Here, then, is my simple rule-of-thumb for how your marketing materials should look: create them to the level that reflects how much you’re asking clients to invest in you.

You’ll be glad you talked to yourself

If you ask and answer the right questions about what to do before you start producing your materials, you’ll save time, money and grief. The result: you’ll have a repeatable framework for creating winning marketing materials that get you noticed every time — and help win you the client.

The following ideas are from a comprehensive check-list I’ve created. If you’d like the full check list for free — which you can use as a template for planning and developing all your marketing materials — just email me.

Key elements to keep in mind

Think through the following elements before you start creating your marketing piece, again during development to be sure you’re on track, and periodically once your promotions are “out there,” to assess effectiveness. If you’ve already got marketing materials, use the checklist to see how they measure up.

Target markets

Know as much as you can about your target prospects, such as what they value, how they buy, and why they really buy. Customize your message for different target markets, because one size doesn’t fit all. This principle also applies to your Web site.

Identity — “Look And Feel”

How do you want your prospects to perceive you? Formal or informal, trendy or conservative? Is this identity consistent with your values? Example: if your business personality is whimsical, create materials with a look and feel that bring on a smile. Be sure that your written messages, graphics and type faces are consistent across all print pieces and your Web site.

Messages (what’s in a word?)

You’ll be most effective when you demonstrate how clients are better off from doing business with you (your value). Clearly and succinctly tell people exactly what you do and the services you offer (features). Show one thing that differentiates you. Example: we all say that we provide quality customer service, but how many of us promise to return phone calls within 2 hours?

Testimonials

Gather testimonials from your happy clients. Edit into pithy, results-focused quotes. Please, don’t use statements that have only quote marks and no name attached. Nameless quotes lose all credibility, because they look like they could have been made-up.

Marketing/promotion pieces to produce

Examples that you can produce:

Logo, letterhead/business card system, service brochure, speaker brochure, product brochure, postcard/s, new office announcement, sales letters, promotional items (“ad specialties” such as logo pens and tee-shirts), Web site, table-top promotions, fliers, banners, signs. The list is endless.

The money question

Establish a budget. Costs generally will depend on these four items:

1) Who will write and edit? 2) Who will design? 3) Who will print? 4) Who will oversee and manage the entire process?

Some key design guidelines

Layout – Make it “clean.” That is, not cluttered and easy on the eye. Do the most important points visually stand out?

Headline — Create a powerful, compelling headline that visually, and with words, draws the reader in.

Colors — Be sure they properly represent you (see “Look and Feel” above)? Do they work with the message? Are they appropriate for the target market? Are they your established business colors?

If you are not a designer by training, hire one. It will be a worthwhile investment. Homegrown materials that you create yourself look, well, homegrown. If it hurts you to write, hire a writer. A professional writer will take your ideas and massage them into words and concepts that flow and show you at your best.

The result will be rich-looking, effective marketing materials that get you noticed, convey your value, and win you the client.

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. She also enables successful women to become thought leaders in their field of expertise. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

This piece from American Association of University Women member, Donna Seymour, looks at sexual harassment in schools from another vantage point. I’m posting it because it’s imperative that we get the word out, and work with students to find solutions. Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comment box!

Drawing the line

The lesson from the latest research on sexual harassment in schools, "Crossing the Line," is that when it comes to students harassing students in a sexual manner, there is no line. Harassment of this nature is so pervasive that our schools, the workplace for our children, is literally occupied by a harassment culture that is as hyper-sexualized as our society, our mass media, and things as basic as our clothing choices for the youngest of our children.

What the Crossing the Line report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), shows is a snapshot from one year in the life of the average student. Nearly 50 percent of all students are experiencing some form of unwanted harassment of a sexual nature during that year.

This study backs up two previous AAUW harassment studies from two previous decades that show the same result, when looked through the lens of the total experience of students during their school years. We have a harassment culture that is so pervasive that not to experience some form of harassment of this type while in school is unusual.

Given this environment in school for our young people, is it any wonder that that we have street harassment? This kind of harassment so saturates our society that women walking down a public street can expect cat calls, rude and offensive remarks, and outright lewd behavior, with no hope of let up. It is to be endured, rather than taking the chance of confronting your anonymous harasser for fear that something far worse will happen.

In the military, harassment of a sexual nature is so pervasive that an October U.S. Government Accountability Office study reported 82 of 583 service members surveyed had been sexually harassed in the last year, but only four had formally reported the incident. The study found that one of the reasons a service member may not report an incident is because it would not be taken seriously. 

