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Job Market
Business cards pack punch: Use them or miss opportunities

By Liza Jaipaul
The (Bridgewater, N.J.) Courier News

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It's a relatively little thing, but it is a mighty important little thing. At 2-by-3.5-inches and anywhere from $50 to $100 for a nice big box of this product, you get a lot of bang for your buck, especially if you're trying to network.

Business cards. You know how it is — you can never find yours when you need it, and they're everywhere when you don't need them. Career consultants, though, advise being more scrupulous about carrying business cards and actually using them.

"You never know when you're going to meet someone who could become a customer, business associate or sphere of influence," says Jeffrey Mayer, president of SuceedingInBusiness.com and author of several career-advice books.

Mayer tells story after story of people he has met who couldn't find their cards or who have had to look endlessly through packed purses, messy briefcases or bottomless pockets before finally producing one. And then, once they do find their own card, they'll probably lose yours.

Business cards Free business cards (30 designs in 250-card batches) are available through Vistaprint, www.vistaprint.com. An operator with the Boston-area printer said the company takes around 1,000 orders a day for its free business cards. Shipping is not included. Locally, many retail printing shops and office-supply stores will design and print business cards in a few days. At Kinko's, a batch of 250 cards costs around $20 for the set-up fee and $15 to print the cards.

It's time to change all that and start taking business cards more seriously, says Mayer, because it might just make a difference in your career. Make your card memorable, says Jonathan Perelman, president of the Wharton Club of New Jersey for alumni of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Perelman says he gets tons of cards at various business functions, and they all become a blur after a while.

He jots down notes for himself on the back of cards so that he can remember the person, and he enters them in a database when he gets back to the office.

The cards he really remembers are those that are different.

"Once $5 fell out of a card," he says, adding that that card was a definite keeper. "It folded open, and in it, it said 'make money for you and your clients.' " That, along with the $5, prompted Perelman to follow up with a phone call to the man, an insurance salesman. He now does business with him.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company