You Need to Be Easy

July 7, 2008 · Comments

Business Card I’m perpetually baffled when I see websites that don’t give me a sense of the human being behind them. I receive business cards by the ton at conferences, and I’m surprised when they don’t offer a great deal of value per square inch of paper. In fact, my own personal business cards don’t offer enough value, so they will be replaced eventually. People of Earth: make it easy for others to reach you and communicate with you.

About Pages

On your About page on your website, have a blurb about the company, if you have to, but then follow it up with a human, preferably with a picture. For every “we” site, you now need a “me” person on the site. Why? Because we do business with PEOPLE, not with corporations. The corporations give us branding and other legal constructs, but we buy from humans.

What’s important to go on that page otherwise? Two things: why should people care about you is the first. Second, here’s a hint: how do you want people to do business with you? What kind of business do you hope they do with you? (By the way, upon reviewing my About page, I’ll rewrite it tonight or tomorrow).

Business Cards

I think business cards need to be informative over clever. Clever is nice, and cheap is still icky, but if you’re not giving people enough queues about yourself, your business, your locale, and your contact particulars, it’s not going to get you to the dance. What should go on cards these days?

  • Name
  • Title (clever is okay, but remember this is another judgment someone is making about you)
  • Company Name (if there is one; if not, be you).
  • Phone number, specifically the one you hope people will call you on. I use my cell.
  • Email address. New world or not, email is still the way we tend to message folks.
  • Company URL (if you have such a thing)
  • Blog URL – this becomes more important these days, because you want to show your humanity, and/or what’s on your mind.
  • City/Town and State/Province information. I never used to have this on my cards, and even though I like being virtual, it seems that when professionals are looking at my cards, they follow up by asking where I work. When I show them my CrossTech Media cards, they immediately ask me where Canton is in regards to Boston. So that tells me they’re trying to anchor me in space.
  • Maybe a tagline about the kind of business you want to do with people.

What’s Your Take?

I’m curious to know what you think about this? How are you framing your about pages and your business cards? Are you easy?

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  • Great Post Chris!

    I just got some new cards in, but I'm not satisfied with them. Totally agree about adding in State/Country, we think we're global, but you still want that info to set a person in space in your mind. My new cards have my twitter and flickr info. I'm glad I did that.

    My latest batch came from a Hugh MacLeod cartoon at http://gapingvoid.streetcards.com/

    But, I've been really happy with the work, kickass customer service and even better the price at http://www.printsmadeeasy.com

    Grace
  • I completely agree with what you are saying when it comes to business cards. There are many times when marketing professionals and designers fail at creating something so simple. A business card is meant to be informative. My number one rule for business card design is the business name, your name, an email, and your tag line. You can even put some services offerings on there somewhere.

    When you are doing face-to-face networking it is EXTREMELY important for the receiver to remember what you do best. I could care less if you are a great designer. Are you going to alleviate my pain? Are you going to make me money?

    That is the bottom line.
  • Royal8
    This is a sword that cuts both directions. War and Peace is smaller than a few of the cards I have received lately. I would say that cards should be designed around their function. Contact, networking or both. Name, number and email are sufficent for me. Either you made the impression or not and if so I will remember the who, what, when, where and why. You just need to provide me the how.

    Why do I need ten numbers to reach anyone? In this era of Grand Central and virtual PBX systems. One number to rule them all.

    I do not care if you have ten phones, ten email accounts, I just want someone to answer the call so I don't have to leave Arrington another voice mail.
  • My boyfriend and I were talking about business cards the other day - we're looking forward to bar code scanning cellphones becoming more commonplace in the U.S. Hope is that these bar codes will become integrated with business cards and one easy scan will be translated into a deeper picture of who we are.
  • Ann
    Of course you would post this today, when I placed a new biz card order last night :)
    Our cards have a full-bleed logo with tagline and URL on the front. We've gotten many comments on our logo image as being very attention-getting for our target audience, so I think it's a great use of the real estate. The back of the card features a short description of our site, and then our name, email address, and twitter account.

