Key Takeaways
- Sales territory planning ensures better resource allocation and balanced team efforts across regions, leading to higher sales performance.
- A well-structured sales territory planning template helps reduce lag time while allowing reps to spend more time engaging with clients and closing deals.
- By assigning sales leaders to specific territories, businesses can enable effective customer engagement through consistent regional follow-ups.
- Territory planning in sales helps distribute workloads evenly amongst reps, boosting morale and preventing burnout through effective sales results.
A successful sales strategy is much more than just appointing a talented team of reps who can bring more business. If sales planning is not viewed with a proper strategy and focus, then sales cycle completion time might extend by 50% and above, which leads to fewer sales results.
The current problem faced by sales teams, even after enormous efforts, is that they are packed with skillful reps who can quickly meet the business goals, yet the results seem inconsistent.
When analyzing overall performance, sales managers often discover that certain regions are underperforming.
You may sometimes doubt your skilled team as a leader, but the core issue often lies in the targeted sales regions.
It results in effective sales territory planning, which is essential to aligning resources, optimizing research, and maximizing your team's talents.
This guide will help you understand sales territory planning, its benefits, the steps for creating the plan, and the essential CRM like Salesmate required.
Without any further ado, let's begin.
What is sales territory planning?
Sales territory planning divides the company's market or customer base into a specific geographic or demographic region and assigns sales reps to manage each area effectively.
The main goal behind such planning is to optimize sales resources by ensuring balanced workloads, targeted outreach, and efficient customer engagement coverage.
Besides, effective territory planning helps maximize sales potential, improve team productivity, and ultimately increase sales revenue by capturing the marketplace.
Here are the few objectives of the sales territory planning:
How beneficial is it to do sales territory planning?
Territory planning in sales not only helps with reps' productivity but also enhances the sales results. Let's find out how through the various adaptation advantages:
1. Efficient use of resources
By strategically assigning and managing sales territories, companies can ensure that sales reps are deployed when they are most needed, maximizing coverage and minimizing waste.
2. Improved market penetration
The clearly defined sales team territory planning division allows the focus on specific markets. It also leads to deeper market penetration and the identification of new opportunities.
3. Enhanced sales performance tracking
Clear territory planning facilitates performance tracking across each geographic region, enabling better analysis and informed decision-making for sales reps and leaders.
4. Better time spent selling
When territories are strategically assigned, sales reps spend less time traveling between clients and more time engaging directly with high-potential prospects within their designated regions.
Besides, territory planning for sales reps offers substantial benefits, such as strategic selling, that can help enhance overall sales productivity.
5. Accelerated customer service
Make sure strategic territory planning for sales helps reps to respond to the customer needs even faster, as they are closer to their assigned clients and can dedicate more time to each interaction.
Also, such planned methods help reps promptly address concerns, strengthen relationships, and enhance customer satisfaction.
6. Balanced workloads
The balanced workloads in sales territory planning ensure that each sales representative has an equitable share of responsibilities, which prevents burnout and enhances job satisfaction.
Equal workload distribution also allows reps to focus on delivering quality service to clients, leading to improved customer relationships and increased sales performance.
7. Increased sales efficiency
Effective sales territory plans to enhance efficiency by reducing travel time and minimizing overlapping efforts among sales reps.
This strategic allocation allows sales reps to focus on high-potential customers within their designated areas, leading to more sales activities and higher conversion rates.
8. Elaborated team collaboration
Enhanced collaboration among sales teams results from clear delegation of responsibilities, reducing conflicts over customer allocation.
The clarity of work between the reps can enhance knowledge sharing and coordinated efforts, resulting in a more effective sales force.
9. Scalability and growth
A well-structured sales territory plan can provide a framework that can be scaled as the company grows at a consistent and manageable pace.
Such a structured approach allows businesses to adapt as the market changes and seize new opportunities with long-term growth objectives.
7 Steps to creating a territory sales plan
Identifying the sales rep territory planning as an effective measure to enhance the profitability of any business. Let's find out through its seven steps to create a sales territory plan:
Step - 1 - Analyze the business goals and objectives
The first step to successful sales territory and quota planning is defining clear business goals and tracking progress through specific, measurable sales objectives.
Begin by identifying key sales metrics that align with your growth targets, whether focused on expanding market reach, increasing revenue, or enhancing customer retention.
Companies in markets aim to maintain an existing customer base and solidify financial stability.
By aligning goals with strategic territory sales planning, you can ensure that every effort contributes to the company's overall sales success.
