Hello,

Are you a business owner looking to find ways to get leads for your business and don't know how. Are you someone with an idea and are unsure whether your idea or business will work.

My friend, I may have just the right answers for you.

My husband and I have started a business, well this is the third, because the first 2 bombed.

Over the years we have learned what works and what doesn't the hard way. I have come up with a list of what's worked for us and will leave you to find out if it works for you.

We have used both online and offline lead generation techniques.

1. Newspaper advertisments - These work like a charm. Here is the trick we used. We place one or 2 ads every week. Not expensive ones, just one or 2 liners, with our business name, number and website address.
   Reason it is effective: We have noticed that after watching the same company, selling the same services over time, people associate our company with our service. They think we have the money to sustain ourselves. They think we are reliable. They think we are established.
   Note: When we first started placing advertisements in the paper we had none to no responses, overtime it was like the flood gates had opened. Clients even mentioned they had noticed our advertisements for a while and were wondering if we could help them.
2. Radio ads - We haven't used this yet. But I know many business owners utilize the power of radio, the reach it has and use it to place themselves as authorities.
   Note: This works well for offline businesses, for eg a clothes store selling trendy clothes for youngsters. Make sure your radio ad is played just before some program catering to youngsters. It works very well and goes the extra mile in creating brand awareness.
3. Fax -Yes, that's right fax. For a while I had a mentor, I lost touch with her when I moved back to India. She started her business and brought it to the state where she was making 6 figures each month. Do you know how she started out?
   With 3 toddlers, no money and no time, she sold off her furniture and used fax blasting. Yes, it was somewhat banned later, but Fax is a way to get attention.
   Here is how you can get started without annoying people and getting yourselves banned.
   Take the local yellow pages, find potential clients for your business, call them up and ask them permission to send them a mailer or a quick fax on how you can help them or their business and send them the fax. There are FREE fax services online, so it shouldn't cost you much.
   
4. Local Bus, Trains, Taxis - This is an excellent technique which we are planning to use in our next phase of advertising. Have you noticed the cool ads on your local bus or behind cars? Well these are mostly paid advertisements. This is an excellent way to reaching lots of people and branding your business.
   A friend of mine owns a dairy. He got himself a few clients mostly friends and family and local shops. But then he did one smart thing.
   He bought a box (ice box), had the words "FRESH Milk, Affordable Prices" printed on it's side and left a number below that.
   This box was placed on the cycle (yes :) ), cycle of the delivery man in our neighbourhood. Last week when he came home, he mentioned how, after that he never ever spent a penny on advertisements. His Milk sells locally in Kerala, India and this was the most effective advertisement I ever came across.
   
5. Flyers - We used this technique for while to target local customers. We contacted our local newspaper guy. And he agreed to place our advertisment along with 3 others in a flyer. This way our individual costs and the businesses were non competing ones so we had nothing to worry about. We got a few calls and closed a few sales. This helped create a brand awareness and soon people were aware that we existed, right next door.