Improve Your Communication Skills, 2nd Edition

. Your name, 
your company, and the contact details should leap off 
the card.
• Make use of space
. Don’t clutter the card with 
unnecessary pictures or design features.
• Quality pays
. Choose durable, good quality card. It’s 
almost certainly worth having your card printed 
professionally, if you can afford it.
If you are new to the job market, or between jobs, take the trouble 
to create a new card containing your contact details. Handing out 
a card with outdated information is not a good idea – and makes 
an even worse impression if the information is hastily crossed 
out or overwritten. You may feel uncomfortable offering a 
stranger your address; a telephone number and e-mail address is 
quite sufficient.
Card games
Business cards can do more than represent you. They can 
themselves become sources of conversation.
What about the reverse of the card?
It might be a 
useful place to put a slogan that develops your brand or 
style. You could leave it blank, or ruled with discreet lines, 
to encourage people to make notes about your 
conversation.
Have a supply of blank cards.
They’re useful for jotting 
down vital information (having a pen at the ready is a good 
idea, too!). You can use them yourself, and offer them to 
hapless contacts who find themselves without the 
necessary to make notes.
Decide how to store your cards.
A cardholder looks 
more professional than a wad of cards in your breast 
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

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178 Improve your Communication Skills
Look after your inner self
And it can still be hard work. Networking is exhausting and can 
be debilitating. After all, most of us meet a few new people every 
day; but few of us would find it entirely natural to meet dozens of 
new people in a couple of hours. Every new meeting is an 
opportunity, but it is also a challenge. We all need to look after 
ourselves before submitting to the next networking event.