designerbooster » business

Lasting Impressions: Unusual Business Cards That Will Definitely Be Kept

designerbooster — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:38:35 +0000

As a designer creating good business cards online for yourself can be quite task. The need for a visually appealing business card design is greater than in other work fields. There are 2 steps to giving a business card, not only as a designer, but as a business individual in general. The first step, and most important is ensuring the business card is kept. The second step is, of course, getting the project. Sharing a great looking business card with a partner can often make the difference between getting the job or not. Not to mention that most, let’s say ordinary business cards end up in the trash after awhile. An unusually creative card made out of metal, plastic or rubber can ensure you a permanent slot in that ever-growing pile of business cards of your potential business partners. There is a growing trend of digitizing business cards through card scanners. Though there are some advantages to having the cards scanned such as the space gained and ease of search, the lasting impression of receiving an appealing and unusually creative business card cannot be matched. Feeling the unusual shape, the embossed metal or letterpressed paper will certainly help gain you the appreciation and respect needed to start or cement a good business partnership. So take a look at the showcase we have prepared of unusual business cards.

Lasting Impressions

More business card inspiration

(rb) Noupe business cards online As a designer creating good business cards online for yourself can be quite task. The need for a visually appealing business card design is greater than in other work fields. There are 2 steps to giving a business card, not only as a designer, but as a business individual in general.

Is Paypal Good for Your Online Business?

designerbooster — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:38:05 +0000

PayPal is definitely the most well-known online user payment service in the world. With its start somewhere in 2000 thanks to X.com and Confinity merging, PayPal quickly became a leader of the market and expanded very fast among eBay users. That is probably why PayPal was bought by eBay in 2002 for just under $ 1.5 billion. But PayPal means much more than that today. Tens of millions of users tend to pay with PayPal faster than with their credit card. The company functions as an acquirer and processes payments for online vendors, auction sites and many commercial users – all these for a small usage fee. With such a reputation to handle, we might surely ask ourselves how likely it is for PayPal to be the best payment processor for our online services. If you own a design agency, I am sure you have thought of this at least once. Today we will put in balance the negative and positive sides of using PayPal for a business and we will try to come to a conclusion by the end. I look also forward to hearing your opinions about the great service PayPal is, but let’s wait for that until the end.

What is PayPal NOT?

Well, although it seems like one, PayPal is definitely not a bank. It offers the basic services of a bank, but is has not been classified as one, although it is under rules and regulations which govern a financial institution in the USA. A bank usually uses people’s deposits for its own purposes, while PayPal does not. They only store the deposits in their accounts and do not redistribute any of it. Although PayPal is not considered a bank in the US, it has been regulated just like one by the CSSF in Europe. In order to be able to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of PayPal, it would be a good idea for me to tell you some quick facts about it:

PayPal has more than 230 million accounts registered and allows customers to send, hold and receive money in 190 countries in the world. PayPal features support for 24 different currencies.
PayPal allows people to start their own businesses and work as a third-party service in the transactions they make.
There is a specific limit of money a user can receive per year. If you want to have an unlimited account, you will need to provide personal information and verify the account.
PayPal has a service called Students’ Account, which permitted parents to give students money on a debit card.

