Two weeks after reading a convincing story about the irrelevance of business cards and what do I do?
I go out and spend $168.89 on new business cards.
I suppose that means I should have in the space where the rest of the stodgy traditionalists list the occupation put “CHIEF BONEHEAD.”
I earn the sobriquet because I had printed, not one, but two distinct brands. One for “Use All The Crayons!” And one for my exciting new lawn care business I’m starting.
I’m lying about the lawn care business. I have no intention in doing anything so respectable. I just put that in there cause I know the prospect will turn my wife on. That’s what being married to a guy like me for nearly 20 years will do.
I figure I need “Crayons!” because I think uniformity is important. I make most of my speaking pitches these days by the USPS — and talk about embracing bygone irrelevance — and I think it makes a spiffier impression if the envelope, letter and business card all match.
As I recently wrote, I believe email has become our most tedious form of communication. A letter like mine, I think, really stands out.
And if the recipient finds its content disagreeable, he or she can at least ball it up and throw it at a sassy insubordinate and I’ll have done my part to make at least one dreary office more colorful.
But I felt I needed a primary business card, one that I could use to showcase www.ChrisRodell.com and all I’m doing in addition to “Crayons!”
I was for days vexed about what to call myself.
Just what the hell is it I do?
I could have gone for the obvious: WRITER. But, my goodness, that’s as boring as it is vague. James Patterson’s a writer, but so is the guy who composes the dense legalese the FDA says must accompany the lucrative drug ads that turn vast sections of popular magazines into literary wastelands.
I’m an AUTHOR, sure, but that sounds pretentious and doesn’t begin to explain all I do.
I do PUBLIC SPEAKING, but that’s like a spring branch tributary to the river of writing.
Putting BLOGGER would make sense because I do so much of it, but who in their right mind would brag about being a blogger, much less try to impress potential business associates with the title?
Listing MANURE COMPOSTER has more cache.
I toyed with the combo option: WRITER/SPEAKER/HUMORIST. But it’s like when you drive down a country road and see a home with a sign out front that says it’s both a Hair Salon and Bait Shop.
You wonder if the proprietor has enough hand sanitizer to go straight from one job to the other.
In the end, I threw caution to the wind and went for risqué.
It’s a term I coined in 2011 and immediately abandoned. I just saw no use for it.
But the term continued to percolate and I on a whim decided to use it on the back of the crayons book in the bio.
People began to use it in their introductions for me and it always gets a big laugh.
I figured it’s the perfect ice-breaker term to spark curiosity that might lead people to my website.
So, now it’s official. Ladies and gentleman, I am now and forever more a …
PROSEtitute!
And now I have the business card to prove it.
I just have to hope the relevancy of the title out-endures the actual business card.
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