How To [Connect Around The Globe]

Richard Branson famously said, “Succeeding in business is all about making connections”, but how you go about making those connections can be the difference between business success or outright failure.

- Lisa Smyth

There is an ongoing debate among historians about the origin of the humble business card. Some claim ‘visiting cards’ or ‘calling cards’ first appeared in China in the 15th century, and others believe they originated in 17th century Europe among the aristocracy and royalty.

While it may be impossible to find a more boring debate topic, the significant role of the innocuous business card in global business cannot be denied. For more than a century it has been handed over at millions of conferences, networking events and meetings – an informative bit of cardboard that said, very quietly, ‘Let’s do business’.

But, with the advent of email, LinkedIn, Facebook and WhatsApp, is there even a need for the business card anymore? Or, more to the point, what is the best way to network in today’s digitally connected and fast-paced world?

A DIGITAL CONNECTION

Four years ago, Australian-born founder of CINQ, Sasha Benz, became the Creative Director of The Surf Lodge, a celebrity hotspot in the Hamptons. “I was meeting around 20 hugely important people on a daily basis, and I was losing track of all the connections. Emails bounced back, people changed their phone numbers – it was frustrating.”

So, last year, Benz launched CINQ, an app that manages all your digital business cards in one place. “I wanted to streamline the way we meet people and make people’s lives easier – it is a natural progression that networking would centre around our phones.”