1. Advertise on company and community notice boards
2. Free announcements in local/community newspapers
3. Barter your services in exchange for free advertising
4. Word of mouth – tell all your friends
5. Business cards – never leave home without them
6. Be outrageous – do something so out of the ordinary that you get free publicity
7. Offer to write articles for local newspapers or magazines. Note that these are articles and not advertorials
8. Make contacts with complementary businesses to provide a stronger offering that helps you both
9. Be contactable make it easy for your customers to find you. Have a website, and respond to emails and phone calls
10. Follow through on your leads and customer queries

1. Be on time for meetings. If you are late, you show a lack of respect and self-organisation.
2. Respond to messages. Even if it is just a one line to say that you received the message, let the sender know that you are onto it.
3. Dress for the occasion. You don’t have to wear a suit and tie, but dress appropriately for the occasion. Whether you like it or not, first impressions count a lot, so make a good one.
4. Only make commitments that you can stick to. If you cannot stick to a commitment, don’t make it. Have you ever been promised that a job will be completed by a particular date, and being annoyed that it is a week late? Have you ever overpromised. Rather under-promise and over-deliver.
5. Smile
6. Greet people by name. It shows an interest in others.
7. Always have business cards with you. They should neat and presentable. Simple cards are not expensive to print, and home-made cards can look tacky. Get them professionally printed.
8. Be positive.
9. Listen. People like to listen to themselves. Let them, and they will think how great you are at conversation. Understand your customers’ needs before responding with a solution.
10. Remember rule #6 – don’t take yourself so seriously (there are no other rules).

While this talk by David Rose is about pitching to Venture Capitalists, he also gives some great PowerPoint tips. I was very pleased to see that he agrees with many of my thoughts on PowerPoint. In particular, David presents his top five presentation tips:

1. Always use Presenter Mode
2. Always use a remote control
3. Handout are NOT your presentation
4. Don’t read your speech
5. Never, ever look at the screen

All of these tips are in my free e-book. The presentation is only about 15 minutes long, but well worth watching. I was a little bemused to see that he even uses one of same slides that I use – the one of Bill Gates presenting Windows Live in 2005. David does speak at about a million words per second, so you do need to listen carefully!

If you are going to pitch your idea to anybody, he provides a great speech outline. Here is a summarized outline, but watch the presentation for his insights.

• Company Logo / title
• Business Overview
• Management team
• Market
• Product
• Business Model
• Strategic Relationships
• Competition
• Barrier to Entry
• Financial Overview
• Use of Proceeds
• Capital and Valuation

You can watch other great speeches at www.ted.com

Enjoy, and keep talking!