Learn New Card Tricks: Add Creativity

Make sure your presentation card speaks to potential clients and colleagues. With materials ranging from pewter to plastic, creative cards are less likely to land in the trash.

Receive an uninspired business card lately? Did it end up in your garbage can or in the darkest recesses of your desk drawer?

Like a limp handshake, a boring or tasteless business card may not send the message you want to potential clients and colleagues.

More than a piece of paper, a business card is a reflection of your business and of you. Sometimes it is the key to getting a job or landing a key client.

Sonia Jacobson, an image consultant, says she relies on first impressions to decide whom to do business with. And she extends that rule of thumb to business cards.

''When a card is good quality paper, creative, unusual and catches my attention, I am more inclined to think positively about that person,'' says Jacobson, who is also executive director of Suited for Success, a nonprofit that helps low-income women and men re-entering the workforce.

''If the card is extremely memorable then I will keep it and put it in my special Rolodex where I can find it easily and refer to it when I might need it,'' she says.

People should think of their business cards as part of their companies' branding, but not all industry groups do, says Tom W

more: kentucky.com/mld/miamiherald/business/11585346.htm (798)

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