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When you and a professional contact meet for the first time, the first thing both of you usually do is to exchange business cards. That means besides the brief introduction at the beginning of the meeting, your business card design plays a pivotal role in creating the first impression the other person will form of you. I would almost go as far as to say that this simple, yet very effective business card is your passport to the start of successful business. Super salesmen can justify the truth in this statement. In today’s world your business card is almost like a currency in your own right – you have the right of designing your own business card and simultaneously determining the strength of your cash flow.
The size and design of your business card

When deciding on the size of your business card, don’t be too concerned about the small size. It is essentially the design and information on your card that is of high importance.

What information should you put on your business card?
Business Cards should display the following information:

* Your Business Name
* Professional Titles
* Company Address
* Relevant contact details of the individual including e-mail.

Using your business card as a marketing tool

If you look objectively at a business card, it acts as a means of below-the-line advertising – in the truest sense of the word. Because business cards are handed out to potential business contacts and clients it is an ideal opportunity to offer a compelling message. This message can be anything from:

* Your business’ objectives and mottos;
* The names of high profile clients to
* Tag lines from your clients.

The type of, and if you put a personal message on your business card is really up to you.

Different types of Business Cards designs

The days are gone where you have to be satisfied with single-sided business cards. Today there are a vast variety of different designs:

* Business cards shaped like place holders
* Four sided business cards
* Colour printed business cards
* Laminated business cards
* A business card that looks and feels like a credit card

How to design a business card?

There are several Internet based service companies that custom design and make your Business Cards from designing the logo and printing to delivering your business cards for you. Some of these companies even have online business card design templates enabling you to design your own business cards online.

Where to design a business card in Toronto

Artik.com is such an Internet based service company enabling you to design your own business card. start designing your business card now!

ID cards are becoming a very valuable asset for any business to recognize their employees and authorised site personnel at a glance, vastly improving site security at a very low cost. And particularly useful where the company employs a range of temporary workers and frequently has contractors on site, (generic visitor passes are the economical solution here) It can also enable you to improve your customer service by allowing your customers to know with which member of staff they are dealing. Since the photo ID card becomes the focus of attention, it is wise to ensure that it is of the highest possible quality, and worthy enough to represent your company image. Poor quality ID card will only reflect poorly upon your organisation, everything about a successful business should reflect the ethos of quality that has elevated them to such a standing in the first place.

If you are in charge of providing Photo ID Cards for your company, there are many solutions that allow you to make “home made” ID cards, unless your organisation really cannot afford to go to a professional agency for your Id, I would strongly advise against this. There are many reputable companies that are capable of creating ID cards of stunning design and quality at a very reasonable cost and with turnaround times of just a few days from order to delivery. Company ID cards are also useful to ensure that any employee privileges, such as discounted goods, are not maltreated by persons not entitled to such advantage.

Where card security is paramount, there are numerous methods that can be adopted to ensure that the cards cannot be tampered with, Photo ID Cards can be printed on cards with an embedded hologram, enabling personnel to confirm their authenticity at a glance, cards can also be laminated during the print process, this gives added security as the details are not just printed on the card, but IN the card, making the effort of altering any details much more difficult. And also offering a higher level of card durability. Cards can easily be produced in line with any existing corporate image. Where a method of infallible authentication of the cardholder is required, it is possible to impose an image of the cardholders signature upon the face of the card.

You may already carry a card from your workplace, many companies to these dual purpose ID cards, company shop discounts, canteen funds, employee bonus incentives, etc.

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1. If story board is not rehearsed or discussed before hand, then do Divide and Conquer If I am sharing a stage with a speaker who I haven’t met before I normally do divide and conquer, this obviously means I clearly divide the portions between us. For example, the first 10 slides by me and the next 10 by the other speaker, or it will be done so that I do all the Slides and the other person does all the demonstrations. This way I avoid stepping on the other speakers shoes.

2. In the introductory slide, the hierarchy of names is very important. Generally have the first name on the slide to be of the person who is going to do the main portion of the presentation. If you are undertaking the presentation along with your superior, boss or client then it is common etiquette to have their name at the top, even though you may be the person doing the most talking.

3. If you are presenting along with a colleague, remember to give them adequate time to introduce themselves and talk.

4. If you have finished a section, and the other speaker is starting, it is OK for them to say “Thank you” to you for the first time, but it need not be repeated at every change.

5. Divide the total time between you and have a pre agreement on who is going to reduce which portion if time becomes an issue.