    I hesitated including the twitter, but I had these printed for Podcamp Boston as well as general use. And I realized that if I met someone briefly at Podcamp and wanted to connect with them without a specific agenda, I would be more likely to send them a quick 'hi' on twitter first, as it is less formal than an email.
  • Hi Chris:
    Great post as always. My card is based on Twitter. It includes my avatar, name and URL. The hard copy actually has my phone number shaded like the "140 Character counter" on Twitter.

    I intentionally did not include my Twitter address, because I was concerned that when I hand them out Twitter could be down. :-)

    You can click my name to see my card, but I think you probably already have one. I guess I may need to update it to a FriendFeed style soon, but that beast ain't as pretty as our blue bird friend.

    Cheers,
    Dave
  • Great list Chris! One thing I would add for business cards is a little white space, so people can write notes on who you are, and what you talked about when you met.

    And if you use a service like OvernightPrints.com, make sure you don't get the UV coating as people will never be able to write on your card. I learned that the hard way...

    mp/m
  • I completely agree with your take on business cards. There are times to be clever and that's not one of them. A business card is meant to provide contact information. Make an impression with yourself, not your card. I haven't seen an over the top card, even if well done, that doesn't come off as cheesy.
    My blog is still new so don't hold my About Page against me.
  • I should also say that I like having my name be the biggest graphical element on the front of the card. Not for ego, but for eyeball/name recognition. In big fat business cards, the last thing I need to care about is your company. Because we, as humans, sort on name. Non?
  • This is great, Chris.

    Mike's right about the white space. Also, get uncoated paper, so your card is easy to write on. These are just a couple of my peeves.

    I've spent a few months working hard to make my website (jedsundwall.com) as clear as possible, saying exactly what I want it to say to people regarding my work and interests and nothing more.
  • This is so true, whenever I visit any site or blog, I look to the About Page, if it's a service type site, I think the About page is crucial because I want to see what they are offering explained in simple terms.

    Thanks Chris!
  • Great post and I would agree corporate sites need to get more personal. We have made the switch on our corporate website and it has definitely had a positive impact on our business.

    http://www.evolvingsolutions.ca/evolve/1007/who...

    Cheers,
    Chris
  • Great article Chris. I think that's what many of us need to work on. What we've been doing is trying to translate the card to a dynamic format (beyond hCard/vCard) on the web. You can see mine here...

    http://businesscard2.com/index.php/card/ad/lief...

    (note:only currently optimized for firefox)

    - Lief
  • Too true Chris! Time to re-invent the Business Card...what about cards in other culture? Like Japan, where giving a biz card is a very serious affair (it's so personal it's cool)...but don't dare write on a biz card in Japan; it's a major insult. In other countries too.

    Like your comment for the "About" section of a website too. In larger company sites, the head shots are so formal, the bio's so formal, we don't get a real sense of the people, and a company is nothing without real people...maybe in business we've put up so many walls?
  • That's definitely something to talk about: headshots. Formal headshots that look like Glamour Shots photos are a total turnoff. I don't mean that in the dating sense. I mean that in the "human relations" sense. Don't you agree?
  • I think the one thing people forget when they design business cards is that sometimes (if you are lucky!) you will not be the one handing out your card. If it doesn't communicate something about you, you are missing out. If you are a stiff, corporate entity, then a stiff, stuffy card makes sense.

    I own a small salon who's marketing position is "you can wear your pajamas and cuss." Stiff white cards with black raised letters isn't going to communicate that very well, is it?

    As to the UV coating: often you can get that on the front side only leaving the back for scribbled notes.

    And I also have had great experiences and results with printsmadeeasy.com
  • Whenever there is a discussion about business cards, I can't help but think of the wonderful scene from American Psycho, when the group of egocentric businessmen get together to compare typeset and colouring on their cards. Frankly I'm surprised that we still have business cards. I thought by now we'd solely be exchanging contact info online. I don't use mine all that often but there is something to be said for the personal statement that a good card makes.
    Chris do you think we will always have physical cards or will they migrate completely online?
  • As long as there is face to face networking we will always have business cards.

    Eventually traditional business cards will become extinct as the gen-y and millennial generations start taking over the business world.