Step - 2 - Know your prospects and customers
Understanding your customers and prospects helps analyze customer demographics, buying behaviors, and preferences effectively to identify high-potential segments within each sales territory.
By grouping similar sales prospects and customers, you can tailor an approach to meet their specific needs, enhancing your chances of conversion and customer satisfaction.
Such insight helps prioritize the sales territories with the most growth potential and align sales efforts to resonate with target audiences.
Step – 3 - Determine the total addressable market
Calculating TAM (Total Addressable Market) is effective for the sales territory mapping process. TAM represents the total revenue opportunity available if your product or service achieves a 100% marketplace within a specific market.
Understanding TAM helps prioritize business opportunities by serving as a quick metric of an opportunity's underlying potential.
Step - 4 - Perform the SWOT analysis
Conducting the SWOT analysis is a pivotal step for understanding both internal and external factors that can influence the sales strategy.
The analysis mainly involves evaluating the following:
- Strengths: Identify the internal attributes that give your sales team a competitive edge. This could include a skilled sales force, a strong brand reputation, or a robust CRM system.
- Weaknesses: Recognize internal limitations that may hinder sales performance, such as limited product lines, inadequate training programs, or resource constraints.
- Opportunities: Examine external factors that your organization can leverage for growth. This might involve emerging markets, technological advancements, or shifts in consumer behavior that align with your offerings.
- Threats: Assess external challenges that could impact your sales efforts, including increased competition, regulatory changes, or economic downturns.
Step – 5 - Determine and document sales territories
This step defines clear sales territory planning based on geography, customer demographics, or market segments.
By strategically segmenting sales territories, you ensure each sales rep has a manageable area with balanced potential.
Documenting these territories, outlining boundaries, target customer profiles, and revenue goals creates clarity and accountability.
A well-created sales territory plan enables efficient resource allocation, reduces overlap, and allows sales reps to focus on high-potential clients within their assigned regions.
This structured approach provides a solid foundation for tracking territory performance and adjusting as needed.
Step – 6 - Devise an action plan
Creating an action plan is essential to translate your sales territory strategy into actionable steps. This plan should outline specific sales activities, targets, and timelines for each territory and detailed prospecting, client outreach, follow-ups, and lead nurturing tasks.
It includes the measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress, along with assigned responsibilities for each sales rep.
An effective action plan keeps the team focused and aligned, enabling consistent performance evaluation. It also provides a clear roadmap, ensuring that every sales activity is purposeful and contributes to achieving territory goals.
Step – 7 - Regularly track performance & stay adaptable
You can identify trends and areas needing improvement by regularly tracking sales KPIs such as revenue, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction within each territory.
Analyzing the performance of each sales territory enables better decision-making and timely adjustments to sales strategies.
Additionally, maintaining flexibility allows your sales team to respond proactively to market shifts, customer needs, and competitive actions, ensuring sustained success and growth.
Sales territory planning best practices to follow
With better sales analysis, monthly growth can go beyond 50%. Besides, these best ways of creating a strong sales territory plan can help in accelerating a better way to start sales territory planning:
1) Using a call rotation schedule
Setting up a call rotation helps maintain regular contact with clients, ensuring that relationships stay active and don’t fall through the cracks.
By regularly reaching out, your team can strengthen connections, address client needs promptly, and create more opportunities for better sales.
2) Note the seasonal account trends
Recognizing seasonal account trends, such as retail surges during holidays, end-of-quarter spending, and more, allows sales reps to adjust their approach based on client needs.
Additionally, these efforts of allocating account trends can help to excel in customer relationships and planning.
3) Keep the focus on long term account-based goals
Focusing on long-term goals builds strong, lasting relationships with customers instead of only aiming for quick sales.
This approach lets you understand your client's needs over time, providing ongoing value and support.
As a result, your customers are more likely to stay loyal, and your business benefits from steady, dependable growth within each account.
4) Explore new ways to divide the leads
Experimenting with different lead generation and distribution methods, such as by industry, company size, or revenue potential, can help sales reps connect with convertible prospects and increase sales.
5) Look for cross selling opportunities
Know which complementary products and services you can offer to existing clients. Cross-selling can help maximize each account's potential value.
6) Conduct regular territory analysis
Every sales territory's performance should be analyzed frequently, such as monthly or quarterly. This ensures that territories remain balanced and that resources are focused on the high-potential areas to meet sales goals.
7) Involve sales teams in planning
Engage reps in proper territory planning for sales to give them a sense of ownership and provide definitive insights to those interacting with the customers.
When reps contribute to planning, they feel more invested in their territories and gain a deeper understanding of the goals and strategies behind their assignments.
