What are the best practices for balancing your territories based on potential, workload, and performance?

1 Assess your current situation

Evaluating your current situation and identifying any gaps, opportunities, or issues is the first step to balancing your territories. You can use various metrics and KPIs to measure the potential, workload, and performance of each territory, such as revenue, growth, and profitability; market size, share, and potential; customer segmentation, retention, and satisfaction; sales activity, pipeline, and conversion; and sales rep skills, capacity, and motivation. By analyzing these data points, you can gain insight into how well each territory is performing, how much resources and attention it requires, and how it aligns with your sales objectives and priorities.

2 Define your criteria and goals

The next step to balance your territories is to define your criteria and goals for the alignment process. It is essential to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and how you will measure success. Common criteria and goals for territory balancing include maximizing revenue potential and growth opportunities, minimizing workload imbalance and travel costs, enhancing customer coverage and service quality, improving sales rep productivity and performance, increasing sales rep engagement and retention, and aligning with market trends and competitive landscape. Setting criteria and goals can provide a framework for making data-driven and strategic decisions about territory allocation and adjustment.

3 Segment and prioritize your customers

The third step to balance your territories is to segment and prioritize your customers based on their value, potential, and needs. To do this, you can use various methods and models such as ABC analysis, which assigns customers to categories based on their revenue contribution, profitability, or strategic importance; RFM analysis, which scores customers based on their recency, frequency, and monetary value of purchases; customer lifetime value, which estimates the net profit that a customer will generate over their relationship with your company; and customer journey mapping, which identifies the stages and touchpoints that a customer goes through from awareness to loyalty. By segmenting and prioritizing your customers, you can determine which ones deserve more focus and resources, which ones require more nurturing or cross-selling, and which ones are at risk of churn or defection.

4 Assign and adjust your territories

The fourth step to balance your territories is to assign and adjust them based on criteria, goals, and customer segments. To optimize your territory design, you can use various tools and techniques such as geographic division by physical location, product division by product line, industry division by sector or niche, and account division by size, type, or tier. By assigning and adjusting your territories, you can create a more balanced and efficient distribution of your sales resources and opportunities.

5 Communicate and implement your changes

The fifth step to balance your territories is to communicate and implement your changes effectively. You should ensure that sales reps understand the rationale and benefits of the new territory alignment, as well as their roles and responsibilities. To do this, you can use various methods and channels such as meetings, training, incentives, and support. Through these measures, you can provide sales reps with the tools they need to adapt to the new structure. Additionally, offering incentives and rewards can motivate them to achieve their goals. With effective communication and implementation of your changes, you can ensure a smooth transition that boosts sales performance and customer satisfaction.

6 Review and refine your territories

The sixth step to balance your territories is to review and refine them regularly. To do this, you should track and measure the impact and results of the new alignment, as well as the feedback and satisfaction of sales reps and customers. Dashboards, surveys, benchmarking, and testing are all useful tools for this purpose. Dashboards can be used to visualize and compare key metrics and KPIs of each territory. Surveys and interviews can be conducted to collect opinions and perceptions of the new structure. Benchmarking can help compare performance with industry standards, best practices, competitors, and peers. Testing can involve experimenting with different scenarios and variables to assess effectiveness and efficiency. Ultimately, by reviewing and refining your territories, you can improve your territory management and alignment while adapting to changing market conditions and customer needs.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?