I was watching Letterman tonight and heard the audience laughing. It made me remember the time I was at the show a couple years ago. You can see the picture here of the lobby.

Things were pretty regimented. You weren't allowed to take pictures in the lobby (obviously I was a bit disobedient). There were some shouts about my flash when I took the picture.

Anyway, before the taping of the show Letterman came out for a few minutes to greet the audience, which was nice.

But as I was watching the monologue tonight it harkened me back to the night I was there. It seemed like the level of excitement was elevated and people were laughing for the sake of adding to the energy of the show.

Bruce Willis was the guest the night I was there and he was funny. And it was a great experience to be there--something I had always wanted to do. And I'd do it again. But I think I'd laugh normally next time.

A great business cards tells a lot about you. If you skimp, it's obvious.

I get business cards all the time and I make judgments of the person and the company according to the quality of their card.

A good business card says volumes about you. Take the time to get your professionally designed and professionally printed. This is your chance to make a good first impression.

You can read more thoughts about business card in my article, Eye Popping Business Cards That Make You Memorable.

The other day I made a presentation to owners of new small businesses. My presentation was about how they could use the Internet effectively to get their business going. Some of them already had sites but hadn't yet put a lot of effort into it.

I talked to Frank after the meeting, and he was showing me a flyer that he was putting together for his business. It wasn't a very good design but it looked like he had spent a lot of time designing it. I think it would have been better for him to spend his time building relationships and talking to people about his business.

I see this a lot with small businesses. Most of them spend too much time and money on print material, and too little time on their web site.

If I were to give advice to someone starting a small business today, I would tell them to put their marketing budget into having a web site professionally design and then concentrate on getting visitors to the site. The print material they should concentrate on is getting a great looking, distinctive business card that they hand out all over the place.