Small businesses and entrepreneurs are driving innovation and job creation in today's recovering economy. In
the U.S., there are over 23 million small businesses that employ nearly 81 million workers and produce
annual sales in excess of $6 trillion.

However being a small business owners is not an easy job. Are you trying to run your accounting, finance, administrative, marketing, operations, and customer service departments during a 24 hour period each day? Are you feel tired of this One-man-show?

So you may like the following article I just read this morning.

Hard to grow your client base as a single-person operation?

http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/docs/DOC-1502

Giving products away for free may seem like a strange way to grow a business, but for Louisville, Ky.-based Halfpricesoft.com, it has been the key to success.

Having sold fewer than a hundred copies of their payroll and check printing software titles in the first years of business, software developer Halfpricesoft.com now sells thousands of copies each year now by giving away their full-feature versions through partnerships.

Halfpricesoft.com launched in 2003 with a focus on creating payroll tax software solutions that is easy to learn and affordable for small businesses yet full-featured. The company found it difficult to market software as a start-up, since customers were unfamiliar with the company, and sold only a handful of copies in its first year.

With the knowledge that their software offered features and capability comparable to high-end business software, Halfpricesoft offered a 30-day free trial period for its products believing that when users tried the payroll and check printing software, they would realize the value offered by Halfpricesoft.com and purchase the full-use license. While the free trial period did increase sales, they remained far below expectations.

In 2008, the company produced a "Lite" version of its check writing software, with limited capabilities on some features, such as custom check designing. The company offered the new product for free on software download sites and supported it with an intense press release campaign.

"Everyone likes free stuff," said Halfpricesoft.com founder Dr. Ge. "When we launched ezCheckPrinting Lite for free, we suddenly started getting hundreds of downloads each month."

But while downloads of the free software were plentiful, conversions to the full-featured paid version were minimal. The search for an effective marketing solution continued.

Seeing that free software was popular with small-business customers, Dr. Ge and his team looked for a way to utilize this powerful marketing tool that would result in sales for their premium products. The answer came in late 2008 when they discovered TrialPay.

With TrialPay, Halfpricesoft.com is able to offer the full-featured single-user version of ezCheckPrinting, ezCheckPersonal and its other software titles for free when customers purchase a product from another company. In 2009, the company ceased to offer the "lite" version of ezCheckPrinting and used TrialPay to offer the product for free. TrialPay advertisers pay for the software when customers purchase their products or services.

"We sell thousands of copies each year now," said Dr. Ge. "It's a win-win-win-win situation: the customer gets free product, we make sales, the TrialPay advertiser makes sales, and TrialPay gets commissions."

Halfpricesoft.com took full advantage of its partnership with TrialPay by launching a public relations campaign featuring the TrialPay offer in press releases and newsletters. The company also highlights the TrialPay offer on its website, encouraging customers to get Halfpricesoft.com products for free.

Currently, several products are offered for free through TrialPay at www.halfpricesoft.com, including:

- ezCheckPersonal personal check writing software

- ezTimeSheet, computer-based time clock software for tracking employee hours

- blank check stock for use with ezCheckPrinting, ezPaycheck and ezCheckPersonal software

- Stock for printing W2, W3, 1099 and 1096 forms

Did you know that you can save a lot of time, money and hassle using check printing software capable of printing MICR numbers compared to either pre-printed checkbook checks or pre-printed computer checks?

Federal regulations require checks to have routing transit number and account numbers printed in MICR to reduce check fraud. If you checks don’t have MICR numbers, banks will reject them. MICR stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, which is a system for printing and reading numbers on a check. It uses a unique number font and prints them with a magnetic ink. This specialized printing speeds up bank processing and makes counterfeiting and forgeries more difficult.

There are two ways to get your checks encoded with MICR numbers. You can have your checks pre-printed with the required information printed in MICR, either in checkbook format or in page format for printing from your computer. Or you can print MICR numbers on blank check stock using MICR-capable check printing software.

There are several advantages to printing on blank check stock over using pre-printed checks:

Security
Printing checks when you need them, rather than having pre-printed checks lying around, minimizes opportunities for someone to steal your checks. Plus, password-protected computerized data is safer from prying eyes than ledger books. It’s also easy to create back-ups of the data should something happen to your computer or premises.

Convenience
Running out of checks is a pain. But when you use software to print on blank check stock, you never run out of checks and have to wait for new checks to arrive. A new supply of checks is as close as your local business supply store.

Save time
You can import your check data and print hundreds of check with just a few clicks. If you’ve ever written out payroll checks or paid bills by hand, you know how time consuming this is. Not only do you have to write each check individually, but then you have to log the payroll data into your accounting software. With check printing software, you input the data into your accounting software and a few more click exports it for printing.

Save money
Using blank check stock is much less expensive than having checks pre-printed. Plus, if you ever have to change banks or change your address or other information on your checks, you don’t have to have new checks printed—you just change the information in your check printing software and it prints the new information on the checks.

Report for tax time
Tax time is simplified with check printing software. Just a few clicks of the mouse generate a full report of all the checks you’ve written in the past year.

Customize your check with logo to get your brand in the market place.
Pre-printed checks cost more than blank check stock, but getting those pre-printed checks customized with your logo and slogan runs up a really hefty price tag. Check software allows you to personalize your checks easily. Just upload your logo image to the software and it prints automatically. Customized checks are an easy way to promote your brand in the marketplace as you pay for goods and services.

One MICR-capable check printing software title that is popular with small businesses is ezCheckPrinting from www.halfpricesoft.com/product_ezCheck.asp. EzCheckPrinting has all the features that high-end check printing software titles offer for small businesses without the high-end price tag. Starting at just $29 per installation or FREE through online special offer, ezCheckPrinting is affordable for any size business and is compatible with all popular brands of laser printers (most of which can print bank-accepted MICR numbers) and specialized MICR printers.

Prweb is good. However, it is expensive. Followings are some inexpensive press release sites we used and worked for us.

http://www.i-newswire.com
http://express-press-release.net
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/login.html
http://www.prurgent.com/login.php
http://express-press-release.net
24-7pressrelease

1oo sites to submit your video list, with PR rank higher than 3