Sales Territory Management 101: A Sales Rep's Complete Guide | Salesman Podcast

Many businesses organize their sales teams into territories based on geography, demographics, or other criteria. Your company has also decided to jump on the sales territory management bandwagon to ensure better outcomes. But how can you ensure you continue hitting your monthly sales quota under this new arrangement? Your experience and your prospect's willingness to buy your product affect your success, but one thing is sure you cannot simply… wing your sales territory management. You need a territory management plan—a solid one at that. This Salesman.org guide will lay out the basics of sales territory management and help ensure you direct your time and energy on activities that have the most impact. What Is Territory Management? A sales territory is a customer group or geographic area over which either an individual sales reps or a sales team has responsibility. Each territory is defined based on specific factors, such as its history, geography, or sales potential—sometimes a combination of these factors. The ultimate aim of managing sales territories this way is to maximize sales and profits while efficiently allocating resources. Sales territories have to be balanced. Otherwise, bad things can happen to performance: * If your territory is being under-serviced, you and your team can spread too thinly, resulting in inadequate activity levels. As a result, you'll seek out a few leads, identify fewer prospects, and generate lower revenue. * If your territory is being over-serviced, you'll have little work and too many team members to service a smaller area. This will increase costs and overall prices, which will ultimately lead to reduced sales. If you want to get the most value from your prospects, you need to get your territory management right. And the best way to get this? Have a solid territory management plan. 5 Easy Steps To Create an Effective Sales Territory Plan Below, we've created a step-by-step rundown to help you create a winning enterprise territory management plan template and set yourself up for sales success. Step 1: Familiarize Yourself With Your Target Territory The first step when managing a sales territory is to analyze your current and potential customers thoroughly. Think about what your customers have in common, including: * Their location * Their purchasing behavior, i.e, the product or offering they buy from your business * The pain points your product or offering solves for them * The events that cause them to buy—or not to buy—your product Also, figure out the needs of the market that are not currently being fulfilled. This analysis will tell you how to position your products or services uniquely, giving you an edge over your competition. Step 2: Do a Self-analysis Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and your capacity to win business from your new prospects. This will help you develop a territory plan that plays to your strengths while improving any weak areas. Besides your capabilities, you should also consider your organization's resources and think of ways to utilize them efficiently on your sales patch. Step 3: Set Measurable Goals Using the information collected from Step 1 and Step 2, develop goals you want to achieve from implementing your territory management. The goals you could measure include: * Total income generated per month * Number of calls every week * Total sales closed every month * The ratio of leads to sales closed every month After identifying your territory management goals, it can be valuable to document them to remain top of mind. There are a few ways you can do this: * Goal Statement: Your goal statement should address what you plan to achieve and what is at stake in y...