Does Your Business Card Suck? Five Valuable Tips!
First, my research, with apologies to “Harper’s Index”. I collected business cards for door-prize drawings at a recent speaking engagement, “Sales for People Who Hate Selling Selling” in Las Vegas.
Number of cards collected: 144
Cards having no email address: 17
Cards having no email address and no phone number, only web URL: 1
When visiting URL on card above, number of phone numbers on site: 0 (really!)
Cards written on a piece of scrap paper: 10
Number of cards with both email address and phone number: 101
Cards having no contact name: 1
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Now for some advice, in no order of importance.
1. Hire a designer. You are not a designer! If you think Times is a wise choice of font, or Arial, or Courier, or Verdana, you’re mistaken.
2. At minimum, your card should contain your name, company name (or logo), your phone number, your email address, and finally, your URL. There’s no need to clutter up the card with your snail mail address. White space is your friend, any designer will tell you that. Because you have extra space, don’t feel compelled to fill it.
3. Be wary of type set in a hard-to-read font, or type that is too small to read easily.
4. Use heavy paper stock, or better yet, an alternative material such as plastic or metal. If your cards are printed on Epson photo paper, go stand in the corner.
5. If you don’t hear, “Wow, nice card!” when you hand someone your card, it’s time to order new cards.
If your budget is too tight to hire a designer, a great source of cards is Moo Cards. They’re awesome because you order them in decks of 50 and each card can have a different image on the reverse. I suggest you present a stack of them, fanned out to show the image side of the cards, and watch what happens. People will invariably look at many of your cards in an effort to pick an image they like. You’ve not only handed out a card, but you’ve shown that person your portfolio. It’s a great opportunity to talk about your work too and show your value (or differentiation) to a potential client! Good luck.
I am a Detroit people photographer, an SEO expert, and I speak about sales and negotiating to industry trade groups worldwide. Program information is available here. Contact me for booking information.
groozi.com is a blog about negotiating and web marketing. Weekly posts are written primarily by me, Blake J. Discher, a 
1 Comment
Headshot Photographer
about 11 years agoAmazing! Whew, I breathed a sigh of relief when I looked at my card. I'm good.