing and overall business goals.

When talking to many business owners, professionals and organizations, I find that in the beginning, they're sometimes challenged when it comes to finding three to five marketing tasks to do every, single day. Just remember, these activities don't have to be elaborate, they don't have to be long and drawn out, and they don't have to take up much time.To get your habit started and to help with your marketing mindset, here are the types of activities you can employ each and every day before your non-marketing, daily work activities begin:

Hand write a thank-you note to a prospect or customer

Enter customer or prospect names into a database

Brainstorm tagline ideas

Visit a competitor's website

Write an article to pitch to your local business organization

Make a list of press release ideas

Write a press releaseCall a newspaper and ask who the feature editor is for your area of expertiseCompose an e-mail sales letter

Call a few prospects or customers to get their e-mail contact information

Develop a series of survey questions

Brainstorm advertising concepts

Write a pitch letter to a radio or TV station

Get contact information from media outlets

Plan a renaming of your products

Work on new product development and introduction ideas

Invite a customer or prospect to your office for coffee or to discuss new ideas

Recognize a special prospect or customer

Discuss a fusion marketing idea with a strategic business partner

Visit a few marketing-related websites

Post new information on your website

Plan your networking calendar for the week

Call to follow up with networking contacts

Get price estimates for the printing and mailing of your direct-mail campaign

Mail samples of your product to top prospects

Brainstorm ideas for an "enter to win" contest

Develop a coupon for your product or service

Rewrite your phone's on-hold message script

Write an article or other text for your newsletter

Brainstorm new product or service ideas

Plan a new customer service activity that will truly delight your customers

Develop your benefit list and compare to it to your competitions'

Develop a checklist, top-ten list or other information as a response to a marketing hook

If you're still challenged with finding the right activities for your daily, three to five tasks, break your marketing down into these general categories:

Direct Mail, Networking, Publicity, Advertising, Fusion, Planning, New Products and Services, Marketing Communication Materials, and so on. Then concentrate on thinking up activities for one area at a time. No one is really counting your "three to five" things. The point is to do something related to marketing every day to help you think about marketing all the time.Obviously some of this activities will take a longer than just a few minutes--it's OK if they consume your whole day. Although your goal to accomplish three to five things related to marketing every day, on some days, you may only get to one or two; on others days, you may get on a roll and do five to seven things. Don't get married to the numbers.The purpose of all of this activity is to help you develop a marketing habit and to move your marketing efforts to the next step in your plan fulfillment. And even if you planned out your activities for the day, don't be surprised if at times your progress, responses and results dictate the direction of your activity--and get you moving in a different direction than what you'd planned. Generally, this is a very positive thing, and you should let the activity guide you and keep the habit going.No matter how much or how little you accomplish, the point is to get started. Because three weeks full of nonmarketing activities quickly becomes a nonmarketing habit, and that is a sure recipe for business failure.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Al Lautenslager is the "Guerrilla Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He's also the principle of Market For Profits, a Chicago-based marketing consulting firm. His latest book, The Ultimate Guide to Direct Marketing is available at www.entrepreneurpress.com.