Vistaprint Business Cards

You have no doubt herd of or possibly even used the services provided by Vistaprint. It's hard to miss this company who makes it a point to advertise everywhere that a potential customer may be lurking. How good though are their products? Well, once you get past the checkout process which is quite extensive due to them offering you pretty much every product in theit catalogue, you will wait a few weeks depending on the shipping method that you choose, and then be plesently greeted by your high quality business cards that will look great if you submitted a good design!

$100,000 to Not Go to University

University is expensive and with the coalition government's new plans (in the UK), it's going to get much, much more costly. But, what are the alternatives? You need a degree to be successful, right? Wrong. Here is a list of billionaires who never attended university, or dropped out before finishing their degree:

Bill Gates - Co-founder and ex-chairman of Microsoft. Net worth: $54billion.

Michael Dell - Founder of Dell inc. Net worth: $14billion.

Mark Zuckerberg - CEO of Facebook. Net worth: $6.9billion.

Steve Jobs - CEO of Apple. Net worth: $6.1billion.

Sir Richard Branson - Founder of the 'Virgin Group'. Net worth: $5billion.

Ralph Lauren - Founder of Polo Ralph Lauren. Net worth: $4.6billion.

A longer list can be seen here. 

Great. Now, Tell Me About the $100k.

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, is supporting young entrepreneurs with his new Thiel Fellowship.

What Is The Thiel Fellowship?

The Thiel Fellowship is a program where 20 people, under the age of 20, are given $100,000 to dedicate their time to creating and implementing a brilliant idea. Thiel talks about how,

some of the world's most transformational technologies were created by people who stopped out of school because they had ideas that couldn't wait until graduation.

His whole idea is that people should not let education get in the way of a fantastic idea. It's a really great premise, and I totally agree; for many great solutions, spending 3+ years and thousands of dollars/pounds at university is just a complete waste of time. The problem, up until now, is giving potential students a reason to risk their future (if their plan goes belly-up) by missing out on higher education. Although this program is only available to 20 lucky entrepreneurs, it should bring hope to thousands more.

I'd like to end this post with a quote from the aforementioned Bill Gates:

I failed in some subjects at school, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.

If you like my work, please check out my personal blog.

Alternative Designs to your Business Cards

This article was originally posted on www.jakeculpmedia.com

Business cards are one of the most omnipresent marketing tools that any business owner has. Your business card printing is as necessary as having your own company name as it is the marketing tool that would definitely introduce your company to your target clients. Therefore, having a great looking business card that gets kept can do a lot of wonders to your reputation as a business and provider of solutions to your target clients’ problems.

Your business card is often the marketing tool that you use to promote your business when marketing with the help of your network. Networking then is an integral part of marketing that a business card works well with. As such, it is very important that your business cards be able to provide all the necessary information about you and what you can do to your target clients.

However, your business card also doesn’t have to have the same design and layout that all the other business owners have used since time immemorial, e.g. the same boring black on white business card, with usual myriad of contact information found on the face and back of the card. Most often than not, unusual and unique designs and layouts get you to stand out. And how you provide a different function to your business card is key to getting your marketing strategy effective in generating interest to your business.

So if you’re looking for ways to make your business card printing design more attractive, this article is useful to give your business cards a fresh start with alternative ideas for layouts and designs.

Idea #1: Print more than a business card; print a promotional offer card.

In addition to your contact information, make your cards like loyalty cards or frequent-buyer cards that every time your target clients use it, they would be reminded of you. But don’t forget to put an expiration date to your promotional offer. And then start handing them all out.

Idea #2: Have a survey card.

Print a short survey on your business card. Or offer an incentive every time your target clients return your card to you when they answer a few simple questions on your short survey. Afterwards, you can then give them a business card that has your contact information in it.

Idea #3: Print other marketing tools in your marketing tool.

For example, you can have your business card designed as a hangtag, name tag, ticket to an event you sponsored, or even greeting cards that you can attach to a gift bag or souvenir items which you can then hand out to your target clients. Your recipients would more likely remember your gift along with your card when they receive what you sent them as a form of thank you. 

Idea #4: Print an appointment card.

Turn your business cards into appointment cards by including the next appointment of your client in your card. Your recipients would surely keep your business card because they would want to be reminded of their next appointment.

Always remember that marketing with business cards is not just about handing your marketing tools out to everyone you meet. You have to render your business card with an innovative function, design and layout, that would make it stand out among the rest of usual boring and standard cards. These ideas presented in this article will help you do that and more. Because getting unique cards to represent you and your business will always provide you with opportunities to attract target clients who will later on can become real clients for your business.

Moo Cards Review

There are ways you can get your name out if you're a freelancer or if you're working on behalf of a company, one of the cheapest and most effective ways is the use of business cards. Business Cards are small, compact and can store a lot of information, in a stylish fashion, making the person on the receiving end feel confident in who the person is they are working with or have been visited by. 

One company that is brand new on the market and is currently being held in the spotlight is Moo. They offer a professional creating and printing process right from their online, no software needed forms and design suite. Moo offers a wide selection of designs and text formats, making your business cards look professional yet elegant to look at. On the reverse, when it comes details, Moo offer a space to include a photo or logo for yourself so that your customer always remembers who you are, as well as a neat layout to make sure everything looks presentable and doesn't confuse anyone who looks at it to see who you are and how they can contact you.

Not only does Moo provide the great service and quality cards, but they do it for all for a selection of low prices. £12.99 gets you 50 professionally printed business cards, designed to your requirements in comparison £11.99 gets you 100 mini cards. Moo don't just stop at business cards. They also provide stickers, postcards, greetings and Christmas cards, so you have nothing to lose when it comes to marketing yourself or your business. 

Thanks to YouTube, you can get your first 50 free to try them out yourself. The only disadvantage is the small watermark at the bottom of the card, although it is very small.