Have you ever had the dreaded moment when you meet someone interesting and were completely out of business cards? This normally happens to me when I’m at a party. I don’t know about you, but when I’m headed to a back yard bar-b-q or raging house party, bringing my business cards is the last thing I worry about. Last weekend I ran into some people that were interested in doing some business so I had to do the perfunctory slap your pocket where the business card would have been like you were going to grab one and apologize for coming back empty handed. Well fellow networking professionals, you can send and receive contact info by sending text messages with your cell phone. So far, I’ve found 3 services that do just that with out typing out an epic text.

Drop Card

Drop Card is one of the first services I checked out. All you have to do is text "drop TheirEmail@Whatever.com" to 77950 and a neat html based e-mail will be sent to the address you specified in the text message. You can have 2 different profiles which is pretty cool if you want to keep your business and personal contacts separate.

You get 25 free drops a month but if you need more than that you have to upgrade to the premium service. Aside from more monthly drops, premium service allows you to customize the e-mail that gets sent with a company logo. Overall, it works as advertised but, most users will need more than 25 drops a month.

Txt Ms

This free service is handy if you have a phone that can send text messages to an e-mail addresses. All you do is have the recipient text "YourUserName" to x@txtms.com then TxtMs will reply with your contact info. Unlike the other services, you are afforded more control over your information since you have the ability to authorize each requests for your info. There is also an automatic approval setting so you don’t have to micro manage it if you choose not to.

One thing to note is that I’ve got an iPhone and have yet to figure out how to send text messages to e-mail address. I’ve been able to use the Txt Ms system but only by sending the text messages through Google Voice’s web site.

Contxts

This one is my favorite so far. It’s still in Alpha so a lot could change in the coming months but, it’s got two things on its side: simple and free. All you do is have someone text your user name to 50500. They will receive a text message back with all your contact info. You can also directly send your contact info to another person by texting the recipients phone number to 50500.

So, next time you are out and about with out your business cards, at least one of these services will have you covered.

As a final note, when I was researching ways to get Txt Ms to work with my iPhone I came across this cool little tutorial that will show you how to text some pretty cool special characters like music symbols, stars, hearts etc….

For many years my business has been doing internet marketing for my own portfolio of web sites. In the past year I’ve expanded my business by providing SEO consulting services to the automotive industry. The transition to helping others has had a steep learning curve, especially since I’m used to calling and executing the shots. As a marketer, my job is to get my clients traffic, and do everything I can to make sure that traffic converts into an actionable lead. So, what happens after that lead is generated is now out of my hands? It’s up to the company to turn that lead into a sale.  Hey, it’s not rocket science I’m talking about here.  But, what do you do when you as a consultant provide spot on advice but that client doesn’t convert that sale for reasons beyond your control?

I’m a firm believer that caring about the welfare of your customer is the number one priority.  If you truly want them to succeed, you are going to do everything in your power to achieve that goal. That way you spend your time analyzing and solving problems, not just counting up billable hours. In my field it’s pretty easy since I treat clients as though they are part of my own portfolio. With this philosophy in mind, it’s hard not to look at your client and advise them in ways that are outside the scope of your job when the company starts to struggle. Needless to say, this is the absolute WRONG thing to do. For starters, the client pays you to fill a function and only that function. If you go beyond that, you run the risk of looking like a complete idiot since you as an outsider don’t understand all the ins and outs of their business. Because of the complexity of any business, you could miss the mark entirely.  Your advice, although well-intentioned, could be just plain wrong.  That’s especially awful if it’s your job to be the one with all the right answers. Even worse, implicating an individual or methodology as the source of the problem can cause some hurt feelings (that could be someone’s pet idea you’re trashing).  You are treading in an area where you aren’t the star and you can cause all sorts of problems that you aren’t capable of fixing. And finally, you aren’t getting paid any extra for giving advice in an area where you have a strong likelihood of being wrong.  You could be hurting your client and, even worse, you are spending your precious time without compensation.  If that doesn’t drive the point home, I don’t know what will.

So when it comes to consulting, care about your client, do what they hired you to do, but keep your opinions about how they should run their business to yourself. You’ll be a much happier and wealthier consultant.

“If I could have my wasted days back,
Would I use them to get back on track?”
–Metallica

Frantic. That’s the name of the song where I pulled that quote and, besides being a damn good song (yes, I was one of a handful of people that liked St. Anger), there is a pretty important message in those lyrics. Whether you are a business owner like me or work for someone else, the idea of doing more with less isn’t just a catch phrase, it’s a reality. There are only 24 hours in a day and the To Do list grows every week. If you want to get a hold of a schedule spiraling out of control, I propose you do an audit.  That’s right: those five letters that cause so much fear when uttered by the IRS may in fact be a time saver when you do one yourself.

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No matter what you do or what industry you are in there will always be someone out there that has more money, more education, and more resources. The only equal playing field is time. Yes that’s right time. We all start the day with 24 hours and cram as much stuff into as possible. How efficiently you work that time separates you from your competitors. This is the reason why I’ve become and efficiency junky. As the word implies, the more efficient you are the more you get done in the same amount of time. More work equals more money, which gives you the ability to chase bigger and better opportunities.

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