Las Vegas - SGIA presented its first-ever Pre-Expo Business Development Conference on Tuesday, October 12, the day before the 2010 SGIA Expo floor opened. This exclusive half-day educational program showed specialty imaging companies how to drive sales in today's competitive marketplace.

Best-selling author of the popular Guerrilla Marketing series, Orvel Ray Wilson, CSP, opened with his session: "Guerilla Selling: Seven Strategies to Double Your Business." Wilson discussed why it's better to be different than to be the best and simple ways to get above-average performance from every member of a sales team in the standing-room-only session.

"It's critical to build confidence in your customers," says Wilson. "Some key things to remember is to really do what you say you're going to do, expedite everything and to invite customers to visit your site so you can really show them what you can do."

"We're just getting started in the garment decorating industry and as a newer company, we are really glad we came to this session. We definitely came away with valuable marketing examples from the industry panel," said one attendee in the garment session.

Heather Lutze, author of "The Findability Formula: The Easy, Non-Technical Approach to Search Engine Marketing," finished the day with a powerful presentation about social media tactics to get your Web site ranked higher in search engine results. Attendees came away with an inside look at how to use social media to expand business opportunities.

"Customers use social networks every day as proof that you are an expert in your field," says Lutze. "One of the fastest ways to find "findability" is to blog. By constantly updating your Web site, it will bring you closer to better search results on Google."