When you're responsible for selling in a certain territory, it's important to have a sales territory plan. This plan should include a SWOT analysis and balanced territories. In this blog post, we'll walk you through the steps to create your own sales territory plan. Let's get started!
Working sales teams have to be balanced in order to maximize sales productivity and close more deals.
This is why it's important for sales managers to create a sales territory plan that will help them achieve this goal.
Follow these 6 steps below, complete with SWOT analysis, and get started on the right path today!
The first step in creating any type of territory plan is understanding your team's strengths and weaknesses. What are your team's areas of expertise? What can they do better?
This will help you to focus on selling in territories where your team has the best chance of success, and sales managers can use this information to provide sales reps with the most comprehensive sales training possible.
Competitor analysis is an important part of any sales territory plan, and it's crucial that you conduct one before diving into how your team will sell in its different territories.
A SWOT analysis will help sales managers to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that they're facing from competitors.
In addition to a SWOT analysis of your sales team and its direct competition, sales managers should also conduct a thorough SWOT analysis on their company as a whole. What are the sales team's assets?
Where does it have room for improvement?
This will help sales managers to choose territories where their company truly has a competitive advantage, and sales reps can use this information when talking with prospective customers about your product or service.
Sales managers should also conduct a sales team self-analysis that's similar to the one they conducted on their company. What are each sales rep's strengths? Where can they improve?
This will help sales reps focus on selling in territories where their skills are most likely to be an asset, and sales managers can use this information when training sales reps for maximum sales potential.
After sales managers have completed an analysis of the sales team and their company, they should conduct a thorough competitor analysis that's specific to each territory. What are your competitors' strengths?
Where do they struggle?
This will help sales reps focus on selling in territories where their sales skills are likely to be the most useful, and sales managers can use this information when assigning territories.
When sales reps have sales territory plans that focus on their strengths while also building upon areas where they struggle—as well as sales opportunities in each competitive market—they'll be able to sell as a team and close more deals.
Sales managers can use the SWOT analyses conducted in steps one through five to create sales territories that are balanced and maximize revenue potential for their company.
When creating a territory plan, it's important for sales managers to remember these six easy steps:
- Understand your strengths and weaknesses
- Conduct a SWOT analysis on your competitors
- Identify your company's strengths and weaknesses
- Conduct a sales team self-analysis, and identify their strengths and weaknesses as well
- Conduct a thorough competitor analysis for each territory you're selling in, to help sales reps focus on selling in areas where they have the best chance of success
- Create sales territories that are balanced and maximize revenue potential for your company.
Consider these indisputable benefits if you're still on the fence about the importance of a solid territory plan:
By linking the right sales teams to the relevant opportunities, a robust territory strategy allows firms to maximise their sales momentum.
According to industry observers, issues including extended travel, the need to learn and grasp new segments, and administrative expenses all contribute to a decrease in sales efficiency.
Salespeople can spend less time travelling and preparing for customer engagements and more time working directly with customers if they have a clear sales area plan based on geography and sector.
Taking a more tactical approach to sales territory design by segmenting prospects by more detailed criteria such as the number of prospective opportunities, industry, firm size, and job (to name a few) is a wonderful method to take a more tactical approach.
If you're looking for a guide on how to create a sales territory plan in six easy steps, look no further!
When sales people are assigned based on more specific criteria, they can go into each meeting knowing they'll be pitching someone who is a good fit for what they're selling.
Your salespeople will be better equipped to comprehend customer demands and build solutions that correspond if they are assigned to a set of accounts that match their history, expertise, and region.
Salespeople may create long-term connections with customers when they have constant territories, which leads to better customer loyalty and repeat business.
Workload is defined as the amount of time and effort required to effectively manage all of the accounts in a region.
A good territory plan analyses workloads and maps out territories so that one salesman is working at maximum capacity and isn't intruding on the territory of another.
When it comes to designating balanced regions to maximise rep creation, you must do your homework.
This is vital not only for maximum performance, but also for lowering rep dissatisfaction and turnover, both of which may be very costly.
The ability to track success against the value metrics you specify for each territory and rep gives management insight into the overall performance of the territory.
With this knowledge, you can design balanced territories and ensure that top-performing agents are assigned to the most valuable accounts.
You can understand territory-level performance, see where the strengths and weaknesses are, and make strategic decisions about territory design and distribution using data-driven insights.
Area management software aids sales managers in analysing performance to determine not only the viability of each territory, but also the performance of sales people.
According to the Sales Management Association, companies that use territory planning software achieve 20% more quotas than those who don't.
When planning sales territories, there are a few things to keep in mind.
Ask yourself the following questions to make sure:
After you've answered the preceding questions, you should think about:
What are the locations of your best clients and prospects?
Because it's easier to gain new consumers in an area with existing customers, geographic and industry-based clusters are the most typical focus.
Because historical sales data is the best predictor of future performance, it will become your new best buddy.
A sales monitoring programme will provide you with a complete history of this information.
Leads that come in from the outside. Focus on demographics such as area, industry, and size when inbound leads convert. Then devise a plan to distribute them as evenly as possible throughout your sales team.
The focus should be on the money earned from inbound leads rather than the quantity of leads.
Prospecting from the outside. Outbound sales territory design starts with laying out the work areas, then covering them with prospecting territories based on how you're deploying salespeople.
You might assign two sales reps to each state (two territories) and one canvasser to each territory (one prospecting territory).
Make a scorecard and analyse your sales reps to see who the best, middle, and worst performers are.
What is the size of their quota?
Is this a number they consistently hit?
How many existing and potential consumers do they have in their funnel?
What is the number of potential opportunities in their territory?
Examine which of your regions is the most profitable, and build on what is already working.
