When you work for an organization, there is a certain look that everybody has for their business cards and stationery (whether it’s good or bad).  But when you are an entrepreneur, then you can have business cards and stationery that look however you want them to.  Regardless of whether you currently work within an organization and have a side business or a business that you are building for when you leave your ‘day job,’ you want to make sure you have your cards and stationery that are ready to convey the professionalism and personality of your work.  Here are some ideas to consider:

Think about the paper you are printing your card and stationery on.  This includes the weight, the colors you choose, the fonts used, and so forth. You want both your card stock and your stationery paper to be something with a little ‘heft,’ rather than something flimsy.  It needs to be of substantial quality, although it does not need to be heavy.   Particularly if you are printing your own cards right at the beginning, the stock won’t be very thick since most personal printers can’t handle that without jamming.

Have your materials proofed by MANY others.  Don’t trust yourself or even a professional proofreader.  Check everything and then have at least 5 other people check every detail.  It doesn’t look good (to say the least) if you have to cross out or write over the top of something on your card because it’s wrong.  I’ve seen misspelled words, letters omitted from domain names, phone numbers that were short one letter, and more.  Eek!  It could happen to any of us.

Get various bids and opinions.  Before you go ahead and spend hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars getting your business cards, stationery, and envelopes printed by a professional, do two things:  1) Have your job big on by more than one company and 2) Give samples out to people you don’t know.  Ask them what they think.  It might hurt your feelings (I have had that happen before, i.e., having gone through various renditions of my logo and overall business look, there were times when people would say, “I don’t really know what this is.” I thought, ‘What do you mean you don’t know what this is?’ Then later on, as it got more and more professional, I started getting a better and very different kind of response.  Note:  Don’t ask if you don’t want people to tell you, but it is worth asking if you are interested in the feedback.  You might save yourself a lot of money.

Managing the impression that others have of you takes focus and reflection.  One of the easiest ways is to start with good quality stationery and business cards.  

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

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm)

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

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

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm)

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

If you are going to be making calls on colleagues, schools, businesses, individuals, vendors, or any other individual or group with whom you want to work, you might wonder what to take with you – and how not to spend a fortune on your materials. Here are some ideas to consider:

I recommend bringing the following:

• Business cards; people expect to receive a business card, so you want to have one ready to hand to your contact.        

• Document (flyer, handout, brochure, special report, pamphlet, booklet, fact sheet, or the like) that you can leave behind with the person. It needs to be useful and something that provides your contact information and an indication of what you do and/or who you are.        

• Your planner; you want to have this available so that you can schedule a time to call back, to set up a program, to visit with some students, to address a meeting, or whatever is appropriate. You want to help the person you’re visiting making some kind of commitment and you want to be ready to schedule that.        

• Some prepared questions to ask to get the person talking about whatever the issue is (i.e., the issue that is connected to your reason for calling on the person). You are in an inquisitive mode, not a full-on sales mode. You need to find out what his/her issues are and then see whether what you have to offer can help with that. And if there’s not a match between their needs and your skills and expertise, be a resource and recommend someone else or another service.

Whatever you take, make sure you have things easily accessible and organized so you’re not shuffling around in your briefcase or folder. Leave any excess “stuff” in the car and just have what you need. Everyone is busy and you don’t want to be wasting time trying to find what you brought with you. You want to be able to carry your materials with you in one hand so that your other hand is free to shake hands, get the door, etc. Fumbling around never makes the best impression.

When creating the materials you leave behind, you could use MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Publisher, Adobe Acrobat (or other PDF creator). Each of these products have something to say for themselves in terms of ease of use and functionality, but most often, I use Word, especially when it’s just a one page flyer. SIMPLE is what to keep in mind (vs. cluttered).

If you don’t want to create your own materials, you could post the job on on Elance or Craigslist, but before doing that, you can always just give it a try to create your own materials. Just agree with yourself to spend an hour on it and see how it looks. Your flyers and materials need to be correct and informative, not perfect. I remind myself of this often.

Remember, we all need to be aware that we are marketing ourselves–and so the more people can get to know us, the better it is.

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

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm)

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

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh

When starting a business, how much letterhead and how many business cards do you think a person should start with? The big “breaks” in cost seem to be at 2000 sheets of letterhead and 1000 business cards.

Here are my thoughts, based on owning 2 small businesses and coaching numerous other entrepreneurs.

Someone can go through 2000 sheets of letterhead in a big hurry – so don’t worry that you’re going to be burdened with too much. You can use it for marketing, invoices, cover sheets on handouts, etc. This will help you get your “brand” out there and will help you use lots of the stationery, so don’t worry about having some kind of giant stash that you’ll never use up.

And, in case you are worried that you want to change something about your stationery, your business cards, or your other materials, having 2000 sheets to start wit is not so much that you are going to be stuck with something that is out of date, incorrect, or that you don’t care for.

With business cards, if there is a significant break at 1000, then you might as well get that many – and then DON’T BE SHY (or stingy) about handing them out! Whenever people get new business cards, it’s as if we think we have to hoard them. The opposite is true! We need to be giving them out freely, leaving them various places, carrying piles of them with us, going to networking events and having them ready to give to those who ask, etc.

Once you have definitely established your brand and you know that your stationery information and format (including address, website, email, and other contact information) are fairly stable, then you can go for one of the higher price breaks (5000 sheets if you do a lot of direct marketing), but until then, 2000 is a gracious plenty.

Having professionally-designed stationery (including business cards and possibly envelopes, too) is one of the ways you can let others know that you’re serious in your business. It’s not just a hobby, it’s a career, a job, a calling, a passion, a business.

If you want additional ideas for moving your small business forward, be sure to consult the Life of E’s blog:

http://meggin.com/lifeofes/wordpress/

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

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm)

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

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh

Obviously, if you work in an area where some other language besides Spanish is also prevalent, then consider having that language represented on the second side of your card.

Just an idea.

I am in the process of buying a logo on elance.  My logo is in color – but I plan on getting colored business cards.  Do I need to ask for a different logo that would work with the color of card I want – or can the printer I choose play with the font colors, etc. without permission from the original artist?

Posted by Jeni Blakely | 7/7/07

Answer:

First answer is:  If you know what color you want your business card to be, then let your Elance designer know that so s/he can design cards that would show well on a colored business card. 

Second answer is:  Be sure to ask your elance designer to send you your logo in as many formats as possible including the following:  jpg, eps, psd, pdf.  There are others, but these are some of the main ones.  Make sure the designer knows that you intend to use your logo in a number of places and need to have the most options available in terms of how you (or someone else) can manipulate the design. 

Third answer:  You own the logo, so once you have it, you can make the changes you need to.  So that’s why you want to get it in different formats–that way you can manipulate it. 

Does this answer your question?  If not, ask more.

Thanks, Jeni!

Meggin

Posted by: Billy Simms | June 24, 2007 at 11:54 AM

Answer: