It’s the trade show of the year, and you’re poised to meet, greet and network up a storm because the precise buyers for your product or services are here. Business card? Check. Sales brochures? Check. Product samples, informational literature, or other appropriate peripherals? Check.
But wait. Let’s go back to item #1 - both in the list above and the all-important first step in creating a strong, lasting and favorable impression. In other words, what you looked like or said may not be remembered when potential customers are back home, but your business card will be in the pile he’ll sift through to separate the wheat from the chaff; the business she’ll want to follow up on.
What’s your card saying about you? Here are some of the most common mistakes you’ve no doubt seen and reacted to negatively. Tossing the card into the wastebasket is inevitable.
Paper too thin. Card is wimpy and bends or crumples in your hand or briefcase. And screams cheap. Might be an indicator of your other business practices and products.
Pre-printed perforated cards you run through your computer printer. More cheap impressions, plus your card may look like dozens of others because of the limited preprinted designs available.
There’s much more. Boring. Bad choice of type face and size. Too much or too little information. No focal point, muddy graphics — the list goes on.
Your business card is often the first — and perhaps only — impression prospective clients may see. Will it encourage them to find out more about you and your business? Having a good logo design and a clean layout leaves them with a favorable first impression that you’re a credible professional businessperson.
Following are 13 easy ways for you to do what the professional designers do; insider secrets about business cards that go right to your first impression and bottom line.
1. Create a focal point or central place that draws a reader’s eye.
2. Allow white space to help balance the layout. Don’t fill up the card with text.
3. Use a clear, strong logo that looks good when reduced in size on your business card.
4. Use a highlight color sparingly. Make sure colored elements highlights the one main message you want to convey.
5. Be sure the highlight color you choose is appropriate to your business. For example, using green on a lawn care business card would be far more appropriate than say red or orange.
6. Limit your selection of type fonts to no more than two, which may also include their “families.” For example, a font family includes styles such as bold, italic, or bold italic versions.
7. Format text to be smaller, more compact, and more professional looking.
8. Choose appropriate fonts for your business, avoiding trendy, or overly embellished versions.
9. Avoid using all capital letters because they are more difficult to read, and look unprofessional.
10. Use a grid to align text and objects to each other.
11. Don’t use illustrations that are too detailed or delicate, as they may look muddy when printed at a small size.
12. Stay away from amateur-looking or dated clip art (unless you are going for the “retro” look). Find good quality resources.
13. Select a beefy cover stock for your paper. Sometimes 80# cover is not enough. You can get a free swatch book from your printer or paper representative. The swatch book will give you the opportunity to examine and feel the various sheets for finish, thickness, stiffness, opacity (translucence), and color.
Impress your clients with your cards as though your business depended on it! Cards are small in size but huge in importance to your business success. Start employing these design tips to ensure your cards are doing the biggest possible job for you.
Copyright 2005 Karen Saunders
Karen Saunders is the author of the book, “Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools!” Karen has helped thousands of small businesses to increase their sales over the past 16 years using her award-winning marketing design strategies. For more free tips by Karen, and to learn more about the book visit http://www.MacGraphics.net
Historically, tax issues arising from bad marriages fell into the category of “better or worse” in the marriage vows. The IRS historically considered spouses one person for tax purposes, but has changed its views.
Tax Problems
When a marriage has problems, finances are almost always one of the elements that contribute to the strife. This can be particularly true where spouses file a joint tax return, which the both sign as tax payers. If the information provided on the tax return is false or inaccurate, the IRS has historically viewed both spouses as liable for the resulting assessments. If the relevant taxes were not paid, the IRS would also look to both spouses to pay the delinquent amount. In worse case scenarios, this can include criminal charges for tax evasion.