The study said the Department of Defense must improve its commitment to preventing sexual harassment. Nearly half of all service members surveyed said they think people they work with could get away with sexual harassment, even it were reported. 

The harassment culture is met by a culture of silence and a culture of endurance. What our children are experiencing in school is playing out on the larger stage of life in America. How do we transform the harassment culture and end its chokehold on our society?

It is past time for the harassment culture to be acknowledged. It is not just “the way things are.” It is something we can face, recognize, reject and change. The Crossing the Line report offers good suggestions for action. 

The students themselves had proactive ideas for reducing sexual harassment in their school, including designating a person they can talk to (39 percent), providing online resources (22 percent), and holding in-class discussions (31 percent). Allowing students to anonymously report problems was a top recommendation (57 percent), as was enforcing existing sexual harassment policies and punishing harassers (51 percent). 

Instead of Crossing the Line, we should be Drawing the Line. Taking these suggestions seriously can and should spur strategies and approaches for responding and preventing sexual harassment in schools.

Donna Seymour, Potsdam, NY, the Communications Director for AAUW-NYS, is a member of the St. Lawrence County Branch, AAUW

With social media we’re getting used the fact that whatever we post or share becomes part of the big public conversation. But how many times do you carefully review an email, that old technology, before clicking Send? Do you read and re-read what you’ve written? Do you double check who the recipients are? And do you open the attachment to ensure it’s what you intend to send?

An employee at Chevron didn’t check. This past Friday, he inadvertently sent an email to news media wire services that included documents revealing internal information about his company’s energy trading operations.

Oops.

He tried unsuccessfully to recall the message. Minutes later he sent a request to various news services, asking them to delete the information he had accidentally sent.

The media response was swift and sharp. The Wall Street Journal said, “Chevron’s Email ‘Oops” Reveals Energy Giant’s Sway Over Markets."

The San Francisco Chronicle, through their Bloomberg News affiliation, chimed in with, “Chevron E-Mails Show $363.8 Million Trading Profit This Year.”

And this tweet circulated through StockTwits: “RT @BloombergNow Chevron E-Mails Show $363.8M in Trading Profit."

The articles exposed the usually unobtainable content in the errant documents, with just passing mention that they landed this content through a mistaken distribution.

Like it or not the media did their job, which in this case was to report news from a publicly held company.

The lesson one can learn from this incident, no matter how small or large your company, is simple: check, then check again before you click Send, Post, or Share. Because after the click your words and ideas are public, and up for grabs.

And when it comes to working with the media: assume that anything you say or send them will be considered fair game for publishing.

Have you ever clicked then wished you could take it back? Share your experience in the Comment box.

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. She also enables successful women to become thought leaders in their field of expertise. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

This is an extreme example of what plaintiffs are alleging in the gender discrimination lawsuit against Walmart that’s currently before the Supreme Court.

Because I’m passionate around issues of gender equity, I wrote an op-ed on pay equity, which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 10. If you leave a comment on the Chronicle website you’ll be adding to the conversation on this important topic.

On April 12, Congress reintroduced the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would close certain loopholes in an old law that makes it too easy for gender discrimination in the workplace to take place. Here’s a good explanation of what the Paycheck Fairness Act will do, if it’s passed.

April 12 was also Equal Pay Day, which, as Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis notes, is the day on which women will have worked one year, three months, and twelve days to earn what men earn in one year.

So what would you do if you discovered that a colleague at your employer, working under the same job description and with similar experience, was being paid more than you?

What would you do if an employee of yours didn’t meet your grooming standards?

Roberta Guise enables successful women to become thought leaders in their field of expertise. She also works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

1. Conan O’Brien announced his new show name with much fanfare. Lesson: as Conan says in this video, keep the brand simple and pure.

2. Sticking to the simplicity theme, I foot tap and hum every time I see the iPad TV ad. Like the original iPhone ad, the music is raw and simple; the product, as we know, is Apple’s deliciously elegant design. In fact, any Apple ad is worth studying for excellence in branding.

3. Dos Equis vs Old Spice ads: videos that go viral don’t always translate into increased sales. Lesson: the story must feature a concept that’s enduring and makes the viewer want to be the person or associate with the type of person in the ad (and by extension own the product associated with the person in the ad). The Old Spice videos did not increase sales. The Dos Equis ads did.