    I wouldn't mind electronically sending my business card at a networking event but you need TWO devices to connect. Most in the small business world (the baby boomers) have yet to adapt the technology.
  • @Danielle - we meet people face to face. You could argue that we could wave our phones at each other, but that suggests a level of interoperability that doesn't even exist between different models within the same carrier, or different models within the same handset company. Because of that, oddly, paper is still the most efficient way for this particular type of exchange.

    Gimmicks are fun, but easy to lose. Tiny moo cards? I get about a hundred of these a year. I lose about 80. They slip out of holders, fall out of my pocket, blow away in the wind.

    One guy handed out fortune cookies where his contact info was on the strip of paper. Brilliant! Truly a gorgeous idea.

    Lost that "card" within seconds completely by accident.
  • Chris... What if you had a day job and a freelance Job at the same time.

    Or you had multiple jobs. I cant be placing every single job title that I have right?

    Could I just Have a Name & Contact Options at the front and Have a link of profiles at the back. Which then people could logon to know about you?

    The key questions here is, Is it alright not to have a job title printed on cards.
  • lewishowes
    This is a perfect description of what should be on your personal business card! Excellent post.
  • Spot on great article!
    Giving out your business card is like saying hello it should be done with a certain amount of decorum, by that I mean the design layout and feel give the recipient the first impression of you or your company, in the same way that people will judge you on appearance and the manner in which you speak. I am all for not judging a book by its cover, however we are human and that means we are all guilty of doing exactly that. I am fortunate that we print thousands of business cards each day, which means that I get to see a variety of different designs of business cards, from corporate designs to the local mobile mechanic. Some have clearly spent money on their design, showing off creativity and some have created their own master piece in microsoft word, most of the latter tend to be of poor design this obviously only based upon my own judgement, however it is these self crafted designs which often win us our most praise, I think it is something do with seeing your own design printed, laminated and delivered in those lovely clear plastic boxes that makes people email us with their praise. Lately I have seen 2 business cards that have really caught my eye, this strangely hasn't been down to striking design or colour but becasuse they have added that little something extra to their business card a simple personal note. Ill explain the first business card had the usual company logo, contact details etc... etc... but on the reverse was how the person liked their coffee it read 'I like my coffee with one and a half teaspoons of gold blend and a generous helping of milk, plus one sugar' I found this quirky and different and strangely nearly all the factory staff had passed comment. The second card was similar but below the contact details the customer had added their favorite colour and where they most liked to holiday which again to me created that break the ice conversation piece. So remember to give a little thought when designing your business to add that little something to make your business card memorable!
  • As far as business cards go - don't be too kitschy (sp?) with shapes and sizes. It's hard to fit an octagon in my wallet (which is where most of the cards I get end up), and if it doesn't fit, it ends up at the bottom of my purse....a place no one wants to be.

    Also do two-sided if you can afford it, even if you just put a watermark or logo and slogan on the back. that way in the shuffle of cards I can easily find yours even if it's flipped over.
  • Hi Chris, I never thought of having my blog url on a business card. But that's actually a great idea to both make you look human and promote it offline. Thanks for the tip!
  • Jaq
    Right now, I'm getting ready to print a new batch of calling cards. And it's taking a longer time because I wanted my card to stand out. Thanks for the tips. I'll keep it in mind while designing the cards.
  • a card is obviously a contact piece which, when you get down to it, is a marketing piece. therefore, shouldn't your card have a value proposition and include a call to action?

    my favorite cards are ones that have tips or other useful information that frame the value the card's owner provides. follow that up with a call-to-action to visit a website/blog for more tips...

    you turn a card with contact info into something that actually "works" for you.
  • Hi Chris,

    Read your business card blurb with some trepidation since I'm in final proof signoff now (and just did it about 10 mins ago - could probably still change if I found a huge gaping hole) -- so I go down your list.
    Did that; and that; and hey! - I did all this! External proof once again that I'm not an idiot! Success!
  • People definitely care more about where you are located in the "real" world than I usually expect. I even catch myself often asking people "where" they work geographically.

    Not disclosing your location seems to leave a hole in most peoples' mental maps of who you are.

