Although it’s not my focus these days, I still frequently get asked to coach and train salespeople. It’s not always sales skills that I’m asked to coach either. Personal growth means working on your weaknesses, and not every salesperson needs more sales training.

A little while ago I was asked to provide some coaching for a sales team that focused on improving their organizational skills and productivity. It’s a scenario that some readers will be familiar with: Having salespeople who are charming, great with clients and can close deals, but they just don’t have their act together.

Since I’m told that I’m very organized, I teach salespeople the template I use to structure my activities.

Daily Organization

Use a calendar app. Outlook, Gmail, it doesn’t matter which — just use one.

On your calendar, maintain a running “to do list.” It will include emails you have to send, phone calls you have to make, and people you have to meet. The single reason for this is so that none of the people you interact with, your leads, prospects or clients falls through the cracks.

Whether they’re big clients or small, none of them should ever be neglected, all of them should feel like you’re on top of their needs. No one can afford to let prospective business slip through your fingers because you “forgot” to call them back.

Here’s where the rubber hits the road with how I use my calendar. On a given day you may not get done everything you wanted to achieve. That’s life. Move things over from your “to do” list to the next day if you didn’t get through them today.

Every day, evaluate your list, perform triage on it and determine who needs immediate attention, and determine which is urgent and which is important (they’re not always the same thing).

In my case, the tasks which get pushed back to the day after, and the day after that get completed because I feel guilty letting them go so long, and I’m compelled to finish my tasks.

It’s important to plan your time long term; organize your calendar so you have a clear idea of what you’re doing and who you’re dealing with for the foreseeable future; tomorrow, next week, next month and three months from now.

Cold Call Management

Few people genuinely enjoy cold calling, yet it has to be done. Take the time to strategize who you’re targeting, what sector and what companies, and build a list of potential prospects.

Then, learn everything you can about your potential prospects. For example, go online to your regional Home Builders Association and seek out the contact information for every desirable prospect on your list. Thanks to Google and LinkedIn, it’s simple to get further details about your prospects. Do the homework and you may find some leverage to make cold calls less chilly.

Building on that, take advantage of your personal network (through LinkedIn again, for example) to gather more information about potential prospects; you’re not limited to the phonebook and internet when gathering information, odds are you my know someone who knows someone.

Put your prospects in your calendar, and start reaching out to them.

Meetings

It’s not a case of there being a right way and a wrong way to organize yourself before and after meetings. It’s more like you either organize yourself or you don’t.

Double check items on your calendar for accuracy; make sure you know the name of the person you’re meeting and the address you’re meeting them at. While you’re meeting take detailed notes; write down everything. I’ll emphasize that: write down everything. Write down the who, what, when, where, why and how. Write down the deliverables, yours and theirs, and everything you need to follow up on after.

Then, update the contact info of the people you met as soon as you return to the office; if you get someone’s business card input the info immediately, not four days later when you see their card lying on your desk.

None of this is rocket science, nor is it fancy advanced skills. It’s the basics. But as any sports coach will tell you, mastery of the basics will take you a long way.