The most development. Focus on territory that haven't been worked yet if you're more concerned with the long future than the near term. It will take longer to become profitable, but it will grow faster in the long run.
New Markets / Learning Send a canvasser into this territory to do a specific assignment to establish oneself in a new market sector or discover if it is viable. This will aid in determining what is required to succeed in that market.
Sales metrics are essential for determining the success of each sales team inside the organisation, as well as the entire sales department. They assist you in identifying trends and determining company efficiency and inefficiencies.
You can simply retrieve information for: Team performance in connection to your sales funnel using sales enablement tools like SPOTIO.
KPI-based data from configurable statuses and fields
Graphs depicting team performance, the ideal time and day to knock on the door, and so on.
The number of efforts required to initiate connections, generate leads, and close transactions.
This data provides you with the information you need to distribute evenly distributed responsibilities around your sales force.
The obvious next question is: where do you begin?
We'll provide a summary of each planning process, as well as critical questions and suggestions, in this section.
When creating your territory strategy, you may employ some or all of these processes, depending on your offering, industry, company size, and other considerations.
Bringing clarity to your company's landscape, outlining organisational goals, and reviewing industry trends are the first steps in crafting a successful sales plan.
This is a basic phase that will help you and your team understand what your sales territory plan is all about.
You should keep referring back to this data as you go through the rest of the process to make sure your plan is accomplishing what you set out to do.
Start by answering these crucial questions to get your creative juices flowing:
What is the most recent vision, purpose, and north star goal for your organisation?
What are the most important trends in your field or market?
What problem does your product or service solve for customers?
In terms of numbers, what are your sales objectives?
What is the conversion rate of your website? According to this, how many prospects should you have in your funnel at any one time to fulfil your sales targets?
Are there any products or services that you sell more frequently than others? Why?
The second stage is to do a thorough examination of your consumer base. It's critical to understand their companies, challenges, and distinguishing characteristics, in addition to their businesses, challenges, and distinguishing characteristics.
The following are some important questions to consider:
By industry, area, product, and so on, who are your most profitable and lucrative prospects and customers?
What do all of these clients have in common?
Which of your prospects or customers gives your firm the most significant growth opportunities?
What are your consumers buying right now, and what does that tell you about their problems and opportunities?
Are you successful in the industries you serve? Are there any industries in which you've had less success?
What is the most common reason why customers and prospects object?
Your Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the total number of people that fulfil your desired customer profile. Traditionally, firms begin mapping their TAM with data such as industry, geography, size, and revenue.
While this is still critical, technology and tooling have made it easier than ever to uncover prospects inside your TAM that aren't immediately apparent.
Look for company and industry look-alikes that might be a good fit for your offering using old and modern sources, including social media.
Once an ideal client profile has been established, the following stage is to determine the size of the market opportunity that fits the profile. A matrix can be used to encompass a variety of major and small markets with huge and small prospects.
While calculating the size of your market used to be a difficult process involving guessing and intricate calculations, firms may now employ tools to automate the TAM research process.
A SWOT (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) study is a straightforward approach to evaluate your market position.
Because we all have blind spots, it's better to conduct a SWOT analysis with the support of a larger group, including other members of your company's leadership as well as members of your sales management and sales rep teams.
What strengths are you going to focus on?
Which flaws do you need to address?
Which market opportunities are you most positioned to take advantage of?
What threats will you guard against in your selling environment?
You'll see patterns as you go through this study that indicate areas of your organisation that need more or less attention for various reasons.
A strength that is also a huge potential, for example, may require its own domain. On the other hand, an area that coincides with a major competition threat may necessitate extra attention in order to safeguard your company's position in the sector.
The SWOT qualities you find aren't usually tied to revenue or location.
They could be tied to more esoteric issues such as your sales team's training needs, system and tool gaps, or even product gaps.
This research will assist you in being more aware of alternative perspectives on your business and regions.
You should have a good concept of how to split your sales territories based on the work you did in the previous sections. It's critical to document these clearly, explaining the specifics of each territory, such as:
Geographical Limits
Boundaries by Industry or Segment (including any overlap and how that is addressed)
Boundaries of Revenue
Product Limitations
Anything else that would be relevant to your sales team
Developing an action plan, like the SWOT analysis, is a cooperative effort that should include a variety of company stakeholders, particularly the leaders of each of your identified areas.
It's critical to monitor progress in each territory on a regular basis after you've designed and implemented your territory plan, and to change as needed.
Metric reviews should be performed on a regular, specified cycle, such as monthly or quarterly, and should be automated utilising sales performance tools to prevent making this a time-consuming, costly, and easily avoided burden.
The steps you use will vary depending on your company's specific circumstances, but here are a few key ones:
Gross Revenues
Gross sales, the most evident indicator of sales success, are the total of all sales made by a territory during a specified period of time. Gross sales is a helpful indicator since it demonstrates a salesperson's ability to close deals, independent of the profit margin on those deals.
Profit before taxes
This is the difference between the product's selling price and the cost of developing the solution for the company. Businesses that wish to encourage their salespeople to focus on large profit margins rather than merely sales should use this metric.
Unit Sales Total
Regardless of price, profit, or commission, the total number of product units sold in a given territory. When a corporation primarily offers a particular sort of product, this way of measurement is useful.
Rate of conversion
The percentage of leads or appointments that result in a sale is known as the conversion rate. Sales teams with a high sales turnover rate are achieving high levels of performance.
Commissions totaled
This is the amount of money that the territory's sales agents take home as personal income.
Although this metric has no direct relationship to a company's competitiveness or level of success, it can be used to motivate salespeople to achieve higher numbers.
Customers who come back
The tendency of purchasers in a sales zone to return and buy again is an indication of actual development and sustainable growth.
