A few of my clients have been asking me what to put on their business cards. You see, you go into business and everyone tells you that you have to have one. What I tell them is before you race off to your printing store or graphic designer, take a breath and ask yourself a few questions.
What do you need it for? Sounds simple, but will you mainly be giving it to people at networking events, to confirm appointments, in case they have a problem with one of your products or some other reason. Many people find that they have a couple of different ways they hand out their cards. Fantastic! Get different cards for different purposes – there’s no rule that says you can only have one type of card.
What do you want people to do with it when they get it? This sounds bizarre, but do you want people to file it in their card file (then make sure it fits into card files and is not a strange “creative” shape), stick it on their fridge (perhaps a magnet is what you are looking for instead of a card), scan it using a business card reader (be careful of the fonts you use if you want your card to be clear in scanners) or what?
If you want to send people back to your website - make it worth their while to go there. Use the back of the card to include an enticing offer or giveaway.
If you use them for networking or at conferences – then maybe you need a photo instead of a logo on your card so people can put a face to a name.
What is the minimum contact information you can get away with? Many people try and cram an encyclopedia onto their cards. By the time you add in phone, mobile, fax, switch, email, website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc etc – it is starting to get silly. Take pruning shears to your contact information and keep it to the essentials.
If your graphic designer insists 6 pt font is stylish and modern, belt them severely around the head with your bifocals. As people age we need bigger font so we can preserve our vanity and not have to bring out the magnifying glass to look at your card. Keep the essential details – your name and your main phone number – in a decent sized font.
Work out if your brand is cheap or you want to inspire a perception of quality. Cheap business cards look precisely that – cheap. You are your business card – what do you want it to say about who you are?
So that is my deadly seven. What do you think about business cards? What do you like, not like on cards that you have seen?
Over the past month my path has crossed with many fantastic people. Some who I consider to be true experts in their field, yet no one knows about them. Others I have met hold themselves up to be experts in the field, and have large followings behind them cheering them on. In some cases, the public experts have the goods in terms of personal knowledge, in others - well …
Talking with these public and private experts is an eye-opening experience. Most of the private experts know they have some knowledge, but underestimate how much they know. Often a self esteem issue holds them back, and they feel that shadowy “other people” are better than them. The public experts have their own demons. Some have a scared little voice inside their head – telling them that they are going to be “found out” one day. Others have bullet-plated self esteem, where they feel they are the best there is (whether or not that is the case).
So what is the real difference? From what I can see, the public experts have taken the time to document what they know (or have someone write it on the behalf), and hoist their flag over the parapet. It stands to reason that the person who stands up and is counted for their knowledge will be the one getting the kudos and the money, compared to the person who has the knowledge inside their head and only letting it come out to play over a dinner party or with select clients.
Listening to Matt Church and Steve Major, who are active in the brilliant group – Thought Leaders, it appears that this is the key. If you want to be a thought leader, you need to first start by documenting your intellectual property. Yes, part of doing that is finding what is unique in your approach or thoughts, but the first stage is to get it down on paper.
Once you have it clarified, then tell everyone about what you know through sharing your expertise, systems and processes. People then give you feedback on your knowledge through testimonials and case studies and your reputation as an expert builds.
The hard part is most of us don’t take the time to stop and document what we know. So, to all you silent experts out there I issue you a challenge. Get writing! The worst that can happen is you will realise how much you really do know.
I love this blog post on Roger von Oech’s blog by Michael Michalo. Roger von Oech is the creator of the brilliant “Whack on the Side of the Head” card set – and I was stoked to see that you can now get them in an i-phone app called the Creative Whack Pack. In my opinion, his tools are brilliant ways to give your creative juices a charge on the days you are feeling flat.
But back to the blog post … in it Michael looks at the paradoxes of creativity. In his view:
To create, a person must
Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
Desire success but learn how to fail;
Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.
I would add that a person needs insatiable curiosity but be totally focussed.
My dad is 80, and has lived a very full and successful life as a scientist and University Lecturer. But like many kids, until recently I had not had much conversation with my dad about his hopes and dreams for his life when he was growing up. It is funny how we assume our parents spring fully grown and are happy with their lot in life.
