If you’re involved in sales and marketing, your calendar is one of the most powerful tools available for improving results. When used well, a calendar gives you a quick read of your lead development and sales activities.
How? Use color codes, schedule aggressively, and protect your time. By using specific colors for each task, such as networking, lead development, referral prospecting, sales calls, and proposals, you can easily see if you have enough of the right activities scheduled.
For example, I use one color for networking activities, both in-person and virtual. Another color represents introductory calls with prospects and a third color—blue—is reserved for prospect interviews and proposal delivery.
If I don’t see each of those colors on my calendar, that’s a problem. Since I track every referral, lead, prospect, interview, proposal and closed/lost deal, I know how often I should see each color in a given week. I also know what activities I need to focus on for the coming days and weeks. Not enough prospect conversations scheduled? I need to schedule time for more networking and asking for warm introductions.
If I see too much blue, I might be risking overloading the team and having too much work come in at the same time.
Other colors are reserved for personal time, travel, administrative tasks, client meetings, etc.
Of course, I also use a CRM and spreadsheets to keep track of my sales pipeline and the details, but glancing at the calendar is fast and keeps me focused on the items that are the highest and best use of my time.
What calendar system do you use? Tell us your story.
