What to write on the back of a visiting card (or say in 10 seconds)

Write four things on the back of a visiting card: who they are, what they need, when they might buy, and the next step you promised. Do it within a minute of the conversation ending. A 10-second voice note does the same job faster, and keeps their exact words.

Why do you remember the card but forget the conversation?

A visiting card keeps the name, the number and the company. It keeps nothing of what was said. After a full day at a stall, twenty conversations about price, lead time and samples merge into one by the next morning.

The details that fade first are the ones a follow-up needs most: the quantity they mentioned, the supplier they complained about, the month they gave.

There is a second reason. In many Indian businesses the owner meets visitors at the stall, and a sales executive makes the calls the following week. For that executive, your note is the whole handover.

A visiting card tells you who someone is. Only your note tells you why they matter.

What are the four parts of a good visiting card note?

Every useful note answers four questions: who, need, timing and next step. Keep them in the same order every time, so the note is quick to write, quick to say and quick to read back on a Monday morning.

Part	The question it answers	Example
Who	What do they do, how big is it, and do they decide?	Purchase head, two tablet units in Baddi
Need	What problem did they describe, in their words?	Blister foil supplier late three times this year
Timing	When will they decide, and on what?	Trial order if samples pass, decides by 15 November
Next step	What did you promise, and by when?	Samples of 25 micron foil and a quote by Thursday

Who: what the card does not already say

Skip the name, the number and the designation, because the card has them. Write what the card leaves out: what the business makes or sells, how big it is, and whether this person decides or only advises.

• “Owner, three retail pharmacies in Pune, buys direct”
• “Plant engineer, auto components unit in Chakan, recommends but does not sign”

The second example saves a wasted call. Your next step there is an introduction to the person who signs.

Need: their problem, in their own words

Write the problem, not your product. “Interested in pouches” tells you nothing. “Print on their pouches fades in two months” tells you what to say first. Keep every number they gave, because numbers make the follow-up precise.

• “Needs 5-ply corrugated boxes, about 20,000 a month; current boxes crush in the monsoon”
• “Pays ₹2.10 a pouch before GST, wants better print at the same price”

Timing: when they decide, and what it depends on

Timing tells you whether to ring tomorrow or next quarter. If they did not say, ask before they leave: “When are you deciding?”

• “Budget for the new line opens in April, with the new financial year”
• “Trial order this month if our samples pass their QC”
• “Just looking this year”, which is a real answer and stops anyone chasing a cold lead as if it were hot

Next step: what you promised, and by when

Write what you said you would do, with a day. Visitors remember promises made at a stall, and a promised quote that never arrives does more harm than no promise.

• “Send samples of three sizes by Thursday”
• “Our engineer to visit their Bhiwandi godown next week”

A full note, written and spoken

Spoken, that note takes about ten to fifteen seconds. Written, it takes longer and pushes you into abbreviations.

Two extras earn their place. Add hot, warm or cold if your team grades leads at the stall (see grading exhibition leads). And add one detail that helps you recognise the person, such as “also from Rajkot”, but never a remark about how someone looks. Write every note as if the person might one day read it. For what India’s data protection law expects when you keep details about people, see visiting cards and the DPDP Act.

Should you write the note or say it?

Both work. The better method is the one you will actually use between two visitors.

What matters	Writing on the card	A 10-second voice note
Speed	Slower, and the hurry pushes you into abbreviations	As fast as you can speak
Detail kept	What fits on the back, in shorthand	Their exact words, numbers and tone
Noise	A loud hall makes no difference	Needs a quieter corner, facing away from the aisle
Who hears it	Nobody	Anyone standing near you
Reading it later	Only if the handwriting is clear	Easy if your app writes notes out as text; otherwise you listen again

Speak when you can step aside; write when the next visitor is already at the table. The one choice that never works is neither: trusting yourself to remember in the evening.

How to say a good voice note

• Wait until they have walked away. Describing someone within earshot is awkward for both of you.
• Skip what the card prints. A name costs seconds, and spoken names are easy to mishear when a note is written out.
• Say numbers slowly and in full: “twenty-five micron”, “twenty thousand a month”, “fifteenth November”.
• Speak the way you speak. English with Hindi in it is fine. The facts matter more than the grammar.

How to write a good note on the card

• Write on the back, never across the printed front, so the card still scans cleanly.
• Use four short lines, one per part, and circle H, W or C for the grade.
• Avoid private shorthand. “f/u int. pr” means something tonight and nothing to a colleague on Monday.

What does a good note look like next to a useless one?

Here are seven pairs from different trades. The useless notes show three common habits: a feeling, a grade with no reason, and a reminder with no content.

Trade	Useless note	Useful note
Pharma retail	Nice guy, interested	Owns 3 retail pharmacies in Pune. Unhappy with his distributor’s fill rate. Wants a demo next week. Promised: call Monday to fix the day.
Pharma manufacturing	Big pharma co., send catalogue	QA head, injectables plant, Hyderabad. Needs 2 ml and 5 ml glass vials. Audits new vendors first, in January. Promised: our audit documents by Friday.
Packaging	Wants pouches, call	Owner, namkeen brand, Indore. Laminated pouches, 50,000 a month in 3 sizes, ₹2.10 each before GST; print fades in 2 months. Samples before the Diwali stock. Promised: quote by Wednesday.
Textiles	Surat, rate?	Buyer, saree wholesaler, Surat. 60 GSM georgette, 12 shades, 5,000 metres a shade. Buys for the season in January. Promised: shade card and rate per metre.
Engineering	Machine enquiry, HOT	Maintenance head, auto components plant, Chakan. Two CNC spindles failed last year, about ₹4,80,000 in repairs. Maintenance contract quote before the budget closes on 31 March. Promised: engineer’s visit, week of 16 November.
Distribution	Distributor, maybe	Distributor in Nagpur, about 600 retailers, no paints line yet. Wants margins and credit days. Decides after meeting his partner on 4 December. Promised: terms by email, call on 7 December.
Existing customer	Old customer came	Existing customer, Ahmedabad. Last two deliveries short by 2 cartons each. Wants dispatch to call, not sales. Promised: dispatch head calls tomorrow.