8) Monitor and adjust regularly
Monitoring, tracking, and adjusting the sales territory performance can help you decide on each demographic sales location as needed. Responding to market shifts or client needs changes ensures that your sales goal remains on point.
Salesmate: An essential tool to use for sales territory planning
Salesmate - a perfect sales territory planning software that can help you at every stage by providing its effective features:
- Sales pipeline: Create a sales pipeline tailored to different territories, allowing distinct stages and sales processes per their requirement.
- Contact management: Use sales territory planning tools like tags, custom fields, and filters to categorize contacts and save all their information for streamlined contact management.
- Shared team inbox: For better team communication, this tool provides an in-built feature to help you communicate essential information in minutes.
- Reporting: Generate automated and customized reports never to lose track of your sales progress.
Wrap up
Effective sales territory planning goes beyond simply assigning areas to your team. It’s a strategic way to help your team reach its full potential and achieve steady revenue growth.
By setting clear goals, understanding your market, creating a detailed action plan, and regularly tracking performance. You can build a well-balanced, flexible strategy supporting short-term and long-term sales growth.
As markets change, staying adaptable and using data to adjust your territories will keep them efficient and profitable.
Embracing the power of automated tools like Salesmate can empower your team with a better sales plan and focus on areas giving more profitability.
Start a 15-day free trial today!
Frequently asked questions-
1) How do I determine a sales territory's optimal size and scope?
To determine a sales territory's ideal size and scope, consider factors such as market potential, customer density, and each sales team's capacity.
The goal is to create territories that offer equal revenue opportunities and are manageable for reps to cover effectively.
Analyze sales data on target customers, sales volume, and geographic reach to ensure balanced territories and alignment with company goals.
2) What factors should be considered when assigning sales territories to representatives?
Key factors include each sales rep's experience and strengths, customer demographics, regional market potential, and travel or coverage constraints.
Assigning territories based on reps' familiarity with certain industries or regions can enhance performance. Additionally, it ensures workload balance across territories to maintain motivation and prevent burnout among the sales managers.
3) What are common mistakes to avoid in sales territory planning?
Common mistakes include:
Creating effective sales territories that are too large or too small.
Failing to align territories with market potential.
Refrain from regular reviews and adjustments.
Overlapping territories can lead to internal competition, while uneven workload distribution may cause sales inefficiencies.
4) How often should sales territories be reviewed and adjusted?
Effective sales territory plan should be reviewed annually or whenever significant market changes occur.
Regular assessments allow you to respond to shifts in customer demand, competitive actions, or business goals.
Quarterly check-ins can also help monitor performance and ensure territories remain balanced, productive, and aligned with evolving objectives.
5) What metrics should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a sales territory plan?
Such sales management key metrics include revenue, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and client retention rates within each territory.
Tracking activity metrics such as several calls, meetings, and follow-ups also helps assess engagement levels.
Key Takeaways
A successful sales strategy is much more than just appointing a talented team of reps who can bring more business. If sales planning is not viewed with a proper strategy and focus, then sales cycle completion time might extend by 50% and above, which leads to fewer sales results.
The current problem faced by sales teams, even after enormous efforts, is that they are packed with skillful reps who can quickly meet the business goals, yet the results seem inconsistent.
When analyzing overall performance, sales managers often discover that certain regions are underperforming.
You may sometimes doubt your skilled team as a leader, but the core issue often lies in the targeted sales regions.
It results in effective sales territory planning, which is essential to aligning resources, optimizing research, and maximizing your team's talents.
This guide will help you understand sales territory planning, its benefits, the steps for creating the plan, and the essential CRM like Salesmate required.
Without any further ado, let's begin.
What is sales territory planning?
Sales territory planning divides the company's market or customer base into a specific geographic or demographic region and assigns sales reps to manage each area effectively.
The main goal behind such planning is to optimize sales resources by ensuring balanced workloads, targeted outreach, and efficient customer engagement coverage.
Besides, effective territory planning helps maximize sales potential, improve team productivity, and ultimately increase sales revenue by capturing the marketplace.
Here are the few objectives of the sales territory planning:
How beneficial is it to do sales territory planning?
Territory planning in sales not only helps with reps' productivity but also enhances the sales results. Let's find out how through the various adaptation advantages:
1. Efficient use of resources
By strategically assigning and managing sales territories, companies can ensure that sales reps are deployed when they are most needed, maximizing coverage and minimizing waste.
2. Improved market penetration
The clearly defined sales team territory planning division allows the focus on specific markets. It also leads to deeper market penetration and the identification of new opportunities.
