James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
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Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » If there was a job interview for starting your own business, effective self promotion would be high on the list of 'essential' criteria.
You are a one man band and as such you have to get out there and bang your own drum.
Your best intrument is yourself (stick with me here), you know the most about your products, you believe in your business the most (well you should do or you're off to a bit of a non starter) and you've got to get out there and get other people, your potential customers, to believe in your products aswell.
There is no budget for marketing or PR. Let's face it guys, there isn't even a budget. What you can do you have to do for free, and sometimes the success of your business will live and die on how good you are at self-promotion. You can have the best idea, the best products, the best of everything but if you can't get out there and tell people about it then you haven't got the best business. In fact I'd be suprised if you've got a business at all.
Now I don't tell you this as someone who excels at self-promotion. Far from it, in fact when this lecture is being delivered I'm probably somewhere at the back of the class, middling through and finding every opportunity to self-promote a tortuous task to be endured rather than embraced. I'm way too British about it. The mistake I make is feeling like I am trying to sell myself instead of the product. And we all know British people are the very model of modesty. C minus - must try harder.
BUT, I do know how very very important it is. And I also recognise it in other people with envious eyes. They make it look so easy.
Tips for self-promotion?
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