How to Organize Business Cards for Effective Contact Management

Well, now having your business cards printed you’ve probably got plenty ideas how to distribute them. However, you should pay attention to a very interesting thing about business cards. Where are all those business cards that you were given by other people?

It is clear that they are all over your office, home, wallet, car etc… They are likely used as bookmarks, notes or even toothpicks. Maybe you have enough of those stacks of rubber-banded cards on your desk? Maybe it is high time for you to start organizing these business cards? The fact is that without a good filing system, the information on those cards cannot be of any use.

Computer or stuffed file boxes?

How to collect contact information on business cards is completely at your option. Basically, you can use PC to keep contact info, if it is convenient to you, or you can keep it in a card file, in case you are more accustomed to a traditional way.

Arriving at your office after a business trip or exhibition put all business cards you obtained in front of you and rank them all in accordance with the criterion of importance. Separating business cards of people who you expect to contact soon from cards of people offering you services you may want to make use of in future, you save a great deal of time and efforts usually wasted on searching of information.
As for business cards of people you hardly imagine being of any help to you, feel free to throw away them into the trash.

Advantages of electronic databases!

Storing information on the computer is a convenient way of keeping your office free of papers covering your desk and shelves. With electronic database you also has an advantage in searching information you need, and with modern database programs in addition to contact info you can find out all information you ever happened to know on a particular prospect. In other words databases allow you to save the trouble of looking for different papers about your prospect, since all the information was already collected and placed in database.

The process of searching itself is much easier, as computers work faster than people do. In case you work home sometimes, you will enjoy the opportunity to duplicate the information from your office and take it with you.

Specialized programs such as Act or Outlook can organize contact information. However, you should be aware of the fact that computers sometimes can break. Moreover, if you rely on your computer too much, you may turn out to be careless. Make it a habit to store your information in several computers, so that you could restore the information in case of breakage.

Some people prefer using a plastic card file box with alphabetical dividers, filing business cards by any criterion. You may also be interested in transparent sleeves to store business cards in. The sleeves are a uniform size, they keep the box tidy.

Alphabetize to memorize

You should itemize information according to your personal experience in searching contacts and ability to memorize the order of structuring. Decide on what criterion your system is to be based and then alphabetize the information.

For example, you can structure contact information by category of products or services, people’s names, company names, region, department or even by the place where you came across with a representative of a particular company.
Note that having chosen one method of organizing business cards, apply in to all business cards you receive. Otherwise, you will never be able to find information you need when time is short.

Can a business card be unnecessarily?

It absolutely depends on your will. If you really like to store all and every business card you are given, you shouldn’t think you are doing something wrong. And if you throw away every card you consider useless, it alone definitely will not ruin your business.

In order to organize your database in the best way, you may bring into being the following scheme. Collect all business cards you are offered, organize them and throw away the cards you haven’t ever used for three years. It will enable you preserve contacts you are likely to use, and get rid of the burden of unnecessarily business cards. Anyway, three years is enough to change phone number of business location.

But if you find yourself not quite ready to throw away old cards, you can hold them archived in separate card box or database.

In the end it is necessarily to mention that the best way to save contact information is to communicate and keep in touch with people who give you cards. Send letters by email, make phone calls or use snail mail. Occasionally edit your filing system excluding and adding data according to current situation.

Filing systems are created to help you make use of all the information you have. Apply filing system to your business and watch the process of cooperation getting smoother and more efficient.

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