Friday, July 15, 2005

Your Business Card Is A Tool - But Not A Swiss Army Knife

Tom Kane has a good post on his Legal Marketing Blog about business cards. While a business card is a tool, it is not every tool. Your business card should serve to let people know how to contact you in the future. It should have your company name, your name, title, physical address, phone number, cell phone number (optional), email address and website. If you are putting your mission statement and every service you offer on your card, you are trying to make it a brochure. If you need a brochure, then have one printed. Leave your business card alone.

I have a pet peeve with people who only list their email address on their card and not the physical address. This is almost always done by those who work from home and do not want to let others know that they office from their house. Guess what??? By excluding your address you just told everyone that you work from home.

Some of those who work from home do not list their address for security reasons. Okay, then invest in a P.O. Box at your local post office.

I once worked with a lawyer who would not put his email address on his card. He did not believe in email as a legitimate form of communication, and felt it was annoying. He actually told me that "real clients prefer to call on the phone". The truth was that he was not tech savvy, and was trying to hide that fact. Guess what??? Everyone knew it.

Larry Bodine had another good post about business cards on his Professional Marketing Blog this week as well. It talked about how to let others capture information about their meeting with you to ensure proper follow up. It is a good post, and the pictures are worth a thousand words.

Remember, you want a professional business card that gets your information in the hands of prospects and others that you meet. It does not need to come with a toothpick and a cork screw (like the really good Swiss Army knives)

Have A Great Day.

Thom Singer
www.thomsinger.com

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