The Ultimate Business Card System For Entrepreneurs

I received a great question from one of my readers today and I figured I would take a moment to post about it.

“Hey Chris, what do you use to scan business cards into your computer? Where do they sell them?”

In a previous post I wrote about the many benefits of using Digital Business Cards on your iPhone or PDA.  In that article I talk about the idea of keeping a database of every single person that you ever give a business card to.

But what about everyone that gives you “their” business card?

I believe that you want to go into every contacting scenario with that in mind.  You want to get their business card or contact info so that you are in control of the follow up, and you also want to give them your digital business card so that their is a high chance that they will respond back to you.  The problem with most entrepreneurs is that they get dozens of business cards every day, but they end up in the oddest places around their house in the most unorganized fashion.  Believe me, this was how I did it for years myself!

Then, I  created a system for all of my business cards where I would scan them into a nice and organized database, which I could easily access at any given moment.  This system has worked wonders for me.  Here is exactly what I did:

I purchased the CardScan Executive Card Scanner on Amazon and it arrived at my house a few days later.  I installed the CD, hooked it up and started scanning my business cards.  At first I was scanning them one at a time, but then I quickly learned about the “batch scan” feature which allowed me to scan in entire categories at a time in just minutes.  This truly is a fast machine!

Now some of you might already be incredibly organized with your business cards, but mine were all just shoved in a shoebox!  So I simply put them out on the kitchen table and quickly organized them by category before beginning.  I did this very quickly because I didn’t want to spend all day on it and I figured I could always just updated them in the system later.

The first problem that I encountered was that some of my cards were so old that the system wasn’t getting all of their contact information right.  So when I was done scanning I did a “once-over” update on the whole database where I at least made sure that the email was correct because that was the main thing I was interested in.  This part of the process actually took longer than just scanning the cards!  But when it was all done I was happy because we had a movie playing in the background that I was kind of watching, and I was able to get about 500 business cards done during the time it took to watch one movie!

The next thing that I did was sign up for CardScan @ Your Service.  Note that this website is located at cardscan.net and not cardscan.com.  This feature is awesome because it allows you to keep your business cards up to date.

You can set up the preferences so that it will send out occasional emails to your database to ask them if their information is up to date.  Every time that it sends them an email, it also includes a picture of their scanned business card reminding them that at some point they gave it to you.  I am sure that some of you have received these emails, but they are very simply to use and update.

Setting up a system is one thing, and following through with it is another.  I set up a small container next to my CardScan and next to my Mac and that is where I store business cards at the end of the day.  If I have time then I quickly scan them in, and if I don’t then I will get to them later.  As soon as they are scanned in then I put a rubber band around the stack and throw it in a shoebox.  Pretty dang simple!  Now that the scanned card and contact info is in my computer, there is very little chance that I will be needing that card again.

BONUS TIPS:

• Before you scan a card, consider writing a quick note on the FRONT of it reminding that person where you met.  This will serve two purposes.  It will help you remember them months or years from now, and it will also be the picture that they will see when they are asked to update their info via email.  This is a quick little tip that makes a big difference.  For example I might write: “Met at Starbucks – Discussed Foreclosures” or something along those lines.  Get to the point in as few words as possible.
• You can export the entire list of emails from the business card database for multiple purposes.  For example, you can import the list, and then copy and paste the emails into the Facebook Invite Tool and they will all be sent a request to become your friend on Facebook.  Normally you are only allowed to send out 30 or so friend requests per day, but with this tool they will let you send out several hundred at a time.  The ones that are already on Facebook will get a simple friend request, and the ones that are not will get an invitation to join Facebook.  I have found this is a pretty good way to connect with this database.
• Consider creating a “Nice to meet you” template email follow up that you can copy/paste/send to everyone after you scan in their cards.  It can be very simple and can have all of your social media profiles for them to check out as well as your blog or website.  Little added touches like this usually make the difference in business. Just make sure you send them one at a time or put all the addresses in the BCC field.  The last thing you want to do is send out a bulk email with everyone’s email addresses visible!

So hopefully this blog post has inspired you to get more focused on creating a system to organize your business cards.  Most of you will be collecting cards for life, so you might as well get the system in place now.  Imagine that you will one day become an author and write your first book.  Everyone that you have ever met is a great candidate to buy your book right?  If you can get your database built right from the beginning, you could potentially email that book link to tens of thousands of people and possibly become an Amazon.com best seller for the day, which could catapult your career!  Just a thought :)

QUESTION: What system have you currently been using for organizing your business cards?  Or has it just been one huge mess up until now?  Please share your comments with the rest of us below!

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