Fortunately, the IRS has modified its view of the liability of joint filers. The IRS now recognizes that innocent spouses can’t control their deadbeat former spouses. It allows such innocent spouses to claim three types of tax relief:
1. Innocent Spouse Relief
2. Relief by Separation of Liability
3. Equitable Relief
If the IRS comes after you for the tax liability of a former spouse, you can seek tax relief under these three theories if you meet all the following requirements. First, you filed a joint return with inaccurate information. Second, you didn’t know of the inaccuracies and didn’t have any reason to. Finally, taking into consideration the situation, holding you liable for the tax would be unfair.
The IRS will evaluate your application and render a ruling on your application. The IRS may agree to simply waive any tax claim against you and go after the deadbeat spouse as the sole debtor. Alternatively, the IRS may split the tax into a his and her account, only requiring you to pay one half of the amount due. While this may not sound great, it will immediately cut your tax bill in half.
In rare cases, you can seek equitable relief from the IRS. Equitable relief simply is another way of saying making you pay the tax would be manifestly unfair. You must show you and the spouse did not transfer assets as part of an fraudulent scheme, didn’t transfer assets with the intention of evading taxes, didn’t intend to commit fraud, didn’t pay the taxes due and you didn’t know what your spouse was up to. Equitable relief claims need to be handled very carefully as the IRS views them with a very cynical eye. Nonetheless, they are a last step that can be taken when all else has failed.
It is highly recommended that you use a professional when you find yourself stuck with the tax problems of an ex-spouse, as the IRS can be very cynical in evaluating such claims.
Richard A. Chapo is with http://www.businesstaxrecovery.com - recovery of business taxes through tax help and tax relief. Visit http://www.businesstaxrecovery.com/articles to read more business tax articles.
Imagine owning your life and everything in it.
What if I told you, you could learn to accomplish anything you’ve ever wanted in only 17 days - would you be interested? Would you believe me if I said you could live the life of your dreams with a special 15 minute-per-day scientific “target praxis?”
When I first heard this concept, I didn’t even know what a “target praxis” was. Needless to say, I was more than a bit skeptical. But I know what I want. I have very specific goals and anything that might be able to help me reach them deserves my attention.
Think about it. Do you know what you want? Most people don’t. So, if you have some idea of what you want - you’re already far ahead of most people.
I’m sure you already know, every action you take, either brings you closer to what you want, or pushes you further away from it.
I would certainly hope if *you* discovered the “Scientific Formula for Success,” I would be the FIRST person you ran to with the news.
There are certain Scientific Laws, and Sources of Power that govern the “real world.”
Magical solutions and wishful thinking don’t seem to accomplish much.
I recently found some research based on hundreds of years of study into psychology, personal achievement, and human behavior - science which encourages you to see results for yourself, before making any judgments. No more vague theories.
Actual observable laws - I was excited. Can you guess what the first words out of my mouth were? That’s right. “You’ve got my attention, now prove it.”
Here’s what I discovered…
There are five laws to this new science of “Simple-ology.”
Workbooks, exercises, checklists and daily target praxes really connect you to your unique personal desires. It helps you to realize if you really are committed to achieving what you want, or are content to just dream about it. It makes you think.
This opened my eyes.
What is Simple-ology?
It’s a new science designed to improve your mind and increase your ability to retain information. That may sound like a ton of reading, but I found the multi-media video training keeps it fun, easy to understand and entertaining.
On my first visit to the site, I thought I’d found a loophole. A back-door into someone’s course materials, or paid membership. The entire course material is accessible online - right from the website. All the videos, workbooks, exercises — even the required “Virtuosity Book” is right there for the taking.
I’m still going through the lessons in 101, and I can already notice a change in the way my days have been going. I no longer dread waking up in the morning. My memory seems to have improved, and my energy levels have been through the roof.
It’s like there’s been a shift in the way I’ve been doing things. My stress level has gone down considerably. My relationships at work and at home seem to be improving. There even seems to be more free time showing up at different intervals during the day.
I will never regret finding this research, and adding it to my schedule. Fifteen minutes a day to stay on the “pathway to power” and get closer to achieving my goals and wants is definitely worth it to me. I’ve just passed my 17th day and am about to plunge into Simple-ology 102: The Simple Science of Money - If it’s anything like Simple-ology 101, I’m about to have another experience I will never forget. Stay tuned!
