Putting a strategic sales territory plan into place can help you drive revenue, cut costs, increase productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. But what exactly does “sales territory plan” mean? And how do you implement one?

Traditionally, a sales territory plan is the specific way you — a sales representative — serve the clients and prospects within a specific geographical area. Think of the ideal plan as a playbook containing specific objectives, strategies, and action items custom-tailored for a specific subset of customers. It involves research, data analytics, critical-thinking, and goal-setting.

If it sounds complicated, don’t worry — we are going to walk you through how to go from getting to know your territory to dominating it in four simple steps.

1. Get to Know the Prospects and Customers in Your Territory

Before you can do anything, you need to get to know your territory. And the best way to do that is to define, analyze and segment the market.

Define

So many salespeople brush off this step because it seems obvious — don’t fall into that trap. The absolute most important thing you need to do to get ready to dominate a new sales territory is to define that territory clearly, concisely and quantitatively.

Here are some questions to get you started:

• How do you literally define your territory? Is it a geographical area?
• How many prospects and current customers are inside? Competitors?
• What are the demographics? Are the companies big or small? What industries are they in?
• How are the companies in terms of spending power?

Defining is all about asking questions, gathering data, and asking more questions. Leave no rock unturned.

Analyze

Now that you’ve harvested a treasure trove full of data, it’s time to figure out what it all means for your business. Access the quality of each individual lead based on a core KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for your business.

For example, if your KPI is total revenue, you may choose to rate the leads with the most potential for profitability at the top. If your KPI is the number of deals closed, then you may prioritize leads that you believe would be easiest to win, regardless of deal-size.

Segment

Once you’ve analyzed all your data, it’s time to segment. Divide your leads into groups that align with the KPI most important to your business and team.

For example, if your KPI is total deals closed, one strategy is to segment based on how much work the accounts will take to make profitable: easy customers (tech/low touch), customers who will require a bit of work (mid touch), and customers that will require the most work (high touch).

Another approach is to segment them based on the size of the account or potential account. For example, if profit is your main KPI, then you may calculate what a deal would be worth with each company and then group them accordingly.

2. Give Your Team Some Footing With a SWOT Analysis

Now that you are familiar with your territory, it’s time to evaluate how your business relates to it.

To excel at territory management, you need to know your team inside and out. What are you good at? What challenges do you anticipate? Where are there opportunities to dominate the competition and “wow” clients in this specific territory?

A great way to break it down is by doing a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Unlike more quantitative analyses (like from step one), SWOT is a qualitative exercise that involves some research, creativity and teamwork.

Strengths and weaknesses are things specifically about your company and team that gives you an advantage or disadvantage in this territory. For example, if you have a great reputation in the surrounding territories, that would be a strength. If your team is working with a tight budget, that could be a weakness. Be sure not to hold back — this is no time to be humble.

Opportunities and threats are forces outside of your company and team that give you advantages or disadvantages in this territory. It’s important to note that, unlike strengths and weaknesses, these are essentially circumstances outside of your control that could positively or negatively affect you down the road. Be thoughtful here, because later you will want to figure out how to capitalize on opportunities and respond to threats.

Here’s how you can do a SWOT analysis with your team:

• Get everybody together who will be working with this territory — it’s best when the whole team participates.
• Ask everybody to divide a sheet of paper into four columns labeled “S,” “W,” “O” and “T.”
• Then, give everybody five minutes to brainstorm independently. This is helpful because it will allow each team member to think in regards to their area of expertise, be it customer service, sales, marketing, etc.
• After, come back together and share your answers in order to make one team-wide SWOT chart.

This SWOT analysis will be a critical resource when you define success in the next step.

3. Define Success With Sales Accountability Goals

Once you know your territory like the back of your hand and understand how your company is situated within this environment, it’s time to set some goals.

Accountability in sales is when you task your team and/or team members with hitting specific goals in your KPI. It’s important to note that accountability is not about punishing failure. It’s about keeping a realistic understanding of how your team is doing so that you can come up with the best strategy possible — and so that your team members can work towards meaningful goals.

For example, if you find that your team members keep falling short of their accountability goals, then maybe you were too ambitious — or maybe there’s a better, more accurate way to segment your market. If your team is blowing your accountability goals out of the water, it may be time to set a new, more challenging goal so that your team will always be striving to improve.

The KPI you decide to target should hit the sweet spot between your company’s business goals as a whole and what is reasonable for this specific territory. For example, if your KPI is revenue, then perhaps each team member should close deals worth at least X amount each sales period. If your KPI is churn rate, maybe your team members strive to keep their churn below Y.

4. Create a Clear Plan With Action Steps

It’s finally time to put everything together into an action plan for you and your team. Unfortunately, you’re never going to be able to lay out exactly what everybody should do in an easy step-by-step guide.

However, you can define some key strategies for your team to take advantage of in order to hit their accountability goals within this specific territory. Just like when we were defining your territory at the very beginning of this article, the most important thing here is to ask questions.

Start by looking at your SWOT analysis and comparing it to your sales accountability goals.

• How can your team members use your strengths to their advantage?
• How can they minimize your weaknesses?
• How can your team members take advantage of your opportunities?
• How can they combat your threats?

Consider setting due dates and daily (or weekly) items each team member should complete. For example, maybe each team member needs to update the CRM daily. Or, maybe you can put together some points about why your business is better than the competition.

It’s important to identify helpful strategies without micromanaging your team. Remember — they’re on your team for a reason. Involve them in coming up with solid strategies and leave room for improvisation.

Conclusion

It’s critical to remember that the best sales territory plans are flexible and responsive to your team’s needs. Your goal is growth — you want the circumstances to change. To have continued success, be sure to schedule regular check-ins to work back through this simple four-step process and stay on top of your territory.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].