business cards :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

At the end of the first post in this short series on putting your business cards to work I promised some thoughts on:

why it is a good idea to have your card designed professionally and
why you should not leave it all to the designer

Getting your card designed professionally

Over the years I’ve been in business I have used professionally designed cards and ones I’ve designed myself. I’m not a designer, so guess what? The professionally designed cards looked better.

One reason for that would be the fact that people who design business stationery professionally have probably had some sort of training as well as having a good “eye” for design. Another is that they probably have more appropriate software than I. A third is that they know how to lay out the artwork so that the printer can produce what is desired.

The exercise does not need to be expensive. Where it can get expensive is when you decide you want letterhead and other stationery items, which require more design and a bigger budget for printing.

As most of my correspondence is done these days via email and as I have used a lot of professionally designed stationery for general notetaking once the address or phone number or other details became out of date, I don’t bother getting those “nice to have but not essential for my business” items done any more.

The one exception is that I have experimented with some 8 inch x 3 1/2 inch thank-you cards, as a tool for networking follow up, as recommended by networking expert Bob Burg in his excellent book Endless Referrals.

As you can see from the picture above of one of Bob’s own cards, he goes for plain black and white. If you can’t set this up on your computer, your local printer should be able to set it up and print it, without your needing any elaborate design work.

Back to the business cards and design.

There was a time, early in my business career, when it seemed very hard to find a designer who would simply do a business card design: everyone seemed stuck in the mode of designing the “whole package”. Perhaps there is more competition these days, because I have found there are firms which are happy to provide an individually designed card and a respectable initial run, for a relatively modest cost.

I believe anyone wanting to be taken seriously as being in business is not well served by the kind of flimsy, “did-it-myself and only cost me $10″ card I’ve sometimes been handed at networking events. What that kind of card says is something like: “Please hire me because I have no capital and so little business I can’t even afford a decent business card”.

Ditto for the “free” cards: I doubt that everyone will agree with me on that, especially the people who provide them! But ask yourself, how effective will you be in negotiating professional fees if your card is one of those free ones? What message does that send?

On the other side of the coin there will be people – especially professional design firms – who say you should get a whole design package that integrates your offline, business card brand with the design of your website, blog and so on. Great, if that’s in your budget and you believe it will bring you extra business or help keep your existing clients.

But for what it’s worth – and thinking particularly about people just starting out with their home based business – I know from my own experience and the experience of others I’ve observed that it is quite easy to spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars on the design and printing aspect of your brand without that necessarily being immediately helpful in getting or keeping business.

Why not to leave the design of your business card completely to your designer

French statesman George Clemenceau once made an observation that morphed into the expression, in English, that “war is too important to be left to generals”. My adaptation is that design is too important to be left to designers. And while that comment might annoy some people, I suspect that smart designers will prefer an intelligent interaction with the client to the alternative of having a totally free hand.

The key point here is that it is your business and your brand. A designer can help you present that more impressively and more effectively, but it is ultimately your responsibility and mine to ensure that we present our businesses in the best way possible.

And while a very professional designer will be thinking about how your business card is going to be used to best effect, that should not be taken for granted. For example, will the key information on your card – your name at least – be able to be read easily when you hand it to someone at the beginning of a business meeting or at a networking function? And will anyone who does not have 20/20 vision be able to read it easily? I have seen more than one card with the details in such a tiny font size as to be hard to read, especially under not so bright lights, as is often the case in business or networking venues.

In such circumstances, given a choice of whether to peer at the card, trying to decipher what it says, or just pocketing it to study later, I’ll choose the latter. How much better to be able to say “Ah, I see you specialize in……… Just the person I’m looking for!”

It’s essential to have the discussion with the designer before she or he has done any work on the project. I’ve supervised a lot of design jobs over the years and found it next to impossible to get a designer to change their concept once they have presented it to you. The creative work has been done and the opportunity for detailed briefing on what you wanted has passed.

Of course, if you are just getting a business card done and as economically as you can, it is unrealistic to expect the designer to spend a lot of time on the briefing. My suggestion is to get the designer to show you other work they’ve done, pick what you think is closest to your idea of your own brand and then indicate what you would want that is different. If the designer doesn’t want to do that and tells you not to worry, they’ll come up with something, be concerned. Be very concerned.

What’s your experience with business cards?

Do you have a story to share about how you managed the process of getting your business cards right? Or wrong? A story about how a good designer helped you get what you wanted? Any tips to share for getting a design that works? Nothing potentially litigious and not just promo links please!

Is a business card an essential tool for doing business these days?

