The secret behind every successful sales team? A strategic territory plan. Without a clear plan, sales teams waste valuable time and energy by focusing in the wrong areas and on the wrong accounts. These oversights can lead to missed opportunities, poor performance, and wasted resources.
Territory planning is invaluable for modern sales teams, but not every team gets it right. Let’s explore some common misconceptions about territory planning and how to improve your own territory strategy.
Before we discuss what territory planning is not, let’s take a look at what it is. Territory planning is the process of assigning different regions within your total addressable market to different sales reps on your team.
This process helps bring order to chaos and streamlines your sales activities. Other benefits include balanced workloads for your sales reps, increased accountability, improved customer experience, and higher quota attainment.
While there’s no denying the value of territory planning, some sales leaders are held back by outdated tools and processes. Let’s dive into the truth behind these four common myths about territory planning.
When was the last time you reevaluated your sales territories? For many teams, territory planning is an annual process that coincides with sales kickoff or the fiscal year. But unlike your marketing automation strategy, sales territories are not something you should set and forget.
We all know how quickly plans can change. Between employee turnover, new product launches, changing quotas, and emerging competitors, the territory plans you made in January are likely to be null and void by Q3 (if not sooner).
Best practice is to regularly evaluate and adjust your territory plan according to market trends and company goals. Don’t get frustrated if your plan has to change. Territory plans should be dynamic, not static!
Another common misconception about territory planning is that it’s only for large teams. Small sales teams need a clear plan, too! In fact, smaller teams might get even more benefit from a strategic territory plan.
With limited headcount, every minute matters. By establishing a clear territory plan, you can maximize your team’s outreach and ensure that you’re focusing on the highest-potential regions or accounts. It also helps avoid redundancies or burnout from trying to cover too much ground — luxuries that small teams don’t have time for!
It might be hard to believe, but research shows that 83% of sales organizations still use spreadsheets for territory planning. This process is not only time-consuming and stressful, but it opens the door to human error and version control issues.
Spreadsheets are hard to maintain and can get outdated quickly. This format also makes it difficult to visualize territories or optimize territory assignments based on other factors like quotas or account value. Additionally, your sales team might save their own version of the spreadsheet on their computer, leading to multiple sources of truth.
Last but not least, many people incorrectly assume that territory planning is only about geography. While this is arguably the most important factor, it’s just one piece of the territory planning puzzle. Here are a few other important considerations.
Successful territory planning not only covers the map but puts your team’s best foot forward in all scenarios. It’s about aligning opportunity with capability.
Too often, sales leaders think of territory planning as a rigid, annual process — but it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right territory planning software, you can make it a flexible, data-driven process that evolves right alongside your business.
Territory Planner by Ascent Cloud empowers sales teams to build, balance, and optimize their territories with ease. Design territories, automate assignments, and publish directly to your territory management solution with the click of a button.
Ready to revolutionize your territory plan? Request a demo to see Territory Planner in action!
