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Then the day comes when hes ready to put down the money for the ideal house which needs an urgent make over. Remembering the business card, he takes it out in order to contact the architect and ask some questions about pricing and schedules. And then he finds out that whoever designed the architects business card left off the website address and phone number

Now admittedly this is an extreme case but is it beyond the realms of possibility What this example does is to illustrate the central law of business cards, however imaginative their design, dont let yours, or your designers creativity get in the way of your goal. Your goal isnt to design a great business card; its to let people know about your business and they can quickly and easily get hold of you.

Business cards  most entrepreneurs have them but have you ever thought what makes a successful business card Of all the key considerations probably the most important and least exciting is that of clarity.

Im sure you have received Business Cards and had to stare at it for a few seconds just to find the contact details amongst all the glitzy design work

To see why clarity is so important imagine this case. An architecture firm designs a business card for their services, and does a good job of making cards available to ideal contacts. One such contact gets a copy of the business card. The card features a bold typeface, a beautifully photographed image of one of the architects more famous buildings, and a memorable slogan. Excellent, thinks the prospective client Ill keep them in mind and put it in a safe place for when I need it.

Any good business card, in order to be clear, will include the following information

• The business name even if its just your name.
• A brief description of the business, or the services offered.
• Contact information such as your telephone numbers, website, email and even your Facebook or Twitter details

Although this sounds fairly straightforward, two caveats apply. Resist the temptation to get too fancy with the description of your business: youre designing a business card, not writing a resume. Something like Jeffrey X, Designer of Images To Fuel The Imagination Of A Newborn Millennium is more likely to confuse your potential contact than delight him or her, and can possibly make you look less like an effective artist and more like a flake. Something like Jeffrey X, Artist works perfectly well  simple, clear and straight to the point.

Secondly, make sure that you not only include your contact information, but that you prioritise the information so that youll be able to make the best use of. For example, if your email account is set up to automatically process enquiries from clients via say an autoresponder a request to fill in a more details form, dont place your phone number above your email account on your business card. The email is more important to you, so put that first.

In fact, if you dont particularly want to be contacted through certain channels for example, if your only phone is a family line or if your only email account is also the email account you use for Mailing Lists and online forum updates, don’t include it at all. Its better to remove any chance of potential customers being disappointed with their first contact experience with you.

These ommissions might turn away one or two people over the course of your business cards life, but its unlikely that itll put a momentous dent in your business success path As long as you either have a phone number, a website address, or an email address for your contacts, theyll be able to contact you on the terms you set.

Dont feel compelled to include each of these three types if you cant effectively respond to enquiries for each not offering your clients a phone number is much more professional than offering them a phone number that you never answer or your five year old picks up

So, you can see that there is a lot to consider when you are designing your perfect business card.

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