When it comes to starting your own business, you always hear, “do what you love and the money will follow.” Those are easy words for some business guru to spout, but if you don’t know exactly what you love, where do you begin? And how can you tell if what you want to do will make people open their wallets?

Start by making a list of all the things you like to do, even if they don’t relate to your work experience. From this list, you’ll hopefully be able to discover how to capitalize on your favourite activities. For example, could you provide consulting services for home computer users or give guitar lessons to the neighbourhood children?

Determining what you want to do is only the beginning-you’ve still got a lot of homework and a lot of research ahead of you. In fact, finding a good business idea is the easy part. The trick is being able to successfully put that idea into action. As you are choosing the right business idea for you, it might be a good idea to look around-are there any similar businesses in your area? Maybe your idea is so unique that no one else has thought of it before. In the beginning, that’s not necessarily a good thing-for a first business, it’s smarter to pick the tried and true over the radical.

Although you’re gung-ho to start your business, the people in your life might not be so supportive. Many people around you won’t encourage you to become an entrepreneur. Some will envy your courage and some will resent you for having the nerve to pursue your dreams. Don’t let these pessimists succeed in swaying you from your plans. Sure, starting a business is risky, but if you carefully consider what you’re doing and get the help you need along the way, you can reduce the inherent risk and still succeed.

Don’t let the fear of risk keep you from moving forward with your plans. Ask yourself what you are actually risking and then assess the dangers. What are you willing to give up or lose if things don’t work out? Don’t risk more than you can afford-for example, your home or your health-but if all you have to lose is some time, energy and money, then the risk is probably worth it.

You wouldn’t take a vacation without planning ahead, would you? Of course not. You’d research flights, hotels and restaurants long before you left for your trip. So why would you even consider starting a business without a plan?

A business plan precisely defines your business, identifies your goals and serves as your anchor when your business finally starts taking off. Many entrepreneurs avoid writing a business plan because they think it’s too difficult, but in reality, you can make your plan as simple or as complex as you like. A business plan is a fluid document, always changing and growing-so what you put in it today doesn’t have to stay there forever.

Writing a business plan is the best way to nail down exactly it is that you want your business to accomplish. It defines what service or product you’ll provide and shows who your potential customers might be. And if you need funding for your business, either from a bank or from a venture capitalist, a well-prepared business plan that outlines your financial potential is absolutely necessary.

A basic business plan can be divided into four key sections: the description of your business; marketing; finances; and management. Once these four basics are covered you can go ahead and flesh out the plan with any further information that you like. There are no hard and fast rules about what has to be included-as a personalized document you can make it as complex as you like. However, if you will be using it to get funding from an outside source, a detailed financial forecast must be a core part. You must prove to investors that your idea can make money.

Your business description is the backbone of the whole business plan-it clarifies exactly what it is you wish to accomplish. Here you provide a detailed description of your product, your service and your target market. It should also include what makes your business special and how you will run your business on a daily basis.

Marketing you business takes thought and preparation-the marketing section of your business plan will lay these plans out on the line. This is where you learn about your customers, their likes, their dislikes and their needs. Researching your ideal customer allows you to develop a successful marketing strategy. You should also take the time to learn all about your competition so you can avoid their mistakes and build upon their good points.

Next comes the nitty gritty stuff-the financial information. This includes such things as budgeting, sales forecasts, break-even analysis and cash flow projections. This is the section your bank will go over with a fine-tooth comb when you apply for a loan, so you must spell out exactly how much cash you need to earn in order to turn a profit and how long it will take to get there.

Your management profile details the most important part of your business-the people. This is where you sell yourself to investors. If you don’t have a particular skill that’s needed to run your business, be honest and say so. Then put a plan in place to get someone on board who has the skills and talents you’re lacking. It’s better to be honest about your shortfalls from the beginning then trying to cover up any misconceptions down the road.

