What do you do with the business cards you receive?

So what do you do with the business cards you receive? If you toss them aside to deal with them later, you’re making a big mistake. Not only are you adding to the clutter on your desk, but you are missing enormous opportunities.

My course of action when dealing with a mountain of business cards is to begin by putting your cards into categories. By this I mean categories like; Clients, Vendors, Business Resources, Prospects etc. Sometimes it makes sense to sort them by zip codes, or industry. Figure out a system that works best for you in regards to marketing your business. Who do you want to communicate with most often? What areas of town do you want to focus your efforts on? Who are the people that can bring you the most business?

Once you have made your categories, start sorting your stacks. Once sorted, you have the ability to enter in your data more efficiently. I strongly recommend a business card scanner like NeatReceipts from www.neatreceipts.com. The scanner and it’s software give you the ability to turn your business cards (and many other documents) into data that can be used in many ways. Once the business card is scanned it automatically saves the data as text. The text is immediately put into a spread sheet for you. You can now upload the data into contact management software like Outlook, or ACT. Then you can sync your palm or Blackberry and have all the data in your PDA/Phone. If you send out a newsletter you can upload the data to your distribution list and start marketing your company. If you send direct mail you can use the data to give to your printer so you can send mail to your newly categorized lists. The possibilities are endless.

This is a great task for your administrative assistant, virtual assistant or even your children in high school or college. If you aren’t lucky enough to have this kind of assistance, scan a few cards a day. It only takes a few minutes.