Essential Answers about Your Business Card

Having just returned from speaking for the American Disc Jockey Association (I love these guys!), I thought I’d review a few questions that keep coming up with entrepreneurs concerning business cards:Question: Why can’t I just put my website and not my e-mail address on my business card? After all, I want people to visit my site.Answer: If people want to contact you electronically, they want to do it quickly and easily. Making me go the extra step decreases your chances of turning prospects into customers. Further, I went to many sites after the conference and the only “contact us” information was a form. Again, do not make me do extra work by first getting out of my email program and then switching over to your site.Question: Should I use the second side?Answer: Business cards are inherently two-sided, meaning that precious real estate is going to waste if you leave the back side blank. This is your golden opportunity to sell! Add value in the form of a promotion (free glass of wine, free check order) or simply as a reminder: “your next appointment is….”Question: What do you mean by having a “scanable” business card?Answer: Many folks like me using CardScan to input and organize our contact information collected from business cards. Therefore, if your card doesn’t scan, it might never make it to my database resulting in lost business and referrals. Remember: People must remember you in order to do business with you.Question: What’s wrong with having an AOL, Gmail, or Yahoo email address?Answer: If your goal is to build your brand, you don’t want to be promoting someone else’s brand. And, these type of emails imply a “fly by night” mentality perhaps subtly communicating that you are just doing this business temporarily until a real job comes along.Question: If I have my own domain, can I use my first name and last name separated by an underscore?Answer: Absolutely not! Underscores are the kiss of death in emails since the hotlink feature automatically underlines the entire email address making it impossible to see. Further, hyphens, numbers and letters also lead to confusion. Make your email simple: liz@refirebranding.com. It’s perfectly OK to simply use your first name reinforcing your personal approach to business.Have more questions? Fire away!Until next week…..Liz