4. The Gap flap: the venerable Gap clothing and retail icon rebranded itself this year with a new logo. It was easy to miss, because the new brand icon created such an uproar it was pulled after a couple of days. Side note about the type face, or font, in Gap’s abandoned logo: Helvetica type face can look strong and inviting, versus AT&T’s usage, which to me seems wimpy.

5, Part I. BP did such a lousy job presenting its public face after the Deep Horizon oil well disaster that the company’s value plummeted more than $32 million a day.

5, Part II. Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO at the time of the disaster, told the world what he wanted most, adding fuel to one of the biggest public relations fires in history.

If you had been BP’s CEO, what would you have done differently? If you or your small business were to make a mistake that put your name at the top of the news reports, how would you handle it? Do you have a crisis communications plan in place?

6. Toyota occupied our minds earlier in the year with its massive automobile recall. Here’s one authoritative view on how Toyota is fairing today, along with a video of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak commenting on his Toyota experience and problems with his Prius.

A branding list would be boring without videos, some gone viral. Here are my favorites.

7. Digital Nativity

8. Blendtec/Old Spice new Will it Blend?

Be sure to listen to the background music. Why do you think the producers chose that style of music?

9. And for instant translation from English to Spanish, and Spanish to English on the iPhone, there’s the Word Lens app.

10. Your choice here: what’s your favorite branding story of 2010?

Roberta Guise enables successful women to become thought leaders. She also works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

I used to. And when new owners took over, it changed.

My chosen spot was in the heart of San Francisco’s North Beach, that tourist hot-spot where the aromas of garlic and coffee drift deliciously through the air at all hours. For years the café was a little hole-in-the-wall, so small that even early on a weekday there would be a line to eat breakfast at the counter. I had been eating there for more than 25 years.

After the owner-chef passed away, the family moved the coffee shop to another, larger space close-by. And his wife, who was now running the business, kept up the same personal, first-name relationship with her customers. My husband and I would beeline there for a hearty breakfast after a swim in the bay and chat with the owner about how business was doing, goings on in the neighborhood, and other niceties.

After a swim one day we went there for breakfast, grabbing our usual spot at the counter. But something felt wrong. The walls and paint were different. The old pictures and photos were missing. The familiar faces behind the counter were gone. And it took five minutes just to get menus.

When we were ready to order the server said a word I hear too often these days in retail establishments: No. No, you can’t substitute. No, you can’t mix items. No, we don’t have brown rice.

Our wonderful little coffee shop had been sold. Not only had it lost its soul, the new owners had no interest in pleasing their regular customers. We quickly ate our food and left, vowing never to return or recommend the place again as we had done countless times over the years.

This problem isn’t exclusive to new owners. It can happen to you if you start taking your long-term clients or customers for granted.

What are you intentionally doing to keep long-term customers coming back again and again? What would you have done differently had you taken over this enduring and popular breakfast hangout?

Roberta Guise enables successful women to become thought leaders. She also works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

So-called brick-and-mortar promotion campaigns, such as sending seminar fliers through the U.S. Postal Service, seem quaint today. And then there are not-so-obvious changes that are driving a stake in the heart of what once were considered best practices.

Old rules

Let’s get perspective about what’s going on. In the old days — an eternity of three years ago — under the old rules:

• If you offered value, people would buy
• People would pay for your content
• Communication used to be one-way, or one to one, meaning I’d communicate with you, and perhaps you’d respond
• The only way to be extraordinarily visible was through print, TV, and radio; and speaking, networking and email
• Only reporters and editors saw your news releases and pitches
• Reporters and editors were gatekeepers to your news
• It was hard to measure results of press release distribution unless you paid through the nose for a clipping service
• The only way to measure marketing results was using direct marketing through the mail, or until a few years ago, through email.

New rules

Most small business marketing is now being carried out on the Internet. And with this comes a new set of rules. Here are the top seven.

1. To win the minds and wallets of people whose spending is inconsistent, offering value isn’t enough. You must be relevant. If your content doesn’t offer something people can use either right now or soon, they’ll pass you by.
2. People expect to access your copyrighted content for free.
3. Technology, which has become deeply embedded in the collective DNA, is a hungry beast that needs to constantly be fed with content — your content.
4. You control when, where and how your news and content will be seen, because many of the gatekeepers of the past don’t exist online. This control is yours to harness.
5. Free online measuring tools such as Google Analytics enable you to know, with precision, how well your various marketing activities are doing. Use these tools for the story of how and how many people are gravitating to your website.
6. You can, and should, publish your own content, most notably through writing blog articles, through such other online media as video and eBooks, and distributing news through press releases.
7. Engage in conversations with one person or many people at the same time, using such social media as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The new rules of marketing enable you to become a center of influence, because the public nature of social media opens up your conversations and ideas for everyone to see. Your message can spread quickly and to a broad audience, because the people in your network are interconnected with other networks; if they think your message is valuable, they’ll pass it along.

