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The Secret of the $1000 Business Card

 

When I was a freelance graphic designer, I tried just about every trick in the book to get work. Especially in early 2002 when our economy was in a slump and the market was saturated with laid-off graphic designers. I spent a lot of time at Elance & Guru.com, went to Chamber of Commerce meetings, set up a website, networked, and I even did some cold calling when I got really desperate for leads. I didn’t like spending money on marketing, but when I finally got a great paying gig and I couldn’t avoid the inevitable anymore.

My business card sucked.

OK, maybe sucked is a little harsh, but I was a graphic designer. The last thing I wanted my business card to do was convey a message of “meh.”

And my business card was 100% “MEH.”

So I decided to spend some money on business cards. And not just any business cards. I wanted nice, full color cards on premium recycled stock that would make the recipient say “Wow”. I spent weeks designing them. And I knew they would cost me a small fortune, especially back then when quality on-demand short run printing didn’t exist.

Small fortune indeed - my bill was around $1150.00. But you know what? My new cards were effing gorgeous. They were a mini brochure that folded up to the right size with a perforated traditional business card on the end.

My effing beautiful business cardWhen I started handing them out to people, they said “Wow.” Some people even put them into a special holder away from the other business cards they had collected because they didn’t want my card to get lost. People requested extras, they started conversations, and people remembered me because of them. And yes, I was able to attribute getting at least two projects directly to the great impression my business card made on a prospect.

My graphic design business never made me rich - it gave me a good part-time income while my children were little and while I went through my last pregnancy. So $1150 was a LOT of money to spend, in fact, it was the most I ever spent on anything related to marketing.

But after I did it, I wished I had done it in my first year of business. I wondered how many potential clients liked me, but wondered about my talent when they saw my old card. I wondered how many cards I could have had in circulation over that time, pre-selling my talent and services for me.

And I wondered if I could have prevented my 2002 business slump if I had paid more attention to appearances when I started out in 2000. My answer to that today would be yes.

Today, you might not ever do any business in person, and you might not even have a business card. But you have a website, a blog, or a profile somewhere like Elance or Freelance Nation. You have more opportunities to get a “Wow” from a potential customer than ever before. But are you still on BlogSpot? Is your headshot taken in a bar? Did you throw together a profile on a freelance marketplace site and say to yourself, “I’ll get back to it when I have more time”?

You might not probably will never know what business you have lost if you can say yes to any of the above. And maybe you haven’t ‘lost’ any business at all. But I can tell you that if you had a website, portfolio, blog, or profile that made people say “Wow” in the first 2 seconds, then you will get more business.

You don’t need to be a selling yourself as a designer for this to apply to you - people want to hire professionals who will make them or their company/product look great. If you can’t do that for yourself, how do you expect them to know you can do it for them?

Got your own $1000 business card, or other big investment that has paid for itself over and over again? I’d love to hear about it!

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    Comments

    1.
    On February 12th, 2008 at 8:18 am, Andrea said:

    That’s a rockin’ card there.

    And you’re giving me a needed kick in the pants.

    Andrea’s last blog post..The living room is clean

    2.
    On February 12th, 2008 at 10:08 am, Katherine Reschke said:

    Wow - that IS a beautiful card! The challenge is making the right choices as it is easy for a new business to become a total money pit.

    Katherine Reschke’s last blog post..Don’t make it easy for hackers.

    3.
    On February 12th, 2008 at 1:03 pm, CatherineL said:

    Hi Wendy - Those cards are lovely. Like you, when I built my first website in the 90’s I wish I’d been more professional. I even used a freehost - huge mistake. But, it seemed easier back then because there wasn’t so many websites and most of them looked equally ugly!

    We take branding a lot more seriously now and we have a great orange and blue logo which stands out, on business cards, paper, vehicles and all our other marketing materials. It really is worth it.

    But, now I’m having to look at professionally branding my blog. It started out as a hobby and it’s very basic. So, I’m having it completely redesigned.

    CatherineL’s last blog post..Are You Part of This Bungling Band of Bloggers?

    4.
    On February 12th, 2008 at 1:56 pm, Cory Huff said:

    When I was in college I spent about $500 on getting a voice over demo done (I’m an actor). $500 is a ton of money for a college student, but it totally paid off. The studio that did my demo liked me enough that they called me in for something like eight projects over the next few years.

    What big investment would you recommend for up and coming bloggers that would pay off in big dividends?

    5.
    On February 12th, 2008 at 9:45 pm, Barbara Rozgonyi, Wired PR Works said:

    Wow - Wendy! That’s gorgeous.

    Yes, you invested $1150, but you saved all of your graphic design expenses. To me - totally worth it.

    When I started my business in 1990, I traded services with a graphic designer in my playgroup. From the start, my business stood out as established amd professional.

    I just reordered my business cards and stayed with the same design from 3 years ago. The designer’s a friend who serves the high-end artsy-luxury market and specializes in building brand equity.

    Investing in your identity is always a good move. First impressions matter. Thanks for the reminder to be a stand-out from the start!

    Barbara Rozgonyi, Wired PR Works’s last blog post..New Viral Marketing Rules: Free Ebook Download from David Meerman Scott



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