Provided by Ramon Colon from www.zerowastedude.com
The topic of business cards as a minimalist and as a person trying to reduce my waste is one that I struggle a lot. Every time someone offers me a business card I go on this immediate pointless overthinking state of mind in which I battle myself against accepting or rejecting the printed business card. If I accept a business card, the person providing the business card will have to purchase another business card for the next potential client. Based on my value alone, I should not accept it. But as a business owner, I know the time that has to be invested into designing the business card, and I know the emotional attachment the owner of the company has to that tiny piece of his/her business. So my heart is crushed between:
- not accepting the card, and just saving the information on my phone
- or accepting the card knowing that it will eventually make it to the trash.
Now, I figure what is one or two business cards a day in the trash? I did some googling and they add up and fast.
It is estimated that 10,000,000,000 business cards are printed annually, And out of this 10 Billion cards, 8 Billion will be tossed within a week. Source: https://www.creditdonkey.com/business-card-statistics.html
I guess is not so pointless to struggle with this topic, but it still does require some overthinking. Especially if you are yourself a business owner. If you don’t want your business card to end up being an investment in the landfill real estate, or you simply want to reduce the waste you create. Sadly, printing business cards feel like is a necessary evil, how else would you propagate your passion and services?
For one, I text my business card to my potential clients, but whenever they are hesitant to share with me their number, I hand them a printed business card.
I ran a poll in Living Consciously, zero waste and going green in Florida, a Florida Facebook group that focuses on living in a consciously way, and asked them what do they do with their business cards.
Here are some of their recommendations:
- Simply refuse to accept the business card if they don’t see they will end up using the services.
- Collect the information into their phone and avoid the business card.
But for the most part, the business gets accepted and brought home, including me.
Like I said earlier, business cards are a necessary evil, but this pointless overthinking could lead to some forward thinking. The purpose of sharing a business card is to provide a potential client with their contact information.
Now as a client, what alternative to a business card would you recommend the person providing you a service?