6. When the other talker is speaking, please don’t typing on your laptop, play with your phone or keep gesturing at your friend in the front row. Focus your attention, just like the audience upon the speaker. If you do otherwise, it shows disregard for the speaker.

7. Also, when the other talker is doing a demonstration and forgets a step, don’t jump to his aid and help immediately. Give some time and after that try to communicate the idea as discreetly as you can.

8. Finally there can be only one captain to the ship, so agree beforehand between you that for the duration of the presentation, who is that captain. This basically means who can plot the course, when an emergency like a slideshow not working, embarrassing questions coming in, short of time, etc. Having a captain makes it easy and resolves conflicting problem resolving decisions on stage. Remember, in situation like this, you have to be able to think on your feet sometimes it may not be logical or correct and two people can never produce the same quick fix at the same time.

Questions and answers section

1. If you are new to presentations, don’t overly encourage taking questions during the talk. Announce to audience at the beginning, that you will answer any questions at the end. When you will also provide your plastic cards. Taking questions in between can interrupt your flow and regaining your position can prove very difficult you can very easily become removed from your main message. You can change this rule once you have built your confidence and become an Ace in presentations. This is because, taking questions in between your speech can create a good atmosphere of ambience, a cast of positive interaction.

2. Never get into an argument or a heated discussion – drop them after 60 seconds and take it on to the next topic.

3. There will be sections of people within the audience who ask questions simply to say something they know, or advertise their company brand or to complain to everyone that the food was bad or to insinuate that they know the subject more than you do. If you suspect the question to be along these lines, interrupt this person as soon as possible and request them to communicate the Actual question they had in mind.

4. Never let a question be answered by another member of audience. If you do this, then you will totally loose the audience and it will become a discussion, not a presentation. You have to remember that you are the boss during your presentation, so ascertain your presence.

5. If you get a question for which you are unsure of the correct answer, politely say “that is a good question” and that “ you will need to check on the facts before answering”. Ask them to speak to you after your presentation or tell them that you will find out and email them a response. After the presentation hand out your plastic business cards.

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Laptops, Audio-Video & Systems:

1. Even if you are carrying your own laptop with the presentation preloaded, always have a backup. Always have a copy of your PPT in a USB flash drive and remember to carry it or email it prior to the presentation to the host of the event and request them to have it loaded on an alternate machine.

2. Check and recheck all your hardware, cabling, power supply and software.

3. Always run your laptop from its Power Supply. Even if your laptop can run for more time without power, than the length of the presentation, don’t use battery. Modern day notebooks reduce the speed of CPU if you are running from battery. Slowing your machine down.

4. Keep all the applications that you are demonstrating open before the start of your presentations. Much of the time applications seem to take more time to start when you are on the stage.

5. Increase your font size to about 20 in Notepad/VS.NET/IDE if you are displaying program code.

6. Stick to simpler fonts like Courier or Tahoma, It is my belief that source code looks clearer with these fonts.

7. If this is the first time, you are doing a demonstration with this notebook then connect your notebook to an external monitor and check the output is configured the day before.

8. If you are going to be using a notebook for the first time during the presentation, then practice using a notebook before the presentation. The usage of touchpad pointer is completely a different method from a mouse. Better still, request or carry a mouse and connect it prior to the presentation.

9. Go 20 or 30 minutes early to the stage before the audience comes in, then rig your laptop and check it works with the projectors. Try to build a team spirit with the A/V assistant there, remember he is the most important person in the entire venue during your presentation. Place your plastic business cards in a prominent position where people will notice them and pick them up. plastic cards are preferable to traditional business cards as they are visually striking and more likely to be picked up and retained.

10. If you require an Internet connection, inform the Event Organizers well in advance (A week really helps). I have learned the hard path that the larger the hall, and the more stars if it is a Hotel, the greater the difficulty for them to give you an Internet Connection or Phone Connection. This problem is now relatively negated due to Internet connection through Mobile phones and WIFI. there again, on most halls for some reason, because they tend to be below ground have the worst signal strength near the stage. So always test it before relying on it.

11. Always Remember that the Murphys law works at its best during technical presentations and especially during beta demonstrations.

Sharing the stage:

1. If you are completing the presentation with another speaker, remember to get the storyboard discussed well in advance. Apart from doing this, you need to definitely rehearse your presentation at least once or twice. Because the chemistry on stage between you two is very important and it doesn’t come very easily unless you know the other person very well and have worked or spoken with them before.

