For example, car buyers want convenient transportation with a certain image. Dental patients want healthy and good-looking teeth without suffering any pain. Business opportunity seekers want personal and financial freedom for themselves and their family.

Make sure your web pages, sales letters and other sales messages are promoting end result your customers want.

5. ANTICIPATE CHANGE

Change is biggest challenge to your business success. The days are gone when a business could constantly grow by simply repeating what it did successfully in past ...or even recently. Aggressive, innovative competitors and rapidly changing technology make it impossible.

Expect change and prepare for it. Don't wait until your income declines to take action. Develop habit of looking for early signs that something is changing. Then confront it before you start to lose business.

TIP: Insulate yourself against impact of change by increasing number of products and services you offer and by using a variety of different marketing methods. Only a small portion of your total business will be affected if sales of one product decline or response to one marketing method drops.

How many of these 5 proven marketing techniques have you overlooked or ignored? Start using them today and you'll see an immediate increase in your sales.

Bob Leduc is a Sales Consultant with 30 years experience in generating low-cost leads. He recently wrote a manual for small business owners, "How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards", and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more info: mailto:BobLeduc@aol.com?subject=Postcards Phone: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

Take everything an advertising representative has to say at face value. They understand advertising, so they are helping me spend my dollars wisely, right?

Wrong! This is not a knock against advertising reps, but you have to understand, they have sales goals to reach. If making you spend your money with them will help them reach their goals, they are going to push for your business. Spending money on a certain media may not be best way to invest your marketing dollars. For instance, I had a client that opened an organic grocery store in a top 50 metropolitan markets. Before I started to assist them, a cable-advertising representative sold store on a cable network that reached viewers 20 - 50 miles away from them. They spent most of budget they set aside for first 6 months of marketing on these commercials. In turn, they had nothing left to spend on advertising in their own backyard. When I audited their advertising, they didn't even realize their commercial had never run in same marketplace as store. Therefore, buyers beware. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to know your market, know your customers, and talk to many different ad reps from many different types of media. You'll usually get a better view of how you can use media to help your business. Advertising agency and marketing firms will also help you plan your media usage.

Joann Marsili has over 15 years of marketing experience from which to draw for both traditional and on-line guerilla marketing strategies. Her strength is conceptualizing and strategizing a marketing plan custom tailored for your business needs. Visit her web site at: http://www.b2bstrategicmarketing.com or mailto:marketing@b2bstrategicmarketing.com.