It’s obvious that many small office and home office businesses can’t afford their own sales staff, which is why in many cases they have to turn to high-value, low-cost marketing tactics, such as email marketing or postcard direct mail.  But sometimes, the most valuable salespeople you could want are already there for you to utilize – your own employees.

Small business owners should be working as hard as they can to ensure that the employees they have are acting as advocates on their behalf.  A recent post by Trent Hamm on the OPEN Small Business Forum shows that a simple passing of a business card coupled with an incentive program for the employee handing it out helped drive business in a small town.  It’s a simple but good example of how this can work for your business.

Are you taking steps to make sure your employees are advocating on your behalf to bring business in the door?  If so, how.  What have you found to be effective and not effective?