I’m going to focus on just one specific area of a first impression and that’s your business card. In the vast majority of cases you will be giving your business card to the contact you’ve just made and it will become one of the enduring bits of information that your new contact has on you so it’s important that it does the job you want it to.
We all meet numerous business contacts and so have looked at hundreds of business cards over the years so you know how easy it is to make a poor impression if your business card just isn’t up to the job. I’m absolutely not advocating that you need to spend money on fancy embossing and other techniques to make your business card stand out but there are some easy steps to take to make sure you aren’t remembered for the wrong things plus helping the information on your business card to be far more compelling.
Take a minute to think about the type of impression you want to leave and then answer three questions…
- How do you want to come over? This will vary depending on your business and on your personality, but it is very important to know what impression you want to leave.
- What action would you like your new contact to take?
- Is your current business card a good reflection of your business & personality?
If your current business card is not doing the job you need it to do then here’s my tips for making it work better for you.
1) A simple one to start with…don’t go cheap! Cheap business cards tend to be printed on thinner card and simply feel cheap so they do not leave a good impression at all. I totally appreciate the need to manage cashflow but there are loads of printers who do very reasonable business cards that are not hugely expensive. A cheap business card leaves a very poor impression.
2) Use the right words. You don’t have a huge amount of space on the average business card so make the words you use count. Think about your USPs and the value you deliver through your products/services, and write a more compelling statement of what you do rather than your job title. In most cases your company name will inform the reader about what you do so you can be more value focussed with the descriptor of what you do. I’ll give you an example…I know loads of accountants. The average accountant business card says the company name (which will have accountancy or similar in it), the person’s name, and then under that will say their position/job title which will be “accountant”. One accountant that I know very well has a strap line of “We’ll save you more in taxes than you’ll pay us in fees” so a compelling card for her would say
We’ll save you more in taxes than you’ll pay us in fees
Samanatha Kemp
Trinity Accountants
Which is far more compelling than
Trinity Accountants
Samanatha Kemp
Accountant
3) The right info. You’ll be surprised how often people miss off some of their contact info. Most people like to use email so absolutely make sure your email address is on the card.
4) Use the back! Use the back of your card to help generate you enquiries. Now you can’t regurgitate your website onto a small piece of card but you can do something compelling with it. Talk about the value you deliver (don’t waste it on features!), use it for a testimonial that really sums up what you do, have an irresistible offer on it, use it to drive people to your website, have a call to action on it to get sign-ups for your newsletter and so on. Mine currently has a list of questions on it that if you answer yes to them makes you an ideal potential client.
5) Get social. The majority of businesses use social media to engage with their target audience. Do you? I bet you at least use LinkedIn. Include a call to action to connect/follow etc so you can easily continue to propagate the discussion with them.
You probably won’t be able to include everything I have just mentioned as you are limited on space but think about the most important elements to include for you. Here’s the front and back of my current business cards so you can see what I do.
Take action today and review your business cards.
