If you live in the U.S., at the end of October you'll be preparing for a stream of young children to come to your door on Halloween. One by one or in groups of friends, they'll ring the bell and shout, "Trick or Treat".

To avoid having them actually play a trick on us, you bribe these youngsters with a selection of mini candy bars. You could offer them healthy treats like apples or small boxes of raisins or you could try something novel like telling them a favorite joke, but most young children are on a mission. They want to fill their plastic pumpkins and pillowcases with candy as quickly as possible.

You may not be a fan of sugar-based diets, but if you enjoy seeing all those undersized fairy godmothers and ghosts and goblins on Halloween, you'll indulge them and dole out one candy bar after another. Your costumed customers know what they want. If they don't get it from you, they'll go next door.

This Halloween strategy can also help you grow your business. Want to get a steady stream of customers coming to your door? Want to avoid having potential clients go next door? Offer them a free treat! It works to get children ringing doorbells and talking to adults whom they barely know, and it will work for your business.

What kind of treats will bring in your prospects? Probably not Snickers Bars or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, delicious as these are. The answer depends on what you sell and what your prospects want. For example, if your prospects want to:

- Improve their finances - offer them a free guide or a workshop on ways to make more and save more money.

- Sell their home - give them a guide to maximizing their profits.

- Increase their physical mobility and avoid pain - give them tips on ways to improve their posture and strength.

- Get better results with their advertising - give them a guide to writing ads that get a better response.

If you know what your prospects want, you can pull them in like kids at Halloween with the right treat, free report or workshop. Using this strategy on the Internet, you can attract hundreds of qualified prospects each month to your business.

Over twenty thousand people currently subscribe to my weekly marketing newsletter. Each of them signed up in response to my offer of a free marketing guide. And this free marketing guide continues to attract over a thousand new subscribers each month.

Marketing Tricks to Avoid

Some companies think that tricking people into trying their services or products is a clever way to attract customers.

phone companies and credit card companies offer low introductory rates that are subject to steep increases a few months later. Some small businesses make wild promises that their services and products don