I certainly find them handy, both for giving people a way to contact me and for helping me learn more about people I meet in the course of business and, if appropriate, follow up with them.

But I’ve noticed lately that quite a few people I meet in a business context are not carrying business cards.

That has even happened when I’ve attended “networking events”. When there’s been a conversation that seems mutually interesting and there’s some indication it would be of mutual interest to stay in touch I’ve been given to handing them a card and saying, “email me”. Guess what? They don’t.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone said, “Look, don’t give me your card because I won’t follow up”?

Not that I take it personally – the whole thing just intrigues me, because for a long time I’ve thought of having a good looking and informative business card as an essential business tool.

Today I had a clue as to why some people, especially people who identify as “creative”, might not want to have a business card to give out, even though they are in business.

Singer-songwriter, public speaker and creativity consultant Christine Kane in her post The Reluctant Networker’s Guide to Business Cards says that for a long time she did not have a card.

I didn’t see the need for them. After all, I’m an artist. I have CD’s. I have a website. Isn’t that enough?

Eventually she decided it was a good idea to have cards as well.

Christine provides a set of ten tips on business cards. All ten are well worth the read.

Three that leaped out at me were:

“use your photo”,
“write notes on the back” and the related tip,
“one-sided cards”

Use your photo

I’ve had plenty of cards without a photo over the years, until about five years ago. On the basis of my experience I am convinced that having a photo is a better way to go. Otherwise we are expecting people to remember us just from our name and title or tagline.

Christine makes a particular point about the importance of having your photo on your card if you are networking with women:

Women remember faces and expressions. They relate to photos. If you’re networking with women, they’ll appreciate the extra touch.

It’s a good idea also to use a photo taken by a professional – or at least a skilled amateur! I was fortunate that my photo was taken by a top photographer who, no doubt because he is a friend of a friend and I had given him some paid corporate work in the past agreed to take some pictures even though, as he told me, he didn’t do “that sort of thing”, and nominated “a bottle of red” for reimbursement.

Write notes on the back

The advice to write notes on the back is not about our own cards but about how to ensure that cards we collect are more useful to us. The notes don’t have to be lengthy, just a memory prompt.

For example, riffling through some cards today I noticed one from someone I couldn’t immediately remember meeting. When I turned the card over I found I’d scribbled on the back “at BWE – session with Merv Danziger and Toby Bloomfield”. So it was at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas last year at a specific session: if I wanted to check back on the program I could even pin down the exact time of day as well as the date.

On another card I’d written just “Byron 05/07″ which told me that I’d met the owner of the card at a presentation on business blogging which I gave in May 2007 at Byron Bay.

I’ve done this note-scribbling exercise too at “networking events” such as breakfasts: it only takes a few seconds and I’ve never known anyone to complain. Even if you have to ask someone to pause in their conversation with you, they are hardly likely to object. After all, you are treating them as being important enough to deserve a special note to remind you about them. If they do take exception, my advice would be to quickly find someone else to talk to who is more interested in genuine business networking.

One-sided cards

The related tip, to use “one-sided cards”, is offered by Christine for two nominated reasons, firstly that no one will read all the guff we are often encouraged by experts to put on the back of our cards (guilty as charged, your honour) and secondly to leave room for others to write their little memory-prompting notes.

Other tips

Christine advises also to use a matte finish, not a lacquered one, again so that people can write on the card.

I’m painfully aware of how a high gloss card can look good but work against you in a practical business sense.

Last year, getting some cards done for BlogWorld Expo and loving a bargain as we all do, I thought it would be smart to check the box that offered a gloss finish on both sides at no extra cost. Dumb move!

Even though people admired the card, I don’t think there is a ball point pen or other standard writing implement that can carve through that stuff for someone to be able to write a memory prompt about meeting me.

I don’t see a problem with gloss on the front but from now on I’m ensuring that the back of the card is more conducive to being written on.

Oh, and just one more tip from Christine that I endorse wholeheartedly, “Don’t add people to your newsletter list just because they give you their card”. Hear, hear!

It’s just not cool to assume that because someone shares their card they are implicitly asking you to send them, for the rest of your life unless you unsubscribe, your scintillating newsletter on holistic health, or accounting tips, or whatever your specialty is.

Another option, which I find more acceptable and which avoids being tagged as a spammer, is to send the person a “good to meet you” email and if you wish to include a link which they can use to subscribe to your newsletter.

In the next post in this series I’ll share some thoughts about why it’s a smart idea to have your card designed professionally and why you should not leave it all to the designer.