I’m going to offend some people in this next part. First, I am not a big fan of putting your picture on your business card. Why? It’s been my experience (along with some polling on the subject) that people will make judgements about you based on your picture (and prejudge if they have not met you in person). Is she pretty (yes, I know that is sexist, but tell me it doesn’t happen)? How old is he? I don’t trust the look… She looks like my mother’s cousins sister-in-law… you get the idea. While we make judgements about doing business with someone partly based on the information we have, usually a business card, we defintely make decisions when there is a picture of the person on the card.
It’s a bit like online dating. You look over the information on the card, the name, title and picture. You decide if you are going to do some business with this person or keep looking. The judgement has been made. So, just like online dating, you need to be honest and use a recent photo of yourself. That glam shot from 5 or 10 years ago… it’s no good. You have aged, you may have changed your hair color (heck, you might not have any hair left), grown your hair long, begun wearing glasses (or gotten Lasik surgey and no longer wear glasses). So, if you choose to have your picture on your business card, it needs to be a recent photo, ideally 6 months old or less.
“Everyone in my industry has their picture on their business card,” she said during our meeting. My reply was simply, “if everyone was jumping off the Coronado Bridge, would you jump too?” Do something different. Really. Set yourself apart from “everyone” else by not using your picture.