Is this how you look? Is this what you do? Is this what you have done? If you have, you have made a HUGE mistake. You must stand out from crowd. You must be different. You must look different. You must show world that you care enough to invest in professionally designed marketing materials.

If you don't stand out, if you don't look professional, if you look cheap, amateurish and thrown together, a few things will happen. Prospects will pass on your products or services and go to your competitors. You will not earn price you are worth. You will not be trusted as very best in your field. Prospects will view and judge you as someone you are not. You will have a very hard time building your reputation. Most importantly, you will lose money. Period.

The only way to stand out in highly competitive marketplace and correct this mistake is by having a professional, reputable design firm create and produce all of your marketing materials. Having these materials professionally created is an investment, NOT an expense. Professionally designed materials will brand you as expert you are, attract clients to your business and position your business over your competition.

Don't make same mistake so many other small business owners make. Hire a professional design firm. Do it right first time. By having a professional image you will be light years ahead of your competition. You will stand out from your competition and project image of your expertise. This worthwhile investment will net a valuable return over life of your small business.

2) Update Your Marketing Plan Statement Doing this will help you strengthen your focus. Your mission statement should include: 1) your vision; 2) how you will accomplish your vision/goal; 3) and it should also reflect your values. For example, if you don't like some of distasteful websites out there and you are designing attractive websites, a mission statement could read like this: "To help make Internet beautiful, I plan to create two attractive websites per week, instead of my usual one. I have updated my software and abilities to create attractive Websites and will launch my new plan on 15 day of this month."

There are of course other elements that make up effective marketing plans. In coming months we will have more tips on marketing.