Find out how territory optimization changes modern sales methods to make them more efficient, bring in more money, and give you an edge over your competitors.
Effective sales territory optimization begins with assessing the market potential of different regions or territories. This requires evaluating data points such as account value, purchasing patterns, industry, company size, trigger events, etc.
It is also essential to review and adjust sales territory goals periodically. This is particularly important as market dynamics change and when internal factors impact sales teams.
Power of Territory Optimization in Modern Sales
Identifying Growth Opportunities
Territories sized and composed to sales potential can help drive revenue growth. However, achieving this requires carefully integrating multiple data sets, including CRM and HR data, sales performance metrics, customer demographics, and external signals (e.g., new competitors, changing market demand).
In addition to identifying opportunities for revenue growth, optimized territories can also reduce rep burnout rates. This is because poorly planned habitats create an uneven workload for reps, which can lead to them working overtime to make up for their quota.
When territories are adequately prepared, agents spend less time on admin tasks and more time effectively serving their existing customers and prospects. This results in higher customer service that keeps customers returning and drives sales growth.
Effective territory optimization like eSpatial can help companies uncover opportunities to lower travel costs by balancing territories and improving account density. This enables them to develop cost-efficient plans to allocate resources to high-potential accounts and prospects without sacrificing other important goals.
This allows them to set fair and realistic quotas to motivate their teams and avoid missing revenue goals. In turn, this helps increase team morale and drives productivity. This is why measuring and updating territories regularly using sales performance tools is critical.
Identifying High-Value Accounts
A comprehensive sales territory management strategy includes a clear set of goals and objectives for each region or territory and the necessary resources to achieve those goals.
This includes identifying high-value accounts and mapping out optimal routes to reach those accounts. These factors are essential to achieving the desired revenue outcomes and providing a competitive advantage.
Evaluating growth opportunities within a territory or region involves examining several factors, including market potential, customer density, and the competitive landscape.
This can help businesses determine the viability of each part and set realistic sales goals for their team members. Moreover, it can help them identify areas where they have the most opportunity to grow their business and expand their market share.
Another important aspect of sales territory optimization is assessing sales representatives’ workload and skill set. This helps companies determine the best fit for their sales reps and align them with their territories based on their strengths and expertise.
For example, a sales rep with solid knowledge of a specific industry or product line might be better suited for a territory that requires a more consultative approach.
Finally, it is essential to regularly monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of sales territory management strategies. This can include analyzing KPIs, gathering feedback from sales teams, and conducting a SWOT analysis.
It can also help identify any issues or opportunities, such as changes in the competitive landscape, shifts in market dynamics, or new product offerings.
Identifying Key Influencers
As any sales leader knows, effective territory planning requires a blend of multiple data sources.
These include sales and customer history, estimated sales potential by account, market and geographic data, areas of high demand for your product or service, demographics, competitive analyses, various external signals, and more.
This mix of data creates complex models that require sophisticated analytics platforms to build, run, and update.
The right sales territory mapping software can help you simplify creating a well-planned, optimized business plan.
The ability to develop geographically optimized and realistic territories, in terms of travel time, will allow your reps to spend more time with their customers. This is crucial to achieving a robust pipeline and building solid buyer relationships.
Aside from boosting the morale of your sales team, a well-planned sales territory strategy can increase revenue by providing better opportunities to meet quotas. However, poorly planned territories can decrease sales team morale and create the perception of favoritism and seniority, negatively impacting overall company performance.
Territories should be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are aligned with broader organizational goals and to make necessary adjustments as needed. Re-designing territories to support high-growth and targeted accounts is a typical example.
Additionally, analyzing the current state of a sales territory to identify opportunities for improvement is also a critical step in effective territory management.
Identifying Buyer Personas
Creating buyer personas is not just about imagining the perfect customer; it’s about understanding your customers, their needs, and what drives them to buy.
To do this, you must gather as much data and insight as possible on your target audience—interviewing current and potential customers, collecting information from forums and blogs, and looking at industry and competitor research.
You can also find valuable information by analyzing the competition’s website—for example, which pages are most visited and what content offers are downloaded. This helps you build relevant, effective buyer personas.
Once you’ve gathered enough information to create a buyer persona, you can start identifying growth opportunities for your company. If you notice that specific regions or markets have been underserved, you can develop a sales territory management strategy that targets these opportunities for growth.
Identifying sales territories is complex and requires a careful balance of financial, customer, internal, learning, and growth perspectives. Poorly planned environments can hurt team morale and lead to less revenue attainment, so it’s essential to optimize territory plans based on the right factors.
You can make more brilliant changes that increase sales productivity by leveraging analytics and modeling. You can use scenario planning to run “what-if” models and see how different variables impact revenue forecasts—such as account density, territory size, historical sales performance, etc.
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