Almost 15 years ago, when trade shows were infrequent enough that you could actually go to one and learn something new, I was surfing the aisles at the Javits Center in NYC and met the editor of a major technology trade magazine.

"How'd ya like to write an article about how you get new business?" he asked.

"Sure," I said, and wrote 3,000 words that resulted in so many favorable letters to the editor, and an editorial award for the magazine, that I was given a contract to write a sales column that ran every month for the next ten years. That column was based on building business by being kind to others, that there is gold in the golden rule. Looking over that first column the other day, I found that many of those ideas still work. So I've edited them down to five low cost projects you can use to boost your brand and your income.

When the Stamford Chamber of Commerce first started a discount column in its monthly newsletter, we joined in and offered ten (10%) percent discounts. Big deal. So did everybody else, but nobody called. So, the next month, I offered a $500.00 consulting contract for free with no strings attached and got a very profitable long term contract out of it. We'd be friendly, people would get to know us personally and the marketing value for higher margin services was priceless. You like free samples. So do your prospects. Try it.

Several years ago, a friend was starting up in a new business and sponsored a high school essay contest on the need for ethics in business. With a prize of $100.00, he received thousands of dollars in free publicity. He was invited to make the award presentation in the Mayor's office at City Hall. He generated an immediate image as an ethical consultant and became quite successful.

Look at all the good a contest like this does. Firstly, it gets kids interested in business, meeting a vital need in America today. Secondly, it links your company indelibly to a subject, which thousands of dollars of print advertising might never do. Thirdly, it gets you known personally to important leaders in your community who are the people you want to sell to. Anyone can sponsor such a project. It works.

Before e-mail took over our lives, there were newsletters. When desktop publishing software came on the market, to gain experience, I volunteered to build newsletters for local businesses and local non-profit groups. I did it for free, but it generated other profitable business. When e-commerce, websites and e-mail replaced newsletters, we gave away free web service. It doesn't cost us much, but it does help bond to clients and generate repeat business.

We still offer free websites without ads or anything. We have a secure server down in North Carolina with plenty of capacity and emergency backup. When that big Northeast power failure occurred, I couldn't work in my office in Stamford, but our website and email never went down. Our free service validates us as helpful and friendly. Low cost marketing wins, again. If you have a service that doesn't command enough margin to make it worth selling, give it away and cement a long term relationship.

We do nice things for people even though we might not make money. People who benefit from what we do come back when they have greater needs. We are not long distance resellers, but we are super-duper telephone service shoppers. So, on our phoneguru.com website we've identified as much as 90% decreases in phone costs for our clients. Some of these deals pay a small commissions which we pass on to charity. Our goal is not to pick up lunch money, but to become better known to those who might not ordinarily give us the time of day. Once we are already serving them, it is a lot easier to go to the Vice President of Finance to revamp his company's order entry system after you have saved him a half million bucks a year on his phone bill.

You can link small, unprofitable sales to large ones by being valuable to their profitability. Identify a small service that you can sell, or give away, that links you and your customer in a life long relationship.

Seminars are great selling tools, but getting people to come to your seminar is challenging. We found one new wrinkle to marketing seminars that we have used and that I have seen used by others equally successfully. That wrinkle has five steps:

Everybody wins. The hotel, the press, the guest speaker and you, all feel satisfied with yourselves, because you have helped the attendees as well as their favorite charities. The attendees are guaranteed to show up, because they have paid for their seats. These events get great response and reap huge returns for all concerned. They:

1. don't take much time,

2. don't cost much,

3. position you in the market place as someone who is knowledgeable and

4. establish you as someone of integrity who can be trusted.

Each of the above five projects has an altruistic attribute as well as a promotional one. They improve humanity while improving your business. Some give your prospects a free ride, which is appreciated, while others allow them to be givers as well as takers.

I have used these, as well as many others that grow from the same principals, instead of paying high marketing costs for programs that might not work. They allow you to do unto others as, just once, you would like to see them do unto you, and, in this case, they actually do, proving that there is still gold in the Golden Rule.