The Blog

Okay, here’s the situation (or sitch, as my daughter’s favorite cartoon hero, Kim Possible would say):  You’re meeting some friends out for drinks and one of them brings someone you’ve never met before.  She’s smart, funny, and also happens to be a literary agent for the genre of novel you are hoping to publish some day.  Having perfected your elevator speech, you pitch your book and she expresses interest in connecting about it.  Do you:

A.  Rifle around in your purse for a pen and scrap of paper so you can scribble down your contact info
B.  Ask her for her mobile number
or
C.  Hand her a slick, chic profile card

Any of the above options might work, but the one that has the biggest chance of making a positive impression and increasing the likelihood of making a connection is option C.

Profile cards are easy to order from Zazzle.com.  The site let’s you select a design template and populates your contact information on the card image as you enter it so you can see exactly how your cards will look.  I just ordered some for myself and plan on using them when I meet someone new who also has an internet presence (which is just about everyone these days, hello Facebook), when I tell someone about my writing aspirations and they express an interest, or to share with family and friends so they can get to know the internet me.

Building and leveraging a personal network, both online and off, is more important now than ever.  It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle if your contact info is written on the back of a chewing gum wrapper.  Asking for someone’s mobile number can be awkward, especially if you don’t know them well.  Profile cards ensure that even when you aren’t at your computer you can easily enable ongoing, real life connections.

Posted by Elia in Career |

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.