Hit the net and see what business you can drum up.

Look for free opportunities to get your business out there. As people get tighter with their money, they'll want to trust who they're dealing with. Look through your networks, and look for lists and other places to post your business. Craigslist is the obvious one, but there are others.

Also, keep an eye on review sites, and see what people are writing about you.

We run a third party logistic company in a city of about 40,000. We do have the benefit of having many tourists come into the area and attending expos. Although a smaller company, we are the only on like it in the area and we're still able to turn a minor profit in our first year. What advice does anyone have to generate new business for the upcoming year

Check out 40billion.com, which focuses on entrepreneurs and helping them to raise money for their small businesses through friends and family, rather than through traditional financial institutions. It is the first friends-and-family funding network for entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs connect with their social networks - friends, family, friends of family, colleagues, and others – to raise capital by requesting loans and contributions, and entrepreneurs can share their fundraising pages on MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn too.

Check out http://www.40billion.com

The outlook of the economy is weak at best, but there are still many opportunities out there. This is the time to buy. Labor is cheap, businesses are hurting.

I even just did a story on young entrepreneurship and how more and more students are forgoing the corporate world to start their own businesses.

http://grantdeken.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-network-for-young-entrepreneurs.html

The one thing that I have done with company is pay cash, getting away from the credit cards helps me to stay focus on the in and out ratio. Since paying cash my profit and loss statement have never look better, taking the profit from all jobs I pay my employees with that have an emergency fund in place just in case we the credit card once purchase always owed. Better control of your cash flow helps to keep you in business.

Yes, the economy makes things difficult, but historically the American small business entrepreneur has been the most adaptive and capable. As entrepreneurs we need to stop seeing this as a problem, but rather, an opportunity. Rather than just cutting costs (I don't mean don't do it), change how you do business, change how you market, incorporate innovation into your strategies so your dollar stretches farther, expand into other markets. The ceiling may be coming down, but this economy has forced me to utilize rich media for marketing, it's forced me to do more guerrilla marketing, it's forced me to be creative. Any entrepreneur can do this, it's just a matter of taking the time to figure out how you can change to gain the advantage over your competitors. I'm really getting tired of this doom and gloom stuff. Let's suck it up and be the innovators we are.

I live in a moderate sized city of just over one Million. Back in early 2000 the housing market was booming at a very fast rate and over this past year I have seen everything from large business to small business closing their doors. I can see without a doubt what you are feeling all around. It's going to be a long road ahead.