Now for quick comment on finding gurus that do measure up. After going through all this trial and error, I have found experts in areas I work in that have pretty much always given me great info and unique products and techniques that have been worth every penny. Take Jim Edwards for instance. I have used one of his products "Turn Words Into Traffic". It details how to write articles and how that can get you more traffic to your site.

I have followed what he advises and now if you search in Google for "articles by Jim Hoffman" you will see that my articles come up along with my website address. Now of course no one is out there searching for me in particular :) but links it gives me helps my search engine ranking and people that post my articles have my link on their site. Which also sends me traffic.

You can find out more at http://inetgoodies.com/words.html

Now that he has gained my trust in his expertise, I trust him when he offers me products or programs from others experts. I even attended a seminar he offered and came away with a bunch of fantastic tips I could formulate to my business and my offers.

They key is pretty much finding expert you can trust and stick with them and what they offer.

In meantime, if you do get that product or service that is less than optimal, look at positives and find those one or two nuggets of information that you can use. This way it won't feel like that much of a disappointment and you can profit in end from experience.

Remember, that operating your own small business is all about taking risks and learning from them so that some day you can be a big business.

If you don't have a "Most Important Sales Message", you should create one. It is a brief, succinct statement of what your company is about. It is answer to question: "What does your company do?"

Sometimes this kind of answer is called an "elevator speech". You're on an elevator and somebody asks you "What does your company do?" You have six or seven seconds to give a memorable reply. Good elevator speeches go beyond hackneyed answers like "We do printing" or "We make bowling balls."

They are confidence-inspiring marketing statements: "We print top notch materials that help our clients sell products." or "We make world's most beautifully balanced bowling balls."

Your Most Important Sales Message may very well be a "product" (as in bowling ball example above), but it should always be accompanied by a "pitch" of some kind or another. Often this will essentially be a "slogan".

For your elevator speech you need a seven second slogan. For your business card you will need same slogan boiled down to an string of words that not only sounds good, but looks good on card: "Websites that Sell Like Crazy", "The World's Most Beautifully Balanced Bowling Balls", "The Discount Real Estate Guy", "The Source for Cottages and Summer Homes", "Beautiful Color Vinyl Banners."

Be Consistent with your Corporate Image

Finally, make your business card consistent with your corporate image and rest of your marketing materials. Usually this boils down to basic things like your choice of colors, typeface, and layout style.

And of course you will want to include your company logo.

Usually your marketing consultant or graphic designer will want to plaster your logo on all your marketing materials, using logo as a substitute for real marketing design. "A lot of work went into creating that logo, and we must convey a consistent corporate image" is usual mantra. What ever you do, don't ask "Why is consistency so important?" That question opens way for tedious theorizing about "the long term importance of developing a corporate image."

You would be better to agree. "Yes, by all means, we want to present a consistent corporate image." And then add, "But I want this card to do some selling for me, so I would like to give sales message a bit more prominence than usual."

In other words, use usual corporate colors, typeface and layout style. Include logo too. But give prominence to sales message. Show a picture of your product. Or if you think you are product (as most real estate agents seem to think), then include your own picture. But don't forget to enhance photo with that slogan we talked about in previous section.

And now that you have a killer card, get out there and start handing them out.

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Rick Hendershot publishes several websites and ezines including Trade Show Tips, The Traffic Advisor, and The Canadian Cottage Buyer.

He is also webmaster for Free Card Business Card Displays.