Antonio Centeno is the founder of Real Men Real Style. In this video, he explains important tips for creating perfect business card. These five tips aren’t going to apply for every single one of you, and that’s the key.
- You need to understand your purpose for the business card. I’m a business owner. I have multiple businesses. When I use business cards and I go to events, sometimes I’m speaking. Other times, I’m simply sitting back in the audience, but I’m at a point with my business where I’m pretty selective about who I want to spend time with. So my business cards are geared a little bit differently. They actually say just simply “business owner” on them. They only have my email address because honestly, I am very careful about who gets my phone number now. That business card, for many people, especially if you look online, they’ll say it violates a number of rules, but for me, it serves my purpose. It actually is something that has plenty of room that I can write on the back of it and it sends the message that I want to send. A good example, I met a guy named Chris Brogan who’s at the New Media Expo, shook his hand. He didn’t know me from atom, but I knew who Chris is. Chris is actually one of the leaders on the internet, just for the last decade has been someone out there leading the charge on what the worthy internet is taking us and what it’s going to do. He’s got a very popular blog. Now, when he looked at my business card and he saw “owner”, it immediately sparked his interest. I also mentioned at some point where he picked up that I was in the Marine Corps, so all of a sudden, he meets a Marine who’s a business owner. It turns out he owns The Business Owner Magazine, so he was very interested. It turned into a guest post. Now, my purpose was to send the message and to connect with other business owners, people that are running companies that I respect and I knew that they would pick up on that kind of stuff, so my business card, number one, served its purpose. Now, let’s look for you. If you’re out there looking for a job, then that business card needs to in a sense send that message. You don’t want to be using a business card from some other company you used to work at. Instead, get a new business card that actually says– maybe it lists some of your unique skills, some of the things that sets you apart, nota full resume because you don’t want the card to be cluttered, but you want to make that positive first impression. You want it to be memorable. That’s very important because if you’re memorable, you’re actually referable. Oftentimes, you’re going to meet somebody, give them your card, and to be honest, there’s not going to be a connection. There’s not really a way that they can help you. However, if you’re memorable, if you’re somebody that strikes into their memory, then you’ll be able to — in a sense, when they meet somebody and they’re like, “You know, I just met someone that you need to meet,” and they could pull out your card, they’re going to be able to make that connection, so number one, focus in on the purpose of your card.
- Keep it simple. Make sure the card is readable. You will not believe how many business cards I get from other people, and they’re actually difficult to read. They’re actually cluttered with information. It’s actually even hard to understand who is this person and what are they doing. Make sure you use a readable font. Not everyone actually has perfect vision. A lot of people, they may misread it and they’ll simply throw it away. You get a very short time frame. So again, make sure it’s got your best contact information and multiple forms of contact information. Now, I just said that I violate this rule, but I do it on purpose to create barriers, but if you’re out there looking for a job, you want to have a great email, a professional email. You want to have your phone number. You perhaps want to have your LinkedIn profile so that they can go see that. Not everyone is going to want to have their LinkedIn profile, but for you, it’s probably going to be important because it’s going to be relevant again to, number one, your purpose. The other thing is that some people just prefer to talk different ways. I like to talk on the phone. I also like to interact with people, believe it or not, via videos. Sometimes Is end people video messages, but a lot of people don’t like to do that. They would rather type everything out, so that’s why you also want to have multiple forms of contact so that the person that wants to reach out to you with an opportunity can reach you via their preferred method. The last thing about it is make sure it’s clean. This is where you want to have room. I like to keep it clean because I do carry a pen and oftentimes, I can write on the back especially if I’m speaking to someone and they’re really creating a great, solid impression. I sometimes write notes because I don’t have to remember it, then I can put that business card in my pocket. So we’ve talked about having your purpose, keeping it simple.
