Cody Bernard
Territory planning can be difficult.
So many different factors go into it like your team’s strengths and weaknesses, your company’s growth strategy, and even the economic climate to name a few.
The problem is that many sales leaders make the mistake of dividing territories based on company size, revenue, or industry — and then distribute by location. But if you want to create healthy, productive territories that will set your reps up for success and help you hit your revenue goals, you need to start with a better way of segmenting and prioritizing your accounts.
Because to truly get the most out of your territories, it’s important to consider key factors like your ICP, buying power, and potential for growth. But don’t worry, we got your back.
Here’s how to create profitable territories for all your reps
Yes, I’m talking about your ICP. But even further, do you know which accounts have pain points that you can solve for or who could benefit the most from your product? These are the companies that should be placed at the top of your priority list.
For example, let’s say you’re selling into cloud data environments. It might be a good idea to first identify which accounts are using cloud data services, which cloud data platforms are prevalent in what types of accounts, what size data teams indicate a good customer, or which accounts have data lakes. This type of information helps you identify your REAL ideal customer profile.
Estimating account potential is an important exercise to determine how much effort and resources are reasonable for each account. To size up potential, you need to take your total possible dollar value for an account, and score it based on how likely they are to buy from you.
That means even considering opportunities within your existing customer base for expansion, upsells, or cross-sells that might make sense. Account scoring that is based simply on firmographics or search term volume aren’t enough.
Once you know which accounts have potential and are a good fit for you, now it’s time to segment those accounts by those that are ready to buy now. Account segmentation sounds simple, but it isn’t. Most leaders don’t know that there is a great deal of insight you can get into account characteristics that can make this very process very precise.
Let’s look at the same example above. If you’re selling into cloud data environments, you may want to account for factors like where they are in their data journey, if they’re hiring for specific roles, or if they have data projects going on to help determine if the account has enough potential before assigning it a score. After going through this exercise, you should have a clear set of accounts categorized into who’s ready to buy now in order of probability so your team knows exactly who to go after to get the best possible outcome.
Once you’ve segmented your accounts, it’s time to execute your territory strategy. The goal should be to make sure that the rep to opportunity potential is fair across the board. Many times, people use older techniques like simply cutting territories by geographic location. But the problem is, the opportunity ends up being distributed unequally.
You want to make sure there is enough opportunity across segments in each unique territory so every rep can be fed. That means also considering territory overlap. Do you have enough accounts in each territory to support multiple reps or can some accounts be shared between territories? These are the questions that need answering. Remember, territory segmentation isn’t a one-time exercise. As things change, so should your territory strategy — so make sure to regularly review and adjust as needed.
Territory planning has a huge impact on your business. When done wrong, it can lead to team imbalances, pissed off reps, and missed revenue goals. But when done right, it can completely transform your sales team into quota crushing machines. By taking the time to truly define your ICP, size up your accounts by their potential, and segment them based on how ready they are to buy, you’ll be well on your way to executing a territory strategy that will help you start the new year stronger than ever.
Want to talk through how CloseFactor can help you create territories that will print you money? Book some time today.
