By : D'Andre Davis-Taylor | April 25, 2022 | 4 min read

How to Determine the Best Sales Territory Management Strategy for Your Organization

Planning sales territory

When it comes to sales, it’s essential to have a strategy for how you deploy your sales representatives to the front lines. However, the process of developing a sales territory strategy can be quite overwhelming, especially if you’re doing it for the first time.

Let’s break down the sales territory management definition and how to determine a strategy for your organization.

What is Sales Territory Management?

Sales territory management is the process of prioritizing and managing a group of leads and customers based on their physical location.

Suppose your company has a significant national or international presence and a single entry point for incoming inquiries, such as a website or a phone number. After identifying a lead or customer location, you can assign these inquiries to relevant employees in local offices.

When it comes to CRM software, territory management offers several advantages. For instance, it allows the sales manager to compare sales and marketing figures between different territories, identifying which areas do and don’t make the mark. Then, with data in hand, management can take appropriate action to improve their sales numbers, where needed.

What’s more, proper sales territory management can help companies build reliable sales forecasts for each territory.

While sales territory management is such a powerful strategy, only a few businesses know how to do it properly. According to a recent survey,  “64% of organizations feel they are either ineffective (31%) or only somewhat effective (33%) at territory design.”

That’s why we’ve decided to share information about how to determine the best sales territory management strategy for your organization.

What Are Some Best Practices to Determine Your Strategy?

By far, you already know the definition of sales territory management and how it can benefit your business. Now, let’s review some of the best practices to determine your strategy.

1. Analyze your customers

Analyzing your customers informs the very first step to planning any strategy. And sales territory management is no different.

Analyzing your customer profiles should help you paint a clear picture of whom to target. It will also help you identify whether your customer locations are evenly distributed.

2. Analyze your team (employee resources)

Next, analyze your team of sales reps. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • How many sales team members do you have?
  • Where do they live?
  • Can they speak more than one language?
  • What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Answers to these questions can help you understand whether you need to hire more reps to align your customer acquisition goals or not.

3. Utilize the power of your CRM

Your sales team needs to make calls, book meetings, and take notes all day long. Serving as a key benefit, your CRM strategy makes life easier for your sales team by remembering and tracking the key details about their leads and calls, letting them focus on closing more deals.

In addition, many CRMs integrate with communication tools to keep your calls and critical customer details in one place.

On the other hand, another reason to consider a CRM is that it gathers data and tracks the performance and ROI of your employees in different territories. This means you’ll have all the key information about your top-selling locations and sales agents. Having this type of information makes it easier to perform necessary adjustments to meet your sales goals.

4. Define your sales territories using data

Once you’ve gathered all essential data about your customers and employees using the CRM, it’s time to define the best sales territories for your business.

The best territories for your business will entirely depend on your CRM data and your business goals. In fact, the data will identify your best territory itself.

5. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments

Remember, there are no right or wrong sales territory planning strategies. If certain strategies in a territory you’ve initially defined don’t work, simply make adjustments as needed until they do.

And to get the most out of your territory management strategy, don’t forget to base your adjustments on your CRM data.

Team planning out sales territory strategy

Deciding the Best Option for You

Since many options exist for sales territory management strategies options, it may seem complicated to make the right sales territory plan. However, finding the best option for you depends on your unique situation.

Remember not to overthink things. Use the five steps to define your sales territory management strategy listed above, helping you make your next decisions.

Need help getting started? Contact one of our certified experts ready to help you make the most out of your CRM