When was the last time you took a long critical look at your business card?

I’d bet you haven’t really thought about it since you initially got them printed.

Let’s stop for just a moment and ask, what is the point of your business card? Is it to simply fill the wallets of prospective clients, or is it something that should be driving more sales to your business?

I bet you answered in the latter. So what should your business card look like then?

A few of the essential things it must contain:
1. What your company can do for the customer
2. What you personally do, if it’s not obvious from the business description
3. Your name,
4. Your best contact number (don’t use a switchboard number, use your direct number and show your cell-phone number)
5. Your company’s name

I have listed the criteria for the business card in a particular order. Do you notice something strange? I have put the company’s name last!

Your business card should be a “mini” sales letter for your business.

The card should have an attention grabbing headline that will attract prospects like a magnet.

Imagine if you where a plumber, your headline could read something like
“Need a plumber; we are only 8 minutes away!”

Don’t you think it would grab someone’s attention, especially if they desperately needed a plumber and were frantically looking around for your card, while standing knee deep in water from a leaking toilet.

The last thing they want to do is try and remember what your company name is, so they can call you.

Make sure you include a proper working telephone number, its amazing the number of cards I have received, that have a disconnected number on it.

Include your cell-phone’s number as well. Its will make getting hold of you even easier.

Include your company name last… It’s the least important thing on your card.
Just remember the old marketing saying “No-one is interested in your business, they are only interested in what you can do for them”

So think about turning your business card into a sales magnet…

Maybe its time for a re-think and possibly a redesign of your existing business card.

Remember, it should be your ‘mini’ salesman in a client’s wallet.

You want the card to keep reminding the client every time they see it, with what you do and what you can do for them.

One of my side projects I’ve been working on for almost 11 months now is the concept of business directories.

Here you create a directory listing all business within a niche (say fishing clubs) in a particular geographic region.

You then target these companies using offline methods and charge them either a recurring monthly fee or yearly fee to have their business listed in your directory.

Lets say you setup a directory for scrapbookers, and doing research you find their are 500 companies in a particluar area related either directly or in-directly to the craft of scrap booking.

You managed to convince 100 of them to advertise in your site for just $100 a year (an absolute pittance, as that is less than $10 per month).

Now lets do the numbers..

100 companies each paying $100 per year = $10,000 per year!! Not bad hey!

Now lets imagine we got 200 of them involved, and becuase we are give them tons of bonuses (most offline businesses have never experienced the concept of bonuses before) you manage to chareg $500 a year. Thats still just over $40 a month!

Now lets do the maths again.

200 companies x $500 per year = $100,000 per year from one website.

So how many of these $100k website do you want!!

Check out SiteByTonight and start making it happen.

IS YOUR NICHE WORTH GOING AFTER?

So you have a list of interests, and and you’ve narrowed it down to a very specific keyword phrase.

You now have your keyword phrase. Guess what?This doesn’t necessarily mean this is what you’re going to be focusing on for your business.Huh? Did I hear that right?

Yes, you heard that right. See, just because you have an interest in something, doesn’t mean other people are going to have an interest in it. And even if they do, if you’re going to go up against a million other sites promoting the same niche, you are going to have one heck of a tough time getting your piece of the pie. This is why I advise people to stay AWAY from Internet marketing. Why? It’s a jungle. Yes, you can make it work. I did. But why beat your brains against a stone wall when you can find something that is more like hitting a pillow.

So let’s take my own choice of health. I decided to go with the more narrowed keyword phrase “Alternative Treatments For Acne.”

Great, now what?

Well, let’s see what our demand and competition is.

How do we do this?

Well, the competition is easy. Just go to Google and type in, with the quotes YOUR keyword phrase. I’ll type in mine.

I get 37,000 sites coming up with that keyword phrase. Okay, not too bad.

Now, let’s see how many monthly searches we get.

To do this, go to a keyword suggestion tool and type in the same phrase.

I use many. Here’s one of them, its called NicheBot

http://www.hearder.com/keywords

It’s one of the easiest tool to use.

Now, type in your keyword phrase, again with the quotes, and see how many monthly searches you get.

In my case, not too good. My original phrase only got 2 monthly searches. And even the best word in my list, “Acne” only got 1688 monthly searches and it’s not very targeted. What I mean by targeted is this.

Does everybody who types in acne into a search engine want an alternative treatment? Some may simply be looking up what causes it. That’s why you want your target phrase to be as specific as possible.

So let’s see what we have.

1688 searches for a non targeted phrase and over 37,000 sites to go up against. I don’t know about you but I don’t like those odds. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t pursue this, but if you do, I just want you to understand what you’re going to be up against. It will be an uphill battle.

Ideally, you want to find a keyword phrase where you have about 1000 - 2000 competing sites and about 5,000 to 10,000 searches a month. Believe it or not, these ratios exist. They’re not easy to find but they do exist. And when you latch onto a niche with very little competition and a good number of monthly searches, you’ve basically found yourself a goldmine. The key is cashing in on it.

Just keep repeating the above process until you find a niche that you are happy with. It may take some time, but it’s time well spent.