During New York Fashion Week, I had the good fortune to meet Le Monde Model Management (lemondemanagementproductions.com) agency owner Raylette Smith at the EuroCircle / Sarar Fashion Week kickoff party. Her agency is young, but already has several models that are reminiscent of Tyson Beckford and other hot stars in their heyday.

For agencies, especially young ones, events are a great way to generate new business and make contacts. Raylette started with EuroCircle to meet new faces, noting that the organization "got [her] out there to see new venues". Through networking, she landed a place for her models in this event, attended by over 600 people.

This is a great illustration of the importance of networking. She's always ready with business cards, can summarize her goals in two minutes and is crackling with positive energy for her company. As a model, can you say the same? Do you know where you want to end up, how you can enhance a campaign and what to say to land that phone number? If not, start thinking about it.

Blog Entry 2 - How to Make Contacts - the Business Card

Since the last blog entry touched on networking, let's discuss useful things that you can do to establish contacts.

First and foremost: do you have a business card? If not, please get some made. A good business card is invaluable for keeping your face and name fresh in someone's mind. For instance, my friend Julian has a card with his picture on one side, and his contact info on the other. Made correctly, a business card can almost act as a miniature comp card - use a photo program like GIMP or Photoshop to create a collection of 3-4 shots and tile them together. This is wonderful for those chance photographer or agent meetings. List pertinent website pages, too - Model Mayhem, Models.com, etc.

I'll say this once - STAY AWAY FROM FREE CARDS! Sorry to yell, but free cards are the mark of someone who isn't serious about their business. If a model doesn't believe in their career enough to spend $30 for 200 well-made cards, then why should someone want to believe in your career, either? Plus, the logo on the back means that you're being used as a free ad source. No, no, no.

Do you have any questions about good business cards? Let me know in the comments, and I'll be sure to answer :)