The good

PayPal has some clear advantages over any competitor on the market. First, it is very easy to set up and is very elegant. It doesn’t take more than few minutes to set up an online shop with support for PayPal. The “add to cart” and “view cart” buttons can even be customized by the designers themselves. The service is also very easy to use and the payments very easy to execute. There is no doubt about the fact that paying with PayPal could not be easier. Moreover, there is no setup or monthly fee. Let’s face it, one of the most important assets of PayPal is its brand and name recognition. Being a company with excess of $ 2.2 billion in annual sales revenues, PayPal is no doubt the star player of the market. Although people are still reluctant to pay on the internet, they definitely trust PayPal the most if needed to process money online. Moreover, because it functions as a third-party service, PayPal makes sure the customer’s credit card and bank account number do not get in the stores’ databases. Security is extremely important and PayPal seems to take care of it as well as possible. While many other services sustain themselves by asking for monthly or yearly payments, PayPal asks for money only from the users who sell. This makes PayPal feel like your friend because when you don’t sell anything, you don’t pay anything. Can it be more convenient? Image by 401K. With so many users having a PayPal account, there is a huge potential customer base for everyone who uses PayPal for online selling. A good example is eBay. The majority of the sellers do not offer support for MasterCard or VISA, therefore buyers need to have a PayPal account in order to buy something – and this doesn’t affect eBay at all, because as said before, PayPal has a huge customer base. While businesses use PayPal for commercial purposes, individuals can also use it for personal purposes. PayPal offers multiple account options and a single person can opt for one of them. Each account option offers different privileges and have different rules. There is no fee for transactions between two PayPal users with a personal account for example. The fact that PayPal offers support in so many countries is another strong asset. Giving the option to use 24 currencies and handle international payments is something not many other services can do. Another impressive feature is the option to pay through credit and debit cards directly, which means the transaction fee is also minimal, set at 3.9 percent for any amount up to $ 100,000. If you thought this is all, you are in for another surprise. Although it is not a bank, PayPal works as a great accountant. You can see every payment, withdrawal, every inbound transaction – all these with a single click. It is very easy to find every transactions in the history panel and you can even download a spreadsheet file with details for a period longer than one year. Printing is not a problem for PayPal either. As mentioned before, PayPal is an eBay service, therefore buying from the American online store has never been easier.

The bad

As any other service, PayPal has its own disadvantages too. One of them might be the fees charged for non-PayPal payments. Although PayPal claims they help small sellers, the hidden fees show no signs of it. The fees might be from 1.9 to 2.9 percent plus $ 0.30 per transaction – this can get very costly. Some of PayPal’s rules are also very strict due to different regulations. The slightest suspicion about your account might get it suspended and it takes a long time for PayPal to investigate and reopen your account. You might find yourself with your money locked for longer periods than expected. Talking about customer service, maybe the worst thing about PayPal is the difficulty to solve issues and investigate cases. There have been many issues over time with trying to contact customer service. Even when you manage to get a hold of them, sometimes it just seems there is no one at the end of the line and some emails only get automated responses. There have also been reports of accounts being automatically charged without the knowledge of the user.

Although a quite secure service, PayPal seems to lack high-quality customer support.

Image by protohiro. There is not even the chance of a third-party jury. When being investigated by PayPal, your account and funds get frozen and the only thing you can do is wait. There is no documentation provided to the user and it doesn’t seem like PayPal puts much consideration into resolving peoples issues. The verification process is also a hassle. Users have to provide several important pieces of private information such as bills, bank account numbers, social security numbers, address proof and so on. Some users might not even be comfortable with offering such information, but they have to in order for PayPal to lift the funds receiving limit. Although most eBay sellers have to use PayPal, it seems the protection for them is not excellent. There have been reports of funds refunded to the customer even after the seller has shipped the item! This can become a deal breaker especially when the customer service is not as good as it should be.

Who else?

If for some reason you just don’t want to go with PayPal, then there are some other alternatives out there, although none of them is really that impressive. Google Checkout is an alternative, although it is still an inferior product. The main difference is that Google’s service charges fees depending on the sales volume, while PayPal does not. Checkout also offers fewer features than eBay’s service. A second one could be MoneyBookers, a very well-known British-based service. They have a customer base of around 10 million accounts, although we do not know yet how many of them are active. They offer services to everybody with an email address and they have a flat fee per transaction. Besides Google Checkout and MoneyBookers, there is not much else worth mentioning. The other few alternatives, Amazon Payments, OboPay and Paymate are really small and, when people deal with their money, they are not willing to work with companies without a powerful brand.

