My engineering business survived and prospered by focusing on a very tight niche. That niche was the permanent point-of-purchase display industry. We designed and engineered all sorts of interesting consumer diplays. We made displays for Xbox, Playstation, Addidas… etc.

So… Bob (the key employee who eventually bought the business from me) and I traveled to the annual “Global Shop” trade show one year. Now, you’re not supposed to hand out marketing material unless you spend the 10’s of thousands of dollars to have a boothe at an event like this.

But… we decided to ignore that little rule! Get a load of what we handed out instead of boring business cards:

Yep… they were a HUGE hit. One one side, the handout looked like a stack of $100 dollar bills. And on the other side was an actual coupon worth $1,000!

Needless to say, Bob and I had a great time at the show and we made a TON of awesome contacts that turned into a lot of new business.