\u201cThanks Bill, it was a pleasure meeting you. Here\u2019s my card. Let\u2019s stay in touch!\u201d Variations of this conversation can be heard at most business networking events. And, this card too is likely to join the carelessly abandoned stack of business cards in your drawer.<\/p>\n
With an unending stream of networking events and meetings, most first-time conversations have taken the shape of a template em-mail; not to mention , an exercise in memory to remember each name and face. Yet, as an entrepreneur, its important to cut through this clutter, and create a first impression strong enough to survive the onslaught of business cards and faces.<\/p>\n
So say hello to unconventional, quirky business cards that could help introduce you in a way that is fun, clever and most importantly, leaves an impression. \u201cIt takes about 30 seconds to a minute to register all details about every new person you meet. It\u2019s in this time that one makes a judgement about whether you\u2019d get in touch with them again or not,\u201d says Kiruba Shankar, Founder, F5ive Technologies, a Chennai-based web development company, who has designed 11 different sets of business cards for himself. \u201cThe way you speak, dress and walk create the first impression while your business card creates the lasting impression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shankar has multiple personalities-he\u2019s an entrepreneur who runs a web development company and a social media consultancy. He\u2019s also authored four books, speaker at several management colleges, and is a weekend farmer at this venture Vaksana Farms. To customize his communication to the varied groups of people Kiruba would run into, he has unique set of business cards to go with each of his identity. His four Facebook themed cards appeal more to the college audience he speaks to while his more formal corporate CEO cards are perfect for meeting potential clients, or pitching for work. (See photos for a peak into some of his designs at http:\/\/www.Kiruba.com\/businesscards . ) An open source advocate, he\u2019s put his portfolio of cards under the Creative Commons license. Not just that, he even differentiates his visiting cards by creating custom ones for separate events.<\/p>\n
For instance, when he was invited to the Malaysia International Tourism Bloggers Conference & Awards, Kiruba thought it was \u201cworthwhile\u201d to print 200 business cards especially for the event. One side of the card had his photograph in monochrome along with his contact details, and the flip side had a huge colourful logo of the event itself with a small \u201cWe met at\u201d at the top to remind people of the context of their meeting.<\/p>\n
However, the most ludicrous card from Kiruba\u2019s collection is his \u201cGoogle Card\u201d which might actually mislead you to believe that Shankar works for the search giant. There is no designation or contact information on this card except a Google search box in the centre that contains \u201cKiruba\u201d as the keyword and the entrepreneur\u2019s photograph on the back. What is the point of a businesscard if you don\u2019t wish to share any important information about you or your company with others?<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, this is the most popular business cards of all the ones I have used so far. It just makes a statement. If you sincerely want to know about me, you\u2019ll go look me up on Google later and will find all the relevant information in the first few links that pop up,\u201d Kiruba Shankar says confidently. Refer.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThanks Bill, it was a pleasure meeting you. Here\u2019s my card. Let\u2019s stay in touch!\u201d Variations of this conversation can be heard at most business networking events. And, this card too is likely to join the carelessly abandoned stack of business cards in your drawer. With an unending stream of networking events and meetings, most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-incmagazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiruba.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}