A good business card is absolutely essential.. If you go to a conference, you’re likely to collect a hundred or more cards over the course of the event! The key is to have a hard that sticks out from the crowd and gets noticed. I have a great looking card for my e-commerce site that was designed by a buddy of mine who does high-end graphic design work. It’s a double-sided, full-color card printed on thick stock with a matte finish. It really leaves an impression with people, and I ALWAYS get a comment on them when handing them out. And, it didn’t cost a fortune - I got 2000 cards (designed and printed) for around $300.

For those with bigger budgets, here is a collection of the coolest business cards I’ve ever seen:

Cool Business Card Designs

One of these days, I’ll get off my butt and get a good-looking card designed for ZanderChance.com.

Are you ready for an Entrecard Contest? Javier over at mrjavo.com is hosting another Entrecard Contest. The lucky winner will receive 1000 Entrecard Credits deposited directly into their account! In addition, he’ll write a recommendation about the winner’s blog on Entrecard.

How to enter to this contest:

1. Subscribing to his RSS feed. Doing this, you get 1 entry.
2. Subscribing to his RSS feed via Email. Doing this, you get 2 entries.
3. Subscribing to both feeds. If you subscribe to both feeds, you get 5 entries.
4. Writing a recommendation for him on Entrecard. I very appreciate this, if you do it you get 5 entries.
5. Writing this contest on your blog . If you do this, you get 5 entries for helping to broadcast his contest.
6. Dropping your E-card. This is obvious too right? if you do this you earn 1 entry to your contest.

The contest ends on February 16th, so don’t delay!

If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level, then you should consider attending the Elite Retreat in San Francisco this April. This is a serious seminar, with a serious price tag: $4,950!

But where else can you get some one-on-one time with the who’s who of the Internet marketing world? The Elite Retreat brings together Jeremy Schoemaker, Neil Patel, Aaron Wall, Andy Liu and Brian Clark together for two days of intense training that will take your Internet business to the next level. There will also be a special keynote by Guy Kawasaki.

I’m sure everyone would love to the go to Elite Retreat but very few people can afford that kind of entry fee. Not only that, but they’re capping attendance at 35 - And it’s already half sold out!

Lucky for you, John Chow and Rocket Profit have teamed up to offer one lucky winner a free ticket to the Elite Retreat! All you have to do is choose an offer from Rocket Profit, and explain in a blog post how you would market it. (PPC, SEO, E-mail, Social Media, etc) After making the post, you send an e-mail to John Chow with the URL or your post, so he can check it out. On February 8th, him and Shoemoney will sort through the entries and pick a winner. That person will receive a $4,950 ticket to the Elite Retreat, compliments of Rocket Profit. Good luck!

Edit: John is offering up another ticket to Elite Retreat!

Entrecard is a blogging service that has quickly emerged onto the blogger scene over the last couple of months. In a nutshell, it’s a free social advertising network for bloggers, and brings the concept of exchanging business card onto the Net. Entrecard allows you to advertise your 125×125 button (for free) on any blog in their network. You pay with Entrecard credits instead of real money, and you earn those credits by visiting other blogs and dropping off your Entrecard. It sounds complicated, but it’s really simple once you get used to it. Don’t let the complex control panel scare you off!

Entrecard is the brain child of Graham Langdon, creator of the Million Dollar Wiki. Already, a number of well-known bloggers are using Entrecard, and it’s continuing to grow each day! And in just two months, Entrecard has grown by leaps and bounds. Over 2000 free ads are now placed daily, and over half a million cards have been exchanged between site owners.

What are you waiting for?

John Chow made a great post the other day about how bad press is good for business. It seems counterintuitive, but we’ve seen it happen time and time again. Done right, it’s a great method to drive traffic to your site and generate lots of comments. But you’ve got to have the goods to keep the readers coming back, or else it’s about as useful as a Digg blast.

It’s all about CONTROVERSY.. Need proof?

• John Chow’s Battles With Google brought him attention from all over the world, and took his blog to the next level.
• A piece on the Top 50 Cowboys Players from a BRAND NEW Cowboys blog rattled people the wrong way, and that post alone has received over 10K pageviews!
• The Michael Vick controvery touched a nerve with dog owners around the world, and this football blog ended up receiving national attention from major sports media outlets!

Used sparingly, this is a great method to generate buzz and traffic for your site.. Good luck!

Business cards are a must for anyone in business.. Yet all too often, I meet people who don’t have business cards, or they printed out their own cards. First impressions are very important, so don’t blow it on something so basic! I know money’s tight when you’re first starting out, but VistaPrint has a solution that can fit even the smallest budget:

250 FREE full-color business cards (just pay shipping)

VistaPrint allows you to design, proof and order you business cards online. The free cards offer has 42 background designs to choose from. If you don’t like any of them, you can pay $14.99 to get access to hundreds of other designs. It costs nothing to try it out, so check out the site and see if you find a business card that meets your needs! Down the line when money isn’t so tight, you can get some fancier cards - I have some REALLY sick business cards that were custom designed, but they cost $200 for 2000 cards!

The VistaPrint offer is great if you’re looking for some free business cards to promote your site or blog. If you don’t need business cards, VisitaPrint also offers a free rubber stamp, personalized notepad, or 100 postcards.