A thorough business plan is the best way to show bankers and other investors that you deserve their financial help. Prove that you have what it takes to make the business a success by planning ahead and knowing your business inside and out. Even if you won’t be using your business plan to get financial backing, you still need one to keep your own mind on track and heading in the right direction. You know what they say…if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

Advertising is never an exact science-sometimes you just have to keep throwing ideas up against the wall until something sticks. Even then, you can pour thousands of dollars into advertising and still not have anything to show for it.

The biggest mistake business owners make with their advertising strategy is to expect instant results. Some say that a person has to see an ad at least seven times before they even consider buying a product or service. That’s a lot of commitment on your end if you’re not seeing any response yet.

The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and its unique selling proposition. Too bad most advertisers judge their ads by the comments they hear from the public, instead of measuring an ad’s success by a measurable increase in sales. The funniest and most creative ads do generate a lot of buzz but often don’t actually say anything about the advertiser’s product. When you confuse response with results, you end up with a whole slew of ads that don’t translate into dollars for your company.

Many business owners get poor results from their advertising because they are reaching people with little or no interest in what they are selling. This happens when the advertiser goes with the cheapest type of media to invest in, instead of picking a publication targeted to his or her specific market. Advertising in the right place is the key to success. Unfortunately, many people simply look for the lowest price for the number of readers they’ll reach.

As the owner, you have the most in-depth knowledge about your business but this same knowledge gives you a kind of tunnel vision where your advertising is concerned. You have a preconceived notion about what you want to say in your advertising, as opposed to what a consumer actually wants to know. You might think that the XYZ feature is wonderful, so you create a huge advertisement extolling its virtues when your target market is really concerned about the benefits of ABC instead.

Many businesses cut down on advertising when sales are great. This is a big mistake. As is cutting your advertising budget when times are tough. Consistency is the key to long-term success, so stick to a regular advertising schedule to produce steady growth, regardless of your sales volume at any given time. Even if you think that an upswing in sales will continue indefinitely, keep plugging away with your ads-you’ll appreciate the effort when business slows down again, as it inevitably will.

If you find yourself too busy to handle your company’s advertising needs, your advertisements need a more professional image or you realize that you’re not the best person to handle this responsibility, it’s time to call in the big guns. Hire an in-house marketing manager, a public relations agency or an independent marketing consultant to take over. Doing it right the first time helps you avoid the headache of a wasted advertising budget. The money you spend on their salary is a small investment that will reap big financial benefits down the line when your advertising finally starts to pay off.

The sales letter is the key to any successful marketing strategy but I firmly believe that it is also the one piece that is most often undervalued and mishandled.

A good sales letter prompts an emotional reaction from the reader and compels them to take immediate action because the letter touches on one of the reader’s hot buttons. For example, it could answer their need for acceptance, to be smarter than others, to be richer, to have more time, to be better than the rest etc.

Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of bad sales letters where the company spends so much time talking about how great they are but never give the potential client the opportunity to find out “what’s in it for me?” The customer’s emotional needs are not being met. Your product or service may be great but unless your client realizes that it is needed, you are wasting your time. You must create desire.

The best way to overcome this sort of sales letter failure is to put yourself in your client’s place. What issues are they dealing with day in and day out? What are their ‘pains’? What do they really want-more money, more time, more productivity?

Once you have put yourself inside your client’s head, you can begin writing the perfect sales letter for them. Write like you speak instead of filling your letter with dry prose and jargon. Imagine you are writing to a friend-how would you describe your product or service to someone across the kitchen table?

The classic sales letter formula is defined by the acronym AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

Attention: State a startling statistic or a fact that will force your reader to keep reading. Create an emotional, yet accurate, response.

Interest: Describe a situation that applies to your reader. What problems or issues do they face? What are the client’s emotional hot buttons?

Desire: Tell how your product or service meets the reader’s needs and make them want what you’re selling.

Action: Create a call to action and tell the reader to call, email or fax in the order immediately. Make it easy for them to get in touch with you. Create a feeling of intensity by offering a bonus or a price break if they respond within a certain amount of time.

There are many roadblocks to small business success, such as a lack of funding or a lack of emotional support from family members, but thanks to the Internet, location is no longer one of them. While real estate professionals tout ‘location, location, location’ as the be all and end all, anyone can operate a successful global business with the right marketing tools-there is nothing holding you back from getting customers from around the world, even if you live in a small town.

