This year, I celebrate my 25^th anniversary of working for myself.

After all these years, it’s a still a one-person business – by design. Yes, I use contractors for various tasks, like managing my websites. For bigger jobs, I team up with other consultants, which is productive, educational, and fun.

Most of the time, however, it’s just me – and I like it that way. Hence the phrase “micro-business.”

What follows is written for emerging entrepreneurs, but nonprofits might also find these tips useful.

Marketing: Do we know what works?

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.” So said John Wanamaker, the 19th Century merchant, political figure, and marketing pioneer.

In the same spirit, I can’t conclusively tell you how customers find me or how I find them. Therefore, the following advice is based on lived experience, rather than data. (If you’re more data-driven than I am, you could probably figure it out.)

Some of these tasks are easy, some are daunting, and others are simply grind-it-out work. For me, the combination has been effective.

Grassroots marketing: Six tips you can use

1. Referrals. I send a lot of work to peers, and they send a lot of work to me. Clients do the same. I don’t ask for this or incentivize it, but one could.

2. Training. Most consulting and training clients find me through public workshops. Leading or facilitating anything – classes, trainings, board retreats, webinars, community events – is probably the best marketing strategy I know.

3. Online: websites and blog. I have two websites; one for my main business – with my name on it – and the other for Train Your Board.

For the main website, I use a web designer/webmaster and try to update it periodically. I write the copy and give him photos; he does the updates. I hear from clients that it’s comprehensive and does a good job reflecting my skills, personality, and approach.

After five years of growth, the Train Your Board e-list has grown to 9,000 names. I blog two or three times per month and promote the posts through e-blasts. None of this generates revenue directly, but it seems to help with marketing.

In the future, I will sell more webinars and perhaps a video training series. This is one reason I focus on expanding the list and providing lots of free content.

4. Social media. I am marginally active on LinkedIn – and people do find me there. I also use a Facebook page to promote new blog posts.

Other consultants have a much more robust social media presence, which is admirable. Given time constraints, it’s not a priority for me. As far as I can tell, that choice hasn’t hurt my business.

5. Repackaging content. Live workshop content can be repackaged as a blog post, webinar, remote training, book chapter, article, guest post, and so on. Feel free to switch up the sequence: A blog post can be repackaged as a webinar, etc.

For example, my last post – a conflict of interest exercise for boards – was first developed as a training exercise. The previous post, about building a fundraising gift chart, was adapted from the Train Your Board book.

Just like creating a new workshop and then facilitating it with different audiences, it’s possible to be paid for the same content multiple times and in multiple ways. However, a lot of repackaging is purely outreach and can’t be easily monetized.

6. Piggybacking on other providers. In the coming months, I’ll be working with a variety of national and statewide nonprofit centers to co-present webinars.

It works like this: I lead the webinar using my materials. They host it on their platform while handling registration and payment. We both promote it to our respective lists and share registrant emails when it’s over.

Financial arrangements vary. Sometimes I receive a fixed fee, sometimes we split the registration revenue, and occasionally I present webinars for free. Regardless, it’s a great tool for growing my email list.

Building your business? Here’s more

I love to help people like you launch and grow their businesses as trainers, facilitators, and consultants. Check out these previous posts:

New Consultants and Trainers: Five Tips for Success

New Consultants and Trainers: Five More Tips for Success

New Consultants and Trainers: Five Even-More Tips for Success

Want more? Use the comments section below to request topics for future posts.

With thanks to my friend Stephanie Roth of Klein and Roth Consulting, who asked me a question about marketing. In the spirit of repackaging content (see item 5 above), my email response to Stephanie was the basis for this post.