Bottom line

PayPal is obviously not the perfect solution for buyers and sellers, however it is definitely the best one available right now. They lack support, true, but it’s the most secure online payment service and the one offering the most features. Although PayPal seems best suited for medium-sized businesses, there are not many alternatives out there. If we look at it from the buyers’ perspective, then there is definitely no better alternative out there. Let’s face it, every service has its own problems; it is just a matter of finding the one with the least of them. Until next time… what do you think about PayPal? Did you ever have problems with it as a seller/buyer? What is your experience with their customer support and how long did it take for your case to be investigated? 1stwebdesigner - Graphic and Web Design Blog

Why Your Business Must Go Social

designerbooster — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:37:15 +0000

Your grandma is probably on Facebook by now. So why on earth isn’t your business? It’s time to get real, and come to terms with the fact that social media networks are not just for teenagers anymore. Even setting up something as simple as a customized Facebook fan page can enhance your brand online. Studies show that socializing is important for maintaining a happy and a healthy lifestyle. So it kinda makes sense that the same holds true for businesses, no? Read on for some cold hard facts about why social networking is a must for you and your company. Shared by our friends from Wix! Via: Wix.com 1stwebdesigner - Graphic and Web Design Blog

How To Make an Impact with Eye Catching Business Card Design

designerbooster — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:40:37 +0000

As potential customers, people come to an exhibition or to your office to find the next diamond in the rough, the designer that will understand their business needs and someone with a creative streak. In one short meeting, or even if they simply visit your stand and you are too busy to talk, how do you make sure that the opportunity to convert them from potential customer to actual client isn’t wasted? First impressions are important! Often at product launches or industry conferences and exhibitions you get just one chance to make an impact on that prospective client. Scribbling your name and email address on a tea-stained post-it note will get you remembered, but for the wrong reasons! Always be prepared – carry a few business cards on you and regularly top your wallet up. Prospective clients will shop around at an exhibition and will end up taking a bagful of brochures, leaflets and business cards home with them. We have all done it. The likelyhood is that they will only contact a small fraction of these so the aim is to be as different and innovative as you can so that you are remembered for the right reasons. Avoid having a typical corporate business cards design – aim for something more unique. The way people do business has changed and as a consequence, business cards have changed too. They used to be standard, the more raised and gilted the lettering; the more important your role in a business, but then they needed more information on them: A logo, your full address, telephone, cell phone number and normally a hook line. Now that people are used to being sent to a website to view your portfolio, you really need to provide three things:

A website address
An email address
A reason to take a look at your website and contact you

So, how do you get the client to contact you first rather than chasing them up?

Be creative, generate intrigue and interest. Have a point of difference! If you’re a designer, show them what you would be doing for their business. If you can’t do it for yourself, why would they hire you? MiniCards are a great idea. Half the size of a normal business card, they might be little, but they do pack a mighty punch! With a variety of different uses, it’s sometimes tricky to list them all – event cards, name cards, mini business cards, swing tags, gift tags, save the dates, promotional cards and cards to show off your photography or design. Unique in size and shape MiniCards work well with Printfinity, our option to print a different image on every card in a pack. Fan them out and ask people to pick a favorite, fill a giant wine glass with them, attach them to retro sweets, or place them in with customer orders as a cost effective way to brand your products. Printed on thick paper stock and finished with a matte laminate, the cards have a smooth satin feel. They’re smart enough to promote your brand, and a fun way to open up a conversation. You will find that everyone does a double take when they first see a minicard.

MOO Giveaway With Design Reviver

Design Reviver are pleased to be working with the guys at MOO.com in offering a giveaway to win some of their MiniCards and Business Cards! In case you?ve not come across MOO before, they are business card printing specialists, but also love to print greeting cards, MiniCards, stickers, postcards and labels – MOO do it all!

A Little More About MOO

MOO was born from a passion of beautiful, high-quality print and design – they make creating and printing your own unique visions so easy. You can choose one of their business card templates or upload your own artwork to create truly unique, creative products.

Competition Prizes

Grand Prize Winner – 1 lucky winner will win a set of 100 MOO Business Cards AND 100 MOO MiniCards. Runners Up Winners – 4 runners up will win a set of 100 MOO MiniCards.

How to win

To be in with a chance of winning one of the MOO prizes, all you have to do is leave a comment below and tell us how you would make your business cards stand out from the crowd. Be creative, fun and most importantly unique! If you make us smile you’re in with a great chance of winning some great prizes. Winners will be selected from the comments below. Please remember to enter a valid email address so we can send you your free stuff. Design Reviver

MOO Giveaway – 5 Winners Can get 100 Business Cards Each (Free Worldwide Shipping)

designerbooster — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:37:24 +0000

We are pleased to team up with the guys at MOO.com in offering a giveaway to win 100 of MOO’s business cards for 5 lucky readers. In case you’ve not come across MOO before, they print business cards, but also love to print greeting cards, MiniCards, stickers, postcards and labels – MOO do it all!

