Why are You Still Carrying a Business Card?! - Make it happen monday

Hey, this is Paul Colligan and it is Make it Happen Monday. Today’s topic is why in the world are you still carrying a business card? Most of us have a business card because well, either our boss issued us one or as we put together the office, the cell phone, the laptop, the cool bag, the nylon case, we just decided that we had to have a batch of business cards. Let’s admit it, most of the business cards stand on our shelf in that box from Vistaprint or whatever you got them from. About a fourth of what you do give away, a half, maybe even more than that end up in those fish bowls at the local deli and hope that you might have switched your business card for a free sandwich. The rest of them are either thrown away or they are on stacks on somebody’s desk with a rubber band around them of people that one day hope to follow up with. Business cards aren’t doing most of us any good because of those very factors. Yes, occasionally you want a sandwich, but it's very seldom that the cost of the sandwich costs more than what you spend on printing the business cards. Here’s my suggestion, on your business card, have a very direct singular call to action. Your mailing address, your fax number, your e-mail, your website doesn’t matter if all they are going to do is to put that thing in a stack, put rubber band around it and hope one day they get to you. A simple card with a simple message with simple call to action on it, “Visit my website. Text me with this number. Go here. Call this.” It will get the action that you’re looking for and if you only have one thing on it, they might do it immediately before they put it in the stack, before they throw it away, before they leave it in the airplane on the way home from the event that they were at. Here’s my challenge. If we ever meet in public, ask me for my business card. You’ll find that it’s simple, it’s easy. You’re not going to get my mailing address on it. You’re not even going to get my direct e-mail address, but what you’re going to get is a call to action that’s going to get interactivity between you and me in a way very specifically designed to do well. My business cards are some of my best assets. I’m thrilled with them and I just like to encourage you on this Make it Happen Monday to kind of think about yours a little bit differently. This is Paul Colligan, Make it Happen Monday.