Last week while we were waiting for dad to head in for another round of heart surgery, we spent a few quiet hours in conversation. This time we talked about what he had dreamed he would be when he grew up – a journalist it turns out. And why he didn’t follow his dream, and moved into science instead. We talked about what his experience of school was like – not particularly a great experience thanks to some very abusive Christian Brothers. We also talked about his relationships – what worked and what didn’t.
Dad is a brilliant story teller, and many was the moment when I had tears in my eyes from laughing at tales of Claude the lab lion who used to tackle dad around the ankles as he walked past; and his university pranks that these days would put him behind bars. I also learnt of the untold story of how my grandfather, who was head of one of the RAAF Airforce bases, thought they were sinking a midget sub off the coast of NSW during the war – only to discover they had sunk a very surprised whale.
But the questions were not all one way. The biggest question he asked was if we had our time over again, knowing what we know now, what job would we do now? What career would we follow? What would we do differently?
These are brilliant questions, and ones we forget to ask ourselves as we travel through life. Life passes so swiftly – in a blink of an eye it is gone. We need to make sure that we live every moment to the maximum – that we are following the paths of our heart.
Dad is due for another round of more complex heart surgery in 5 weeks time and you can be sure that there will be many more questions and quiet discussions in the interim. I am truly valuing his insights and wisdom (and humour).
So what would you answer? Would you choose the same job? What would you do differently if you had another go at life? What would it take for you to do this now?
Staying with our theme of no blood and gore road safety campaigns, Vic Roads has just released a series of ads with the tagline “Don’t be a Dickhead”. The tagline has copped a fair amount of flak, but the ads themselves are also gaining few friends.
Ad lines include “If you don’t wear your seatsbelt we will turn off Facebook” shown with a man smashing a computer with a hammer. “Every time you talk on your mobile phone while driving, a redhead gets his wings”,and this one.
Yes, these ads get a laugh (when they are not offending people), but will they change driving behaviour – my guess is they won’t. There is not enough social influence in there to dramatically change how people think or act.
In all countries, people are grappling with how to bring down the road toll. Most countries go for the “blood and gore” shock ads, but they are now losing their shock value. People gloss over them and no longer see them.
What is being found to be more effective, are ads that challenge the norm that it is OK to speed (or do anti-social behaviour). That it isn’t cool – and cool people don’t do it.
My favourite Aussie example comes from NSW, where teen hoons were a real problem. The RTA heard the anti-gore message and adopted a very different approach.
So how has it gone since it was released in June 2007?According to the RTA
53 per cent of the general population and 53 per cent of young males (17-25 years) said that they would be more likely to comment on someone’s driving as a result of seeing the ‘Pinkie’ campaign.
64 per cent of the general population, and 63 per cent of young male drivers, believed the campaign to have some effect in encouraging young male drivers to obey the speed limit.
74 per cent of the general population and 75 per cent of young males revealed strong recognition of the anti-speeding message, aimed at making speeding socially unacceptable and at undermining the perceived pay off for speeding.
60 per cent of the general population and 59 per cent of young males recognised the meaning behind the message, that speeding is not cool, does not impress, or is stupid.
According to the NSW Minister for Roads
“The 2008 fatality rate of 5.7 deaths per 100,000 population is the lowest since records began in 1908 and the NSW fatality rate is now the lowest amongst all the Australian States. ” However 2009 saw an increase of 86 deaths on the NSW roads.
Unfortunately there have been no publicly reported stats on the incidence of the target group (male drivers 18-25) involved in accidents and traffic infringements, to work out the true results of the campaign.
Personally, I love the campaign and would like to see it trialled in other locations (with proper statistical studies to track outcomes). What do you think?
There has been an increasing trend in the past 12 months of businesses using contact forms on websites to “share information” to the website owner. It seems like many people new to business are not getting the message about Spam – and what constitutes spam communications.
