Doesn’t it feel great to pass along the word about your favorite restaurant or tell someone about a terrific book you can read? You can make it easy for your clients and colleagues to do the same for your services. When you do great work for your clients, they are just as excited to tell others about you.

Creating a referral based business, where you’re consistently getting leads from your current clients, has multiple benefits. It helps cut down your marketing time and costs, it gives you more opportunities to provide great service and can help you grow your network exponentially.

Here are six PROVEN steps to use to create the type of business that people love to rave about! Read more about Six Steps to Creating a Referral-Based Business

Service professionals have to be proactive about finding and acquiring new clients. The marketplace continues to enable normal people like you and me to earn a living AND gives others the opportunity to get the services that they need. Why is that? It is because we can easily access the people who need the solutions that we offer to solve their problems.

I have found various forms of networking to be highly successful strategies to help grow a business [i.e. enroll new clients]. If you want to see the best results with your service business, leverage the following opportunities:     MORE

One of the ways that I quickly developed a base of ideal clients was by attending live events that cater to my target market. Over the years I have consistently attended workshops, events and seminars that attracted several hundred solo service professionals who were looking for tips and strategies to grow their business.

Why am I telling you this?  Because attending has been a MAJOR contributing factor in growing my business to its current level.  Did it cost me money to attend this?  YES!  (The registration fees have ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars!)  Plus, I paid my own travel expenses AND took off time from my business.  But was it worth it?  ABSOLUTELY!  I’ve gotten at least one new client from every live event I’ve ever attended. Every single one.      MORE

Social media is becoming more and more of an essential tool for businesses of all sizes. But unfortunately, due to the newness of the medium and a lot of accompanying misleading hype, many businesses are led astray. Either due to their own misguided social media attempts or using bad advice from inexperienced “social media experts”, businesses are making mistakes left and right. Read more about Social Media Mistakes You Should Avoid

One of the best ways to get your ideal clients interested in your solutions is very simple - talk to them about how you can solve their problems. You may already be telling people you know about what you do, but there is a lot more to talking to your target market than that. There are networking opportunities all around you, you just have to learn how to take advantage of them.

To really make a difference for your business, there are a few steps to follow to make the most of networking opportunities. Here are three ways to make sure that your networking time is well spent: MORE

Let's face it. Not everyone loves networking. For some the very thought makes them queasy.

Yet, inherently, most service professionals know that effective networking is often the fastest path to generating more cash for their business.  So if you are on of those who would rather do yourself bodily harm then attend a networking event, what are you supposed to do? Read more about Networking Tips for Introverts - 6 Easy Steps

Whether you've been in business for one month or ten years, there are basic marketing strategies that ALWAYS work, but that are easy to overlook. As you look to meet your goals of generating a certain amount of revenue, working with a certain number of clients, or breaking into a certain market, you want to be strategic with your marketing efforts, but also keep your campaigns as simple as possible.

The key to doing this is focusing on developing relationships. As you know, people do business with professionals that they know, like and trust. So no matter what type of business you're in, developing and maintaining strong relationships is key to having a successful business. MORE

Whether you're in start-up mode or an established business owner experiencing a cash crunch, you may find yourself without as much capital as you'd like to spend on marketing your business.  That may be your reality, but that is no excuse for not marketing your services.  The only way you’re going to grow your business and create more cash flow is to market your solutions consistently. Fortunately, there are several FREE strategies that you can use to put your business in front of the people who need what you have to offer.

Use all or one of these strategies to market your business on a budget:      MORE

Meetup.com is one of my favorite marketing resources for many reasons. Perusing the various groups listed on the site will allow you to locate a specific demographic of people who are interested in specific topics. Not only can you join and interact with the groups online you can actually "meet up" in person for networking, sharing resources and more. It's the perfect tool to help you with your market research!

I've met a number of fabulous business people through Meetup and attracted a few new ideal clients as well. After learning more about Meetup, what if you decide you want to step up your networking a notch and attend an event? And instead of just attending a Meetup, what if you decide you want to host your own?

I have just the resource for you! Check out this article published by Mashable.com:     MORE

Offline marketing is sometimes ignored by solo service professionals – but it shouldn’t be! By holding workshops and in-person appearances in your local area, you can increase your income, raise your public profile, and build a foundation for a stronger business in the future. In addition, you help build your relationship with your audience. You’ll be able to get to know your local target market while you’re earning revenue from the event AND laying the foundation for future upsells to other products and/or services. MORE