When trying to get work or sales, go big. Don’t be tentative or start small. It’s like playing the stock market. If you only put in a few bucks on a questionable stock, you won’t get much back if anything. There’s just no point in doing that. However, if you put a good chunk of money on a few proven stocks, chances are you will get a very decent return. What you put out in both time and money to build your business needs to be similarly worthwhile.

For instance, if you are going to advertise, don’t keep putting up .20 cents a day banners on small sites with low traffic. Instead, spend $200 on a small color ad in a moderately well circulated magazine that people re-read such as technique and visual magazines. People will be seeing that ad for months if not years.

If you peruse the on-line lists and services for clients and projects, don’t bid on just one at a time and then hope it comes in. Write up a few template proposals with fill-in the blank sections to customize the bid with your relevant experience and how you can help them (it’s always ‘how you can help’ not ‘this is why you should pick me’) as well as the bid details, and send out several a day. You might get multiple acceptances at the same time but then you get to pick and choose.

Same thing goes with all your networking. If you have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and/or MySpace get on there every day and interact with people. That stuff only works if you use it often enough so people know who you are and remember you when they need help with their website or need a cool handmade present for a picky relative. Same goes for blogs—if you have one, contribute several times a week which gives you more for the search engines to find and gives readers a reason to follow you. It’s all top of the mind marketing and promotes word of mouth.

If you have to budget your time and funds (and we all should to some degree), then go as big as you can with what you have. Don’t blog and keep up four or five social networking accounts if you can’t put aside the 2-3 hours every day to attend to them. Pick just a couple online services and work on them well and often. If you can’t put out a few hundred for an ad each quarter, don’t spend money on advertising. Spend what you can on improving your website and SEO or to get a customized Twitter background or new business cards.

It just comes down to, don’t do it unless you can do it well. Otherwise it’s just wasted time and effort.