Always have your business cards printed by a professional printing company on high quality card, do not print them at home on your printer; do not use a card printing machine either, they’ll look unprofessional and they’ll make you look unprofessional.

Always keep a good supply of your cards on you whether you’re in the car or in different suit pockets, nothing screams unprofessional like someone pulling the all the contents of their pockets trying to find that one creased business card.

Keep your information simple and to the point, if you’ve got your website address on it you don’t need to have any other promotional language, just your name, position and contact information.

Keep everything up to date, if you change offices, phone number or job position make sure you always get new business cards printed and don’t just scribble information over the top of the existing printing.

Make sure you print you business cards to a standard 55mm x 85mm template as this is the standards size of a credit card which means it will easily fit in most people’s wallets and it as less chance of been thrown away the next time your recipient is emptying their pockets.

Give it some personality – you don’t want to over crowd your business card but at the same time you need it to stand out so try not to stick with a default colour, always pick something you’ve customised.

Keep the font easy to read – there’s a difference between standing out and being completely illegible and if you’re trying to be too clever with the colour and font of the text no one will be able to read how to get in touch with you.

Your name is the single most important thing on your business card, potential customers can find your contact details or website online but your name and your personal contact is what’s most likely to get you that business so make sure it’s easy to read.

Put your business card in the post – if you send anything out by post whether its products, invoices or just correspondence always include a business card as it’s less likely to get thrown away and might stick around long enough to win you some repeat business.

If you’re at a networking event or somewhere where there’s lots of business cards being handed out take the time to write a mobile number or email that isn’t on the card, this makes your card stand out and makes the recipient think they’re getting special attention.

In China it’s customary to hand business cards over with both hands as it adds to the feeling of importance, in China they also accept the business cards with two hands too as a sign of respect.

When you are handing over business cards always hand them over face up as this also shows respect and it grabs the recipient’s attention especially if you’ve got interesting business cards.

This one may sound obvious but always make sure you check, double check and triple check your cards – you’ll never get any business if you can’t spell your title properly or print the wrong number.

But how could we make this whole process more nature-friendly? Perhaps using recycled materials? Let me know if you come up with any other ideas.

Enjoy!