3. Enhanced sales performance tracking
Clear territory planning facilitates performance tracking across each geographic region, enabling better analysis and informed decision-making for sales reps and leaders.
4. Better time spent selling
When territories are strategically assigned, sales reps spend less time traveling between clients and more time engaging directly with high-potential prospects within their designated regions.
Besides, territory planning for sales reps offers substantial benefits, such as strategic selling, that can help enhance overall sales productivity.
5. Accelerated customer service
Make sure strategic territory planning for sales helps reps to respond to the customer needs even faster, as they are closer to their assigned clients and can dedicate more time to each interaction.
Also, such planned methods help reps promptly address concerns, strengthen relationships, and enhance customer satisfaction.
6. Balanced workloads
The balanced workloads in sales territory planning ensure that each sales representative has an equitable share of responsibilities, which prevents burnout and enhances job satisfaction.
Equal workload distribution also allows reps to focus on delivering quality service to clients, leading to improved customer relationships and increased sales performance.
7. Increased sales efficiency
Effective sales territory plans to enhance efficiency by reducing travel time and minimizing overlapping efforts among sales reps.
This strategic allocation allows sales reps to focus on high-potential customers within their designated areas, leading to more sales activities and higher conversion rates.
8. Elaborated team collaboration
Enhanced collaboration among sales teams results from clear delegation of responsibilities, reducing conflicts over customer allocation.
The clarity of work between the reps can enhance knowledge sharing and coordinated efforts, resulting in a more effective sales force.
9. Scalability and growth
A well-structured sales territory plan can provide a framework that can be scaled as the company grows at a consistent and manageable pace.
Such a structured approach allows businesses to adapt as the market changes and seize new opportunities with long-term growth objectives.
7 Steps to creating a territory sales plan
Identifying the sales rep territory planning as an effective measure to enhance the profitability of any business. Let's find out through its seven steps to create a sales territory plan:
Step - 1 - Analyze the business goals and objectives
The first step to successful sales territory and quota planning is defining clear business goals and tracking progress through specific, measurable sales objectives.
Begin by identifying key sales metrics that align with your growth targets, whether focused on expanding market reach, increasing revenue, or enhancing customer retention.
Companies in markets aim to maintain an existing customer base and solidify financial stability.
By aligning goals with strategic territory sales planning, you can ensure that every effort contributes to the company's overall sales success.
Step - 2 - Know your prospects and customers
Understanding your customers and prospects helps analyze customer demographics, buying behaviors, and preferences effectively to identify high-potential segments within each sales territory.
By grouping similar sales prospects and customers, you can tailor an approach to meet their specific needs, enhancing your chances of conversion and customer satisfaction.
Such insight helps prioritize the sales territories with the most growth potential and align sales efforts to resonate with target audiences.
Step – 3 - Determine the total addressable market
Calculating TAM (Total Addressable Market) is effective for the sales territory mapping process. TAM represents the total revenue opportunity available if your product or service achieves a 100% marketplace within a specific market.
Understanding TAM helps prioritize business opportunities by serving as a quick metric of an opportunity's underlying potential.
Step - 4 - Perform the SWOT analysis
Conducting the SWOT analysis is a pivotal step for understanding both internal and external factors that can influence the sales strategy.
The analysis mainly involves evaluating the following:
Step – 5 - Determine and document sales territories
This step defines clear sales territory planning based on geography, customer demographics, or market segments.
By strategically segmenting sales territories, you ensure each sales rep has a manageable area with balanced potential.
Documenting these territories, outlining boundaries, target customer profiles, and revenue goals creates clarity and accountability.
A well-created sales territory plan enables efficient resource allocation, reduces overlap, and allows sales reps to focus on high-potential clients within their assigned regions.
This structured approach provides a solid foundation for tracking territory performance and adjusting as needed.
Step – 6 - Devise an action plan
Creating an action plan is essential to translate your sales territory strategy into actionable steps. This plan should outline specific sales activities, targets, and timelines for each territory and detailed prospecting, client outreach, follow-ups, and lead nurturing tasks.
It includes the measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress, along with assigned responsibilities for each sales rep.
An effective action plan keeps the team focused and aligned, enabling consistent performance evaluation. It also provides a clear roadmap, ensuring that every sales activity is purposeful and contributes to achieving territory goals.
Step – 7 - Regularly track performance & stay adaptable
You can identify trends and areas needing improvement by regularly tracking sales KPIs such as revenue, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction within each territory.
Analyzing the performance of each sales territory enables better decision-making and timely adjustments to sales strategies.
