Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Not only conventional printed cards, but magnetic cards and sticky back cards.
Working as a manufacturer's rep, I've had people hang onto my biz card for years and call me with RFP's and BID requests years after our initial contacts. Some of those decision makers have changed job/companies, but they've kept my contact information via biz card for years as part of their toolkit for getting certain types of work done.
As well, I use their biz cards to track where I've been calling on during my sales trips and for follow-up marketing.
In my experience, business cards are still commonly used. Especially in a sales meeting. Every vendor I've met will give me a card and ask me for one. It's still one of the easiest and least intrusive way to exchange contact info.
I guess the difference might be what's on that card these days. Some of the more recent cards have replaced mailing addresses with URLs and QR codes.
I honestly think business cards are for those that are trying to sell a thing or a service. In my sub-field (corporate accounting) I don't need to network outside of my entity, so I don't have a card. However most accountants have a service to provide and I find that they DO have business cards.
I have never, ever met somebody, for an initial meeting, in a business setting who wanted to swap profiles. If somebody suggested this to me rather than provide a cared I would laugh at them.
Yes, eventually I will get one of those irritating linkedin requests via email, which I will delete when it arrives.
I honestly think business cards are for those that are trying to sell a thing or a service. In my sub-field (corporate accounting) I don't need to network outside of my entity, so I don't have a card. However most accountants have a service to provide and I find that they DO have business cards.
Everyone needs to network outside of their current company. You never know.
I use them during networking events or if I am working for someone in a professional capacity (on movie/music video sets) and it's a good chance we won't see each other vis-a-vis for a while. But mostly, we exchange Twitter and Instagram profiles to keep in touch with each other. So business card, Twitter, and IG.
May take another decade or two before they're totally out of vogue, but over time they are certainly less-prevalent in business. The only paper on my desk is one sticky note pad. There won't ever be more, again, and could acutally be less since devices and tablets now have handwriting capabilities hugely improved over past attempts. All my "sticky notes" will shortly live in EverNote, OneNote, or similar.
For awhile I had a GIF of my personal QR Code, and asked people to scan it at business events. The code caused their device to ask if they wanted to save me, and my LinkedIn profile, as a Contact. Slightly ponderous, still, and I'm debating if QR Codes too are going a bit out of style.
I'm going through a couple iterations of personal greeting cards (business card sized), with my personal AND general business contact (LinkedIn). I haven't got it quite right yet, and will probably retain a professional designer to do-so since UI/UX is not my forte, frankly. I pop those into my tote bags and etc in case something's lost and a good citizen needs to find me. Left here and there at businesses I use who need to call me back, etc. A bit gimmicky, but does come in handy still.
My own business card, made with a holographic metal foil, my own logo, email stylized email "firstname@lastname.com and a subtle adhesive in a corner for an invisible string levitation trick.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
