'Director', 'Advisor', 'Officer', 'Executive' - all the sort of thing you might see in some form under someone's name on a business card. If you have a portfolio career though what do you put? I decided that the front of my business card would be clean and simple and that the back would say a bit more about what I do.
It was surprisingly difficult to arrive at this because my business is purposefully multi-faceted. It is the vehicle for the bulk of my portfolio career. The nature of it means it changes quite frequently, making it tricky to define. I secretly quite like this though. It means what I do doesn't fit neatly into any boxes. I think I even entered 'portfolio careerist' in the occupation box when I filled in my census form this year. I wonder how many others did the same?
Business cards used to be much more straightforward when I was an employee. The template was pre-determined. Name, job title, email, direct line plus all the generic company info and branding. I think the only thing that wasn't already filled in for me was my mobile number. The Facilities Team would ask me to sign off the proof and that was that. Another few boxes would arrive and sit in my drawer, unlikely to all get used before the next company branding change (which seemed unnecessarily frequent at times). I seem to get through business cards quicker now I'm a portfolio careerist; maybe I've just got better at networking out of necessity.
Sometimes it crosses my mind that it might make sense to have different business cards for different purposes. Indeed, I have clients who are keen that I carry business cards with their branding for when I am representing them. I assume some portfolio careerists do have a clutch of different business cards for their different areas of work. I'm grateful that I don't have to, purely because I can't stand too much clutter.
I found a card holder dropped in a car park recently, I looked inside for clues on how to find the owner in case there was anything valuable in there (there wasn't). There were however multiple copies of business cards for about three businesses. It left me wondering if I'd stumbled across a fellow portfolio careerist who had also faced the business card dilemma. I'll never know as I decided as there was nothing of much value in there to just leave it somewhere visible in case the owner came back looking for it.
The other side of the coin of course is do portfolio careerists, or indeed anyone, need traditional business cards at all these days? Might we instead start to see cards printed with those barcodes that can be scanned by a mobile phone to take you straight to websites or an increase in 'bluetoothing' and emailing each other electronic business cards? Call me old fashioned but I quite like rifling through my box of business cards remembering who I met and where. It is a bit of a bore having to create an electronic version of a new contact's details received on a business card though, so tricks to make that continue to make it easier in future will be welcome.
It was surprisingly difficult to arrive at this because my business is purposefully multi-faceted. It is the vehicle for the bulk of my portfolio career. The nature of it means it changes quite frequently, making it tricky to define. I secretly quite like this though. It means what I do doesn't fit neatly into any boxes. I think I even entered 'portfolio careerist' in the occupation box when I filled in my census form this year. I wonder how many others did the same?
Business cards used to be much more straightforward when I was an employee. The template was pre-determined. Name, job title, email, direct line plus all the generic company info and branding. I think the only thing that wasn't already filled in for me was my mobile number. The Facilities Team would ask me to sign off the proof and that was that. Another few boxes would arrive and sit in my drawer, unlikely to all get used before the next company branding change (which seemed unnecessarily frequent at times). I seem to get through business cards quicker now I'm a portfolio careerist; maybe I've just got better at networking out of necessity.
Sometimes it crosses my mind that it might make sense to have different business cards for different purposes. Indeed, I have clients who are keen that I carry business cards with their branding for when I am representing them. I assume some portfolio careerists do have a clutch of different business cards for their different areas of work. I'm grateful that I don't have to, purely because I can't stand too much clutter.
I found a card holder dropped in a car park recently, I looked inside for clues on how to find the owner in case there was anything valuable in there (there wasn't). There were however multiple copies of business cards for about three businesses. It left me wondering if I'd stumbled across a fellow portfolio careerist who had also faced the business card dilemma. I'll never know as I decided as there was nothing of much value in there to just leave it somewhere visible in case the owner came back looking for it.
The other side of the coin of course is do portfolio careerists, or indeed anyone, need traditional business cards at all these days? Might we instead start to see cards printed with those barcodes that can be scanned by a mobile phone to take you straight to websites or an increase in 'bluetoothing' and emailing each other electronic business cards? Call me old fashioned but I quite like rifling through my box of business cards remembering who I met and where. It is a bit of a bore having to create an electronic version of a new contact's details received on a business card though, so tricks to make that continue to make it easier in future will be welcome.
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