Which is my situation exactly. The majority of my marketing clients come from Toronto, Vancouver and a variety of locations within the United States, even though I live in the small town of Fergus, Ontario, which has a population of 10,500. Not exactly a whirlwind of marketing activity.

But the growth of my business doesn’t depend on the size of my town and my clients don’t care that I’m not local to them-in fact, they like I am not located in a major center because I can offer them better pricing than my big city competitors.

Of course, the most important way to build a global business is to have a website. No matter what product or service you sell, you will sell more if customers can find you on the Internet, learn about what you offer and contact you directly.

A well-optimized site (that doesn’t repeat the same keywords over and over again just for the sake of increasing keyword density) is a must. Your site is your calling card to the world and it must be professionally designed and written.

One mistake many small businesses make is thinking they can do everything themselves. While most people wouldn’t dream of learning HTML in order to design their own website, they do cut corners by writing their own web content. Unfortunately, this means there is a lot of bad writing out there on the Internet. If your site is not well written, your potential clients will click away almost immediately. Always use a professional copywriter to create your content and update it regularly.

One way to stay top of mind is to offer a free newsletter and allow your potential clients to opt-in as subscribers-even if they don’t buy from you now, they will be reminded about your business every time they receive a new issue. And make sure you publish regularly. Your copywriter will be happy to keep you supplied with new material each month.

A web log, or blog, is fast becoming an essential part of any small business marketing toolkit. A blog allows you to give your clients new information whenever you like, even daily if you decide to update it that often. And your subscribers will be contacted every time you update your blog, which is one more opportunity to be top of mind and the first one they contact when they’re ready to buy. Blogging is one marketing tool that doesn’t have an upfront cost attached but you may wish to use the same copywriter to maintain style and continuity with your other marketing materials.

Building a global business isn’t just setting up a website and waiting for customers to come calling-you have to approach you ideal customer directly, even if they are halfway around the world. This is another opportunity to use professionally written marketing materials-a powerful direct mail letter is a proven way to promote your business.

Because the Internet has opened up so many opportunities, the world is literally at your doorstep these days. There really are no valid excuses for failing now-if your business isn’t doing well with the clients it has, expand your horizons and find more customers, even if they are two time zones away. Yes, it will take work and it won’t happen overnight, but when the money starts rolling in you will be happy you made the effort to go global.

It’s 9:22 on a Tuesday morning and my phone rings. It’s Joe Blow from the XYZ Company and he’s really excited. “Leanne, XYZ has just come out with a brand new widget. It’s really a big improvement over our last version, so I need you to write a press release about it and get us some national newspaper coverage. When can I expect the reporters to start calling?”

Every business wants to get as much free press as possible, but Joe was going about it the wrong way. Yes, I could write a press release about his new widget but I guarantee no reporters would be calling him to get the details.

Press releases are a great tool to help you get media coverage but unless you can connect your announcement to a real story that piques a journalist’s interest, the release is going to end up in the circular file as soon as it crosses the wire.

That is the real secret to press releases-they have to actually be newsworthy. Reporters aren’t interested in helping you make more money or driving traffic to your website-they want a snappy story that will grab’s their readers’ attention and please their editor at the same time.

Writing a press release isn’t difficult if you follow the basics:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-should appear in the upper left-hand corner, all capitalized.

Headline-one sentence that sums up the main idea of the press release.

Dateline-the city where your press release is issued and the date it is going out across the wire. Lead Paragraph-the five Ws (who, what, where, when, why) to summarize what you are announcing and get your audience interested in reading further.

Body-the meat of your press release where you fully develop your announcement.

Company Information Boilerplate-every press release should end with a short paragraph that describes your company and its products and services.

Contact Information-include your name, phone number and email address so journalists can call for more information.

Once I filled Joe in on the secret to a great press release, we developed an angle to get him the coverage he wanted. When we were done, his press release didn’t come across as a puff piece about the company-it gave