Sole Proprietors, how do you call yourself?

[STeeL]

If you are running your own business, designing websites, wearing all those different hats, what do you write in your business card? President? Project Manager? or something more creative? Maybe you have more than one business card? :)

[lorax]

Business card?

I don't really have a title. I just tell folks what I can do for them. But I'm not an aggressive salesmen either. My clients seek me out.

[fathom]

Independent

[Ankheg]

I have three business cards, one for each of my businesses. One simply says, '<myname> Photography' / Stock and Portrait Photography. Don't really have a title. For my two web-businesses, one says "owner", and one says "Administrator". :) I prefer "Administrator", and will probably put that on the other card when I get them reprinted.

Let's face it, as sole proprietors, we're IT. :) I've taken calls where people have asked for me by name, for "the owner", "the administrator", "the chief financial officer", and "customer service". My response, to all of these? "Speaking!" :)

[msr986]

My business card just have my name, but I refer to myself as the "owner".

"Owner" sounds important! :)

[Chris_R]

I think it is a little silly to put "president" on the card - (which I used to do) if everyone knows you are the only one that works there. My two most profitable businesses had the cheapest business cards.

[bird]

Isn't your name good enough?

We don't need no steenkin' job titles... ;)

[fathom]

bird... that's badges! ;)

actually that doesn't sound half bad eh!

[ShawnR]

I agree with the guys above. Before starting my business I was in corporate life, so I picked up those bad habits. My email signature used to be something like:

Managing Director
Company Name
The contents of this email are commercial in confidence
etc

I've since realised that if your target is SMEs rather than major corporates, people are more interested in what you can do for them than the structure of your organisation. And you need to come across as firendly and approachable. So now I've scrapped the 'commercial in confidence' stuff (or made it tiny) and my email signature is more along the lines of a tag-line describing the service we offer... When I run out of cards and get the next batch printed I'll probably make similar changes.

Weird how we pick up such bad habits from the big players who should know better.

Shawn

[peewhy]

I don't have a title as such. I'm a sole trader and I am my own brand, my clients accept this.

Titles used to be big, window cleaners became glass maintenance tecnhicians, cleaners were domestic operatives, care takers were site agents, salesmen were consultants ... I'm just me - and the money's good:)

[Nick_W]

>>My business card just have my name, but I refer to myself as the "owner".

Yep, no title for me but if someone asks, I'm the owner.

Nick

[austtr]

I found myself being the web site designer, seo optimiser, client site promoter, consultant, new business facilitator... and all the othet things the single operator has to do when one has a mix of client sites and own sites.

I settled for "Principal"... it implies managerial control, senior person etc while being generic enough to cover an operation of 2 people or 20.

Fred Bloggs
Principal
Bloggs Internet Services

[rossH]

someone cautioned me against using "owner" on my cards once, although I was in a partnership at the time, it was a liability thing, or maybe misrepresentation, not sure.

I find working with business people it's good to have a title that spells out your function, at least as you relate to them. I use Director of Operations, so they know where they are with me, and who's on their critical process

You may be an indie and a sole prop and you may think that's obvious to everyone, but it's not, plenty of people have silent partners, assistants, so on, your clients are not quite sure what your situation is, and they usually don't need to know .. a functional title adds a little structure to the relationship, and allows you to expand over time.

[Undead Hunter]

Good question, I've struggled with this for years. I used "Creative Director" for a while. President seemed too generic to me, CEO seemed more arrogant since there (was) no one else here. Now that I have a full-time partner and several part-timers, I'm using just plain ol' "Director". Although we're re-branding in the next 2 months, so I might switch over to "Principal", since we'll be taking more of a design perspective vs. the development angle we started with.