- Make sure the information is accurate. I have actually received business cards in which the information — they just had them printed out and the information wasn’t accurate. This also applies if you are changing jobs or you’re with a new company. Don’t give somebody your old business card. That may be all you have, but it doesn’t send the right impression, so don’t go with a pen mark. That’s another thing I see, which is really bad, is that people just write — they’ll scratch it out and they’ll write their new phone number. To me, that shows a lack of preparation that you’re not taking this super seriously. And honestly, it’s much harder to read, so we’re going back up to the part of it being simple and readable. A lot of times, I can’t read it or if it gets wet, all of a sudden it smudges. Guess what? I’m not going to be able to contact you. Please make sure it’s the right company. It’s one of those things oftentimes when we look at it and you want to make sure that’s associated with you. So we’ve talked about purpose, simplicity, making sure it’s accurate. Make sure it’s professional. Now, we’ve talked about this at the very beginning, but look at the email. Oftentimes, people are using these email addresses like fatheroffivekids@aol.com. Now, that’s cool. I’m having my fourth child on the way, so I respect being a dad, but when I see a business email like that, I’m wondering, does this guy actually take it that seriously? That’s a personal email. Don’t use personal emails unless they look professional. Gmail is pretty good. The new Outlook emails aren’t bad. The Hotmail emails, I know, have gone away, but there are a number of emails out there that are really long and convoluted. Try to avoid things. Go with something simple, something that’s clean, something that’s professional. I would avoid Yahoo! emails as well. Just the word “yahoo”, if you look up what it means, it actually doesn’t have a professional sound to it. I don’t know. Maybe the company will rebrand at some point. The other thing is make sure that the actual card is clean. I know this should go without saying, but I’ve had people hand me smudged, dirty cards that they had in their back pocket for I don’t know how long. Honestly, I don’t want to even touch the thing. The other thing is have a system for handing out cards. What do I mean by this? Whenever I hand out cards, my right pocket contains my business cards. My left pocket on my jacket contains the business cards of others. So when I take your business card, I put it — it depends on the gentleman. Sometimes, I often acknowledge the card. I look at it. There are some cultures where you want to acknowledge the card. Basically, it’s a sign of disrespect if you put it away too quickly, but I always put them in my left pocket. Then I take out my business cards and hand it to them from my right pocket. The reason I do this — and I’ve seen people hand me other people’s business cards especially at networking events where business cards are going all over the place, so make sure you’ve got a system for it. Again, that’s my system. Feel free to copy it, but that’s the one that works for me. The last thing, and this is something I see again and again, is have plenty of business cards. I see people that go to conferences and after the first day, they have run out of cards. Don’t let that be you. Really plan ahead. If you’re going to a conference with 2000 people, we’ll take 500 business cards. That’s a good amount. A lot of times, people go there and they take 20 or 30 business cards. If you do that, you need to be really strategic in who you hand them out to. Otherwise, you’re going to run out very quickly, and who knows? You could easily give out 20 business cards in 20 minutes if you’re someone that’s really working the room and meeting a lot of people. I know for me, because I’m a speaker, a lot of people want my business cards, so I’ll simply put a small stack in front and people can just come by and grab it and reach out to me later. Another thing I do with business cards is I strategically place them in various points so that even if I mistakenly forget my big stack, I’ve got in all of my sports jackets– I’ve actually got about 50 to 100 business cards in various pockets on the inside. I do this because I don’t forget my sports jackets and the business cards are always there, so that’s one thing I do. Another thing is I carry the case. Actually, I have a very nice case, which if we go back to keeping them professional, looks very nice. It keeps them clean, but actually having the case, putting it in my luggage, it’s actually on my checklist whenever I pack and I go places. Another place I keep business cards, inside my car or truck. Now, if I’m flying, I’m not going to have access to it, but a lot of times I’ll go some place and by having 50 to 100 business cards in the console of my vehicle, I can always go back out and grab those, and then be armed at least with those 50 to 100 cards. The final place where I keep at least five business cards is inside my wallet. Now, sometimes they do get a little bit beat up and yes, we’re going to violate that, but that’s better than me having nothing. I keep them in a small little case, a little plastic case that actually does a decent job of protecting them. No smudges get on them, but they do get bent up occasionally. However, that’s better than not having anything. Let me know what you think and hopefully you found this video useful. I would love for you guys to go over to Real Men Real Style and join my email list, and grab your copy of my free 47-page ebook on men’s style. I actually give a number of tips on how to be a better man, on how to use certain different techniques. We talk about negotiation. Wealso talk about things like this, this business card, and how to be a better man. So hopefully, you guys found this video useful.
