I Messed Up My Business Cards

In the rush to create new business cards after a recent employment change I managed to mangle the material. In one set of cards my name is too big, title too small. In the other both my name and title are too small. One set of cards I had created at an Office Depot store and the other I ordered online from Office Depot.

The learning experience? Order online. They have the full range of card stocks in stock and they just do a nicer job (note the curved edges in the image above). Go to the store in a pinch for a small batch only.

I mention this experience in the context of a broader learning experience about the state of business cards and contact information sharing. I am sure that I am not alone in encountering more and more executives who are not carrying business cards - and a few with NFC cards.

More and more people want me to scan their LinkedIn QR codes or take a picture of their trade show badge. In other words, why am I clinging to business cards at all?

Decades in business have taught me that there is no substitute for the business card to quickly and conveniently share contact information - meaning email and phone/mobile number, and, maybe address, company name, and job title.

Across my decades in the business world I have collected (and disposed of) shoeboxes filled with business cards. I have entered (by hand) the information on those cards into my MS Outlook contacts. (My friends and acquaintances routinely inform me that it is much easier to use a card scanner - but I persist in my preferred process.)

My prodigious well of contacts has served me well. I have done my best to curate the contacts I have gathered, but I always "joke" that my contacts are peppered with dead people and expired companies.

I have been careful, over the years, to regularly export my Outlook contacts and store and backup the information. With more than 20,000 contacts I can forget a face, a name, a company, but having those exported files to refer to is an essential tool for tracking down an old contact.

I describe all of this because I have come to understand that I am unusual. Most people do not enter contact information into Outlook. An increasing number of people do not carry business cards. A solid majority of people rely on LinkedIn for their contact information, connection, and outreach.

There's nothing more aggravating to me - the Card Curator - than an executive that uses LinkedIn to communicate with me after I know I have shared my direct contact information via my business card. LinkedIn is sub-optimal for business communications.

The Holy Grail of business connection is an executive's business email address. More often than not, the email address available in LinkedIn - if there is one available at all - is a personal email address.

I am sharing these thoughts as the business community prepares to depart the summer doldrums and launches into the fall conference calendar. As we wade once again into the crowds in hotel ballrooms and trade show exhibit halls I strongly recommend doing so with a fistful of business cards.

There is no substitute for the power and simplicity of the business card exchange and the intimacy of the business email address and mobile phone number - and, yes, the proper company name, job title, and business address. The exchange of business cards is a marker of trust and recognition.

I still remember when I moved from being a local community newspaper editor to a reporter for a national trade magazine and the scope of my work expanded from a handful of neighboring communities (school boards and town councils and the police blotter) to the world. This was when I was first infected with the business card bug (stapling those cards into massive Rolodexes).

The experience changed and enriched my life. I now routinely run into executives who remind me that we met 10-15 years before. I can refer to my phone - which syncs contacts with my Outlook info - and confirm YES! We certainly did meet and now I remember! It's priceless.