I moved to a small town in Arizona. To help get my business in the area jumpstarted I went door to door visiting businesses and introducing myself. It was way more effective then cold calling for me. Whether that speaks to my lack of skill with cold calling or my charming personality I don't know. But, it worked out really well to go and visit other business owners in person.

FileZilla is a good open source app that does good FTP. Marty is right, FTP can be unreliable and you may not get the entire transfer so you have to pay attention to it. Also, unless you are using SSH then the connection is not secure so you could theoretically have eavesdroppers.

In reality, if you are wanting to make sure the person you intended to receive the file actually gets it, get their email address and use yousendit. That way, unless someone else is checking their mail, you can be reasonably sure that person will get it.

I recently joined my local Chamber of Commerce. I wasn't sure at first about spending the money and if it would be worthwhile. But, it actually has been. One of the key things to remember is that you need to make yourself apart of the group. You have to be seen and heard to make it worth while. I immediately started volunteering to get myself known.

It helps that this is a small town (about 10K people) and so it very much has that small town "everybody knows everybody" feel to it. So, getting to know people is key to getting business. Being a part of the CoC is a big step towards that.

One thing to remember with Web 2.0 is that it's easy to build the house. It's another thing entirely to let the people in.

You have to actively engage with your customers and potential clients. You have to be ready to interact with them. If all you do is throw up a blog or forum and never promote it or visit it, it'll fall flat. You will look disinterested. It will not play over very well. Even if your the only one posting in your forums for the first few weeks, at least you are showing a willingness to engage with your audience.

Web 2.0 is more then a shiny reflective logo and a blog. It's about building a conversation and actually listening. That's the key.

I really enjoyed this article. I live in a smaller sized town (Cottonwood, AZ), though. While it's one of those "Everybody knows everybody" kind of places, I still think a networking event would be nice. Especially for those of us who have recently moved here.

I just sent out a newsletter this morning about this. I was promoting email newsletters and online brochures as the most environmentally friendly ways to promote their business. Plus, with the side benefits it makes good sense.