By Robert Short

Most business owners don't realize the importance of using a simple business card to generate tons of customers. It simply does not matter what kind of business you are in, you have to utilize this primitive business technique in order to grow your business fast.

The three main mistakes people make when marketing with business cards are:

1. Not having a business card.

2. Being stingy and only giving out one card per person.

3. Not giving a card to every person they come into contact with.

Not having thousands of business cards at your disposal at all times is not only stupid it is a crime against your business. If an employee of yours stole as much money from you as you lose from not utilizing business cards, they would go to prison for a long time. With today's super low cost business card printing prices there is no reason not to have business cards and an abundance of them for that matter.

I started my professional concrete cutting service business with absolutely no capital and grossed almost $400,000 in my first eight months of business. My only means of advertising was business cards. As many of you already know, it can sometimes take up to an entire year to get your ad placed into your local yellow page directory and it can be quite costly to a new business. The following are techniques that I used to generate tons of business from business cards and I believe that these same techniques can benefit any type of business.

1. I started with an eye catching logo and had a design that really said "this guy is a pro." It is worth the modest initial investment to get your cards designed right.

2. I kept my message "short and sweet." I have seen way too many people over do it with tons of bulleted text that cause confusion with the reader. I do concrete cutting and a few other services that relate to it but my business cards say only "Concrete Cutting."

3. I ordered my cards in quantities of 5000 at a time. Too often do I see new business owners print cards off of their computer and literally "ration" them off.

4. I never gave out a single card! I always handed out at least five at a time and sometimes more. I still look at my business cards as "lottery tickets." The first job I get from the batch pays for all of them so the rest can pay off huge. If they get thrown in the trash - Who cares? There are thousands more where those came from.

5. Any time I would meet someone in the construction trades I would hand them a stack of cards. I hand them to people that are standing next to me in line at the Home Depot or that are pumping gas across from me at the fuel pumps. I get questions like "What are these for?" or "What do you want me to do with these?" and I just simply say "You may not need my services now but when you do, you'll know who to call." At the same time I am thinking "I don't care what you do with them, they were basically free and the fact of the matter is that I get hundreds of calls from people that say "Remember Me?" "I met you at the Exxon Station or at parent teacher's night." Or "John Smith gave me your card and said I should call you" yet I have never heard of John Smith. Or "I've got your business card on my desk and I don't know where it came from but I need your services." I simply hand tons of my business cards out to people and the calls roll in.

6. I buy a mailing list of contractors from a list broker and I simply put three business cards in an envelope and mail a thousand envelopes at a time. I do not put an expensive brochure or a flyer, I simply put three business cards in and I get hundreds of calls and referrals from the mailing,

I now get hundreds and hundreds of calls from my existing customers and my yellow page ads but I still use business cards more than I ever have. I now have five trucks and seven employees and giving out business cards in the same fashion as I have described above is part of their job description. They have all seen the power of business cards and that business cards ensure each of our survival and actually gives them a good feeling knowing that they got a specific customer. If I contact a new customer and they happen to mention that one of my men did not give them a stack of business cards then I immediately contact the employee, ask them if it is true and explain to them that it is part of their job, then I hand them a big box of business cards and tell them not to let it happen again, ever.