Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:23:41 -0500 (EST)
From: Larry Moss <moss@balloonhq.com>
To: Balloon Twister List <balloon@balloonhq.com>
Subject: Re: Mailing address???

On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, Alotta Fun 4U2 Productions wrote:

> My day job is for a major printing house and we recommend the following: If 
> you are home based it is recommended that you only use your phone number and 
> include the town you live in.  You might include WE TRAVEL! 

This is just an opinion here, but I disagree with this advice.  I feel that
your promotional material should have an address on it. I just feel that
for many people, it makes more sense to be a PO box.  What good is a
busines card if you don't tell people how to contact you?

There was a time years ago that I had just a phone number on the card, but
I found that I was often hand writing my address on the card when I gave it
to someone that had a need for a mailing address. I sometimes get letters
in the mail from kids that saw me at festivals or in their school.  If a
mom or dad asks for a card, I'm going to assume it's because they might
call me later, but at times it's been to get my address so their kid could
write a thank you letter for a balloon.  (Actually, it was probably so they
could call me for a birthday party and then as an after thought got their
kid to write.)  And let me me tell you, I get a huge kick out of fan
letters from kids.

Often you have a need to exchange cards with another business person.
Maybe it's to be added to a mailing list.  Maybe it's just to drop your
card in the fish bowl at the door of a restaurant for a free meal.  Maybe
that's not the reason you printed cards, but if you're going to pay for
them, you may as well be able to use them however you like.  

When someone gives me a card at a convention and asks me to send them more
information about something, I do my best to do it.  But I can't believe
the number of times I've received cards from people that didn't have
addresses. I can even recall a time that I had a card with a note on it
asking me to contact a person when something I was doing was finished.
Several months past before I went to make the call and the area code had
changed.  The only contact information on the card was a phone number.
Within the first few months you always get the notice on the phone telling
you what the new area code is anyway, but imagine if more time passed.
Suddenly that card (already in someone else's hand) is completely useless.

In general, it's just more professional to have a card that has the
information someone will need to get a hold of you. Otherwise, what good
does it do?

But, this gets off topic from the original question anyway.  That was about
the value of a PO box.  Even if you withhold your address on publicity
material, you still have to mail out contracts and get them back.  So you
still have to give out an address of some sort sometimes.

Larry Moss
BalloonHQ.com