Ads - Smart, well-placed advertising works. But be judicious. Test your advertising in less expensive or free locations first. If they pull for you, continue them. It makes sense to support any advertising that brings you a profit. Offer to trade your professional services in exchange for advertising. Use your web site as your billboard... but don't get carried away. Building confidence will build your customer base. Hype and hyperbole makes you look desperate.

Affiliations - Join professional and special interest groups and get known. If you offer services for diabetics, attend the monthly meetings for users of infusion pumps. Offer to speak at no charge. Experts are in constant demand. Offer professional services (lectures, reports, assessments, etc.) in exchange for links, the right to leave business cards, to post ads, etc.

Articles - Write articles for your local newspapers. Write for newsletters. Write for company newspapers. Write for magazines. Build your credibility. The more you're published, the more credible you appear. If people start remembering your name, you know you're efforts are paying off. A lot of publications may not pay you, but my offer some compensation in the form of advertising.

Bulletin Boards - Usually free, but you may be able to negotiate better placement or a larger space by offering reports, analyses, recipe analysis, assessments, lectures, etc.

Business Cards - Get a logo. Cast your image. Put in on everything your flyers, along with contact information. Stick in on your web site.

Cold Calls - Calling strangers is tough but doable for all of us. Sometimes the best way to find work is to ask for it. Look for opportunities to speak. You may be able to offer a 20-minute talk on an appropriate topic to get your foot in the door. Once you've done the prospect a favor, he should be open to hearing you out.

Email Newsletters - If you've provided an assessment report to your visitors, you know everything you need to know to target your email newsletter squarely on their interests and needs. Write a compelling title and first paragraph for a topic of interest, then place a link they can click to read the rest of the article (on your web site). Once you have your reader on your web site, you have the opportunity to offer your professional services. Make sure your navigation bars (which should adorn your every web page) beacon the visitor.

Flyers - Flyers are inexpensive one-page ads that you can use in a wide variety of ways. Take them to your speaking engagements. Hand them to your clients. Mail them to your clients and prospects. Post them on bulletin boards. Leave them on counters in selected locations (with permission, of course). And never, ever, forget to include your logo and your contact information. A picture wouldn't hurt either - some people remember faces much better than names.

Networking - Join your chamber of commerce and every other professional organization related to your profession. Meet people. Learn what they want. Offer to scratch their backs if they'll scratch yours. People you meet this way can offer referrals. They can tell you about opportunities that they can't capitalize on themselves but maybe you can. The more people you know, the more likely you will succeed... you can never have too many friends. And of course, remember to return the favors with referrals you can't capitalize on yourself.

Newsletter - If you don't work the Web, you can publish your newsletter in paper form. It's more expensive and requires more work, but people will often tell you they prefer a hard copy newsletter to an electronic one. Use your logo. Include your contact information. Consider adding your picture as the editor. Build credibility. Let people know who you are.

Professional Portfolio - For most clients, seeing is believing. Begin building your professional portfolio. Nothing will help you sell yourself and your services to clients better than a professional presentation of the work you've done for other clients (or created for a fictitious client). A very good place to start is to use your nutrition software to create every report it is capable of. Save the report in word processor format (if your software is capable of such a thing). Pull it into a desktop publishing package to add embellishments, color, and photographic images. Print them on high-quality stationery and preserve them for all your future clients to look at.

Promotions and Specials - Once you have a large body of prospects (old customers, people who've taken free assessment reports from you, the mailing list from the diabetes support group, etc.), send them special offers for new or additional services. Everyone likes a bargain. If you find you can do something quickly with your software that gives the impression that you spent a long time with it, offer it at a "deep discount." Once you've done something for a client, doing additional work is easier to do. You don't go to a different barber every time you need a trim... you go to the one you're comfortable with.

Press Announcements - If you introduce a new service or product, announce it! Create a section on your web site for your press announcements. These announcements give you the opportunity to look like a pro. Local newspapers will often run announcements of interest to the community they serve.

Referrals - As you network with other professionals, look for opportunities to exchange referrals. Set a goal to get acquainted with a new professional every week. That's 50 new opportunities for referrals a year. Improve your odds by going out and meeting new people. You'll never know when or where that great lead or suggestion or referral will come from, but knowing hundreds of people will vastly improve your odds. Make sure you find creative ways to stay in contact with these people. If you manage to stay fresh in their minds, they'll remember you when they learn of someone who should talk to someone like you.

Speaking Engagements - You're an expert on certain topics. The people you will speak to won't be. Meet the right people and offer to speak to their members at no charge. A 30-minute talk about sports nutrition the local high school's cross country team could result in your providing meal planning and counseling for several of the athletes. A 20-minute talk about using nutrition to help combat hypertension at a support group could result in private counseling sessions with a good percentage of the listeners. Look for opportunities to speak. Build your repertoire of talks. Hand out information sheets (With your logo, your contact information, and your face printed on them.) Offer your services to every athletic team, to every special needs group, to every health club, etc. Doing so will improve your speaking abilities, improve your talks (as you add the humor, insight, and wit your audience injects into each new presentation), and build your reputation. Who knows? You might even be able to charge for your talks one day. But for now, use them to open doors and to let listeners know that you're there to help them. And don't forget your business cards, flyers, and handouts (all of which contain your name and contact information).

All these methods can be used to help you generate business. And once you get the clients in, you need to provide them with your professional services. In most cases, this takes the form of some sort of a report.