Best Practices for Defining Sales Territories for B2B Sales Teams

Territory management segregates potential customers based on geography and demographics for marketing schemes. It helps in targeted marketing and sales.

A territory in sales management can be specific to the following:

• Geography
• Customer groups
• Specific Markets

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Why do leading companies follow territory management?

When a salesperson is given a targeted area of potential customers, and similarly, a wider area of potential customers is divided and assigned to individual sales personnel or teams, they have better chances of securing sales. By assigning a specific territory to one sales force, they can customize their sales approach better suit and convince the target territory of leads. 92% of marketers have reported better outcomes from the personalization of their marketing approach.

Salesforce productivity is also essentially preserved and channeled in a time-efficient and labor-efficient way. Companies that use effective sales territory management tactics had 36% more productivity. Surveys have revealed how 10% of annual sales are lost due to poor planning.

Some of the reasons why you need to equip sales territory management strategies in your marketing approach are:

• Potential customer grouping and coverage
• Sales territory alignment
• Controlled selling expenses
• Maximizes sales and profits
• Better customer interaction experience
• Evaluating sales personnel
• Scheme better campaigns and marketing strategies
• Focused tackling of competitors
• Higher customer conversion rates
• Distributed workload
• Higher efficiency in labor and time
• Targeted customized marketing approach
• Controlled sales operations
• More insights and feedback

Best practices – sales territory management

The ‘determinants’ to consider before deciding on what basis a territory is to be assigned are as follows.

Revenue source –

Categorizing the customer and leads based on the prospects’ location, both geography and industry-wise, can align the revenue that each category brings in.

1. Current customers – Locating new customers located within proximity of the existing customer base.
2. Inbound leads – Customers or leads that show interest in your company and brand need to be grouped as a potential revenue source that can invest in the company’s products and services.
3. Outbound prospecting – The direct marketing channel where sales executives connect with the prospects to introduce the brand.

Sales team efficiency –

The abilities of your sales team to fulfill the quota will determine the size and nature of the territory that they can best tackle.

Territory ranking –

Assigning the highest probable returns on investment, determining the risk factors, and then allotting territories to customize approaches is ranking the territory.

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There are two standard sales territory management approaches that most businesses follow.

1. Workload approach

Analyzing the workload required or the degree of sales efforts required and cross-checking it with the respective sales objectives will reveal the requirement posed by the potential client base. The territory can be increased or reduced based on the efforts required for the respective market coverage.

2. Market build-up approach

The potential customers and existing customers and their respective consumption capacity need to be estimated for your product or service. When following the market build-up approach, find the market potential and categorize the potential market into groups based on customer persona or areas. This will arrive at a sales potential. The steps when determining a sales territory through the market build-up approach are as follows:

• Grouping customers into categories
• Optimum sales frequency determination
• Current and potential customers placed under sub-divisions
• Assigning salesperson for each ‘territory’ or subdivision.

Sales technologies for improving success

Some of the most common sales tech used by leading brands and companies to improve territory wise sales management include:

1. Salesforce –

This is a CRM software that helps sync data, identify sales opportunities and manage marketing-sales campaigns.

2. ZohoCRM –

Helps in managing customer engagement and company interactions. It can be used for B2B and B2C businesses.

3. Hubspot Sales Hub –

This is a part of the HubSpot marketing assistance that directs and manages leads and existing customer interactions, making them easier to access.

4. Clearbit –

Provides data attribution and helps track company names, contact info, and other data that help determine if the company is a part of the ideal customer category.

Hear more from Clearbit in this recent episode of the SalesStar Podcast:

5. LeadGenius –

Is growth automation and B2B sales assisting platform that gets lead listings.

6. LinkedIn Sales Navigator –

This is an initiative by LinkedIn to reach prospects through networking, recommendations, and mutual connections.

7. Groove –

Is a sales engagement platform to increase sales representative productivity by providing insights and feedback on performance to improvise campaigns.

8. 6sense –

Issues product marketing assistance, demand generations, and solutions for commercial organizations.

Keeping in mind the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the company faces when assigning and prioritizing territories will help improve the sales and marketing campaigns to be high-yielding and help conserve company resources. Segregating the potential market to the scheme is another example of how data-driven decisions in business have higher probabilities of success and improvement. Sales territory management is one of the many methods of better business management.

Hear more from 6sense in this recent episode of the SalesStar Podcast:

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