(FORTUNE Magazine) – Ken Callahan, 36, has sold everything from roofing shingles to cycling shorts since he got his first sales job in 1981, so he knows how valuable an up-to-date list of customers and suppliers can be. Today, as head of team-sports sales for adidas America in Portland, Oregon, he presides over 18 employees and a database of more than 16,000 contacts, including high school and college coaches, organizers of the Special Olympics, and buyers for the U.S. military. To keep track of his customers and schedule his work, Callahan uses Act! for Windows contact management software by Symantec. He told Fortune how the program makes him a more effective salesman and manager.

How do you use Act! for Windows?

I work on a TravelMate 4000E WinDX2/50 notebook computer from Texas Instruments both on the road and in the office, and Act! is running on it all the time. I use the program to store and access all my addresses and phone numbers, but it goes way beyond that. I use it as a scheduler for planning phone calls, meetings, and other things I need to do; as a database for keeping a record of conversations with customers or people in other departments; as a word processor and communications program for sending form letters and faxes; and as a management tool for monitoring what my sales and customer-service people are doing. I can update my customer records when I'm traveling because I bring the entire Act! database with me in my computer.

Can you explain how Act! works?

Every time I make a new contact, I enter his or her name, address, and phone and fax numbers into the contact screen of the database. You can customize the screen to sort your contacts in different ways. We divide our database into three sections: ordinary team business, Special Olympics, and military. There is also space to record any call, meeting, or to-do item I want to schedule with that person, as well as notes about what we discussed last time we talked.

As this information builds up, Act! becomes a very valuable sales and marketing tool. Let's say a high school coach somewhere leaves a message on my voice mail without giving his name--believe it or not, that happens a lot in this business. I don't recognize his voice, but because he has left his phone number, I can use it to search my team database and figure out who he is. So when I return the call, I know his name. If he asks for an adidas retailer in his area, I can search again, this time by zip code, to find one while we're still on the phone. It's much more personal and professional, and it saves time too.

How does Act! help you organize your schedule?

Everything in Act! revolves around contacts. When I click on a phone icon with my mouse, a calendar pops up. I select the date and time at which I plan to make the call, and enter the contact name and what the conversation will be about. I can set an alarm to signal when the call is supposed to take place. The date and time of the meeting show up both on the main contact screen and in the Act! calendar. I can view the calendar on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis; when I click on an appointment, the program brings me back to the contact screen where all the details are recorded. I like to print out my daily schedule on a form that fits into my Day-Timer. Also, like any good scheduling program, Act! warns me when I try to schedule more than one thing at the same time.

You mentioned that the software handles letters and faxes.

I can write form letters using the built-in word processor, and then merge in the addresses and names of the people I'm sending them to for a personal touch. I can print out mailing labels or customize the program further to indicate whether the letter should be copied for each person's boss or secretary. Act! works with Delrina's WinFax PRO and a modem; since the fax numbers are already in the contact database, sending multiple faxes is incredibly easy.

How about others in your department?

Everyone is more or less required to use Act!; we share the database on our network. Whenever someone makes a change, it is automatically reflected in the contact records. If I've been away for a week and want to check how one of my salespeople is progressing with an account, I simply look up that contact, and I can see what meetings have occurred or what promises have been made. It also lets my employees pick up with a customer where I've left off if I'm not around. This is especially important in a time-sensitive business like ours. High school basketball teams won't play barefoot waiting for our shoes to show up.