Which Business Papers Do Start-Ups Need? Go Self-Employed Step 9
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| Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash |
This article answers which business papers exist, why you should deal with them, and which are still necessary today.
In addition, the question arises as to whether you take care of the design of your business papers yourself or whether you hire a professional.
What are Business Papers?
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| Which Business Papers Do Start-Ups Need? Go Self-Employed Step 9 |
Communication is an essential part of independence. Be it directly in a personal conversation or indirectly by letter, email, or, for example, an advertisement.
To support communication and make it appear professional, there are business papers or business documents.
For example, you could write your contact details on a napkin at a personal meeting or conference and give them to others, but it is easier and looks more professional if you can hand over a business card.
Likewise, there are no rules, at least visually, for the design of stationery. But if you put something together and, for example, invoices to a customer always look different, that's not very professional.
Business papers are both part of the famous first impression and a permanent means of communication and advertising.
Corporate Identity and the Business Papers
An important point is a corporate identity or your corporate design.
While the corporate identity describes the overall external appearance of a company, the corporate design primarily affects the visual appearance. Of course, this also includes business papers.
It starts with the logo design and of course also applies to the uniform design of the business papers.
For a constant and professional impression with potential and existing customers, you should attach great importance to the corporate design.
Have Business Papers Designed or Do It Yourself?
Therefore, the question arises as to whether you should design the business papers yourself or delegate them to someone. Of course, that depends primarily on your skills and know-how.
If you have the appropriate know-how and the necessary design software including the necessary skills, then nothing speaks against designing the business papers yourself.
However, I know many self-employed people who got away with free templates and offers such as “250 business cards for free”, but whose business papers neither look professional nor are they individually tailored to the requirements of the person or company.
You should be clear about the effect your business papers have on others and honestly assess the damage cheap solutions can cause.
So if you are not a graphic artist or designer, then you should give the design of your business documents to a designer. At least that's my recommendation.
The Most Important Business Papers
Let's take a look at the most important business papers.
Business Cards
Business cards are probably the most common form of business stationery, at least for traditional companies. This is not surprising either, since the business cards are very often used in personal communication with potential customers, i.e. during the first contact.
Business cards are also still very popular on other occasions, such as meeting potential business partners and suppliers.
That is why I have already written several articles on this topic here in the blog, for example in “ Offline Marketing for the Self-Employed - 4. Business Cards ”.
Designing a business card may seem trivial at first glance, but the road to a good business card is not that easy and should be done by a professional.
The nice thing about business cards, however, is that there are tons of examples on the Internet from which you can be inspired.
To what extent a self-employed person still needs a business card on the Internet is a legitimate question. If you only work online and don't have regular personal contact with new customers, etc., a business card is no longer worthwhile for you. Those who do not go to conferences or other face-to-face meetings will rarely use the business card, and it has been out for a long time, especially in online business.
Stationery
Stationery is also an important business paper. Even in the age of e-mail and co., It still makes sense in many areas to send letters. Many self-employed people often send offers and invoices to regional customers by post. Small and medium-sized companies in particular are a little more conservative.
The advertisers on self-employed in the net, on the other hand, only want PDF invoices. However, you should also use a professional stationery template for this. Despite modern technology, stationery will continue to play an important role for many self-employed people.
Every self-employed person has to judge for himself whether he or she needs letterhead. For many, this will apply and then one should use professionally designed stationery.
Company Sign
Company signs are only necessary if you have customer traffic or a shop. On the other hand, those who only communicate online and/or drive to the customers themselves generally do not need a company sign.
But if you have walk-in customers and receive customers in your own office, you should use a professional company sign.
Advertising Materials
To achieve a uniform external effect, one should also pay attention to the corporate design of the various advertising media.
Whether flyer, poster, or newspaper advertisement, a professional appearance is very important here.
For self-employed people on the Internet who work purely online, however, offline advertising is no longer so important.
Company Website
It should not be forgotten that in a certain way your company website also belongs to your business papers. That sounds a bit strange, of course, but the integration of the company website into the corporate identity or corporate design is very important and a figurehead, especially for new customers.
And of course, you should let a professional do the job if you don't have the necessary skills yourself.
Miscellaneous
Company stickers, PR articles, etc. should also match the overall image in terms of their external appearance and ensure a uniform, professional appearance.
Which Business Papers Do Start-Ups Need?
I have already touched on some of these questions above. Most of the business papers that I have touched on here are offline products. Accordingly, the question arises of what you need as a self-employed person on the Internet.
Of course, it depends on the individual case.
While some self-employed people use the Internet for support on the Internet but still maintain a lot of offline contact with interested parties, colleagues, suppliers, regular customers, etc., others only have business contacts online.
The former certainly need a more extensive collection of business papers. The latter may still need the digital stationery and a website, but nothing else.
I used to use a whole range of different business papers because I was dealing with regional customers. Today I hardly use any of it and only have business cards for my board game blog, as there are always meetings at trade fairs and events there.
In any case, you shouldn't let yourself be persuaded that you need everything. If you notice after a few months that you need business cards, you can still have them designed and printed.
This is always better than financing all possible business documents at the beginning, only to find out later that half of them are not used at all.
Have Business Papers Printed Cheaply
While you shouldn't save in the wrong place when designing, nowadays there is good savings potential when printing. Because most business documents can now be printed in very good quality on the Internet.
I use Flyerwire or Vistaprint, for example, but other providers are also very good and usually much cheaper than the local print shop.
You can order a sample folder from professional online printing companies, which contains various printing examples for business cards, letterheads, etc. So you can examine the most common variants yourself and then experience no surprises.
For example, you can hire a professional graphic designer to do the design, but then do the printing yourself.
In the case of unusual materials and shapes, the only way to help is to the regional print shop, as online print shops usually only offer the most common variants and formats.
Conclusion
Business papers play an important role for those starting up in business. However, self-employed people online have no use for one or the other business paper.
What you need yourself should be carefully considered beforehand to save unnecessary costs.
The business papers that you have decided on should be implemented in a professional manner.
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