Your company’s business card is extremely important because it is a graphical snapshot of what your business represents. A poorly considered business card may portray you as second-rate, old-fashioned, out of touch or downright slovenly. On the other hand a well designed business card can depict your company as professional, forward thinking and switched on.

If you are new to designing business cards we would certainly suggest you consider using a graphic designer. Their knowledge and experience should be invaluable in taking your brief and turning it into an impressive design. However, if you are on a limited budget you may wish to undertake the job yourself, so here are a few pointers which should help.

Consider your use of colour as a black and white card may have less impact. However, going too far in the opposite direction could lead to people mistaking your business for a circus.

A well designed company logo will add gravitas to your business stationery. We suggest you keep it simple but professional. For inspiration why not take a look at what your competitors and multi-national companies are doing. They spend millions of pounds on designing their brands and logos but don’t be tempted to follow their design too closely or you may get your hand smacked!

Choose on a good font that represents your business. For example, an antiques dealer may prefer an old script style of font whereas an architect may be more suited to an angular typeface. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s legible and don’t mix too many fonts together as it will nearly always look amateurish.

The size of your card should be within conventional guidelines, say 90 x 60mm or 85 x 55mm. If your card is too big it may make it too difficult to file away and it will also adversely impact on cost.

Finally, your printer may offer a number of material or printing technique options to add that touch of uniqueness, such as embossing or thermography.. These can be extremely effective, but you must also be careful not to let your card rely too heavily on a gimmicky technique which could quickly become played out and look unprofessional.

Content is king, so make sure you include all your salient company and contact details. A good strap-line which embodies what your company offers is also useful to reinforce your proposition. You’ll probably be tempted to include a list of services but avoid information overload which could make your business card seem cluttered. Many Printers now offer the opportunity to print on the reverse of the card so this would be a great place to show this information. Of course you’ll want to include your name but you may also wish to add your position within the company and possibly your professional qualifications. Don’t be afraid to play around with the content and how it is justified on the page to see what looks best.

We’ve tried to give you some guidance on creating a great looking and effective business card. Don’t be afraid to experiment but follow the above principles and you’ll soon have a business card that stands out from the rest.

With over 20 years experience as print brokers we are usually able to make significant cost savings for our clients and at the same time improve on the quality of the finished product. We recommend you visit our site for more printing advice or for a free of charge quotation business cards.

Wise leaders are always looking for an edge for efficiency. They take advantage of what others have done. For example, you copy another credit union’s policies or you obtain a sample from a friend at another 501-C-3. Alternatively, you buy a ‘model’ published by a third part. Those are the subject of this article.

In the eighth century BC, Herod said, “It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.” Providing order is perhaps the best reason for taking on the task of developing policies – guidelines that help people do better work.

Policies generally derive from our experiences. We want to either repeat or prevent those experiences. However, in a lifetime, it is doubtful that any leader will experience everything that a particular policy could cover. That is where third parties come in. Consultants and other third parties work with many diverse clients whose real-life experiences enable them to build content-rich model policies.

What I am addressing are the styles or formats that some third parties use in their models. The models I have seen are generally well constructed and valuable. See if you can get what I mean about style or approach.

In a model investment policy I received recently, the model text often referred to the organization, in this case a credit union, as is it was another entity. For example, “The blank Credit Union will reexamine these polices every year…” That is a commonly constructed statement found throughout many policies in place in organizations, and in third-party model policy documents.

You say you have seen that too but wonder what I am going on about? Well, it is this. A policy is a guideline developed by the leaders of an organization for the use of its inside people. Therefore, its voice should be “first person.”

For example, a board issues a policy expressing its desires and authorizing the executive to act. The executive is that Board’s primary audience. (There are board process policies that the board writes for doing its own things systematically and orderly, where the primary reader is a board member.) Board polices need to be read as if hearing it spoken by a chorus of the directors, in unison.

The more appropriate way of saying the above example is this, “The executive [or CEO, or ED, or Investment Committee] will reexamine these polices every year…” That is a more direct statement from the Board to whomever they are directing through the policy.

Third parties have another style in common. They seem to be the outside telling us, instructing us on what the policy should say. I often see a policy area begin with something like this, “It shall be the policy of blank Nonprofit that…” Well, I know I’m being a little fussy here, but when will it be a policy? When I read that kind of statement, what I hear is, “It will someday be our policy to…,” Alternately, it is more like a report where the consultant is saying, “Your policy should be…” Neither of those perspectives make sense to me when I am reading an official statement that is supposed to guide my actions today.

Remember, I admit I am being fussy. You may simply take the position that we can all interpret the statement to be the policy, and not a future intent for one. However, if policies are supposed to make our work better, we should not have to make all those avoidable translations and give us time to interpret the important stuff.

Here is another area about which I’m fussy. In your own policy document, the one you adopt for use by your own people and which you will read most often within the walls of your own offices, why would you repeatedly use the name of your own organization? Third party policy providers are in the habit of providing blanks for you to fill in the name of your organization. Perhaps the authors intend for you to feel you are customizing the model by adding your name everywhere. What is more important is customizing the sentences and paragraphs to focus the idea, the intent of the content, to say what you want them to mean.

For example, “The blank Credit Union will invest only in those things authorized by law and regulation, and limited further by these policies.” In this statement, it’s as if the credit union is talking to itself. Would your elected board say, “The credit union, which we were elected to direct, will do this thing…” To me, both examples sound out-of-body.

Therefore, a final policy should sound more first-person like this excerpt from my model manual for credit unions: “Keep the Board informed of ALM decisions, the basis for them, and expected long-term results.”

You see, it is not the board or the credit union that will act, but the board’s delegate who will act; the board is directing the delegate.

All I’m saying is, while I am grateful to have model polices to work from, and do as often as I can, I want to work with phrasing that sounds like something written by an insider. Therefore, I hope that if you think about this as I do, you may clip and mail this article to the people who provided you with a model that contain styles that I have outlined here. In addition, I hope they will take it in the spirit that you and I both intended – helpful.

Use third party models to greatest advantage by recognizing they will address more topics than your experience tells you to. The authors have gone to great effort to make your policy-drafting job much easier. First, have someone change all the references to your organization’s name to “We” or the title of the position or committee the board directs with that statement. Generally, change the voice to first person. Then get on with the important work – customizing the meaning.

Consultant, Facilitator, Educator, Coach: Management consultant helping to clarify roles at the top of organizations, and helping them seek farther horizons in their planning.