Business Cards Your First Chance To Make A Good First Impression
Do all business cards make the same first impression? Around the turn of the century, the 20th century business cards sold for about a pound sterling (British silver) for a package of twenty. They were made of gorgeous vellum or parchment, with the finest inking and colorings available, written in calligrapher's script by a skilled hand. They were given to butlers and maids, never to the visitant. A gentleman might be calling on a family, a lovely lady or a possible business lead he did not know; the card, not the man himself, was presented to the prospective recipient. In other words, they were a first impression.
It's still that way today, although butlers and maids are scarcer. Business cards are your first chance to make a good first impression. And they can still be made of vellum or parchment. Or paper, business card stock or whatever you like (most businesses prefer card stock, but you can go with vellum if you want). And they can still have striking calligraphic script on them, or better still, one of 10,000 fonts you can use as the design to convey your name and information.
The only thing that's really changed (besides the incredible variety of cards offered now from most online print shops) is the price. You don't need anywhere near a pound sterling for a twenty-pack; most business cards online are printed and shipped for very little money (on average, about 1000 or so for between $20-30).
If twenty to thirty bucks is still too high for your thousand first impressions, you can get cheap business cards ordered from dozens of websites who will use recycled card stock, a less expensive ink and single-tone colors to produce a stack of 1000 for about half the original price. Still other websites feature a do-it-yourself business card template, where you can create your very own "look" with your own unique style, palette and set of colors. After you're done being creative, you can even print and process them (just have card stock handy) right from your own color printer.
If you want to put a crowbar in your wallet (these are your business cards we're talking about, after all) and go for a little more expense, you can have them commissioned from business card websites that feature their own artists and graphic designers, for a truly unique and impressive look that can't be found anywhere else, or used by any other customer. Impressive and unique are great words to describe a first impression, by the way.
If you take a few moments to browse business card websites, you may also find a slew of other services that can really boost your business revenue, from brochures to calendars, magnets to envelopes, note pads to posters to presentation folders. Most such websites are in the business of making your business better, so take advantage of all the services you can.
So, surf the Internet for what you need. And remember, even though you won't need a business card to buy them, they will open all kinds of doors for you. In the matter of first impressions, business cards really mean business.
