“My, what a lovely and unique card you have.”
One of the things I recommend to people for networking purposes is to always, ALWAYS ALWAYS carry business cards. It’s a simple way to be prepared for unexpected connection opportunities. But what if you don’t have a job? Or what if you’re looking for a new one? Or maybe the person you met is really more of a personal contact and you’d prefer not to use your job’s card?
Well, duh, get personal cards printed. It’s so cheap to do it that there’s really no excuse not to.
A lot of people go with VistaPrint because you can get cards for free there, and that’s an okay option. If you do that, though, please just suck it up and pay the extra $10 to have the VistaPrint ad removed from the back of the card. Please. The ad makes you look JV. The other hazard is that the free designs look like… well, they look like you got your cards for free.
So consider other options for the card you give people to remember you by. For those of you with Flickr accounts, a new service just launched that I can’t recommend highly enough. Moo.com’s Flickr MiniCards are little cards with your contact info on the front, and your Flickr photos on the back. You can get 100 cards for $20- 20 cents per card isn’t bad at all.
The Moo application is ridiculously well-thought out and easy to use. It uses the Flickr API to show you your photos in order in your photostream, by set, or by tag. You drag the photos you want into a holding area, and then the system shows you the crop area for each photo, and you just drag the photo around the crop area until you get the desired effect. The system is even smart enough to guess whether the subject of your photo is vertical or horizontal. For a usability dork like me, it’s heaven.
Then you order your cards, and your photos are evenly distributed across the hundred cards. So if you use 20 photos, each photo will appear on 5 cards in the set. Neat!
You’ll get free shipping if you order before the end of September, and they ship internationally (unlike some of the other Flickr photo products). Cheap, unique, and really beautiful. What’s not to love?
Get your cards, and get connecting.
September 20th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
I’m going to take your advice. I’ve been thinking of printing out business cards to make people aware that I will do PC Support house calls.
Any suggestions on wording? Here is what I’m thinking:
MY NAME
PC Support Professional, BS Computer Science
Specializing in Windows troubleshooting, home networking
PC Purchasing and repair
Call for an appointment:
MY NUMBER
Yes, It’s my first time making a business card
September 20th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Here’s the first revision:
MY NAME, B.S., MCP
PC Support Professional
Specializing in Windows troubleshooting, home/office networking
PC purchasing, requirements analysis, and repair
Call for an appointment:
MY NUMBER
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:40 am
Don’t Be Dumb As a Pile of Bricks? Get a Business Card?…
Few people bring smiles to a recruiter’s heart as much as Tiffany from Magic Pot of Jobs. She says the things many of us think but are afraid to say. In this case - what do you do if someone…
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:14 pm
How right you are Tiffany - I’m an entrepreneur, so I have to have cards with me perhaps even more than others. I one time initiated a deal with an advertising firm over 32-oz. beers - totally impromptu, but I handed out a bunch of business cards that day. A month later my company had signed the second-largest contract we’d ever had. Just shows you the power of having and carrying your b-card (and the power of big beers).
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Perhaps I’ll do a future post on the value of alcohol in networking. I’m a big believer.