There are two kinds of titles that I would avoid putting on a business card:  ego titles and cute titles.  This post was motivated by a post by John Robb about Business Card Lessons.

An ego title is the kind of thing that a new business owner puts on their business card.  You see titles like:

• Founder
• Owner

These titles are more for you than they are for the person you are giving your card to.  These titles can get in the way in the future.  When your business grows you may hire a CEO or  President.   You might want to focus on the areas of the business you know well and let someone else run the business.  If you’ve saddled yourself with title of founder then it will be hard for your new hire to get the support that role requires.

Another title that doesn’t work so well are cute titles like:

• Chief Funny Man
• Fancy Ketchup
• Chief Troublemaker

Those titles might be fun to use but they don’t really give the recipient any idea of how you might be able to help them.  I’m not saying don’t use different kinds of titles just make sure the title is appropriate for the job the person with that title does.