Understanding Your Value and How to Market it - 25 No-Cost Ways to Promote

P.T. Barnum used creativity and imagination to attract people to the Big Top circus and other unusual sideshows. He is renown for the marketing example he has set for others and his statement "Without promotion something terrible happens - nothing!"

Sole practitioners are often limited by the amount of money they can invest in advertising. There are many ways that you can promote your services with little or no cost. Following are 25 ideas for you to consider:

1. Offer excellent service and encourage your clients to send you referrals
2. Write a newspaper column in your newspaper
3. Sit on a community board or committee
4. Do volunteer work in a charitable organization
5. Teach a class at a College or University (you will likely be paid for this and promote your business at the same time)
6. Offer to give speech for an organization
7. Open a Facebook account where you will write your business profile
8. Make an appointment to meet with a journalist in the community and offer to be their consultant
9. Teach a workshop for an employment agency or high school class
10. Prepare a Media Release and send it to radio, television and newspapers
11. Mentor a new immigrant
12. Write a newsletter and distribute it by email to clients and media
13. Give discount certificates for charity auctions
14. Become an active participant in your professional association
15. Sign up for a free Twitter account and learn how to build relationships on it
16. Meet other professionals and exchange referrals with them
17. Put brochures or handouts in the Welcome Wagon baskets
18. Host your own internet radio show
19. Become involved in campaigns to clean up the neighbourhood
20. Start a blog with a free account at Wordpress.com
21. Put your business cards or a poster with tear-off strips on community bulletin boards
22. Be a guest on a radio or television show
23. Offer to promote your profession during their yearly campaign
24. Write articles and submit them to internet directories
25. Introduce yourself to people every day!

You see, the key to promotion is to build relationships with others. Being a sole practitioner allows you to learn about the adventure of enticing and attracting others to you and your business through creativity.