My Blogging Cards Have Arrived!
Douglas KarrOnce I get done speaking at conferences, I’m often asked for a business card by quite a few of the folks. Business card? For a blogger? With 3 conferences coming up in the next few months, I decided to take the plunge and actually get some business cards made! I’m not sure how much business I may have lost after someone walked out and didn’t remember who I was.
The cards arrived today and I think they look great:
The cards were made by VistaPrint, this is the 5th or 6th time that I’ve done business with them. They offer free plain business cards with some typical designs - or you can go all out. I chose to design my own over top a background image they had in stock. I got a glossy front and a black and white back. One formatting tip… using their online editor, you can put one layer over another. On my blog title and URL, I use a white over black font so that it stands out with the blue background.
With shipping, it ran me about $50 for 500 cards. I don’t think that’s too bad at all! They’ll pay for themselves with the first person who remembers me. 
I once had some cards made for my Dad and they cut off a word on them. No sooner did I contact VistaPrint, they had a new set corrected and overnighted to my Dad. I’m quite impressed with their service.
Be sure to catch me at the Marketing Profs B2B Conference coming up in Chicago! I’ll be on the Blogging panel. Stop by and I’ll be sure to give you my card.
It’s good to hear you are busy doing the conference thing. I haven’t public spoken in 10 years and I’m feeling a little nervous about Blog World. Any suggestions?
Cheers bro!
…BB
Thanks re: the banner. I did it using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Photoshop on the headshot, Illustrator on the Text. I’ve been messing with both applications for a few years now, there’s a pretty steep learning curve (I’m really not good at Photoshop at all!). If you decide to go that route, keep an eye on Bittbox - there are great tips, freebies and tutorials over there.
The conference thing is something that gets me both nervous and excited. I think it’s easier for bloggers since we ‘practice’ speaking everyday on the site. Key to any public speaking is knowing your material - and how knows a blog better than a blogger?!
Speaking comfortably comes with time. Think about each answer before you start talking - that helps quite a bit. Sometimes I repeat the question for everyone and that gives me time to put a thought together. I find that I babble and mess up more if I just try to immediately shoot from the hip.
Good luck! This is fun stuff!
Doug
(Nice design though!