I am creating some business cards and, well, CEO sounds too corporate for an one person firm. Given that, I am planning to use no title at all; what is the protocol?
My father was an EE who for some years ran his own 1-man shop. His cards said "VP Engineering". His reasoning was that he mostly used the cards at trade shows, "VP" made it look like a bigger company, and while it made him appear senior, "VP Engineering" suggested more technical credibility than "President"
Reminds me of something that happened at the small business I used to work for. The business was family owned. This one guy was an employee from the beginning of the company and was a top notch engineer. The company wanted him in on all technical negotiations and trusted him enough to sign contracts. But some of the companies that we were working with absolutely wouldn't talk to anybody below the level of vice president. So they made him VP of Engineering.
I used lead software developer on my business cards. Its true, it isn't too stuffy, and it gives you just enough of an ego bump to feel good but not too much. I skipped all other corporate sounding titles for the same reason you mentioned.
Technical Consultant or something similar. I would stay away from big titles like CEO, CTO, etc... They tend to come off more pretentious than useful. The truth is people will find out how big your company is whether you want them to or not so you might as well be honest with them from the get go. I could see the "VP" title being better, but I guess it really depends on what exactly your company does and who you are handing the business cards out to.
" " (blank) also can match your plan of using no title. Make the design focus on company name and perhaps a line of memorable text about what the company or you provide.
One of my hobbies is going through LinkedIn and getting a chuckle out of all the "CEOs". I get the idea that people want to make their company sound bigger than it is but think in reality it's too see through. Go for something that says what you do right now. "Developer" or "Manager" or something relatively simple.
I remember in The 4-Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss mentioned about making your business appear to be big by not taking the title of CEO (among other tips, of course). I will try to find that page and see what was the suggestion, though.
