I just found a great offer for free business cards.

You don’t even need to pay shipping like with VistaPrint.  The only bad thing is it says Printed for Free on the back.  These are good as backup cards if you run out of good business cards or really as business cards in general.  I’m ordering.  Free is always a good price.  I figure free emergency cards can’t be beat.

Don’t tell anyone this, but your local library is a gold mine for information.  Their prices are great to0 (free).

For example do you sell mainly to businesses with 5-10 employees that make over $1,000,000 per year?  That’s an easy one.  I don’t need any expensive subscription services, I just go to my local library’s website, Ocean County Library, pull out my library card and start searching the ReferenceUSA (InfoUSA) database.  I can find out the owner’s name, phone number, address, employees, and tons of other pertinent information.

This works for people searches also.  I can find out who just bought a house, who just moved, I can find people by how much they paid for their house and where, the options are limitless.  This is like a free lead factory.

The other day I had a small problem with one of my cars.  I didn’t want to buy the manual for the car because I’m not a mechanic and really I knew I didn’t have to buy it.  I went to my trusty library’s website and lo and behold they have the Chilton Library available for free.  If you guys don’t know about Chilton’s books, go to any auto parts store and you’ll find these are the guys that make repair manuals for just about every car.  This of course is even better than buying the books because they even have helpful videos on this site.  This site is literally gold for a mechanic.  Now they don’t have to buy every manual out there, this site has had every car I’ve searched for.  I showed this site to a friend of mine that fixes cars and now every time I see his computer he always has this page open.

Do you need a generic legal form?  The library has you covered.  Through their site you can access Thomson Gale LegalForms.  I always suggest contacting an attorney before doing anything but….for the do it yourselfer this is a great resource to have.  You can get forms from leases to contracts to everything else in between.  These forms are a big time and money saver.

Have a lot of employees that speak a language you don’t?  No problem the library let’s you access Mango Languages, to learn a ton of different languages.  Now if you don’t habla español you can start to learn it anywhere you want for free with no pressure.

These are just the tip of the iceberg.  I’ve used the website for more than just this, but these are a few examples of how powerful that free library card is.

I also go into the library every once in a while and take out books.  You’ll be surprised at what books they have in stock.  I use to go to Barnes & Noble all the time to buy books, then one day I visited my library and thought, “Holy Shit!!!  These guys have half of the books I’ve bought, read once and never looked at again.”  I am an avid reader, so although I don’t visit as often as I should and still buy plenty of books they probably have in stock, it has saved me money on several occasions.

Support your local library.

I love free stuff.  I’m sure most of us do.  For the next few days you can get 100 free glossy postcards from Overnightprints.  The link is on the main page, but in case you need it the coupon code is GET100PC.  The offer expires 1/23/09.

I know I’ll be ordering some of these since I’m low on my postcard supply.

They have generic templates and you can also upload your own custom designed templates.

The best thing to show how unique and different your company is, is to create very unique templates for all of your business needs.  For example every time I order business cards, post cards, envelopes, or any other supplies I use different designs.  It helps to differentiate your company from the rest.  The other bonus is you can test what designs work and which one’s don’t.

It’s very important to test everything from sales pages to stationary.  Even the subtlest changes can make a difference.  One new client from a mailing can mean several thousand dollars in lifetime business.

Turbotax is running a great offers for those that do their own taxes for their businesses.  You can get a completely free copy of Turbo Tax business here.

This doesn’t work for your personal taxes, it’s only good for corporations, partnerships and LLCs.  For personal taxes it looks like you’ll have to buy another product.