As an educated professional, your success is based on what you know, your education, your intelligence, and your creativity. Even if you’re just starting out, you’ve achieved success just to get your many degrees and pass those licensing exams! Your clients return and refer because you apply your expertise and insight to guide them to appropriate answers for their unique situations.

But who’s growing your business while you’re busy tending to your clients’ needs? What are you doing to attract and maintain a steady stream of qualified, motivated prospects? How do you find and keep interesting clients who pay you what you’re worth? Like most professionals, you may not be able to answer those questions because the answer involves marketing.

When conducting strategic planning for any company -- online and/or offline -- it is useful to complete an analysis that takes into account not only your own business, but your competitors' activities and current industry happenings as well. A SWOT is one such analysis.

Completing a SWOT analysis helps you identify ways to minimize the affect of weaknesses in your business while maximizing your strengths. Ideally, you will match your strengths against market opportunities that result from voids in your competitors' products and/or services.

Traditionally, a SWOT confines strengths and weaknesses to your company's internal workings while opportunities and threats refer only to the external environment. Here, I suggest a twist to the "text book" approach. To get a better look at the big picture, consider both internal *and* external forces when uncovering opportunities and threats.

I come across so many people that absolutely freak out when they think about having to market their business. Heaps of questions come up like, ‘Where do I start?’, ‘I hate selling’, ‘How do I market my business when I don’t have any money?’….. Most of these people absolutely LOVE what they do, but detest having to ‘sell’ their service to receive an income from it.

You’ll love it when I say it’s easy to start and anyone can do it with a little planning and preparation, you DON’T HAVE TO SELL, yes believe it! If you market well and consistently you won’t EVER have to sell again – now how’s that for great news?! And best of all you DON’T NEED MONEY to do it. Its music to your ears isn’t it?! And it’s true, I created, built and established a business that replaces my income from every job I ever had based on some simple strategies that you can adapt to your business and your style – and in addition to that, they’re easy and I’D LOVE TO SHARE THEM WITH YOU RIGHT NOW! Ready? You’ll be surprised….

Sponsorship is the fastest growing form of marketing in the U.S. It is still very much in its infancy, especially in the trade show arena. With this in mind, you can find unlimited opportunities to broaden your competitive advantage by increasing your credibility, image and prestige in sponsoring events attracting your target market.

Some trade show promotional opportunities include sponsorship of the press room, an international lounge, a speaker or VIP room, an awards reception, educational programs, banners, badge holders, audio visual equipment, display computers, tote bags, shuttle buses, napkins and drink cups.

So, why should your company be interested in sponsorship? When done well, it offers significant opportunities for distinct marketing and competitive advantages, as well as showing support of the event.