A Little More About MOO

MOO was born from a passion of beautiful, high-quality print and design – they make creating and printing your own unique visions so easy. You can choose one of their designer templates or upload your own artwork to create truly unique, creative products.

Competition Prizes

5 x 100 Business Cards – 5 lucky winners will a set of 100 MOO Business Cards.

How To Win!

To be in with a chance of winning one of the MOO prizes, all you have to do is leave a comment below and tell us, in what way would you make your business cards stand out from the crowd? Be creative, fun and most importantly unique! If you make us smile you’re in with a great chance of winning some great prizes. Entries will be closed on 29th Jan,2012 Winners will be selected from the comments below. Please remember to enter a valid email address so we can send you your free stuff. Web Design Blog, Web Designer Resources

Using PayPal for Your Online Business – Advantages and Disadvantages

designerbooster — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:39:26 +0000

A merger between X.Com and Confinity in March 2000 gave birth to PayPal as we know it today. Based in the United States of America, it is a global e-commerce business which allows for money transfers and payments to be made through the internet. Basically, it serves as an acquirer (an institution to process debit and credit card payments for services and products) and processes payments for online vendors, auction sites and for many other commercial users for a small usage fee. The fee it charges usually depends on the payment options that are utilized, the currencies in question, the amount of money in the transaction and the country involved. In Oct 2002, PayPal, which had focused on expanding its services among eBay users, was acquired by eBay for just under $ 1.5 billion.

Is it an Online Bank?

Though it seems to offer all the services of a bank, PayPal is not a bank. Though the company is subject to many of the rules and regulations which govern financial institutions in USA, it has not been classified as a bank. Every bank engages in what is called as fractional-reserve banking wherein they maintain only a fraction of the deposits made by customers. The rest is lent out. PayPal, on the other hand, has all its deposits in commercial interest-bearing checking accounts and does not disburse any of it. However, PayPal in Europe, has been regulated just like a bank by the CSSF (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier) and it offers service through the European Union.

Features:

A working knowledge of the features and services provided by PayPal is a must to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of this system of financial transactions.

With more than 232 million accounts registered, PayPal permits the customers to send, hold and receive funds in 24 currencies worldwide in 190 markets.
In 2009, PayPal launched a Students’ Account for teens stating its aim to provide tools to teens for educating them on spending money wisely. Parents can set up this account and transfer money into it, giving their teens a debit card.
PayPal makes it possible even for individuals to begin commerce and businesses with worldwide reach, playing as a third party for secure and easy transactions.
It provides all its merchants with the flaws in their webstores so that they are better protected against malicious shoppers who attempt to shop for free from their stores.

The Advantages

The popularity of PayPal has largely been due to the ease and security that it provides. It has grown into a company with excess of $ 2.2 billion in annual sales revenues. There are many advantages of using PayPal for both, the seller and the customer. They are listed below.

1. Ease of set up:

The easy set-up and customization options that PayPal provides are really elegant. The price options for the vendors are fully customizable, the ‘add cart’ and ‘view cart’ options and buttons are available and they can also be made by the user. These customization options require nothing more than a simple copy and paste of existing codes. Within minutes, one could be up and selling online, worldwide!

2. Brand name and recognition:

Customers are still hesitant when it comes to payment over the internet because they are not able to ‘see’ their cash moving and being accepted. The brand name that PayPal has boosts customer confidence. Also, PayPal ensures that the webstore and vendor never get the credit card and bank account details of the customer. This adds to the trust.

3. Pricing policy

Most of the internet payment services sustain themselves through monthly or regular payments by the customers. In PayPal, you pay only when you sell. In this way, you are protected against the risk of having to pay service fees though you are not having sales. It is almost as if PayPal is you pal in good times and not-so-good times!

4. Huge potential customer base:

To state it in simple terms, when you make use of PayPal, every user on the internet becomes a potential customer. Every buyer is being targeted irrespective of whether he/she wants to use PayPal or the credit card. The provision of an alternate method of payment makes it flexible and attractive for the buyers.

