Hi, I’m Kimberly Villa. I own a promotional marketing company, Tall Girl Promotions.

We work with companies of all sizes in many industries. Currently we are working with a Korean car manufacturer and providing
them with USB memory sticks, lanyards and ring binders for an upcoming meeting. We are also working with several companies that support the real estate industry such as appraisers, mortgage brokers, settlement companies, etc. to provided them with memorable and useful items to give away at an industry show in October.

Our focus, however, is working with trade associations during their conventions, providing them with the sponsored items (like bags, pens, water bottles, etc.), awards, banners & signs, and most recently conference printing.

By the way, no, you don’t have to be a tall girl to work with us. We have several clients who are short boys.

Glad to be the first comment for this post!
First I want to say Christine is a master at connecting with others. ..and I’m sure this skill is helping generate a flood of copyrighting jobs! Is it just me, or do so many other bloggers seem hollow when ‘networking’ and seem to treat it as a means to an end?

Anyway to briefly introduce myself I am a 23yo from Australia. Currently I’m working on revamping my drought relief/water conservation fundraising initiative for a re-release in the Australian summer. The new aim is to get a large network of bloggers to help raise money for the cause.

My name is Erik and I found your blog through Christine who commented (and even won a prize) through my personal blog. As mentioned, I have a personal blog where I discuss SEO topics, money making and general entrepreneurial topics. I’m 22 and live right near Boston, MA. I am also trying to connect with new people in the blogging community so feel free to stop by my blog and say hello!

I think I found Erik’s blog through a review here…anyway I think you write well and have subscribed to your feed since I stumbled on it.

Nice recent post on how long bloggers/entrepreneurs are spending online.

Hi, I blog about Business Opportunities and Ideas and when I’m not blogging I help small businesses get bigger. Just found your blog via a link from Erik Karey’s and am looking forward to reading more of it.

great idea, christine. i’m 29 yrs old and getting ready to launch my online bag company, durtbagz. we’ve take funny/quirky traffic signs and put them on tote and messenger bags. the signs are created by the general public and all of the bags are custom. i have a blog journaling my experience in developing this company from the ground up.
i started reading the blog for the daily quotes and quickly became a big fan (way before i won $50 for commenting:)).

Hi,

I am Khalid from INVESP consulting. I am currently based in Michigan, although I spend 80% of my time traveling to meet clients. I come from a software background. I worked on several .com sites for companies such as Motorola, Levolor, Frontier. The idea of invesp was born after I saw how much companies invest in their online sites with no real return on them.

When I am not working, I try to spend all my time with my wife and two kids! Oh, and I blog regularly at our blog http://www.invesp.com/blog

I’m glad you enjoyed the article, Christine. ^_^ Thank you very much for the link as well.

I am the account executive for infinFX LLC. We are currently developing an exciting piece of software, so I am busy from the time I wake up to the time I sleep. Start-ups aren’t easy, but nothing of worth ever is, eh? My blog covers marketing, business and self development mostly, with blurbs of other stuff. I am always looking to network, so feel free to contact me everyone.

I’m 22, and I really don’t get out as much as I should anymore. My daily routine is consists of eat, email/blog/rss, work, eat, work, work-out, eat, work, email/blog/rss, sleep. Pain before pleasure, as a good friend of mine says.

What an interesting business Kimberly! What business doesn’t need what you’re offering! It seems like you’ve got a very diverse base of clients – do they all find you online or do you attract customers in other ways as well?

Thanks for sharing and it’s great to meet you!

Well thank you Andy I think connecting is all about having a genuine interest in others that is difficult to contain.

Thanks for the update on Fill the Dams! I saw your post about the hiatus and was wondering if you’d be back with it. I think this is such an amazing project – and that you are incredible for taking it on. Thanks Andy – keep us updated on the progress!!

Erik, I enjoy following your journey through entrepreneurship on your blog very much and appreciate your transparency with sharing goals and earnings – and of course, the cartoons!!

Agreed – great post Erik. I was surprised that so many people are spending less than 8 hours online! I feel like I fall into the red zone of your chart on most days….

What a great blog you have – I just subscribed to your feed – Nice to meet you John!

LOVE the images on your bags Erin. I truly appreciate that you are blogging your experience along the way of building your company and enjoy seeing how things progress.

Hi Khalid! I found your blog a few weeks ago and have enjoyed it very much – lots of great info! You are so right, there are definitely an overwhelming number of sites that just “exist” but are not generating any return. I suspect you’ll be busy for a very long time…

Hi Matt! You are so right, nothing worth doing is easy. I have a feeling that you – and all of you guys over there at InfinFX will certainly see payoff for your hard work.

Thanks, yes, just about every company uses advertising specialty products. And so my clients are very diverse. Although there are some industries who use promotional products more than others and in greater quantities.

Actually Christine, most of my business comes from referral. I also have an extensive database that I have built over several years from both networking and my clients & prospects I had when I was a sales rep in the printing industry. So far I have not gained a single client on line. That is absolutely fine with me. I want clients who appreciate the personal service and attention I give. I feel that it’s possible that on line leads may just be looking for the best deal. But I could be wrong.

You make a fantastic point here Kimberly about referral business. I wonder how much people are spending on boosting their referral marketing vs. spending on trying to attract new customers.

It makes more sense for most business models to designate a significant amount of the marketing budget to increase referrals since referrals have a much higher conversion rate than any other type of marketing. However, I suspect that most businesses are spending next to nothing to increase referrals. It’s interesting that you bring this up, because we’re getting ready to launch some monetary incentives for subscriber referrals.

You’ve really got me thinking Kimberly… I have a feeling I’ll be pondering this topic all weekend!

Hi Christine,

I just came across your blog via MyBlogLog and liked what I saw so started poking around. (I use MBL as a tool to search for blogs to share on either BoDo or DWB.)

To introduce myself – I’m a designer turned project manager blogger. I mainly blog at Designers who Blog and BoDo: Business of Design online. Mostly from sunny Bangkok, although this has been a crazy year for travel.

Thanks for the intro invite, I’m sure to be back.

cat

What an incredible resource your blog is Catherine! I’m glad you stopped by and look forward to hearing your ideas in future discussion!

Travel is a big goal of mine – do you travel for business? If so, how have you organized your business to involve travel? How exciting!

Christine

Thanks Christine. I used to travel for business and pleasure but these days it’s more pleasure. And since I do most of my work online, I can work where ever I find myself. Well, there are some countries which are more difficult than others when it comes to getting connected, so I do have to plan around this happening.

Hello Christine

Ditto what everybody else just posted… I don’t know you but i have a pretty good feeling you now what your talking about..:) and that’s just the kind of info i was looking for…(beings i am new to this whole thing and an old guy etc…)
http://www.invesp.com/blog/blogging/how-much-should-you-pay-for-a-freelance-blogger.html
(is this ok to do, put kahlid’s link here?

well, if it isn’t just delete me but if it is, I’d like you to take a look at this post and let me know if you would have any interest in a meeting of the minds..??

and, by the way… Hello, I’m Bob:)