If you don't have a "Most Important Sales Message", you should create one. It is a brief, succinct statement of what your company is about. It is answer to question: "What does your company do?"

Sometimes this kind of answer is called an "elevator speech". You're on an elevator and somebody asks you "What does your company do?" You have six or seven seconds to give a memorable reply. Good elevator speeches go beyond hackneyed answers like "We do printing" or "We make bowling balls."

They are confidence-inspiring marketing statements: "We print top notch materials that help our clients sell products." or "We make world's most beautifully balanced bowling balls."

Your Most Important Sales Message may very well be a "product" (as in bowling ball example above), but it should always be accompanied by a "pitch" of some kind or another. Often this will essentially be a "slogan".

For your elevator speech you need a seven second slogan. For your business card you will need same slogan boiled down to an string of words that not only sounds good, but looks good on card: "Websites that Sell Like Crazy", "The World's Most Beautifully Balanced Bowling Balls", "The Discount Real Estate Guy", "The Source for Cottages and Summer Homes", "Beautiful Color Vinyl Banners."

Be Consistent with your Corporate Image

Finally, make your business card consistent with your corporate image and rest of your marketing materials. Usually this boils down to basic things like your choice of colors, typeface, and layout style.

And of course you will want to include your company logo.

Usually your marketing consultant or graphic designer will want to plaster your logo on all your marketing materials, using logo as a substitute for real marketing design. "A lot of work went into creating that logo, and we must convey a consistent corporate image" is usual mantra. What ever you do, don't ask "Why is consistency so important?" That question opens way for tedious theorizing about "the long term importance of developing a corporate image."

You would be better to agree. "Yes, by all means, we want to present a consistent corporate image." And then add, "But I want this card to do some selling for me, so I would like to give sales message a bit more prominence than usual."

In other words, use usual corporate colors, typeface and layout style. Include logo too. But give prominence to sales message. Show a picture of your product. Or if you think you are product (as most real estate agents seem to think), then include your own picture. But don't forget to enhance photo with that slogan we talked about in previous section.

And now that you have a killer card, get out there and start handing them out.

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Rick Hendershot publishes several websites and ezines including Trade Show Tips, The Traffic Advisor, and The Canadian Cottage Buyer.

He is also webmaster for Free Card Business Card Displays.