By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

To scan a conference badge to contacts and actually use it later, capture three things in about 10 seconds: the name and number from the badge or card, one sentence about what they said, and the event. A scan with no context is a name you will not place in a month.

The scan is the easy part. The sentence is the part that matters.

You know how it goes. Day two of a deal conference. Someone scans your badge with the event app, you scan theirs, you both say “let’s connect.” On the flight home you open the app and find 34 names, a company for each, and nothing else. Which one was the lender who liked your buy box? Which one has the founder ready to sell in a year? The app does not know. Neither do you.

Where do badge scans go after a conference?

Usually into the event app, not into your phone. That is the gap. The person who scanned you does not show up in your contacts, so when they text you three weeks later, you see a number and no name. And the event app is built for the event. You are not going to open it in March.

Get the people who matter out of the event platform and into your own phone the same day. Your phone is where you text from. If they are not in it, the follow up does not happen.

What does each capture method keep, and what does it lose?

Every method gets the name. Only some get the reason you wanted the name. Here is how they compare in a hallway.

Method	Time in the room	What it keeps	What it loses
Event app badge scan	2 seconds	Name, company, sometimes email	Your context, and it stays in the app
Photo of a business card	5 seconds	Name, title, phone, email	Context, unless you add it
Typing into Contacts	60 seconds or more	Whatever you type	Your next conversation, while you type
Voice memo	15 seconds	The context, in your words	The contact record, until you match them
Selfie together	5 seconds	Their face, the moment	Everything else
Card or badge plus one spoken sentence	10 seconds	Name, number, context and the event	Nothing that matters

The last row is the routine. One action for the record, one sentence for the reason.

Scan conference badge to contacts: the 10 second routine

Do it right after the conversation, while you walk to the next one. Not at the end of the session. Not that night.

1. Capture the record. Photo of their card, or a scan of their badge if the code gives you a contact. On day one, point your phone camera at your own badge to learn what this event’s codes do.
2. Say one sentence. “Broker, Midwest industrial, mandate going out in November, wants buyers who close quietly.”
3. Note the promise. “Send buy box.” “Intro to my SBA lender.” This is the line you forget first.
4. Tag the event. Event and city in the contact name, for example: First Last, DealMAX, Vegas. When they text you in three weeks, you see where you met before you open the message.
5. Take the selfie if it was a real conversation. Faces beat names when you get introduced again at the next event.

That is the whole capture. What to capture beyond that one sentence, and the end of day sort, is in how to remember everyone you meet at a conference.

What if you come home with a stack of cards anyway?

Then you sort before you scan. Not every card deserves a contact record with context. Pull the ones tied to a live deal or mandate, scan and note those that night, and keep the rest light. The full three pile method is in how to organize business cards after a conference.

A worked illustrative example. Say you bring back 40 badges and cards. Six mentioned a deal, a mandate or capital. Twelve are intermediaries worth staying close to. The other 22 were pleasant. Spend your capture time on the 18, and the six get a text inside 48 hours.

What is the test that a capture worked?

Open the contact a month later. If you can write a two line text to that person without looking anything else up, the capture worked. If you cannot, it was a scan, not a capture.

Here is the checklist, the same for every contact you keep:

• Name and number in your phone, not only in the event app
• Event and city in the contact name
• One sentence of what they told you
• What you promised, if anything
• A date for the first follow up

Five lines. Everything the conference follow up system needs to run after you fly home.

Here is how I would run it

I ran capture by hand for years, a note after every conversation. It works. It is also the first thing to slip on day two of a conference when the meetings run back to back.

FRONT OF MIND makes it one step. Snap a business card or a badge, say a name and a sentence out loud, take a selfie together, and it is filed under the event. Later it opens on your 10 minutes for today: the people you met at an event and never followed up with, each with one line saying why today and a drafted text of 40 words or fewer, built from the sentence you said. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits.

It runs in your phone’s browser and you can save it to your home screen. There is no native iPhone app yet. Your contacts are encrypted, no one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and see who comes up first after your next event.

See how it works