The Business Card – Why it is More Important Than Ever!
Bj?rn Otto
Engineer, Marketer, & Investor | Transforming Water Tech Companies with Sustainable Strategies
Business cards may be outdated utensils from an almost forgotten era, but they are more important today than ever before.
Surprised to hear this coming from me?
A few years ago, I would have agreed with anyone saying that the business card was going extinct. But today, I am an advocate of keeping them.
I understand the other side too. Of course, there are ways to use digital solutions to store contact data, for example at trade fairs and congresses, and these should also be used in addition.
For me, however, it's about something completely different.
I don’t know how you feel after an event when you are back in the office. But I then mentally go through the conversations I had again and look at (attention!) each business card.
When I do this and also listen to my voice memos, which I usually record after a conversation, everything is present to me once again. And more importantly, I also get back the feeling that I had during the conversation.
To be honest, sometimes the feeling wasn’t that great, but in that case, the card just goes into the trash ??.
What this is all about for me is to recall the memory in order to have a better access to the other person when we meet again or when we talk on the phone.
After all, it’s never about what you say, it’s always about how the other person feels while you're saying what you’re saying.
A little story to close it off.
I attended WEX conference this year. There, I had the pleasure of moderating a table with 8 participants from all over the world.
领英推荐
In the end, of course, we exchanged business cards. Apart from one woman. She was carrying “only” one business card with an integrated NFC chip.
Touch it with your cell phone and you had the necessary information from her. Everyone was all excited to pull the data onto their phone. And everyone quickly forgot about the young woman afterwards. ??♂?
How many contacts do you have in your phone? And how often do you scroll through your contact list? Just like that. Exactly. Never.
Therefore... Always have a well-made business card with you. You can also have them made on recycled paper.
Have fun exchanging them.
PS: It’s also about psychology. Look up reciprocity!
_____
Not enough?
Connect with me?here on LinkedIn, or check out the?Interius Solutions webpage?and book your personal call with me.
See you soon.
Cheers, Bj?rn
I still use business cards but prefer those with bar codes or NFC so I don't have to type all details into my phone. And of course I still got a pen to do notes on the business cards and mark those I did already follow up??
To Know Water Is To Love Water
2 年Hey Bj?rn…my business card story…throughout my career, whenever I went on a job interview, I would take one of the interviewer’s cards and after the meeting, scratch his/her name off the card and write my own along with the title of the position I was applying for. I’d carry around the card with me and look at it several times a day to see how I felt about working for the company. If I lost the card, it was a pretty good indication it wouldn’t be a good fit! ??
Growth | Partnerships | Acquisitions
2 年Vey timly. I was saying that I still like to exchange and collect business cards. It’s more personal and meaningful. Also reminds me of who and any follow up afterwards.
ColiMinder - reliable online monitoring of microbiological water quality
2 年Bj?rn Otto, fully agree! ... visual-minded persons just need to see a business card to connect it with athmosphere and content of the belonging conversation. We even decided to work with an outdated adress management database but having the capability to scan and see the business cards.
Making sustainability results "real" in food, beverage, biopharma, and water/wastewater | Sustainable Ideas | Strategy | Keeping LinkedIn Interesting | "Tamer of Chaos"
2 年It was just a few for me - but I did snap pictures of a number of them. So maybe we just need one business card for people to take pictures of ??