Additionally, maintaining flexibility allows your sales team to respond proactively to market shifts, customer needs, and competitive actions, ensuring sustained success and growth.
Sales territory planning best practices to follow
With better sales analysis, monthly growth can go beyond 50%. Besides, these best ways of creating a strong sales territory plan can help in accelerating a better way to start sales territory planning:
1) Using a call rotation schedule
Setting up a call rotation helps maintain regular contact with clients, ensuring that relationships stay active and don’t fall through the cracks.
By regularly reaching out, your team can strengthen connections, address client needs promptly, and create more opportunities for better sales.
2) Note the seasonal account trends
Recognizing seasonal account trends, such as retail surges during holidays, end-of-quarter spending, and more, allows sales reps to adjust their approach based on client needs.
Additionally, these efforts of allocating account trends can help to excel in customer relationships and planning.
3) Keep the focus on long term account-based goals
Focusing on long-term goals builds strong, lasting relationships with customers instead of only aiming for quick sales.
This approach lets you understand your client's needs over time, providing ongoing value and support.
As a result, your customers are more likely to stay loyal, and your business benefits from steady, dependable growth within each account.
4) Explore new ways to divide the leads
Experimenting with different lead generation and distribution methods, such as by industry, company size, or revenue potential, can help sales reps connect with convertible prospects and increase sales.
5) Look for cross selling opportunities
Know which complementary products and services you can offer to existing clients. Cross-selling can help maximize each account's potential value.
6) Conduct regular territory analysis
Every sales territory's performance should be analyzed frequently, such as monthly or quarterly. This ensures that territories remain balanced and that resources are focused on the high-potential areas to meet sales goals.
7) Involve sales teams in planning
Engage reps in proper territory planning for sales to give them a sense of ownership and provide definitive insights to those interacting with the customers.
When reps contribute to planning, they feel more invested in their territories and gain a deeper understanding of the goals and strategies behind their assignments.
8) Monitor and adjust regularly
Monitoring, tracking, and adjusting the sales territory performance can help you decide on each demographic sales location as needed. Responding to market shifts or client needs changes ensures that your sales goal remains on point.
Salesmate: An essential tool to use for sales territory planning
Salesmate - a perfect sales territory planning software that can help you at every stage by providing its effective features:
Wrap up
Effective sales territory planning goes beyond simply assigning areas to your team. It’s a strategic way to help your team reach its full potential and achieve steady revenue growth.
By setting clear goals, understanding your market, creating a detailed action plan, and regularly tracking performance. You can build a well-balanced, flexible strategy supporting short-term and long-term sales growth.
As markets change, staying adaptable and using data to adjust your territories will keep them efficient and profitable.
Embracing the power of automated tools like Salesmate can empower your team with a better sales plan and focus on areas giving more profitability.
Start a 15-day free trial today!
Frequently asked questions-
1) How do I determine a sales territory's optimal size and scope?
To determine a sales territory's ideal size and scope, consider factors such as market potential, customer density, and each sales team's capacity.
The goal is to create territories that offer equal revenue opportunities and are manageable for reps to cover effectively.
Analyze sales data on target customers, sales volume, and geographic reach to ensure balanced territories and alignment with company goals.
2) What factors should be considered when assigning sales territories to representatives?
Key factors include each sales rep's experience and strengths, customer demographics, regional market potential, and travel or coverage constraints.
Assigning territories based on reps' familiarity with certain industries or regions can enhance performance. Additionally, it ensures workload balance across territories to maintain motivation and prevent burnout among the sales managers.
3) What are common mistakes to avoid in sales territory planning?
Common mistakes include:
Creating effective sales territories that are too large or too small.
Failing to align territories with market potential.
Refrain from regular reviews and adjustments.
Overlapping territories can lead to internal competition, while uneven workload distribution may cause sales inefficiencies.
4) How often should sales territories be reviewed and adjusted?
Effective sales territory plan should be reviewed annually or whenever significant market changes occur.
Regular assessments allow you to respond to shifts in customer demand, competitive actions, or business goals.
Quarterly check-ins can also help monitor performance and ensure territories remain balanced, productive, and aligned with evolving objectives.
5) What metrics should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a sales territory plan?
Such sales management key metrics include revenue, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and client retention rates within each territory.
Tracking activity metrics such as several calls, meetings, and follow-ups also helps assess engagement levels.
Sonali Negi
Sonali is a writer born out of her utmost passion for writing. She is working with a passionate team of content creators at Salesmate. She enjoys learning about new ideas in marketing and sales. She is an optimistic girl and endeavors to bring the best out of every situation. In her free time, she loves to introspect and observe people.