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There are many ways and places to store business cards. The back pockets of your pants, the credit card slots in your wallet, the inside pages of your business journal or in your bag. Although these places may have been a good alternative to store your business cards and business cards that you receive, it won’t make a good impression on you. You need a good-looking business card case to boost up your elegant, confident and professional image.

Importance of Business Cards and Why You Need Them

Your own business card and card that you receive from clients and colleagues are important things that you shouldn’t just take for granted. Your business card is a way for people to know who you are, where your office are, the nature of your work and where to contact you in case they have a need for your service. Unless you don’t want to be reached and doesn’t want to make a sale, don’t bother on creating your own business card.

As for the Business Cards of your clients, keeping them gives you an edge over other sales people and businessmen who have a habit of throwing away business cards that they receive during a meeting, a conference or simple gathering. This is most especially true if the business of that person isn’t related to yours, you didn’t make a sale from him, and he is very unlikely to become a client or a partner in the near future.

If you keep all the Business Cards that you receive and keep them safely in a business card case, you will be surprised at what these contacts can do for you and for your business even if they are the least likely to be a client of yours. These people have contacts of their own in and out of your field, which may become prospective clients if only they were introduced to you by someone they know.

Look Good with Business Card Case

Your best companion during giving out and receiving business cards is a business card case. Best material makes to choose from are stainless steel, silver, and gold. One of the most favorite material of modern men is stainless steel with frosted finish. It gives a modern, minimalistic look, complimenting your sleek laptop or thin attache case.

There are many ways you can use a good looking Business Cards case to your advantage. Consider this:

When you are in a sales meeting, of course, it would be you who would make the initiative to offer your business ard to your client. When it is your client’s turn to give out his, put out your business card case, open it up ever so slowly, and while you are still talking to him leave your business card case open and let him have a glimpse of the cards already in it. After which, promptly place his card atop all the other cards to make him feel important and snap it close to make him see that you are proud to have his business card.

This is just a simple gesture yet it will get you far from being just a regular salesman. After this brief stint, you are sure to be treated with more respect than during your initial meeting.

Power Point Slide Shows:

1. Slides should be brief: Ideally a single Power Point Slide should not contain more than 1 or 2 images and no more than viewers can pick them up.

2. Slides are only a visual aid: Continuing on the previous point, remember that the slides are only pointers for you to recollect facts and speak. The slides shouldn’t communicate the entirety to audience, if that is the case, you have no role to play in the presentation, the audience can read it for themselves.

3. Generally keep your slide background to a simple light colour. Remember that projectors don’t show colour as great as your screen and from a distance dark colour fonts on a light background appear clearer. This is the reason why vehicles around the globe have their Number plates in White or Yellow background and with Black colour lettering.

4. Avoid clipart or cartoons unless they are absolutely necessary. Even if you do use them, you are advised to use sparingly. Remember, everyone in the audience would have for sure, seen the MS Office clipart hundreds of time. I have seen in many PPTs, where the presenter has used almost all the Cliparts that Microsoft managed to ship with its MS Office CD.

5. Utilise the time to learn Power Points powerful less-used features of Master Slides (View Master Slide Master Menu).

6. Reduce the number of times, you make verifications to fonts and colours on individual slides. Continuing on previous point, try to make tweaking only to your Slide Master and let it run across your slide presentation.

7. Reduce the usage of Serif Fonts. Try to use only Sans-Serif fonts for everything in your slides. Typefaces generally fall into two broad categories: serif and sans serif. Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman have little sweeps at the ends of each character stroke that lead a readers eye from character to the next character, increasing reading speed and easing eye strain. Sans serif fonts, such as Arial and Verdana, don’t have these sweeps, as a result, reading is difficult for long passages of text because the eye is not moved from one character to the next.

8. Don’t create your own Power Point templates from scratch. Use the templates that ship out of the box with Power Point and then start altering them. For example if the background image you want use across all your slides is White based, then start with one of the standard templates that have a white background, replace your background image and build from there. This way you will get the best practice on fonts, colours and alignments for free and you only need to convert things that you don’t like the look of.

9. Most of the projectors are capable of a maximum of 1024×768 resolution, so make your slide presentation look good at that resolution.

Find more about plastic business cards and plastic cards.

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18. Finally, don’t leave your laptop and presentation equipment on podium There is every chance, that after the presentation you will be occupied with questions from audience and you could forget to collect your items.

Health and Life Style Tips:

1. Try to get a good night sleep for the presentation, your eyes are a window to you, so a well rested body has relaxed good looking eyes. Having said that, most of the time, I prepare my slide presentations the day before, but every time when I practiced this, I knew my presentation to be vastly improved.

