When to throw out a business card

When To Throw Out A Business Card

It’s not just a matter of clutter. It’s not just a matter of contact management. Some of your contacts in your management files need to be thrown out also. It’s about productivity. It’s about making sure you are really moving your business forward and not just doing busy work.

Those contacts that you do not actively work are useless. It’s great when you have an autoresponder going out, and they get messages out to your contacts. However, some of your contacts, you have not written a note, an email, or made a call to in over a year. What do you do with that? If you want to re-establish contact, then do so with some information that benefits that person. If you can not find anything that really helps them, then forget it. I just recently got an email from someone I literally have not heard from in 2 years or more.


This person stopped returning phone calls or emails a LONG time ago. The email told me all about the charity she’ll be participating in and how much money I need to donate to help. In and of itself, this is great. I am happy she has found something to make her life meaningful. I am happy to donate to causes. At the same time, I am thinking, hmmm. This is the only thing you have to say to me? Give some money?

So, do yourself a favor. Make a real effort to connect or just drop it. You will run into that person some where and have the opportunity to start over. In the meantime, if you make they feel like you just want to use them, it’s not going to work. So look at your contacts. Send them something good for them ( not you) and drop the rest.

If you have gotten busy and do not regularly speak to your important contacts, change your schedule and start making time for that.


So, when was the last time you threw out a business card and why?