Skye Mangrum is a student of Simple-ology: The Simple Science of Getting What You Want. She has dedicated a portion of her life to revealing the new science to anyone who knows what they want, but isn’t sure how to get it. For more information on Simple-ology and how it can benefit you, see: http://www.Simple-ology.com or send a blank email to: simpleology101@aweber.com to receive “Simple-ology 101″ an 18-part video training course for free.
The major professional road bikes riders ride the major cycle races, and they are grouped together into the UCI Pro Tour and all the best races are included
The Best Riders Ride The Best Races.
The major cycle races in the world of bike racing are now all part of the UCI Pro Tour Races, this is quite a big list, which you can find below. All of the twenty Pro Tour teams have to ride them along with other teams invited by the organizers, who are usually local teams or the best of the lower ranked Continental Tour teams. All the races have a complicated points system that would take too long to explain here.
The Pro Tour Races are split into sections, which are: -
• The Spring Classics,
• The Major Tours,
• The Autumn Classics,
• The Shorter Tours,
• The World Championships,
And then there are the other important but not so famous races.
The Major Tours.
The BIG three, the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espaa, they are all three weeks long and are the hardest races on the calendar and are the major cycle races of the year. All three go over the biggest mountains in their respective countries and venture in to neighbouring ones, sometimes for a few days. Until recently all bike racers rode the “Big Three”, now they specialise and pick and chose their objectives. The organisers are not too happy about the UCI Pro Tour as they feel they are losing some of their power over their own races and were only included at the last minute this year and are still arguing over next year.
The Spring Classics.
The Spring Classics are the monuments of the one day races, all are held in the more northern European countries, apart from the first one, Milan-San Remo, but which is in the north of Italy in March and can get bad weather, like the others. The Tour of Flanders, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix are all ridden over the worst road conditions possible, with short sharp hills and cobbles, when it rains these roads turn into mud baths and are as easy to ride on as an ice rink. The others are more hilly and more suited to Tour riders and the better climbers, all these races are a must to see as anything can happen, but it is always a hard man who wins a major cycle race in the spring.
The Autumn Classics.
The Autumn Classics start just after the Tour de France, before and after the Vuelta a Espaa and around the World championships. All these races have different characters and are held in different countries around Europe. The best known are the Classic San Sebastian in Spain, which is hard and hilly, the Paris-Tours, which is mostly flat and to round off the season, the Giro di Lombardia, which is the last big race of the Pro Tour and is held, like Milan-San Remo, in the north of Italy.
The Shorter Stage Races.
These shorter stage races are dotted around the season and around Europe, some are used as training races for the stars to tune there form for the big stage races, but all are very important and carry much prestige for all. Paris-Nice is the first and is always a good pointer to a riders form for the Spring Classics or the Giro d’Italia. Then the more hilly races like Pays Vasco, Tour de Romadie, Tour de Swiss and the Dauphine Libere are a good build up for the Tour de France. They are all hard fought for wins in themselves and never easy.
The World Championships.
The World Championships are now held very late in the season (September) and the big stars of the Tour de France don’t usually ride, but for the single day specialists its still the race to win, and never won easily. The rainbow jersey is the jersey all riders dream of wearing for a year and will fight hard for it. The “Worlds” are the only races that riders compete for their country and not their sponsor, so there can be some strange allegiances.
Other Races.
There are other races on the Pro Tour calendar that are very important but not so well known, everyone wants to win these also, and in the end a win is a win. The Pro Tour teams can also ride in the lower Continental Tour races, some of these are well known and very prestigious, they carry less UCI points but are hard fought over, there is never an easy win in Professional cycle sport, especially in the major cycle races.
Alastair Hamilton publishes regularly technical articles on road bikes ( www.bike-cycling-reviews.com/road-bikes.html ) to some cycling online magazines. Reach further reviews on bike components and cycling news at www.bike-cycling-reviews.com.