2. When in Rome do as “Romans” do. So check with your seminar organizers on the dress code they are expecting from you. I normally stick to formal dress including tie and suit for technical presentations, Suits for Business presentations, and Relaxed or casual for other presentations. always have an adequate supply of plastic business cards.

3. Keep a bottle of water to hand in the stage area. When you are speaking, especially in Air Conditioned rooms, your mouth gets dry very quickly.

4. After a long presentation of 60 to 90 minutes when you are back home, a good mouth gargle with mouthwash or salt water has a soothing effect.

Technical Presentations:

1. Learn the subject you are going to be presenting intimately. Today audiences have access to almost all the information, or at times more, on the subject through Internet and if it is Microsoft Technologies through Microsoft Help Online and various other blogs.

2. If you are standing in last minute for a different speaker, and you don’t have time to prepare fully on the subject, at least take the effort of preparing a map of pit falls. These are list of topics areas on the subject that you are not fully aware, with this method you can stay clear of, or at least tread on as gently as possible on the land-mines.

3. On an average for every slide you should budget 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the theme and its technicality. So a 90 minutes presentation, maximum you should have is 30 Slides. If you have demos, this number should be decreased.

4. If you are talking about a particular product Never Criticize or Attack competition directly. Indirectly looks more professional, If you have to do it, do it only after presenting irrefutable data and statistics supporting your product. If you do it without substantiating your claims, it will result in a blood bath in the hall needless to say most of the blood, would have come from your body. Always, try to remain factual in the presentation. At the same time, don’t hesitate to point out errors, omissions, and holes in competition’s argument.

5. During the presentation or especially during the demos, if you forget a particular step or point that you had rehearsed don’t pause and try to remember it. Simply ignore it and progress.

6. Don’t pause for undue duration in between, even if you are waiting for something else to happen like and application to load, slides etc. Continue talking during all your allotted time. This gap is useful for throwing some jokes & interesting facts. In a way this will shake-up the audience and wake those who are sleeping.

Always give the audience an opportunity to take a plastic cards showing your business details.

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This post is a sequel of the previously published information about business promotion.

10. If you can walk around a bit during the presentation walk but don’t run on stage. Make small and confident strides. If you keep walking left-and-right across the stage too fast, audiences will get a sore neck. Remember, they are not watching a tournament of ping pong!

11. Never overrun your allotted time. Always keep an eye on time. Rehearsing your timing beforehand should help you get this down to around 5 minutes either way. I normally keep my wrist watch in a practical viewing position for me to check the timing.

12. More than overshooting the time, it looks very unprofessional if you finish well in advance. If you do it, you will appear to your audience as someone who doesn’t know very much about the topic of discussion.

13. Once the presentation is finished, speak to your colleagues (if they are present) or to the hosts and ask them for an honest and frank review. This is critical for ensuring that you can improve in the future. Also speak to few of the audience members, and casually ask them questions with a view to understand how much of your topic has been absorbed.

14. If the event was recorded (Video or Audio) asks your hosts to give you a copy of it. It is a good idea to carry a blank CD or DVD and give it to them along with your plastic business cards. This way they will remember to do the favour for you.

15. If there is a feedback form, take time after the event, and discuss this with event organizers, go through at least thirty of completed feedback forms in person. This is important, as even if they intend to send an excellent report giving statistics and chart after the event. Because by the time the well-prepared report comes, it will be at best a couple of days later and you would have gone to a different job and forgotten about the details of the presentation. So when the event is fresh in your mind, try to gather immediate opinion.

16. Presentations and Speaking are good opportunities to expand your network. So carry good number of your plastic cards and give them to people who ask for it. If it is a produce promoting presentation you are doing, then it is a good idea to even leave some of the cards on the podium for other speakers and people to pick up. Also remember to walk around and socialise with people if there is a lunch/dinner happening after the presentation.

17. How annoying is it to hear a mobile phone sound during a presentation? Before you ask the audience, please remember to switch off your own mobile phone. At times it can be a good idea to do it on stage while you start talking, this way you will give an example and remind to others to do it, rather than having to ask them to do it.

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Although I consider myself as a student of this art, people keep requesting me to share with them my experiences and techniques. So I decided to write this short lecture.

There are 3 basic ways to learn this art:

1. Listen to knowledgable speakers: Attend as many seminars of great speakers as possible. The subject spoken does not matter here, what you are learning is the “Technique of captivation”

2. Read books and articles about presentations: There are now lots of books on doing effective presentations and the web has countless pages on this. Read them.

