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Today we talked to Paul Rosenfeld, with Fanminder, about how small businesses can leverage text/SMS marketing to grow their business. Fanminder is an online service that enables small business owners to easily and quickly send and receive all types of text messages to their customers.

Although historically leveraged by larger business, Paul believes that small business can use SMS technology to relay information, promotions, or updates to their customers and texting can be used effectively as a tool for retaining customers. Whether you are the corner coffee shop promoting an event, a restaurant advertising a lunch special, or the salon down the street with an open appointment slot, text marketing is a quick and easy way to reach your clients.

Paul also gave us an example of ways that text can be leveraged effectively as an internal communications tool, discussing the case of a gymnastics studio that used SMS among their staff to relay important updates with their schedules.

After talking to Paul about talking to people through their phones, we talked to Mike Cleary, vice president of Abcom, Inc., about face-to-face marketing. Abcom works directly with organizations or with their marketing agencies on the specialty area of face-to-face marketing, including trade shows and events.

With the downturn in the economy along with the rise of social media and online collaboration it should be no surprise that trade show attendance has been in decline for several years. However, as the tradeshows have gotten smaller, Mike says that the shows have become more efficient stages for selling as a higher percentage of attendees are qualified buyers.

Mike also shared some interesting information about selling at trade shows. For example, at a trade show, you have three to six seconds to stop someone and effectively communicate what you do or what you are offering. Mike advised that, instead of trying to say everything all at once, you zero in on the one thing that your target audience needs to see to stop them and bring them into your booth.

Thanks so much to Paul Rosenfeld and Mike Cleary for joining us!

We had a great show this Tuesday and we were happy to welcome our regular Stephanie (Frost) back this week. Another big thank you to our good friend Stephanie Lloyd for guest co-hosting with Erik last week.

First, joining us this morning was Ivan Reyes, CEO of Chirbit a free online tool for audio sharing. People can record, upload, and share smaller recordings, from about two minutes long to two hours. A few great practical business applications are to share small daily tips with clients or highlight smaller segments of larger shows. Launching his first startup, Ivan shares that the biggest hurdles to overcome are networking and getting the word out. But thankfully, Twitter and Tweet-ups have been doing a great deal to increase business networking.

Marna Friedman, self-publisher and small business consultant extraordinaire also joined us. She talked about how accessing information on the Internet can be difficult when you don’t know what you are looking for. Her book, “The Small Business That Could,” makes the search much easier by listing all of the sites that a small business might need. She also went on to publish a book specifically for women entrepreneurs, “The Small Business That Could For Women.” The books come with space to record your passwords and tips on how to make them both easy to remember and secure. Marna lets us in on some self-publishing insight, including some common stumbling blocks regarding ISBN numbers. She also created a chapter in her book with details on self-publishing and all of the different companies that offer self-publishing services.