How to Get Referrals

Get in on the week-long teleseminar on "How to Get Referrals" going on this week - 15 referral marketing experts share how they get their referrals, and how you can do the same.

The teleseminar is free, and many of the referral marketing strategies are free to use.

Start a Grant Writing Business 1-2-3

Nonprofit organizations, school programs community services and other projects need to obtain funding to operate, and as a grant writer, you can help these groups get the funding they need.

You don't need a degree in grant writing, but you need to be a decent writer with the ability to pay close attention to detail. Taking a course in grant writing and getting educated in running a business is all you need to launch a grant writing business.

As a grant writer, you can provide your clients with the grant writing service, but you will also help them greatly by knowing the right funding resources that match your clients' projects. This will also help you maintain a competitive edge and win more clients.

If your state or region has a publication you can obtain that lists available grant funders, that is a great resource. You can also use your local library and the internet to located funding resources.

During the grant application process, you want to stay especially organized, so start a file where you can keep records of all correspondence, contact information and tasks that you have completed.

When writing a grant proposal, closely follow the guidelines set by each funding resource. Be clear and concise, make sure that your spelling and grammar is correct and that you answer all necessary questions without being vague. Since foundations and government agencies receive many requests for grants, make their "reading" job easier on them, such as a table of contents on a larger grant proposal.

Ask for money to fund specific projects rather than just a contribution. Specific requests tend to get approved more often. Include pictures if possible, demonstrating who will benefit from the funding.

Get started - How to Start a Grant Writing Business

"How to Start a Home Business" Online Course

If you have life-long experience working as an employee - but you now want to branch out and work for yourself, you probably have lots of questions. That is normal, as there are many things to learn about starting a business.

Although different types of businesses require different skills, knowledge and experience, there are "business basics" that apply to pretty much any kind of business, like paying taxes, hiring employees, record keeping, legal issues, etc.

For basic information on starting and running a business, you can often get the instruction you need from a book at your local bookstore or library. However, if you have specific questions or prefer learning in an interactive classroom-type environment, you learn a great deal more.

Business courses don't necessarily have to cost a lot of money or take years to complete. You don't have to apply to business school, and in fact, you can find great business start-up course online. Education to Go specializes in online learning and has an affordable, yet comprehensive course on the subject of starting your own home based business. You can review the syllabus and course details online: How to Start and Operate a Home-Based Business

SEO Tip: Get 25 Free Back Links to Your Website

One of the most popular ways to begin website marketing campaigns is through link-building. You can gain traffic from other sites, search engines tend to rank highly-linked sites higher and links act as miniature ads all over the internet - working for you 24-7.

Although free, link-building can be very time consuming, and not always effective. It can take hours to find sites with link programs AND with content that closely matches that of your own site. Many times, other sites don't want to exchange links with you once you've gone through the effort to contact them. Often, the time and effort spent never pays off.

However, there is a solution. John Sprock has recently developed a new tool that makes link building easy (and it works).

In fact, he'll give you 25 back links for free

Micro Loans and Microfinancing for Start-ups

One opportunity for small businesses to obtain money is through a micro loan. Micro loans can provide start-ups with needed capital, and they can also be used by existing businesses to grow operations. Micro loans can sometimes provide solutions for entrepreneurs with poor credit, those without collateral and people who don't have a stable income or are unemployed.

Microfinancing can be easier to obtain than the traditional bank loan and can be used for a variety of purposes. However, borrowers may be required to go through business management training in order to qualify. If your business provides employment for others and/or improves the quality of life for those in low-income areas, you may also have a better chance of getting a micro loan.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is a government organization helps small businesses unable to get loans through normal lending channels. (including special interest loans, micro-loans and secondary market programs) Business financing information. To find a non-profit lender in your area, go to www.microenterpriseworks.org.

If you are a start-up business, you can apply for unsecured start-up loans to $150K online with America One Unsecured. Accion specializes in microfinance within the USA.

Tip: Put together a business plan to make it easier to get financing. Microsoft also has a free letter you can download from their website called "Bank Loan Request for Small Business".

Why Use a Toll-Free Phone Number?

An 800 phone number says, "Call me - I want to hear from you!".

When you make it as easy as possible for customers to connect with you, you automatically build trust. People also associate a toll-free phone number with a professional, established real business and will give you more respect. You can generate more leads and sales - and you don't even have to do the calling.

You can use your toll-free phone number to build customer trust, increase response rate and grow sales in many different areas of your business. The more ways you use it, the more it can help your business. Include it on all company stationary and literature, business cards, mailers and postcards, online and offline advertising, yellow page listings, signage, your website, promotional items such as giveaway pens, etc.

These days, small businesses have lots of options when it comes to 800 numbers. Business owners don't have to sign a long-term contracts, you can find toll-free calling rates as low as regular phone rates and there are affordable unlimited calling plans available.

More and more online businesses are incorporating social media, video, webinars and online chat into their websites as a way to give customers that "real live person" service that they are looking for. 800 toll free numbers are another way you can do that.

Need to write a business proposal?

Impress your customers and gain their respect with the professionalism of a well-written proposal. Not only do professional proposals look good, they are clear, easy-to-understand and convey all the right information. Of course the "right information" depends on what field you work in and what type of business you run.

ProposalKit.com has just made your job easier by adding 22 new Proposal Packs for a variety of
specialties, including:

• Agriculture
  
• Food services
  
• Medical
  
• Childcare
  
• Government
  
• Transportation
  
• Energy
  
• Investigation
  
• Spiritual
  
• Education
  
• Technology
  
• Architecture
  
• and many more general designs at: http://www.proposalkit.com/htm/whatsnew.htm

Proposal Packs are used for writing technical and non-technical business proposals, grant proposals, business plan funding proposals, book publishing proposals, resumes, quotes and short form contracts.

Each Proposal Pack has a built-in graphic design and layout which makes writing proposals much more efficient and saves you from the tedious tasks of how to structure and organize your proposal.

Proposal Packs include over 600 editable proposal templates, over 100 sample proposals, how-to documentation, original artwork graphics and a desktop organizer (over 2000 pages of material).

Advertise Your Business Free with Living Social

If you are launching your start-up or are simply a small business that wants more customers, here's a great idea for advertising online.

LivingSocial.com is a website that offers special deals to local consumers, and if your business has a deal to offer, you can post it on their website and you can attract lots of new customers without having to pay for advertising.

Since this site is fairly new, it is not available in all cities, but as the service grows, the number of cities included for advertising is sure to expand.

See how it works here