Here is what makes the useless notes useless:

• A feeling is not information. Almost everyone at a stall is polite and “interested”.
• A grade with no reason tells you to hurry, but not what to say when you call.
• A reminder with no content (“call”, “send catalogue”) leaves you guessing which catalogue, and why.
• A note with no promise means the visitor remembers what you offered and you do not.

If a note could describe any visitor that day, it describes none of them.

How do you turn the note into the first line of your follow-up?

A good note is already most of your follow-up message. Each of its four parts has a job to do.

Part of the note	Its job in the message
Who	How you address them, and how you describe their business back to them
Need	Your first line: their problem, in their words
Timing	Why you are writing now, and not next month
Next step	The action, with a day attached

Open with their problem, not with your company. The first line should prove that you remember the conversation. Compare these two:

Packaging: a WhatsApp message

Built from the packaging note in the table above:

The need opens the message, the numbers prove you listened, and the timing gives a reason to answer this week.

Engineering: an email

The subject line carries the need and the next step, so the email is recognised before it is opened.

Distribution: the opening of a call

A call made on the promised day needs no excuse and no “just checking in”.

Before you send anything, ask one question: could this message have gone to anyone else at the fair? If it could, go back to the note. For when to send each message, and what to send in weeks 2 to 4, see the 7-day plan for following up exhibition leads.

How does JAI CRM use your voice note?

The Exhibitions module in JAI CRM records the note with the card, writes it out as text, and puts the words where the follow-up happens.

Recording the note

There are two places to record. Which one you use depends on whether the card has reached JAI CRM yet.

1. On the card’s own screen. With signal, each card opens on its own screen as soon as it has been sent. Below the fields is a panel headed “What was said at the stall”, with a “Record a note” button. Tap it and speak: the button turns red, shows Stop and counts the seconds. Tap it again to finish, and the app shows “Note saved”. This button needs signal. If the note cannot be sent, the app says “The note could not be saved”, so record it again.
2. On the Scan cards screen. With no signal, the app says “Kept on this phone”. Close the camera, and your last five cards sit as small photographs under “Take a card”. Press and hold the photograph of the person you just met, speak, and let go. The prompt reads “Hold the photograph to say why they mattered”, then “Listening” while you hold. A small note mark shows on a photograph that has a note. The recording waits on the phone and is sent with the card when the signal returns.

After a quick run of cards you can still hold any of the five photographs: photograph the stack, then hold the three you remember. Back at the office, “Record a note” is on every card in the exhibition’s Still to file tab until the card is filed. The app sets no time limit; ten seconds is enough. Capturing leads without signal covers the offline side in full.

If the microphone was refused, the app says “The microphone is not available” and points you to Android Settings › Apps › JAI CRM › Permissions.

When the words are written out

The words are written out after the recording reaches JAI CRM and the card itself has been read, not on the phone. The job that does this runs every two minutes, and a note added to a card already read is queued straight away. Until then, the card says: “Being written out. It is added to the record as a comment once it is, and the recording goes with it either way.” If noise or silence defeats the transcription, the recording still plays.

A switch in Settings › AI writing, “Write out voice notes with AI”, decides what does the writing. Where the switch is on and a model is available, an AI model writes the note out; the setting describes that as faster and far better with Hindi and English mixed. Otherwise notes are written out on JAI CRM’s own server, and no recording leaves it.

Where the words appear

Where	What you see	When
The card’s own screen	Under “What was said at the stall”: a player for the recording, and the words written out	As soon as the words are written out
The record’s Comments tab	A comment that starts “Voice note at”, then the exhibition’s name and the words, under the name of the person who scanned the card	When the card is filed, or when the words arrive if it was filed first; never twice
The record’s Attachments tab	The recording, labelled “What was said at the stall” with its length in seconds	When the card is filed
The follow-up task	A Call task, “Follow up:” and the person’s name, due 48 hours after filing, for the record’s owner. Its description gives their designation and company, “Met at” the exhibition, then “What was said:” and the note in full	When the card is filed as a lead or a customer, if the words were written out by then

Wait for the words to appear on the card before you press “Keep it”. The follow-up task copies the note at the moment of filing. File first, and the words still reach the record as a comment, but the task will not carry them. A card filed as a supplier gets the comment and the recording, and no follow-up task.

The same screen holds “How warm” (hot, warm or cold) and “File it as” (Lead, Customer or Supplier). If you would rather type, the card has a Notes box under “What else they told you”, and what you type there goes into the record’s Notes. Typed notes do not reach the follow-up task, so the voice note travels furthest. For every field and where it lands, see Scan a card, check it, and where each field goes.

Common questions

Correct as of October 2026. The people, businesses, places, quantities, prices, dates and messages above are examples. Screen labels are quoted from the JAI CRM app as it stood on 10 October 2026.

Next

• The Exhibitions module: scan cards, record a note, see what each fair earned
• Documentation: From a card to a record
• How to follow up exhibition leads: a 7-day plan
• Hot, warm or cold: grading leads at the stall