We politely keep our ‘trap shut’ when a business guru proudly proclaims that he doesn’t give out business cards–too tacky, everyone already knows them, wouldn’t want the’ little people’* having access to their email address… Or there’s the tech guru who says that giving out a business card is so last century–get with the program people and start bumping each other electronically. We are happy to see Bloomberg Businessweek taking a stand, debunking the death of the paper business card. (*Oh, about those little people: Tom Peters says ‘little people have big friends.’)
But as result of all this dialogue about the business card, audiences often want to know if they should give out business cards. Here’s a recent answer to this question from a reader who had just been given advice to only exchange cards electronically:
Dear David,
We are puzzled by that advice. In our experience, most people have difficulty remembering names, so without something to remind us and to provide contact information we are hooped when it comes to follow-up or further contact. That is not to say we contact everyone we meet, but we can if we wish to if we have a card and so can they. We have met many people who didn’t have cards where we wanted to follow-up but were unable to. Why limit our network this way? After all, the purpose of positive networking is, “discovering what we can do for someone else.” How can we help someone if we don’t have contact information? Relying only those who share contact information electronically is needlessly limiting.
Some have told us they screen contacts on the spot to determine who is ‘important’ and only exchange contact information with them. This is a mistake in our view. This is often a technique of ‘transactional’ networking, where the primary object is a quick referral or sale. Positive networking is different, it is about relationships which may or may not be related to business of the day. All contacts are important in our experience, especially the weakest ones which, according to Mark Granovetter(see Work the Pond!) are most often the most important in life.
Networks are important for business but it is important to remember people do business with those they know, trust and like and that takes time, and this usually takes more than one meeting. In some cultures such as Japan, the very foundation of business is personal relationships built on trust. Here, it is considered rude or unprofessional not to offer someone a name card. The business card exchange at first contact is a time-honoured tradition and a graceful ritual. In our view, a first step in establishing trust is doing a kindness for someone who otherwise would almost certainly have difficulty remembering our name and how to contact us, giving them a card.
So, the choice is ours. Meet a lot of people and have them not remember us, or be unable to contact us, and vice versa…or give them a piece of paper with our name and contact info on it. In the first instance, there is an almost 100% chance nothing will come of our encounters, in the latter amazing things will happen, most often in random and unexpected ways. Just like the Amex folks, we never leave home without them.
Hope this helps.
Darcy Rezac
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