Gathering Information

Path for Creating Self-Promotional Materials

• Know yourself, your skills and the direction you want to take with them.
• Define your audience and understand their needs.
• Design the strategy to get where you want to go in partnership with your target audience.
• Maintain your presence in the profession and evolve your particular point of view.

Some important questions to start with are:

• What skills do I have and want to use?
• What groups of people need my service/skills—who is my audience?
• Who do I want to work for?

Integrating the business card

• Its purpose is to display owners contact information for others to contact them by phone, mail, email and/or blog/website.
• The persons name should be prominent.
• The logo design can be an opportunity to exhibit design skills and identity.
• It should be easy to read and a reasonable size.

Networking Face to Face

Industry events are key places to network and exchange business cards. Everyone is a potential source of information and an excellent networking contact with whom to maintain and share information. Networking is socializing and a way to constantly build communication skills. At the same time a self promoter is genuinely interested in others and their needs.

Distributing and collecting business cards is a must. People introduce themselves and ask questions hoping to develop business relationships beyond the event. Follow up notes are emailed after meetings to continue to develop relationships. Names and contact information are entered into a database from the business cards to keep an organized record for continuous promotional use.