Today, it’s much easier to be visible and assert your influence than in the past, because there are fewer barriers stopping people from finding out what you have to say. And that’s a foundational step towards building trust and relationships, which may lead to future business for you.

Which new rule is working best for you?

Roberta Guise enables successful women to become thought leaders. She also works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

This is hard news to swallow if you’re a startup with a new product to sell.

But if you're a small business owner who sellsideas and services to people in business — even if you sell products such as books, videos, CDs, software, and business systems — there’s no need to go through mental contortions to divine the perfectly witty name for your company. The perfect moniker for your company is your own name. Why?

Your reputation is built around your personal name. People remember you, not necessarily your company. When a client refers you they think of the value you personally provided. It’s you, the person, who comes to mind, not your company name.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t create a corporate name for your business, especially if you set up your business as a C or S corp. Just don’t spend too much time trying to come up with something catchy.

Pile your efforts into fortifying your brand around your own name. Mine is “Guise,” plus what I do, “Marketing & PR.” A strong tag line will support your name. My tag line is, “Be Visible!”

By using your own name you’ll save money and time on extensive name searching. You still need to do a search, but if you can add what you do to the name like I’ve done, even if it’s your last name plus “Consulting” or “Accounting,” for example, you’ll have your company named in next to no time.

Roberta Guise enables successful women to become thought leaders. She also works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

An expert is someone who is well versed and practiced in his or her field of expertise. They may be writing about what they know and have even written a book, they get quoted in the media, and are paid to speak at meetings.

A thought leader: Shows the way…Has followers…Has a depth of knowledge in their area of expertise…Owns a new idea in their area of expertise…Writes about it prolifically, successfully communicates about it, the idea resonates… Influences people to change the way they think and behave…Inspires many people…Is well-known by many people in a niche, or industry…Is quoted extensively in the media and by other influential people…Is invited to keynote at important meetings…Knows other thought leaders...Is on a mission to make the world a better place by changing the way people think, and who won't rest until they succeed.

Look at the writings and ideas of such thinkers as Riane Eisler, Marshall Goldsmith, Helen Fisher , Alan Weiss, Margaret Wertheim, Seth Godin, and Margaret Wheatley, and you’ll quickly understand why the term “thought leader” is not synonymous with “expert.”

No one is born a thought leader. Great thinkers become that way because they have an extraordinary passion to change the way people think and behave, have a deep knowledge of their subject, and continually put their ideas out for all to see. If you want to make a lasting contribution in your field of expertise, influence many with your ideas and lead a more fulfilling life, choose the path to thought leadership.

If you were to become a thought leader, what would that be for you?

Roberta Guise enables successful women to become thought leaders. She also works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

The object of my culinary desires was mixed spring greens. The greens are usually so crisp at this store you can virtually hear them brushing up against one another as you scoop them into the bag. But today they were tired and wilted, while some of them had turned black and soggy. I asked a worker whether there were fresh greens in storage.

I’ve asked for fresh salad greens at a big supermarket. There, the produce person willingly brought out a box overflowing with crisp leaves, promptly replacing the existing box with the new one.

At the little store the worker brought out a bag with fresh greens, held it open for me to take what I wanted, then silently took the open bag back into storage, leaving the wilted, soggy salad greens in place.

We’re all susceptible to harboring soggy, wilted areas in our businesses. And that could be costing us sales and repeat business.

Perhaps you have a service firm and pride yourself on results. But you find it hard to respond in a timely manner to client emails or phone calls. I can assure you that if this describes you, your clients are not happy that you keep them waiting for a response. The results of a customer survey I conducted for a client shocked her when I showed her they were crazy for her work, but found her hard to work with because they felt she was never available.

Sometimes the soggy area is more like a bog. My architect husband and I recently interviewed a contractor for a major remodel to our house. We’ve both known this contractor professionally for years – my husband has recommended him for many jobs. He promised an estimate “in two weeks.” Three months later, and he still hasn’t sent us the estimate.

It’s been said that people will tell at least 10 others when they’re unhappy with a business. We’ll never be able to recommend this contractor again, and when our remodeling colleagues ask about him we’ll be obliged to tell them why.

