Have your readers come to your site to get your report, course or subscription to your ezine so that they'll be able to see what your site has to offer them.

If you use your resource box to promote your ezine, provide a sample issue or an archive of your past issues on your site to get more of your visitors to subscribe.

2. Participate in article swaps.

You could run another publishers f~ree to reprint article in your ezine in exchange for same.

You could also write a new article to run exclusively in other publisher's ezine in exchange for her writing a new original article to be published in your ezine.

In addition, you could post other article writers' articles on your site in exchange for them posting your articles on their sites.

This will help you to get more reciprocal links and also help you to increase your repeat traffic by keeping your site updated with new content.

3. Make your articles available for your affiliates to publish with their affiliate URLs in your resource box.

Letting your affiliates publish your articles in their ezines or on their web sites with their affiliate URLs in your resource box will give them an easy way to effectively promote your business.

It will also help you to attract more people to your affiliate program because you'll be providing your affiliates with a valuable marketing tool.

In The USA...

- Every Year Over 1 Million People Start A Business

- By The End Of The First Year 40% Of Them Will Be Out Of Business

- Within 5 Years More Than 80% (800,000) Of These Businesses Will Have Failed

(Source: The eMyth Revisited, Michal E Gerber, US Department of Commerce)

In The UK...

- 2003 Saw 423,100 New Businesses In England & Wales Startup

- Over Half of All New Firms Fail In The First 3 Years

- At Least 211,550 Of These Businesses Will Have Failed Before The End Of 2006

(Source: Barclays SME Market Research Team England & Wales Statistics Based On Business Current Account Customers)

Unfortunately more and more people are being encouraged to go it alone by government agencies and banks while being given out-dated advice that doesn't actually work.

The advisors in these organisations typically have experience in larger production / manufacturing / financial businesses and share marketing advice that really doesn't work for majority of small service-based businesses today.

Their text-book marketing principles simply do not translate to businesses with limited money to invest in advertising, direct mail and telesales.

In many cases these advisors are telling people how to run a business even though they're actually working for a bank or government agency themselves. They have no real experience spending their own money to grow a business.

Survival and inevitable success means being lean, mean and focused on getting a genuine result (in form of profit) from time and money you invest.

So here are 5 tips you can use to take power back and begin "fail proofing" your growing business today.

#1. Question "Experts" Thoroughly

Be wary of government funded trainers and / or advisors put forward by banks.

These people, in many cases, don't have a clue what its like to run and grow their own business. Make it your job to "suss them out" before taking anything they tell you too seriously.

Some questions that I like...

What's your experience of starting and running a small business?

Have you actually spent your own money trying to make a business work?

What mistakes have you made? What lessons can I learn from your experience?

Will this advice / support / idea cost me money or make me money?

Who really benefits when I take course of action you're recommending?

#2. Model Excellent Businesses