3. Keep Practicing: Get out there as many times as you can and just do it. As they say, people only learn from mishaps as you gain experience from each presentation, you will learn from mistakes made and improve each time. Always carry plenty of plastic business cards

Apart from the above 3 rules, the below is what I learned over the years.

1. Understand your audience – try to get before-hand, the profile and the volume of your audience. It is also a good idea to ask event organizers, what they consider as the key to success for the event.

2. Prepare for the subject – know what you are speaking about!

3. Before you start the presentation, try to get into the arena and spend few minutes familiarising yourself with it. This is to make yourself comfortable with the environment and ease any anxiety.

4. Before you make your presentation, if you get a chance to sit on the stage with other speakers, take the opportunity. Try to sweep the hall with your eyes and make eye contact with the audience. Don’t take the eye contact to the extreme and stare at one person for a length of time, you will make them nervous. Just do it for a second with one person and then keep moving. This can be a great way to boost your confidence.

5. Start with a Joke or some interesting fact that is relevant and related to the day’s theme.

6. Always Introduce yourself – You have organised this, you have put in effort, and you deserve your limelight. Speak your name, loud & clear in a way you will like to hear it to being pronounced by others. Let the audience know your background especially relevant experience to today’s topic. Having said that, If the previous person already has introduced you, don’t repeat your details all over again. Always try to keep the introduction brief. Let the audience know that your plastic cards are available.

7. Study the body language of your audience. Most of the time, if they are bored or if they think you are telling a mistruth, you can reveal this from their body language.

8. Deliver your presentation in clear voice, don’t mumble.

9. During your presentation, don’t keep looking at your notebook or the screen all the time. Stand upright, make frequent eye contact with the audience. Sweep the hall (to all the corners) with your eyes.

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Do you have Plastic Business Cards advertising your services? If so do you ever use them or are they still sat in a nice plastic box looking pristine waiting for you to give them out to people? Well here’s a great way to promote your business absolutely free, and start utilising the power of business cards for yourself.

1. On a train: When you take a train journey make sure you inadvertently leave a business card sitting on the train table, or in one of the pouches on the seat in front of you. Do this each and every time you take your journey. People can get bored on train journeys and will read almost anything that’s lying about and your card might reach the eyeballs of someone who needs your services.

2. In a taxi: Another fine way to get your business seen is to drop your card in a taxi. Taxi drivers don’t clean out their machine until the end of the day so your card will be sitting there all day long.

3. In the bank: This is a great place to drop your business card especially if your bank has a separate area for business banking. Drop your card on one of the counters and all the while people are waiting to get their deposit put through, your card is screaming at them!

4. On a bus: Depending on what service you offer you can drop your card on the local buses or connecting buses that is going into one of the major towns or cities in your area. For example if your run a dog walking service it might be better to drop it on your local buses and if you run an internet service it would be better to drop it on a town centre bus where more businessman and women are going to see it.

5. Accountant’s office: If you go to visit your accountant, drop your business card on the desk of your accountant. Make sure it is out of sight from the accountant, but in plain view of the person sitting opposite the accountant.

6. Business centre: There are many business centres that offer local businesses services and help them get started in business or to help grow an existing business. At the main reception desk you can discretely leave your business card so everyone entering through the centre will be able to see it and pick one up whilst waiting for their appointment to be confirmed. Also leave some on the magazine table in the waiting area.

7. Local restaurant: You can also leave your business card in a menu holder in your local restaurants. Don’t deposit it on the table as tables are always cleared immediately after someone leaves.

8. Supermarket checkout: This is a brilliant place to leave your card, especially if you leave a pile of them stuck just beside the confectionary rack. People are bored in queues and will read almost anything your little box of cards may well catch their eye.

9. Business conference rooms: dependent on the layout and design of the room you can deposit your card in a conference room or stick it to the seat in front of you if it is a larger conference room and not just a small room with a table.

10. Sandwich takeaway shop: A good place to deposit your business card particularly in a busy city as you will get a lot of affluent people passing through to pick up a bite to eat to have lunch in the workplace.

You can be inventive when leaving your Plastic Cards anywhere and one method you can use is to get a slim line box with your cards, and stick the box with your business cards in it in a prime location for other people to notice, this way your card get seen by a lot more people and not just thrown away. If you are a small business owner on a tight budget these are some good ways to market yourself for free or cheaply, so use your creativity and get out there.

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