As for the little store that got its salad greens wrong: I’m willing to give them another chance. If they fail me again, they stand to lose thousands of dollars they would have got from me over time, because I’ll be food shopping somewhere else.

What can you do to ensure your services or products stay “fresh” and “crisp?”

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

“Imagine that your salary was cut in half,” he lamented. “We used to have lines out the door at lunch time. Now we have empty tables. Business is bad.”

This being the San Francisco Bay Area, hotbed of technology and home to arguably the top three social media sites for small business owners (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter), I asked him what any self-respecting marketer would ask a restaurateur whose business is down 50%: “Have you considered tweeting about your daily lunch specials to people who work and live nearby?”

His response nearly blasted the glass out of the windows, while a few heads turned to see what the commotion was about.

“I hate all that technology stuff,” he barked at me. “We change our menu every day. If people want to know what’s on it, they can go to our Website.”

Before you rush to judgment that this restaurant owner needs to see a shrink (he’s most likely letting fears about technology rule how not to be more visible to a crowd that would welcome hearing from him) — consider that there’s a little bit of him in most of us, even though we hate to admit it.

Overnight, it seems, our marketing efforts revolve around technology. The fundamentals haven’t changed – we need to demonstrate our value and how we make people’s lives better as much if not more than before.

But whereas in the past we talked to people on the phone, sent flyers and brochures in the mail, wrote personal letters on letterhead (which we signed with blue ink), got mentioned in the newspapers and gave presentations to groups hungry for our message, today we can do all this without getting out of our chairs. We’re in control: we can push our message out through podcasts, blogs, vlogs, video, tweets, discussion groups, online networks, Website, ezines, teleseminars, Webinars – the list is endless, mindboggling and growing.

To prevent your brain from spinning out of control from the sheer weight of possibilities, I suggest breaking it all down into just two marketing categories: those activities that’ll bring you visibility over the long term, and activities designed to bring in business fast. One activity from each category is all you need to get seriously in the game.

Using this simple rule, the restaurant owner could start with an ezine for long-term visibility, and send out daily mid-morning tweets to bring the crowds lining up for his sumptuous lunch dishes.

What will your two activities be?

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

These data are fed into a national database where scientists track species status, status being a marker that indicates bird population health and health of the environment.

Recently, I advised my client Golden Gate Audubon on getting the word out about their Christmas Bird Count. The not-so-obvious question was the objective of the press release – what did they want to get out of media placements?

It may seem obvious, but my client had to think about it: did they want to get people to sign up for the bird count, or were they looking for the media to report on the event after the fact in order to give the organization more visibility? Each outcome would require a slightly different approach to writing and structuring the release.

My client decided that they wanted after-the-fact “stories,” because they had reached the maximum number of registered bird counters even before the press release was written.

They were delighted with the results: The local CBS TV station aired a segment the evening after the count; the San Francisco Chronicle, The Examiner and KGO-TV’s Website ran stories featuring the bird count the day after.

Thinking about the goal or objective of your press release is a disciplined approach to getting publicity. If you think carefully about what you want media placements to achieve for your business before writing your release, your publicity efforts will be much more targeted and effective.

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com

Not wanting to put yourself in front of audiences who would benefit from what you have to say as an expert in your field, where you’d strengthen your brand and grow your credibility, is like pulling a leg out from under the metaphorical stool of small business marketing.

I’ve always advised clients and colleagues that to get really well known you need to be extremely visible. The three best ways to be visible, where your prospects can experience how you think and follow your advice, are to write, speak, and network.

While writing and networking opportunities have exploded because of such social media as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, public speaking is still (mostly) a land-based, physical activity that you have to show up for, and thank goodness for that!

Speaking lets people experience you in a way that no other marketing activity allows for.

You can use theatrical techniques such as dramatization and slapstick to convey tricky concepts. Stories you tell about situations specific to your expertise come alive and burst with personality when you enact them for an audience.

With practice and careful preparation, you can move audiences to laughter or even to tears, all the while imparting ideas that help make people better off because they learned from your spoken words.

So my advice to you is to make 2010 the year that you add public speaking into your small business marketing toolkit. If you’re already speaking, look at what you can do to improve.

Join speaking organizations like Toastmasters, and take advantage of their exceptional educational opportunities. Or visit your local chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA) to see good speakers in action.

And aim to speak as frequently as possible, because the speaking “muscle,” like your body’s other muscles, needs to be exercised regularly to get and to stay strong.

(This post was inspired by the “Public Speaking and the New Year” blog carnival hosted by Angela DeFinis.)

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com