Spam is not just about selling viagra or phishing scams. Many small or new businesses can unwittingly find themselves caught up spamming people, without realising it. The funniest one I received was from a Brisbane company selling double opt in mailing lists. Now given I did not consent to receiving any of their marketing material I had to wonder about their understanding of what they were selling.
So … if you are in Australia, before you hit the send button on your next email read over the information contained on the ACMA government website about Spam. If you are in the USA – then the Can – Spam Act is for you.
No matter where you are the basics are still the same:
Use accurate from addresses & clear subject lines
Explain how people can unsubscribe from your mailings (and honor their requests promptly)
Include your valid postal address in all emails
Only send emails to companies with their explicit consent (and no, grabbing their business card at a networking event doesn’t cut it)
There are gray areas relating to inferred consent – and you would want a pretty good lawyer to be able to argue them. So when in doubt, don’t use contact forms or email addresses on websites to contact people and tout your wares. In the words of the ACMA – you cannot infer someone’s consent just because you believe your product or service will benefit them.
It’s election year in Australia and the first of the political debates on Health Reform just aired. One of the TV stations (channel 9) uses “the worm” to track real time audience response to comments during the debate. It is a fascinating insight into people’s minds. Channel 9 had 90 allegedly undecided voters hold keypads while they watched the debate and give feedback on whether they approved or disapproved of what was being said. Individual scores were aggregated and then shown as a continuous “worm” to the TV audience at home. Individual audience members cannot see the worm and where it is heading, so the results are not influenced by peer group pressure.
Now there has been a lot of debate in the past about the algorithm that drives the worm and whether or not people really were uncommitted voters. Putting that aside and assuming Channel 9 learned from their debacle a few years back, the worm still gives some insight into how a cross section of people think.
So what did the worm respond to today? The clearest responses were when Tony Abbott (Opposition Leader) took the chance to put the boot into Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister).
Repeated negative comments about “can’t trust the parliament to install Pink Batts” and school hall rorts gathered more and more extreme negative responses. Each time Mr Abbott made the same negative comments, his approval scores plunged further. People are turned off by negativity and repeated negativity only serves to embed the feeling of being turned off.
People were also turned off by attempts to get a laugh at the expense of the other person – not everyone has the same sense of humour.
The worm jumped when concrete, practical information was presented from either side. People want specific details – they don’t want fluff.
The worm also took a major jump into the stratosphere when the Prime Minister stated that people really didn’t care who was to blame – they just wanted the health problem fixed.
What can business learn from the running of the worm today? Simple really:
Be positive. If you don’t have something good to say with someone – shut up.
Be specific. Give your customers details and facts, not platitudes.
Don’t blame. Commit to fixing any issues you have without finding someone to blame.
If you get a chance to watch the debate, I certainly recommend it – not necessarily for what the politicians said, but to observe what people responded to.
One of my favourite debates over the years has been with people who with hand over their heart tell me how to improve my decision making – or to put it another way, how to become more rational and logical and therefore make more effective decisions.
What neuro-psychologists and other researchers of the mind are finding is that no decision is purely rational – that there is always an aspect of irrationality or emotion that colours our decisions. That’s the reason why smart people make some really dumb choices. Yes, we can attempt to reduce the variables and reduce the impact of emotions on our decisions, but at our core there will always be a little piece of humanness that can derail our best intentions.
Dan spoke at TED about some of his findings and his talk is both funny and enlightening. If you want to learn how to get people to choose an option in a subscription form, or why certain people are chosen for dates, these are all topics that he covers in a brilliant way in his talk.
Not all geeks are boring people who live in cubicles communicating with pixels. The team from Neurofocus have put together this brilliant rap to help explain the concept of neuromarketing. Warning … it’s like peanut butter. It sticks and you will find yourself humming the lead line hours later.
After you have done, you may want to check out the rest of the videos by the Neurofocus team – lots of great food for thought about ways to boost your marketing through the power of the brain.
sheds light on a number of examples where our brain gets in the way of our making good logical decisions.It is a must read for any manager, business owner or just anyone interested in why they make the decisions they do.
