In all of my 30 years of corporate life, I’d guess that I’ve handed out no more than 200 business cards. That’s an average of – 6.4 cards per year.  In fact, the last time my job title changed in “Big Blue Boxville”, I didn’t even bother getting them reprinted!  All of my clients were internal, and on the rare occasion that I did meet with external contacts, they already had my information. I recently cleaned out archaeological grade boxes from jobs I’d left in those three decades, and found no less than 6 boxes of business cards from various jobs. Barely touched. For some reason, I felt I was being wasteful by throwing the away. Or I thought maybe I’d pose as a Training Manager for a big bank one day…. Either way, you’ll be happy to know I pitched them without a blink!

Here’s the crazy part – In the last 24 hours, I’ve handed out more than 50 of my shiny new cards to interested parties! And likely 20-30 more tomorrow! I had no idea the networking opportunities would actually multiply like bunnies the way they are – I guess my gut last week was telling me that I needed to be really ready for this point – and I’m thankful I listened! Today was another opportunity to practice my pitch – and believe it or not, I have two really hot leads from it – both already have meetings set up next week.

The venue today? A Davanni’s in a big SW Suburb. The group? A local business networking group. You could call them “Referrals are us.” I’m suspect about their structure, as I think it will eventually turn into an ask for membership dues… but for now – I’ll take the practice and the exposure. And the opportunity to put my card in the hands of people who might be interested in my new venture. I may join and pay the dues just to see how this works!

Even more incredible – I now have this stack of about 60 business cards from my recent meetings!  I need to do something with them; It’s been forever since I’ve had a rolodex, or a card filing system.   And the thought of typing contact information into a contact database, of course, makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out with a dull pencil.

What’s that you say? There’s an app for that?

Darn tootin’ there’s an app – there are at least 10 that are highly rated! I’m looking through the ratings on them right now, and in a perfect world, I’d take a pic of the card with my phone and it would OCR it right into my contact list. At least that’s what I’m aiming for…. Then the real test of faith in technology comes. For all of these cards I’ve collected – will I throw them away? Or will I hold onto them like precious little momentos of my first couple of weeks in business for myself?

And before you ask  – I’m still not going tell you what I’m up to until next week. But here’s what I can tell you – in case you are worried that I’m in some kind of crazy money making scheme – the business I’ve started was my own idea, not a franchise. I’m not selling anything in the form of cleaning products, nutritional supplements, candles, cosmetics, food storage containers, shakes, juices, baskets, decorative items, investment products or the like. Is Herbalife even around anymore?

Until next week, you can keep guessing! Go ahead – see if you can play CSI with the picture of my business cards at the top. If you figure it out – I’ll buy you a coffee!  Now, I’m off to find an app that makes sure I can capture the contact information for the three versions of lifecoaches that I met today – along with the insurance guy, the CPA, the banker, the broker and the candlestick maker.