Students use business cards outside of traditional business-only venues

For University of Memphis student Sedrick Askew, the traditional 8 ½ by 11 inch resume won't do. Instead, he prints 15,000 wallet-size ones every year.

"Your business card speaks for you," said Askew, a special education and video production graduate student. "You can put them in the (University Center), by the doors and in restaurants that people go in on a daily basis. It makes people curious."

Askew, who owns graphic design company Vivual Impact, said he spends about $300 a year on the cards, about $100 for every thousand, but that the money is well spent.

He said he spells Vivual Impact with a "v" instead of an "s" to put his own flare in his business.

Askew said he was in business for two years before he decided he needed business cards.

"I had a long conversation with my mother and she said, ‘You should market yourself,'" he said. "I used to walk around with a notebook in my bag to write down people's names and numbers."

Askew said his cards lead people to his other marketing outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, and usually people don't pick up one card at a time.

"They take a few and they give them to a friend," he said. "It generates income and creates more business and more clients."

Xavier Jones, senior business management and marketing major, said he began printing business cards for his company, Final Touch Graphics, in 2010.

Jones said he only prints 1,000 a year and uses "business-card ethics" when he distributes them.

"You don't give them to people you don't know or don't have face to face interaction with," he said. "Don't treat business cards as flyers. You typically shouldn't give a business card to someone unless they ask for it."

Though Jones said business cards helped his business tremendously, he uses them less frequently because face-to-face interaction is decreasing.

He said that he can't imagine using business cards in about 4 or 5 years..

"There are many more outlets for business than just face to face interaction," he said. "There's email, Facebook and Twitter.  By the time we meet face to face, they already have my contact information."

Audra Brown, junior math major, has used business cards to promote her power pop and grunge band the Snugglepus' for a year, but has had personal ones for seven years.

Brown said she orders about 2,000 per year from Vista Print, which offers the cards for free if you let the company put their name on the back. She only pays five dollars for shipping.

"I think it definitely helps. Having a business card at all makes people remember you," she said. "Every time we play a gig we give away about 100 business cards."

Brown said club owners tend to take her more seriously when she has a card to give them, and that she uses them for job interviews even if they're not related to music.

"I think they're a really good way to get your point across and promote anything," she said.

Kimberlee Keef, management instructor at the Fogelman College of Business and Economics, said that ultimately, business cards help students build networks.

Keef said that in the 19th century, when people would visit each other's houses, they would give their card to the butler who would then give it to the master of the house.

"In business, if we have a card on us, instead of giving information and having them write it down, why not give them a card?" she said.

She said students who don't own a business or have a lot of experience can still use cards to promote themselves as a "scholar of management."

Keef said the worst that could happen is that a potential employers uses a student business card as a book mark.

"The resume is more important, but you can't give them to someone you just met," she said. "The card is definitely a point of interest or point of discussion and they're kind of like miniature resumes in a way."