NAILS

90 | NAILS MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2016##### BUSINESS}Take the Business Card ChallengeWhen it comes to self-promotion, barber and beauty industry educator IvanZoot is old-fashioned. “I believe that all this Instagramming, Tweeting, andFacebooking is not as powerful as classic, old-school marketing,” he says.“The personal referral needs to be just that: personal. Shake a hand. Pass abusiness card.”Zoot often encourages attendees of his classes to participate in the 500Business Card Challenge. The goal is to distribute 500 business cards in onemonth — that’s 17 cards per day.“Buy a box of cards and make them a bit different from your everyday card so you can tellthem apart,” he suggests. “Then give them out directly to individuals whenever possible. Shakethe person’s hand and ask her to come in for a service.” Since it can be difficult to hit the 500mark, Zoot also permits participants to, say, put a card in the mirror at a restaurant’s bathroom.Not afraid to practice what he preaches, Zoot did the challenge in an attempt to drive trafficto his website, http://www.clipperguy.com. He ended up passing out not 500, but 836 cards in onemonth and saw a 20% increase in site traffic as a result.“The bottom line is old-school still works,” Zoot says. “If you use some of the modern webtools and social media technologies and blend them with some high-touch in our very high-touch business, I am sure you will report real, measurable progress.”``````Zoot``````ILLUSTRATION BY YUIKO SUGINO