How to Create a Business Card that Gets Noticed

Anyone can design and print a business card. But as you’ll know from experience, creating one that works its hardest for you is a little more effort.

As the owner of a small business, you will probably have seen hundreds of business cards in your time. Often they are handed out like confetti, whether or not people want them (a mistake to avoid yourself, since it doesn’t exactly enamour people of you). Many of these cards will be about as substantial as confetti – poor print on cheap, thin card that lasts as long as it takes to crumple them into your pocket. Others will fall down on design – cluttered or badly-placed text that just doesn’t look right. Then there are just a few that look and feel really professional. These kinds of cards don’t just happen by accident. Their owners work hard on them to give the right impression, and the time, expertise and pride that goes into them can make all the difference to the people who receive them. These are cards that give people confidence that the business-owner who designed them is going to pay as much attention to detail with their next customer.

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How to Find Your First Client

first clientFinding your first client is probably one of the most difficult tasks that every newcomer in business must face. It is one thing to be thinking about having a business, making plans on what you want to be doing and even dreaming of the money you will make but actually finding and convincing people to use your services is the other. Often your friends and family may not offer enough support for that. Also, you might not have enough money to be able to wait weeks before the first paying job happens.

Its a fact, the pressure of finding the first client is huge in the first days of business. And, what makes matters worse, you might not have enough experience in dealing with clients to be able to quickly tell a good prospect from a bad one.

Luckily, there are a number of things you can do to find your first client fast.

How to Find Your First Client

  • Ask friends and family for help

Even though you might not feel comfortable in doing that, the people close to you might provide enough help to kick start your business. Ask them to forward your details to everyone they know, tell their friends and post about your new business on their social networking profiles. In many cases such recommendation is enough to get you the first job.

  • Join local business support organizations

In spite of the fact that a lot of negative things have been said about Chambers of Commerce and similar organizations, they still work. Becoming a member of those is like opening a doors to a room full of business people. Sure, not all of them are your potential clients but many could become your business allies, and it is much easier to start a business with other businesses than purely on your own.

  • Join business networking groups

Groups like BNI and others provide you with the opportunity to network with great numbers of people. Most importantly, they are all there for the same purpose, so networking feels more natural there.

Join and start bringing in value, you will be surprised at how quickly you will reap rewards.