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Archive for June, 2010

Effective Marketing Using Business Cards

Friday, June 25th, 2010

A good businessman or businesswoman can expertly use a print business card for marketing with themselves as the center. Yes, printing business cards is of course about you! It is about selling yourself, and your company. Use yourself as the advertisement for your products while your custom business card seals the deal. In this article you can learn about seven habits you should learn to use your business cards for marketing yourself and your products.

Everyone is a contact

The first thing you should learn is that you don’t have to use your business card sparingly. You don’t even have to give them ONLY to people who you consider as a business contact. Everyone is a contact. Give them to your family, your brother, sister and the folks too. In fact for family, it is better to give them two or more so that they can give it to others. Give them to your friends, officemates, the lunch lady etc. The point here is to have your business cards spread, even circulate to other people. This increases the chances of a person discovering you as a new business opportunity. After all, a business card’s whole purpose for existence is to be given away.

Always have several handy

Never ever leave the house or office without a couple of business cards ready in your wallet. Many is the time business opportunities are lost because you forgot to give your business card to a newly made friend or business contact. That casual lunch out of the office would have probably been the best business deal of your life if only you had a business card for the client to remember you. So? Bring it!

Have a character

Always display yourself and your business card with a certain image or character in mind. You may be the suave salesman sweet talking your company to greatness, or you can be the respectable supplier who always has affordable stocks ready to go. Have your full color business card design show this character as well. Use its color, images, pictures and font as a tool to be remembered as a character proficient in a certain kind of business. You can even add a slogan or tagline to your color business card to further internalize your characterization. Doing this makes you easily remembered. You can be known as the “silver tongue of sales” or the “supplymenator.”

Give and take

When you are given a business card, always be ready to give yours back. Also, if you give a business card, politely ask if they have their own so that you can remember them. It is a great habit to always look appreciative when gaining a contact. This tells people you are interested in them, and you are not just selling yourself.

Insert them in greeting cards and mail

Do you send greeting cards on people’s birthdays? Do you give everyone Christmas cards during the holidays? If you are mailing these greeting cards, try and insert your business card in there. Basically it is a minor form of direct-mail marketing. Who knows where your business card will end up when in the mail? It might get to someone important.

Print a lot

The habits above will mean nothing if you don’t print a lot of your business cards. Maximum distribution is key to marketing. So always have your business card printing company print business cards for you in mass.

The Right Office Furniture

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Office furniture is about comfort, functionality, appearance and value. These things apply to both home offices and traditional business work environments. Granted, many people settle for furniture that gets the job done, and that works. But, with a little thought and effort, the workplace (wherever it is) can be enhanced with the right selection of office furniture.

Office furniture should, first and foremost, be comfortable to use. Anyone who works at a desk knows the importance of this aspect. The right chair means finding one that can be adjusted to adequately fit your specific body. The right desk means it is big enough for the tasks at hand, has adequate drawers and / or cubbies, and has enough leg room for you to work with a little freedom. A desk that is too small for your chair and legs to maneuver under properly is frustrating and annoying. Work in comfort and you will be more productive, and certainly more content.

Functionality of office furniture means it actually does what it was designed to do. Store lots of books, manuals, and software? Then make sure your bookshelf can handle the weight. If your desk has a credenza to go along with it, make sure that it is a height you are happy with. Turning from a task on your regular desk to one on your credenza should be seamless. Side tables, conference tables, end tables, and all sorts of other surfaces need to be at good heights. If at all possible, find units that can be adjusted to suit different people. Keeping everyone happy can be quite a challenge when you are buying for an entire office, but this sort of effort will help.

Of course, office furniture that looks great is not only nice, but in many office environments, is essential. You don’t want your place of business to make you look sloppy, tacky, cheap, or just plain lazy. I admit a bit of hypocrisy on this point, as my work area tends to look like a tornado just went through. The point is, find pieces that look good to you and represent the type of feeling you want to portray to your employees, clients, or most importantly, your spouse! Finally, office furniture should represent value. A $20 particle board desk may be a great value for a college kid who just needs something to get her by. Great. No problem. However, that same desk would not be a good value for someone with a greater demand for functionality and appearance. Value is purely subjective, so give it some thought at least.