5. Ease of execution:

For small time vendors and businesses, PayPal is a real godsend. Integrating a payment gateway to be able to conduct business online is an expensive proposal and does not make financial sense to small businesses. What is the use of going online to earn more money if the payment gateway itself becomes such a costly affair? PayPal does not need much investment in terms of time, energy and money and it can facilitate easy financial transactions. There are no setup fees or monthly fees too.

6. Multiple account options:

Depending on what you would like to use an account for, you can choose between a personal account, a student account or a business account. A single person can also own multiple accounts in multiple categories. Each of these accounts carry different privileges and have different rules. A personal account for instance has no transaction fees when it comes to transferring money between PayPal users.

7. Ability to accept international payments and cards:

As stated earlier, PayPal gives you the option of paying and accepting payment in 23 currency types. International payments often incur the currency conversion charges. For amounts up to $ 100,000, PayPal charges only a nominal 3.9 percent along with a small fee which varies according to the country. The ability to accept and pay through credit cards and debit cards is also a great feature. Payments from one business account or premier account to another is completely free. The fee for transacting through credit and debit cards is also a nominal 3.9 percent.

8. Keeping track of transactions:

PayPal will also double up as your sincere and honest accountant. You can access every inbound and outbound transaction with the click of a mouse. The account has been neatly organized into payments received, payments made, history and recent activity tabs which are very useful. You could select time periods of interest and download complete spreadsheet files which give you details of all transactions. If you want, you can even download more than a year’s worth of data and information.

9. Integrating payments with eBay:

This is a natural advantage that could be expected since PayPal has been acquired by eBay. Business and Premier accounts offer many tools for better integration with eBay. Thus, buying and selling on this giant site becomes much easier. There is also news that eBay will transact only through PayPal. In such a situation, PayPal becomes the only way to pay. PayPal also provides for better merchant services too.

Disadvantages:

Like every coin having two sides, PayPal has its own set of disadvantages. These demerits do merit attention as some of them are real serious problems for some kinds of businesses. The demerits of PayPal are listed below.

1. The hidden fees:

PayPal offers many services for free and others for nominal fees. The fees charged on non-PayPal payments could turn out to be very expensive. Personal account holders have no transaction fees while making or receiving payments from other accounts but they have limits and restrictions on the amount of money being moved. While this restriction does not exist for business and premier accounts, they are charged transaction fees (about 1.9-2.9 percent plus $ 0.30 per transaction). This becomes a big burden for small sellers on eBay and the likes. A huge percentage of the transaction is taken by PayPal. This is really difficult to understand when PayPal claims to help the small sellers.

2. Strict rules and locked accounts:

Due to security threat and issues of terrorist attacks, the US government has strict rules that restrict the number of transactions through PayPal. Thus, even the slightest suspicion leads to the locking of the account. It takes quite a long time for PayPal to do its investigation and give a clean chit to the account. Money could thus get locked in or held up for long periods.

3. Bad customer service:

Adding to the pain of a locked account and extra strict policy is the problem with a very difficult service. There are no numbers easily available on the website and even when you find the numbers, there seems to be nobody at the other end of the line. There have been complaints of emails receiving only automated responses. Even when one manages to get representatives on the line, they are not of much help as they state that the problems are totally out of their control. There are also reports of bank accounts being automatically debited without the knowledge of the account holder and there is no way to rectify the same.

4. Lack of third party arbitration:

You get stuck with strict rules and frustrated with the customer service. When you decide on an arbitration, you are again in for greater frustration. The account gets frozen and PayPal policies give it complete control over your funds for as long as the arbitration goes on. And there is no scope for outside arbitration. So, all that a troubled customer can do is to wait and wait. The ‘investigation’ goes on and there is no documentation that is provided to the user.

5. Painful verification process:

While the setup is easy, getting the account functional can be a hassle. You have to provide your account number and routing number. PayPal then makes token deposits which you have to wait for 5 days to arrive in your account. This has to be filled into your PayPal account to activate it. If you do not have the facility for internet banking then the problem only gets compounded. You may have to wait weeks to get your statement in the mail.

