The Suggestion: Make your own business cards

How to make your own Business Cards / Calling Cards

I once worked at a place where customers and clients would on occasion ask for my card.  For years this company didn’t want to spring for my business cards.  I never pushed for them but customers kept asking and eventually my employer relented.  A month or so went by and I forgot I had filled out the necessary request forms.

Then they showed up.  Hundreds of them, all slammed into what looked to be the worlds smallest shoebox.  Each a shitaeous mess of bad corporate logos, random colors, blocks, and lines.  My name and title were somehow shoehorned in there.  Thanks to the company overlord stuff, I felt like I was handing out an advertisement for my employer instead of contact information for myself.

Half a year later my job position changed drastically and I was meeting with clients almost daily.  I was handing these contacts a business card with a defunct job title on it.  No one ever noticed.  10 months later I was gone from the company & 90% of those cards hit the recycling bin.

If you’re self employed or have a side project, consider making your own business cards.  And keep them ridiculously simplified.  You’ll need a printer, these aptly named Avery Clean Edge Business cards, and a single way for someone to reach you.  But just one.

Because if they really want to reach you?  They will.  All you have to do is make them want to.