A smart business card is essential. Think about it… you spend a ton of time and money to get to a business meeting. A 1 cent card can be the difference between being respected and being forgotten.

What are you going to do about it?

Here are some classics:

Matthew Krawse creates custom cards for each event so you remember where you met him:

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Groupsite CEO Clarence Wooten wanted Guy Kawasaki to join his advisory board, so he created a card to show Guy what it would be like:

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The Queen of Burrito Word of Mouth, California Tortilla’s Stacey Kane, uses a coupon on the back to get us into her restaurant:

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Tim Toomey from Assault Shirts (and our web guru) sends a clear message that they create gear for real musicians by attaching a real guitar pick to each card:

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And I remind folks that my job at GasPedal is to teach word of mouth marketing, with a word of mouth tip on every card:

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6 comments. Read them below or add one. (Trackback)

{ 6 comments }

Ramona September 2, 2009 at 9:01 am

Great information and excellent examples. Thanks for always sharing, Andy!

Herb Kim September 2, 2009 at 9:06 am

Hi Andy,
Don’t know if you remember but we met briefly at TED in Long Beach earlier this year.
Found your post via Stowe Boyd tweetfeed and really enjoyed it.
Hope all is well on your end.
Herb

David Thomson September 2, 2009 at 11:01 am

Some great ideas, so thought I’d share my own card – hope you don’t mind! The idea is that everyone has a different diagram on the back, so it’s an insight into the individual:
http://twitpic.com/203go
The only rule is that everyone has to have ‘Toys’ on the card, since that’s we do. :-)
-David

Mark Johnston September 3, 2009 at 6:11 am

Hi Andy – we (Microsoft) and Carsonified did this business card wall at an event earlier in the year to showcase all the great business cards people bring to conferences.
http://carsonified.com/bizcardwall/
(requires Silverlight but hopefully fun to see all the cool business cards)

matt haines September 3, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Oh! Oh! Oh! I’ve read two posts on your blog and I’m bookmarking it already. These are great ideas! Now I’ve got to think of one of my own. Or attend more conventions or something. Thanks, now for some more reading‚Ķ

Matthew Krawse September 11, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Andy – Thanks for including me in the post. I’m absolutely honored!

- Matt

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I'm Andy Sernovitz, a fairly helpful marketing guy. I write about word of mouth marketing, ethics, common-sense business, and entrepreneurship.

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