6. Movement into third party website:

Though it is partly offset by brand name and image, the fact of moving out of the main website to complete the financial transaction may not be good for well established websites. Even though some amount of styling and customization is available, the payment gateway will never resemble the original site. This will be a problem for brand conscious sellers.

7. Bad seller protection:

PayPal is highly vulnerable to fraud and if you happen to be an unfortunate victim, you really are in for bad news. As mentioned earlier, the slightest hint of suspicion locks away any PayPal user. Due to this, many times the funds are refunded to the customer even after the items have been shipped! This could prove disastrous for the seller. The complaint system is also bad which does not seem to redress any issues.

8. Scripts:

Downloading e-books and other digital products require the usage of a script. Setting up and using these scripts, even if it is only copy and paste, is not exactly everyone’s cup of tea. It could get confusing and messy.

9. Currency basket not comprehensive enough:

Though PayPal provides 23 currency types for payment, it excludes some important currencies. The Indian Rupee is an example. India is a growing economy and a fertile market. But customers there find it difficult to pay.

Conclusion:

It is obvious that PayPal is not the solution for all buyers and sellers. It could be a good option for any buyer but a seller ought to be sure of the requirements and needs. Using it for very small businesses could end up in making them pay much more than reap benefits. At the same time, large businesses that build and sell brands would not prefer PayPal due to lack of complete customization and absence of brand-building features. PayPal is best suited for medium sized businesses. As for the buyers, this is a good option to complete online shopping and auctions.

Image Credits

A Young Businessman

instantShift

Retropress – a premium business wordpress theme at a crazy price!

designerbooster — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:38:55 +0000

Happy 2012! We’re glad to introduce a premium wordpress theme – Retropress, from Convax Solutions at a surprisingly low price – $ 10. If you’re running a business, this is the one for you. Retropress works with the latest version of wordpress – 3.3.1 (which was released today).

download Preview Documentation

Features of Retropress

1. Works with wordpress 3.3.1 2. Modern, customizable design 3. Support for Custom Menu 4. Twitter bar showing your latest tweet (with show/hide) 5. Supports post thumbnails 6. Ability to add Portfolio items (Custom post type) 7. Widget ready sidebar and footer 8. Two built-in widgets (Recent Posts/Projects with thumbnails and Social Networks) 9. Dynamically generated sub-menus for sub-pages 10. Recent Projects in the home page 11. Custom text for the 404 page 12. Custom contact page with ability to email, addresses, phone number etc 13. Dynamically updated copyright year 14. Home page slider using CarouselFredSel 15. Coded in HTML5 and CSS3 16. Optimized CSS and images 17. Google webfonts 18. Crossbrowser Compatible (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and degrades gracefully on IE7+) 19. Easy to set up with the Theme Options page 20. Animate Search button 21. Built-in pagination Productivedreams.com

Lessons Learned Running a Small Business in 2011

designerbooster — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:40:37 +0000

As 2012 begins, I want to look back over the past year to see what can be learnt from it. Learning from your mistakes is less glamorous than a list of grand New Year’s Resolutions (Though I do like those too), but often more effective at ensuring the next year is even better than the last. With that in mind, what follows are some of the lessons I have picked out from my own 2011. I would love to hear if these resonate with you. When looking back at your own year, I’d encourage you not to look for when things went “wrong” as such, but simply to think of how things may have gone differently. That’s what I’ve done. If I were to go back, I may well do some of these things the same, but considering the alternatives is a great way to learn.

Plan For the Follow-Through

When working on a large project, launch day is the natural target. All of your work is dedicated to releasing the product. That is obviously crucial, but equally important is planning in advance to build on the momentum from your big release. That could mean anything from analyzing its success, planning the next release, or simply capitalizing on the good PR. I learned this lesson from the relaunch of this site in May. We had been working on it on and off for almost a year, so it had been a huge project, but in the push to launch, we built up a backlog of other work. I worked on this and wrote a number of articles following the launch, but not enough. The backlog took priority because as far as schedules were concerned, the relaunch project was complete. The follow-through should have been a clearly defined of the project.

