Organization for the Account Rep - The Goodies

If you have been following our little series on Account Management Organization, we are now getting to the fun stuff! We get to go shopping today. Woo hoo! If you are just stopping in, we have 3 other posts for you to take a peak at so you know what in the world is going on; The Recap, The Beginning, The Set Up and now we are on to The Goodies!

Yesterday we determined all of the supplies and materials she needed to take with her on her rounds. Most of it was marketing materials, order forms, the once a month spiff checks, monthly reports, and cleaning supplies. Not to mention the God-Awful Vendor Vest she HAD to wear for one of her stores. (Can you just say HIDEOUS!)

Now it was time to go shopping!

First, we needed something to hold all of her brochures and order forms. The good news was she had 5 different marketing brands for her accounts. Some of the accounts had up to 7 different brochures and order forms and the others only had 1. So we didn't need to get too crazy. We picked up 6 Sterilite Drawer Organizers at Staples and we labeled each drawer set by Account and then by product line so she could visually see where each of her brochures and order forms were located. They fit perfectly into the back of her car and she could easily access the drawer system without having them smashed into her bag.

We could have gone with a file box with files to hold all of her brochures and order forms, but quite frankly, it was just too ugly and we wanted something pretty and something that wouldn't curl the brochures. The file box definitely would have done that. In the drawer system, they lie flat and everything is "happy".

Now she has a system to carry all of the marketing materials around with her, but how about when she actually goes into a store? Remember, one of her accounts has up to 7 different pieces! We needed to have something that would easily allow her to carry in the marketing materials AND her cleaning supplies. So, we grabbed an accordion file for each of her "big" accounts. A "big" account was one that had more than 2 marketing pieces to tote around. We loaded each accordion file up with that specific accounts materials, labeled it and then stored them in the back of the car with the rest of her supplies. Now all she had to do was grab the appropriate accordion file when she went into an account and her bag of cleaning supplies. :) Life was good!

As far as cleaning supplies go, we condensed the paper towels, Windex, Pledge, and feather duster to Clorox wipes and the feather duster. Hello, don't need all the rest of the crap! Both items fit nicely into a cute tote we found and she could even fit the accordion file without a problem.

The only thing left to do was eliminate her habit of NOT taking notes and scribbling on scrap pieces of paper! All of her phone calls, emails and voice mails she received had to do with specific accounts or with the office in general. Because she thought better and her stress level stayed low when she thought of her job in regards to specific accounts we decided that she needed to have a notebook that could be segmented by account. So we went with the Levenger Circa Notebook.

We divided the pages into sections by accounts and every time a call came in, a voicemail was left or an email came through that had an action item or FYI attached to it, she would write it in her notebook. This way when she went to work on or visit that account she had everything she needed at her finger tips. A lot of times when she went to her accounts they would also have questions or requests from her so again, she would just write them under that account and then work on it when she got back to her office. It worked out perfect!

The supplies and goodies were all sorted in her car, she had the supplies she needed to make the process run a hell of a lot smoother, now all we needed to do was work on her schedule and the tools needed to manage her travel time a lot more efficiently!

Tomorrow we go over The Tools!

Until then,

Happy Organizing!