One of the things you can expect from DIYMarketers are periodic reviews of tools and resources that you’ll find helpful in selling to small businesses.

We all have a long list of blogs and articles we read every day – but I have to strongly recommend “Selling to Small Business.”  If you’re already an avid reader of Small Business Trends, then you might know about this one.  Both are online publications by Small Business Expert, Anita Campbell.

Anita truly has her pulse on what’s happening in the small business world.  In light of full disclosure, Anita is a client and a friend — but BOTH of these roles actually came years after I started following her work, reading her blog and relying on her online publications for my industry and trend information — heavily, I might add.  I only have one criticism of how Anita’s publications — I wish they had a portal that was all Anita Campbell small business stuff – all the time.  My biggest issue is that I have to hop from URL to URL and that they aren’t just a portal all their own.  But that’s just me and it goes to show how much I rely on her unique way of pulling information together in digestible bites and using the most credible resources on the web.

I’ll be reviewing several of her sites in the coming months, but I really want to start with “Selling to Small Business” first.

Who Should Read Selling to Small Business and Why?

Like the name implies, if you intend on SELLING to SMALL BUSINESS – you should read this blog.  But don’t even think about using this as “Chamber event” where you constantly pitch the audience on whatever your wares are.  It doesn’t work like that. Selling to Small Business is a resource to those of us who serve this market.  It will educate BOTH the large multi-national company like a Microsoft of an Intel on what’s important to small business, as well as the smaller provider of products and services.

How to Get the Most Out of Selling to Small Business?

Regardless of how you organize your blog reading, I recommend that you put all of Anita’s blogs very close together, so that you can take a quick glance and what topics she’s covering.  So put it on your reader.

It runs on a standard blog format, so the most recent stories are on the top and you can scroll your way down.  But remember – this is not so much a time driven source of information, as it is valuable category information – so be sure to look to your right where you’ll see the categories and the number of articles in each category.

Currently the categories tell you something about what’s happening in small business.  For example, she’s got one on Baby Boomers.  I never would have thought that as a category – but read the stories that are tagged and you’ll see that she’s thought this through – the stories aren’t just ABOUT baby boomers, some of them are stories baby boomers who are responsible for selling to small business should pay attention to.  Love that.

The next tab is “About” and you can learn more about what Anita was thinking when she started Selling to Small Business.

MY FAVORITE TAB – Small Business Lists!

Look you DIY Marketers — it’s all about the LIST.  It is so about the list and the community that you should not every kid yourself about this.  Here Anita gives you a wonderful resource ; calendars of small business events that you might find interesting to attend.

The other “list” she gives is the link to her SMBTrendwire podcasts.  These are weekly interviews that Anita and Steve Rucinski do with a variety of small business experts and authors.  There is so much to learn from these – you’ll have to put yourself on a daily budget of what to listen to and how much.

The last list resource is a directory of small business blogs. Againk you’ll have to look through these and identify the ones that are most useful to you.

Finally there is the archives section – which is what you’d expect it to be – archives of articles by category and month.

I highly encourage you to not only check this blog out, but I encourage you to become a subscriber and regular reader.  When you’re in dire need of quick, high quality info and data — this is your place.

The DIYMarketers and Toilet Paper Entrepreneur 3-Sheet Strategy Tele-Seminar is TOMORROW February 6, 2009 from 12:10 to 3:10 EST! If you haven’t registered — here is one of your last opportunities to do that.

I’m going to share something with you all.  It has been a messy process.  Like many of you, I’ve read my share of books, articles and blogs about how to market just about anything.  Everything you read makes it seem so elegant, so streamlined and so simple.  But it’s not.  I don’t care how easy some of the gurus say it is.  If you’re like the most of us – building a customer community is a get big slow process.

Marketing is a messy business these days.  No one wants another e-mail, another phone call asking them to do something and give you their time.  I don’t know about you, but I basically ignore and delete all of those things.

So, how do YOU create enough energy, enthusiasm and momentum to bring your ideal customer to you?

Tell me how you’re building your customer lists and mailing lists.  Contact me and we’ll use your method and feature them as a case study and how-to post on the site.

We want to know how you do “that marketing thing” in your business.  We want to know specifically what you do every day, how you manage it and how you get, keep and grow the customers you have.

Here is my example:

What do you do?: I spend the bulk of my time either consulting or writing.  I make my clients the obvious choice for their customers.

What sets you apart?: I make my clients the only game in town.  We build inside-out marketing systems that make money and don’t require lots of people or money.

Who do you help?: We help small business owners who want loyal, happy customers, but don’t know what to do to get them.  Our ideal client is a business with less than $150 million in sales that needs a formal marketng process – but not a formal marketing person.

What do you do every day/week/month/year to get and keep customers?

99% of all my marketing is basically a word-of-mouth referral system.  Here’s how that works:

Daily: Every day, I try and communcate my mission and purpose at least 10 times to 10 different people using a variety of methods.  I have a digital and a physical set of goals. Digitally, I write a blog post.  As of this writing I now have 4, actually 5 blog spaces of my own, plus my articles appear in smallbustrends, as well as a few other places that may pick them up.  I also make time fo twitter and facebook as well as LinkedIn.  I use these tools to supplement my physical strategy which includes meeting, chatting or interacting with the people I’ve connected with online – and vice versa; keeping up connections with people I’ve met physically.  I ask for new clients and opportunities every day.

Weekly: I have a referral meeting at least twice a week.  I work toward connecting with business owners who want to have fun making money and building their very own marketing machine.

Monthly: I book a speaking engagement once per month – and that feeds the daily and weekly activities.

Annually: I make big plans.  I use the Marketing Plan Pro product by Palo Alto Software and Duct Tape Marketing.

Now it’s YOUR turn.  Tell us Your Story!