    And it's not only business cards that do this, I wrote a blog post back in March called "Web Marketing Newbie Mistake #1: Hiding Your Location."
    [http://www.scottfox.com/2008/03/web-marketing-n.html]

    It talks about the many good reasons that people do (unexpectedly) want to know where your business is based, and how web site owners should turn their About Us pages into an asset by using their location to attract customers.
  • Chris -

    I've always been a fan of the cool biz card; read a long time ago in one of Gitomer's books - if someone doesn't at least say, "Hey, cool card." when you hand it to them - get one that does right away.

    Use every second of that 1st impression. From the confidence you exude in your eyes, the firm handshake and the "wow factor" in your business card.

    Unlike a lot of the readers here, I'm not looking for new clients...my philosophy for a new design was just something that stuck out from the rest of my industry & even from the other IT/Web people in my business.

    When that rare opportunity to hand one out happens - I want the recipient to at least pull the card out and look at our name again. Or even better - show it to a friend and say "Hey, check out this cool card..."

    http://twitpic.com/30ws/full
  • There is a great article on writing a strong about page for your blog / website at: http://www.skelliewag.org/how-to-write-the-perf...

    It's a critical anchor to everything else on your page. Thanks for the smart post, Chris!
  • I don't have business cards.

    I have contact cards that are simple yet elegant: a deep blue foreground with four lines. The top line, centered, has my name. The next line, centered, has my web address. And two left-aligned lines carry my cell number and email address.

    These are cards I mainly give to friends, networking contacts, and the like.

    I've yet to receive negative feedback.

    Google for "contact cards" or "personal contact cards" and you'll see other examples and best practices.
  • SO timely, Chris (and everyone whose comments I've read through!).

    I have had such a dilemma with business cards recently.

    The main thing was that my email addresss was very longwinded, based around the corporate entity I set up here. Plus it sent people to my corporate site, which doesn't reflect where I'm at, but does host information about our services my e-book and email sign-up.

    Now that I 'live' at my blog, I was not sure if I should have the corporate website, plus my blog... and I wanted to have my blog email address, as I'd designed it to be easily sayable and spellable.

    After much soul-searching (and picking the brain of my pet marketing genius) I've decided to go with my name (large and centred), my blog email address and my (one) phone number.

    On the back, the blog address, and my tagline.

    I just don't see the point of a physical address, these days (although I take the points above about people wanting to locate you).

    And on the issue of doing away with business cards, I'm based primarily in Asia, and it's vital to have a card. In fact, I have caught a cab across the city and back again just because I didn't have enough cards on me. Your card represents you, here, and without one, I'm basically not there!

    Thanks again for insight, and thoughtfulness.

    This is exactly the conversation I needed to have - and I got to have it with about 50 bright strangers...
  • Yes, I need to add a picture of ME on my about page. There's a picture there, but it's not of me. Which reminds me; I also need to get some current pictures taken...

    I like the idea of adding city/state information to the business cards. I ordered a new batch in March, and they're already outdated. But now I have some things to think about before I re-order. (like dropping the Twitter and Seesmic information, for one thing)

    @GracePiper - thanks for the link to Prints Made Easy!

    @Danielle - We'll always have business cards. People do still meet face to face. And when one goes to a convention or other some such gathering, collecting business cards and scribbling information on them is the best way to remember the folks one meets! I can't imagine something like business cards going to "online only".

    @Andrew Lightheart - I completely agree with your last statement there. :)
  • Very timely! I'm designing my business cards *and* reworking my website. :-)

    Originally I wanted to go with Moo cards, so I could have my art on one side; but it's good to know that unusual sizes can get lost. Now I see that Moo has business cards--so I may go that route!

    Totally forgot to add a tagline/quote to my temporary home-printed version.

    An as for "easy," I'm absolutely Victorian. **Off to add phone # and location to card design**
  • I always try to have something of value on the back of my business cards. My last card had a table showing useful conversions between number of steps walked, distance, time spent walking and calories used (we run a web based stepmeter logging service to help people lead a healthier lifestyle).

    My new cards I am working on at the moment for our web consulting service will have an offer of a free 1-hour web consultation that guarantees at least 5 concrete suggestions for improvement of the recipients website.

    I am thinking that I will also have another version of the card aimed more at existing clients with some SEO-tips on the back.

    I hope that gives some people some good ideas!
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