Open any newspaper and you'll find mention of thousands of companies and products. Most typically, the same names are mentioned over and over—Sears, Old Navy, GM, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and the list goes on.

Many, if not most, of these stories relate some event or product these companies want to expose to a broad audience—earnings reports, new product releases, record sales for a particular product line, promotions, and a myriad other items, all reported as hard news.

And within the same newspaper, on the same page, you'll find some small companies you've probably never heard of. Of course, there is probably little in common between Wal-Mart and Joe's Handy Cleaners, except most all of the stories on the page were planted by the companies themselves.

Most midsize-to-large companies have long learned the value of the press release, but the vast majority of small companies haven't. The notion seems to be that, to make it into the newspaper, companies must have some momentous news to break.

But, by forfeiting the newspaper coverage to the "big boys," small companies are missing out on possibly the most dynamic form of promotion and lead generation there is—and it's free. And, after all, if it's in the newspaper, it must be important, right?

Press releases can help level the playing field for companies with limited budgets and resources. Various online distribution sites will release your press release for virtually nothing. A company called PRWeb will send out your press release to tens of thousands of potential prospects and thousands of media sites for as little as $80 (and as little as $10 if you're willing to take fewer perks)—and provide you will a full array of statistics to give you a good feel for the effectiveness of your press release.

If you supplement that with a faxed copy to your local media and a follow-up call, you can likely gain significant exposure for less than a nice meal. In addition, if your company operates on a local level only, you can direct your press release to only local distribution.

Of course, that still leaves the issue of what a small company can possibly say that is newsworthy. Actually, there's much that can be newsworthy. Have you taken on a new line of merchandise? Maybe you've just had an expansion? Possibly, you've just developed a new product or added a new service? Your company is about to have an anniversary? You're sponsoring an event, scholarship, or some other community-related promotion? All of these are newsworthy.

Still can't think of anything you would consider being significant enough to be picked up by the news? Possibly, you can create something.

Here's an example of a short press release I sent out:

Author Deconstructs Referral Selling Methodology

Houston, Texas (PRWEB) November 27, 2006: Leading prospecting and referral selling trainer and authority, Paul McCord, tears apart the traditional referral selling methods taught to salespeople by companies and sales trainers for decades and has reconstructed them into a systematic referral generation program that promises to change the way companies and salespeople relate to customers and clients in his newly released book, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007).

According to Stu Taylor, the award-winning host of the nationally syndicated radio program Equity Strategies, the book "is the most significant sales book I've read in quite sometime. It is simply the best book on client relationship selling I've ever read."

"What McCord has done is identify the most powerful way of gaining sales leads, taken it apart and re-built it into a powerfully more effective process," says David Straker, business methodology consultant, in his review of the book at ChangingMinds.org. "The joy that earns this book a rare five stars is the practical, thorough and innovative treatment of referrals that can have literally massive benefit to anyone, not just in sales, who wants to connect with valued other people."

According to leading sales trainer and New York Times bestselling author Frank Rumbauskas, the book will become "the authoritative work on referral selling and developing the client relationship because it is the most original, innovative, researched and detailed treatment of the subject. It really is a must read book for anyone in sales who is serious about their career."

"It has been obvious for decades that the traditional method of training salespeople to generate referrals, the 'do a good job and ask for referrals' method, is not effective," McCord claims. "I decided to find out how the true million dollars a year sales superstars generate their tremendous volume of referred business and how that differs from what the average salesperson, business owner and professional is doing. The differences in how each group relates to their clients and the way the mega-producers prepare their clients to give a large number of high quality referrals is amazing. I've simply taken the various techniques and strategies these big producers use and developed them into a systematic program so that any salesperson, professional or business owner can slip them into their own sales process."

"Companies and salespeople spend billions of dollars every year trying to generate sales leads when their single biggest lead generation resource is free and sitting in their computers—their current and past client database. The problem is there hasn't been an effective, proven, reliable process for mining that database for new business," McCord adds. "This is a highly detailed, personal and relationship driven process that turns those names in the computer into dollars in the sales pipeline at a fraction of the cost of other lead generation methods. The super producers do it and there is no reason everyone can't emulate their success."

The book is available in all fine bookstores and on-line at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell's, Wal-Mart and most other on-line booksellers. Additional information on referral selling can also be found at McCord's referral selling website https://www.powerreferralselling.com.

That relatively short press release was created when I didn't have anything "newsworthy" to publish. However, I had book reviews and endorsements of the book and could convert them into a news story. I simply took things people had said about the book and formed them into a short story about the book.

And what was the "newsworthy" message of the press release? The introduction of a "new," endorsed process for converting current and past clients into lead generators that replaces an old, ineffective process, and could save companies millions of dollars while substantially increasing their sales. A weak premise for a press release? Certainly not the strongest I've ever had.

Nevertheless, I found more than 30 newspapers that needed filler—literally filler—and they decided that mine was the best at their disposal. And from my perspective, I couldn't care less about their reasoning; all I cared was that they picked up the release and ran it.

From this simple 545-word press release, the story was carried in 31 newspapers, mostly small regional and small city newspapers, but also one major daily; the coverage extended from New York to California—and India and the UK, to boot. Moreover, those are only the ones I know about. Numerous online news outlets also picked it up. In addition, I booked two radio and one print interview. And the cost? I'm cheap; it cost $10 to send this press release. What would advertising have cost to get the same exposure? I don't know, but I know I couldn't afford it.

Using all of the tools at your disposal can help you generate the business you've always wanted. Most of us are caught in the everyday drudgery of running our companies, and we forget to look at other possibilities to promote our businesses. Take a close look at your company and begin to send out regular press releases. Just keep them "newsworthy," short (under 500-600 words if possible), and regular—because it may take a few tries before you get bites from the media.

You don't have to have a PR agency or be a wiz at writing press releases—although, if you can afford an agency, it can substantially increase the value of the content and the reach of your press release. I wrote the abovementioned press release myself, and probably many of the professionals here are cringing at the very idea of sending out that release as it was written. Nevertheless, it was, from my perspective, effective—and dirt-cheap. The return on investment can really be out of this world.

This article is part of a series on lead generation written by Paul McCord.