Hi all,
I was wondering if some of you could give me some tips on how to market myself and my eqiupment to local businesses. I have a DVX100, dolly, Kino Flo, etc and want to start doing local commercials, etc for my region.

Should I offer to do 1-2 projects for free in order to build my demo reel?

Most of the businesses down here hire "out-of-town" production companies to do their commercials. I want to change that!

Any tips and advice? Thanks!

You will definately need a demo reel, if you are up against established companies... even though they are out of town. So build your reel, first. Start with some low/no pay gigs. Or shoot some stuff on "spec" .

Slow and steady wins the race partner.

Building a demo reel as we speak Richard, thanks for the words...

Fight voraciously to get that first client.

Speak to the person at the cable company who sells the cable spot time to your client. If they sales person likes your work they'll send you leads. You'll get low budget stuff, but the cable company may send stuff your way because, you in turn, are getting the cable company business that might not otherwise buy the time because they may not have had affordable access to production.

Try presenting to neighborhood business associations also. That avoids the cold call hard sell problems and the presentation can give you legitimacy in the eyes of the individual business.

Shooting that "spec" commercial in a visable place. Small business folk might wonder up to you and ask what's going on. Next thing you know they're asking to see the results of your shoot.