This topic is now marks as Read-Only. Thank you for all of your advice. JimD

PPC is the way to go for you. But if you are not looking to invest any money while starting out, look for online advertising that doesn't cost you much. And if you do have to recruit people from outside your state, try posting on free classifieds like craigslist or khrido. Post free job listing, candidate profile and contract them to work online. Make sure that your posting looks genuine otherwise classified sites may remove your posting. -------------------------------------- Great Gift Ideas ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

Hello Helen, I have been a networker for several years and would be happy to let you know what I have done - especially when you are first starting out, it's very time consuming to market yourself! We utilized a blog, then started placing video's on it to talk about our products - Google LOVES video's & blogs! I would stay away from PPC in the early stages unless you have money to spend! I also utilize a service called Advertising Success Systems which has really helped us to reach many more venues - Google, Yahoo, Ask, Facebook, Twitter, Local.com and many more.... They have very affordable packages starting at $99/month for small businesses such as ours. Please let me know if I can help any further - I LOVE networking and would be happy to perhaps tell my groups about your business if we are comfortable with each other as contacts. Hope this helps! Linda King ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

I'd just post in forums - add it into your signature. It's free, and takes only an hour or two.

You can start with your friends and family first. Tell them about your products. If they're interested and give them a small gift (like a pin, stiker, pencil or card desk with your brand name). Do not forget to ask them to tell about your product to their friends too.

Online Marketing is the way to go.  Less expensive and a much wider market, not to mention a much lesser headache in communicating with other people (staff).   There are some free listing that you can use to promote your business or as many people have stated, PPC campaign.   hope this helps

Why waste time recruiting people to sell your products? These days the internet connects people from all over the globe and there are websites out there that use ecommerce platforms that do all the work for you. Magento ecommerce being one of them..A colleague of mine also has a handbag ecommerce store using the Intuit website building platform. Magento is more detailed and belongs to you, intuit lets you use their web building software but once you stop paying the monthly fee the site doesn't belong to you anymore. I say instead of recruiting people, expand your web presence and take advantage of customers everywhere without the pains of dealing with people and the IRS because you have employees.

Yes PPC (pay per click) is a great method to get instant traffic to your site. However its going to cost you for each visitor. SEO is the way to go..patience is needed though. Ear Gauges -- Commerical Link was removed

I agree with all the comments about using pay per click.  Craigslist can work for some types of businesses.  Just make sure you read their terms and conditions when you are posting an ad there.    You might also consider participating on online communities that have to to with your product.  It sounds like there may be some pretty dedicated folks out there that are already talking on forums like this one.  Become an expert there, or consider buying advertising on those sites.

The best way to find customers in other states is by using Google Adwords or other pay per click advertising sites.  You need to run very specific ads based on your keyword phrase and set a budget for your ads so you don't lose your shirt while you are learning how to do pay per click advertising though!