Short-Term is More Tempting than Long-Term

How many times have you heard a freelancer say they can’t find the time to work on their site or a personal project? Even though they really enjoy it? All freelancers hit this issue, and I was no different. I think the reason for this is extremely simple; short term benefits have a clearer and more obvious benefit than long term ones. In my case, PliablePress has been hurt by this. Improving the framework brings me incremental benefits over time, but taking on a large client project pays off right away. The trick here I believe is a balancing act. If you spend all of your time on short-term goals, you’ll never get past where you are right now. But similarly, if you only work on long-term plans, you may not survive that long. Don’t let one overcrowd the other.

Focus Beats Multitasking

This is a common enough productivity tip that you have likely heard before. Only work on one thing at a time. It makes sense, and it will come as no surprise to you that closing down Twitter and Skype etc. will help you work better. The bigger lesson is to organize yourself each day so you know which projects you will be working on. You don’t need a step-by-step breakdown of the tasks (Though some people swear by that), a simple list of the top x projects that need your attention today will do. This is something I see in my work again and again. The days in which I have a clear list of projects to work on, and I tackle them one by one, are my most productive days. Sometimes you can even spend a whole day on just one project, which is fantastic. Focus only on the next task, not all of the tasks. Sidenote – When making your list, try to avoid adding any murky tasks that don’t have clear completion objectives, e.g. research can go on indefinitely so before you start, make sure you’re aware of how you will know when you’re done.

New Does Not Necessarily Equal Worthwhile

In the tech world, we all love the speed at which things change. The impulse is to try as many new products and services as we can, because who knows what the next game changer will be? And therein lies the problem. It could be anything, and there are new things coming at you every day. You can’t try them all, and the attempt is a waste of your time. I think a better approach is to let the community try them out for you, and join in when a winner seems to be emerging. A good example of this is social networks. There are a million different variations out there and new ones all the time. Most won’t catch on, and the time put into them is lost to you. I joined Quora after consistently reading good responses on it for months, but I’m not on Pinterest, Path or any of the other current “hot” networks yet. I’ll check back again in a few months. The exception is tools that really add value to your business (Webapps you use, development software etc.). Again, I wouldn’t try every single one as it comes out, but every few months, take a look around. It’s fun too, playing with new toys is hard to count as work!

Join The Communities You Value

The web is full of little communities, and you could take part in them from morning to night. On a productivity note, you might try to cut down on this when you have deadlines to meet. It’s possible to go too far with this though. Once you’ve read a lot on a particular site, and especially after you’ve started enjoying the comment discussions, you can get a lot more out of taking part as well. I used to post thousands of comments in forums when I was younger, and then again on blogs as I started Pro Blog Design. That’s been somewhat lessened in 2011, so I’m looking forward to starting again. In particular, I’ve massively enjoyed reading Hacker News and Stack Overflow, so it’s about time I joined up.

Planning is Both Impossible and Essential

A slight paradox, but it’s true. It’s impossible to plan for everything that may happen, even over just a short period of time. But with no plan, things inevitably fall into chaos. I like to think I’m quite organized, and I always have a good idea of how the next 3-4 weeks will flow. I don’t think any of my “ideas” have ever gone 100% to plan though. Things change. Something will crash, a client will take longer with their feedback, an awesome new project will come up etc. You need to plan enough to help things run smoothly, but be flexible enough to cope with the inevitable curve balls that come at you. I’m still not sure of the exact formula for this, but it seems that the more experience you have of it, the better your plans and estimates become.

Fight to Work On What You Love

When you run a small business, you’re responsible for everything. I have the pleasure of working with a number of other people throughout the year here, but no matter what, the final responsibility is still mine. In practice, what this means is that the tasks you can’t easily find someone else to take care of, you do yourself. That’s fine in the short term, and often even beneficial (Knowing you have to submit your accounts yourself keeps your finances very organized throughout the year!), but it isn’t a long term solution. You didn’t start a business to work on things you don’t enjoy. There will always be some jobs you just have to do, but when the ones you don’t enjoy are the majority, you need to fix it. I’m quite happy with where I am in regards to this now; the trick for me was angling towards certain types of projects. Great clients with interesting projects means that more or less everything is fun!

