Distributing Business Cards

After wandering around Gulangyu, I just missed the boat to Jinmen, and so I had about an hour to kill in Xiamen.

While I was walking, I noticed a group of people distributing business cards.

Since I was in no hurry anymore, I slowed down, and took one from one of them. It was a business card for a travel agency. Suddenly, seeing that I had stopped in my tracks to examine the card, a whole swarm of card distributors surrounded me, each handing me another card. I took them all, ending up with about 10 cards or so.

Next, the old lady selling maps came by, holding a copy in her hand.



"Would you like a map?"
"No thanks, I know where I'm going."
"It's just 6 RMB."
"You know, in other cities, I can get them for 3 RMB."
"Okay fine, how about 3 RMB?" She smiled sweetly, showing her decaying teeth.

I politely refused again, and tried to change the subject. "Where are you from?"
"From Anhui Province."
"Are you all from Anhui?" I pointed to the rest of the travel agency card distributors.
"Yes. Anhui Province is quite poor. We are here to try to make a bit more money, but the work is not easy."
"But how does it work? With the maps it is easy - it's based on how many you sell. But for the cards, how do they know how many cards you distribute?"
"It has nothing to do with how many cards you distribute." She took a card from my hand and pointed, "See here, there's a phone number on each one. They're all different, for every card, even though they go to the same company. Based on which number is called, they will know the person that distributed the card to the customer."

I was intrigued, as I had never tried distributing cards before, and was curious to see how hard it would be. After all, I had time to kill. So with the ~10 cards I had gathered, I decided to start passing them out myself, and see who would take, as well as how long it would take.

It wasn't easy. My first taker was a young child... who was with parents. The parents ignored me, but the child's curiosity got the best of him, and he reached out towards me with his hand as his parents dragged him away. I gave him a card.

The second took a several minutes longer, and it was one of those people that were taking all the cards (as most people only take the first card they see). I saw her approaching as did all the other card distributors, and we overloaded her hands with cards. During the tiem I was there, there were about 3-4 people who took everyone's cards like her.

However, most of the time was spent waiting, hoping to catch some interest...



I tried to look for patterns in demographics to see who was more likely to take from me. Is it the old? The young? Men? Women?

It was extremely hard to tell. I easily approached at least 75-100 people per card I managed to hand out.

Different people would act differently as well. Most people just walked past you without reacting. Some would look at your card, and then look away. A few would put up their hands, as if sayig "no thanks." Only one lady politely refused me with words. Very few looked genuinely annoyed with all the card distribution activity.

The passerbys were also difficult to handle because they tend to come in clumps (as opposed to a steady stream) due to the traffic lights. As a result, every clump would attract all the card distributors' attention, and it was difficult to "stand out" amongst the other distributors. It was important to get there first, but of course, not to be pushy about it. It is notable too that people in groups walking together were harder to pass cards to, but not impossible.

I tried different techniques as well. At first I just tried to smile and look nice. I maintained good eye contact, but not overly intrusive. When they came closer, I gave them a pleasant half smile, and nodded in acknowledgment if they took a card. I also tried the "double take" technique, which seemed to work slightly better - I would flash the cards at them quickly, and if they showed interested, I would show the cards a second time for them to take. Finally, I tried a two handed card presentation technique (like how you would hand gifts to someone using traditional Asian etiquette) to each passerby, though this technique also had limited success.



The Anhui people watched with surprise and amusement at my efforts. They cheered me on as I promised to give away all my cards before I left. Some were leaning back against the wall or the lamp post, taking a break and watching me work instead, finally having a chance to enjoy a sunny, if not unusual, afternoon. However, others were more interesting in their treatment of me. One guy tried to sell me some watches. I tried to give him a business card. We each failed in our respective endeavors.

After about 55 minutes, I had finally finished giving out all ~10 or so of my cards. It was definitely not easy, and I was fortunate to have met the 3-4 people who took a card from everyone. I waved bye to the Anhui folks, hopped in a cab, and hurried to the boat.

Rushing in, I walked quickly towards the counter just to check on the status of the boat. Most of the passengers, however, thought I was getting on the boat, and thru so a sort of mob mentality developed, with many passengers seated at the waiting area getting up and following me to the counter. However, the boat was not yet ready, and we ended up waiting there for another good 10 minutes. Few people sat back down, apparently not wanting to give up their spot in the line.



And so I floated back to Jinmen, then flew to Taipei, back to familiar territory.

Card distribution does not seem to be my calling, though inspiring mob behavior might be.