Forget About Smart Business Cards — Make Your Own For Way Less

Have you seen any of the ads for “smart” business cards? The ones you can tap on a phone and it’ll open your digital business card. Great for networking as you don’t need to carry around stacks of cards anymore, but can instantly transfer your contact information to people you meet. Intrigued by these “smart” business cards, I wanted to know more about how they work. And I put smart in quotations not because I don’t think they’re smart. Being able to tap your business cards on any smart phone is pretty clever. Paying anywhere between $50 and $200 for them is not smart at all. Hence the quotations.

See How It Works

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Do It Yourself

I see ads for these “smart” business cards on social media daily. Whether you want to sport a traditional business card and just make it smart, or add a tag to your keychain so you have your new “really smart” business card with you all the time, here’s how to do it.

1. Order a set of NFC tags. They come in handy stickers (which you can add to, or discreetly in between two, business cards) or in keychain tags. The red and white tags in the picture are my “business” cards (the black bigger one is my motorcycle key). You can get these for about a dollar each, so for $10-$20 you get a whole bunch. Much better than paying $50-$200 for a single card.
2. Download an app to your smart phone to “program” the tag once you receive it. I use the free version of NFC tools which you can find for Apple and Android.
3. Using the app, you can add a link to your website, or create a separate page on your site with your contact details to link to. This is basically with the “smart” business cards companies charge you for: their cards link to your profile on their website, marketing their service every time you go networking with their cards. See the screenshot below.

That’s all. Using the app, you can get creative but keep in mind not all options work on all phones.

Try the QR code version

I have a few different tags with different information which I can use when meeting people for business or personally. To demonstrate — I can’t have you “tap” my tag unless we meet in person, but you can scan this QR code and it’ll trigger a text message to me. My keychain does exactly the same should we meet for coffee in the airport one day. For when we actually can travel again — try it, scan the code and feel free to actually say hello if you like, and maybe we’ll do coffee one day. For now — have fun with your NFC tags. Let me know what you come up with.

One more thing

Are you like me and like automating your mundane business tasks? The point is not to have a gimmicky card, no matter how much (or little) you paid for it. It’s about the bigger picture. Once you connect with someone new, what happens next? How do you stay in touch, keep the conversation going and provide value to your new connection? To find out more on setting up the bigger picture and having your apps and systems work cleverly together, have a look at my Business AutoPilot course — the preview will get you started free of charge.

This story was published first on Living by Experience. View it here.