When I opened up my practice in 1995 I was faced with a relatively easy list of things that needed to be on my business card – name, address, phone, fax and e-mail (yes, e-mail address). But back then I didn’t have a web site, and hadn’t carved out a practice concentration for myself.
A year later, that had changed. Suddenly I had this thing called a web site (not that anyone knew what a web site was, but still) and a limited number of areas in which I was accepting new matters. I was putting out newspaper ads like crazy, trying to bring in work.
One day I was in a restaurant and gave the waitress my card (something I still do, by the way – but only when I’m tipping well). She looked at the card and said, “What kind of work do you do?”
Something went off in the back of my head – not an alarm, a piercing scream. “The back of the card, the back of the card!” I nearly ran from the restaurant, so great was my haste in returning to the office.
Ever since that day (well, 10-14 days later) I had information on the back of my business card. At first it was a list of areas in which I practiced. Then, it was my web site and toll-free number. And these days it lists my web sites and the fact that I limit my practice to bankruptcy, consumer credit, debt collection and related matters.
Your business card is all that remains of you once the event is over, once the prospect leaves your line of sight. When that card is fished from a jacket pocket in two weeks, what are the odds that you will be remembered at all?
Your job as a business owner and marketer is amnesia prevention. Force someone to remember you. One powerful way of doing so is by making sure that you use your business card as the tool it was designed to be.
Jim Calloway recommends putting a calendar on the back of your card. Others, looking to the medical profession, have a pre-printed area to put the time and date of your client’s next appointment. Whatever you do, just don’t waste that valuable real estate.
