As a small business owner or independent professional offering a service, I'm sure you know a lot about whatever it is you do.

For example, if you're a wellness coach or personal trainer, you know a lot about health, fitness and wellness.

If you're an accountant or financial planner, you know a lot about financial matters.

If you're a massage therapist, chiropractor, or other holistic health professional, you know a lot about the body and healing.

And if you're a success, life or business coach, you know a lot about helping people accomplish their goals and achieve success in whatever aspect of their life or business you coach them.

It's Time To Proclaim Yourself An Expert

If you don't consider yourself an expert, I'd like to suggest it's high time you did. Why? Because proclaiming yourself an expert and sharing what you know is an excellent way to market yourself and your services.

Especially if you find yourself in a field or industry that's new or not well understood. A big part of your job in this case is education. Who better to educate than an expert! And why not you?!

It's Free Marketing At Its Best

Plus, this kind of marketing usually won't cost you a dime. So, if you're on a tight budget, this is a great solution.

Keep in mind, when you market this way, you're not giving away your services for free, but rather you're introducing yourself, your expertise and knowledge, and your business to people who could benefit.

There are all kinds of ways you can use this marketing technique to start attracting new clients to your business.

Here are 10 ideas to get you started:

(1) Identify a topic (or topics) you know a lot about, related to your business, and that you think would be helpful and valuable to your ideal clients.

(2) Identify three, five, seven or 10 tips you could share on this topic.

(3) Write articles sharing these three, five, seven and 10 tips. Keep your articles short - between 300 and 500 words is fine.

(4) Post your free articles on article marketing web sites. There are many free article directories available. In fact, there are over 40 of them listed in the 10stepmarketing Online Marketing Resource Center.

(5) Teach teleseminars sharing these tips to groups of your ideal clients. These could be your current prospects, or you could joint venture with someone else in a related business and offer to do a teleseminar for their clients.

(6) Publish and distribute a Free Special Report covering your tips.

(7) Start publishing an ezine or e-newsletter and share tips on a regular basis.

(8) Let the media know you're an expert in your field and offer to help them if they're writing articles in your area of expertise. Submit press releases to them on a regular basis so they become familiar with you and your business.

(9) Submit articles or offer to write a column for publications read by your ideal clients.

(10) Always include some promotion of your services, or a special offer with your free content. Even if it's only a link to your website. Remember your ultimate goal is to market your services.

All of these marketing techniques are great ways to proclaim yourself an expert

Remember all it takes to become an expert is to appoint yourself THE expert. Then deliver on that by sharing valuable information using one, two or all of the marketing methods above.

It's the technique I've used

This is the primary form of marketing I've used to market 10stepmarketing over the past year. I have used all 10 of these methods and the reward has been tremendous - generating amazing exposure for me and my business at little to no cost. I invite you to search Google on my name and see what comes up. 99% of what you'll find was done for free. The only cost was my time to write and put the information out there.

I encourage you to give it a try. It works!

Debbie LaChusa

Debbie LaChusa is a marketing veteran with 20 years in the business. After 13 years in the advertising and marketing agency business, Debbie founded DLC Marketing, Inc., a marketing consulting and coaching business. Her goal? To give entrepreneurs and small business owners affordable access to the same high-level strategic marketing and advertising expertise that typically only large companies with big budgets can afford.

Debbie's commitment to making marketing expertise accessible to small business also led her to pursue speaking engagements and teaching. She has spoken at meetings and conventions across the United States and in Canada. She also is on the faculty of Wellcoaches Corporation, where she teaches wellness coach trainees around the world how to successfully market their new coaching practices.

Debbie has written and self-published two marketing workbooks, "A Step-by-Step Marketing Guide" and "A Step-by-Step Marketing Guide for Your Fitness Business" which have sold copies worldwide. Her advice is also featured in Entrepreneur Magazine's "How to Start a Personal Training Business," part of the magazine's Business Start-Up Series. And she is a contributor to the San Diego Business Journal.

Debbie created The 10stepmarketing? System to provide small business owners, coaches, consultants and other independent professionals with all the tools they need to market themselves.

This simple, step-by-step system, features an easy-to-use question-and-answer format that walks business owners through every step they need to take to develop and implement their own marketing plan designed to achieve the success they desire and deserve.

On a more personal note, Debbie LaChusa is a fraternal twin. In 2004 she launched Twin Connections, a web site that celebrates the unique and mysterious bond shared by twins. She collects twin stories and hopes to compile them into a book.