Route Optimization for Door Knocking?

[pbbaseball]

hands down my favorite way to go about that is Microsoft streets and trips. you can import excel sheets, plug in your start and end point, hit optimize stops, and it's all done for you.

when you've ran you day, just delete the data for those that you've seen.

you can print the maps, export the route to you GPS/phone, print street directions, use a USB gps transmitter and use your laptop at the GPS.

the options are endless

 

[Josh]

hands down my favorite way to go about that is Microsoft streets and trips. you can import excel sheets, plug in your start and end point, hit optimize stops, and it's all done for you.

when you've ran you day, just delete the data for those that you've seen.

you can print the maps, export the route to you GPS/phone, print street directions, use a USB gps transmitter and use your laptop at the GPS.

the options are endless

Tough to beat that.
.

 

[0b1kanobee]

plug in your start and end point

Well the start point should be easy to figure out whether it be your home or office. How do you figure your end point if you are not exactly sure what point is the furthest away assuming that is how you want them organized?

 

[pbbaseball]

for myself, i just plug in my home as the start/end point. then if I have 100 stops, I just run them in order.

When I get home, at the end of the day I remove the stops that I hit, and then re-"optimize" the stops, and it will re-arrange them all again based on whats remaining.

or if you know you can only hit 20 in a day, just input 20 at a time, but if you are buying marketing lists, most likely you'll have an excel sheet of 1000, so the import wizard is the way to go with that.

I used to work for a captive company, and had to disburse 1000 customer leads a week, so that's how I broke down their assignment to minimize everyones driving. That was before everyone had GPS, so we would either print the driving directions or the strip maps, which are turn by turn directions... big waste of paper, but it worked way back then

if you like to canvas certain markets, you can also "search nearby" and see all of the beauty salons, garages, etc

 

[HoosierLife]

So I just got Streets and Trips and I understand the basics of how to work it. Does somebody know how I can add clients names to the address so when it optimizes the route and I can see which client is associated with what address?

 

[Newby]

So I just got Streets and Trips and I understand the basics of how to work it. Does somebody know how I can add clients names to the address so when it optimizes the route and I can see which client is associated with what address?

You right click it and rename. Just add the name to their address for that.