Yesterday I spent about £40 on 250 high quality business cards from Whitesparks. It’ll be nice to have something tangible! I decided to use Whitesparks as I’ve used them before for SIE flyers and posters. I’ve had bad experiences with both the DIY and certain low cost printers that advertise by flyer inside books bought from Amazon. I’m also not going to go down the route of those machines you see at train stations. My friend Rob tried that and they were rubbish. You get what you pay for and I want to give the best impression (doesn’t everyone?).

Talking of giving a good impression, I’ve also done an email signature so if you get an email from [myfirstname].[mysurname]@mynewreg.com hopefully you’ll be impressed with the legal jargon and the fact I can spell my name correctly.

I was reading the FSB (no, not that FSB, the other one) magazine Business Network and noticed a bit of research commissioned by Microsoft. Apparently of the surveyed people 53% said they were more likely to use a small business if the have a professional website and email address. 41% also admitted to shunning local firms which use a personal email address.

I appreciate none of this means anything unless I can tie it up with a business but before you build a house you must lay the foundations (and other annoying metaphors like that).

99designs looks like a great place to get a value for money design. It’s not just about web design, you can get logos, business cards and even t-shirt designs. I haven’t done it yet but it works by someone putting up a request, designers submitting their creations and the client choosing the one they like. The major benefits are the competitive nature that keeps the cost down whilst getting excellent quality and the ability to choose from a number of different designs. I’ll give it a go and let you know how I get on.