The Truest Test of a Business is When You Leave It

Again, this is something you’ve likely read before, and it’s spot on. In September, I was away for around 3 weeks, and it likely affected every part of the business. I planned in advance as much as I could, but every change has a knock-on effect. By prioritizing the projects that could most likely be finished before I left, I was leaving others to be done largely after I returned. I was also lining up new projects to be worked on while I was away, but I was still needed at various points to give my thoughts. In other words, the month before and the month after the trip were crazy. There is no easy fix to this, but removing the dependency on you is definitely a big area to work on if you want your business to grow.

Conclusion

Those were the biggest new “lessons” I would take from my 2011. I’ve deliberately chosen from when things could have gone better, not from when they went great. I’d be happy to share those as well if you like, but learning from mistakes is often the more revealing analysis so they weren’t included here. In return, I’d love to hear about your year. What have you learnt from it and what will you do differently this year? Before I finish, I want to apologize for how quiet the past months have been. They’ve been some of the busiest months I’ve ever had, but I’ve missed blogging greatly. January will be a quiet month as well, sorry, but after the 29th, I will be back with a vengeance. I’ve learnt a lot, so there’s a lot I want to share! If you reached this far in the post, thank you for still being a reader after all this time. Happy New Year everyone! Main photo by razvan.caliman. Pro Blog Design

35 Quality Business Card Design Templates for Free!

designerbooster — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:37:28 +0000

Though gadgets exist these days with features that aim to replace this basic promotional medium, old school printed business cards are still relevant, even important, for branding and advertising your identity. A well-designed and effective business card can be an excellent marketing tool for any business of any size. Today we are showcasing 35 examples of quality business cards and also giving you some links from where you can download these beautiful business card templates for free. If you’re in need of a business card for yourself or your client, you may be able to find a cool template that will meet your needs or at least serve as a starting guide that you can edit. Direct download: transparent business card Direct download: wood industry business card Direct download: QR Code Business Card Direct download: blue business card template Direct download: Bokeh 2 Business Card Direct download: personal business card Direct download: typography business card Direct download: Creative Director Business Card Direct download: Creative Business Card vol 3 Direct download: Stylish Business Card Direct download: Dark Business Card Template Direct download: Corporate Card vol 1 Direct download: Yellow/Black Business Card Template Direct download: Retro Business Card Direct download: Photoshop Business Card Direct download: Business Card Template Download page: Chillen Chillen Card Direct download: Minimalistic Business Card Direct download: PSD Business Card Mock Up Vol 1 Download: Creative Business Card vol 2 Download page: Business Card Templates Direct download: Metal Black Business Cards Direct download: Bokeh Business Card vol 3 Direct download: Teacher Business Card Direct download: Sex Instructor Business Card Direct download: GraphicFuel Business Card Direct download: Business Card Direct download: Standard Business Card Direct download: Clean Business Card Direct download: Simple Business Card Direct download: Painter Business Card Direct download: Minimal Business Card Direct download: Bokeh Business Card Direct download: Pink Business Card Direct download: Google Business Card

About the Author

Bartek is a freelance writer, blogger and social media enthusiast. He offers tutorials and web components on his blog Web Design Elements and can be found hanging out on Twitter talking about web design, freelancing, productivity.

If you’ve got a design ready for printing, try the business cards card stock quality offered by UPrinting.com! We mention this because we heard they have a 20% discount on business card printing until January 31, 2012, and we thought that might help you save some. You The Designer

20 Creative Postcard Designs to Market Your Business

designerbooster — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:12:51 +0000

Promoting your business can be a tough job especially when you want to stand out from the tight competition. You need to know what kind of marketing tools would be ideal to get your message across to the right people. While promoting can be expensive, there are affordable alternatives like postcard marketing. Postcard marketing is easy. All you have to do is create an enticing design, have it prepared through high-quality postcard printing, and have them sent to your clients. This way, you can grab their attention and increase the chance of gaining new customers. Since the postcard design would be a huge factor in determining your promotion’s success, here are 20 creative samples that can help you build your own style : With these creative designs, you would have a fun time making your postcards. Remember that first impressions say a good deal about you so better make sure your postcards are eye-catching. CrazyLeaf Design Blog