Impression Management – Business Cards & Stationery – Don’t Wait

Posted on September 14th, 2009, by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D.

As a professional, in whatever field, you need a business card and some stationery. Here’s a BIG tip for you:

Do not wait until you have a fancy logo to get some cards and stationery. This is often a procrastination technique and a way that people justify NOT getting their stationery done because they are thinking, “Well, I don’t have my logo yet.”

The truth is, you need to have a business card. For a stand-in until you have something snazzy, you can go to Kinko’s, Office Max, or Office Depot (and the like) and buy the plain old cards you can run through your printer. Get the ones that are ivory, cream or white cardstock and that are already scored for tearing into business cards. Put your name, contact information and so forth on there and print up a few. Believe me, that is better than not having anything.

There is one networking group I belong to – eWomenNetwork - and I can’t tell you the number of times that people come to the event (which has as its whole mission for women to network with one another). There will always be someone there who says, ”I don’t really have a card. Let me just write down my stuff on a piece of paper” and then she grabs some scrap of paper out of her purse and scribbles down her information. This does not leave a great impression, unfortunately.

Even just having a plain white business card gives you something to hand out and say, “I’m just waiting for my final ones, but this has all the important contact information you will need.” The same holds true with the stationery: You do not have to have fancy stationery; you just have to have something (besides notebook paper) so that when you are sending letters, thank you notes, inquiries about a product, marketing letters, or any other type of professional correspondence, that has your name, contact information and so forth.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll give you some additional tips to keep in mind, but I wanted to convey the ideas FIRST that you need to have something, long before you have something ‘perfect.’

Often it’s just the simple ideas that help us give the right impression of ourselves and our businesses. And if you want additional ideas for moving your small business forward, be sure to consult other articles on this Life of E’s blog where we have topics ranging from money to productivity to speaking to writing to coaching to business set-up and more are featured there.

And, to make sure you are productive in your personal and professional life, you’ll want to access the resources at

**http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com

Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do via seminars, workshops, writing, coaching, & consulting. www.meggin.com