Take a Look at Territories

Can you benefit from realigning your territory assignments?

There are many benefits to taking a good look at the territories covered by you or your sales staff. You can increase sales opportunities, save extensive travel time and, often, improve the morale of your staff. As a sales manager, your goal is to make sure your salespeople are able to see and work with the greatest number of customers as possible — without sacrificing quality service.

Territory realignment might also allow you to reach new customers, expand visibility and lower some of the costs of doing business. The end result is that salespeople are afforded more time to sell.

When should you consider a realignment of the sales territory?

• If you notice that some territories, i.e. zip codes, are not being served. Take an even deeper look at the landscape of the territory. Are all the big hospitals in one zip code? If they are, you may need to give a piece of that revenue pie to more than one person.

• When you have added a salesperson to your staff. Do not simply give the “scraps” and “impossible” accounts to the new salesperson. You want them to have some satisfaction in their work. Is there an account you have that can be transferred to this new person without hurting the morale or commissions of another? Is there an account the manager or owner is working with that can be successfully transferred over time to the new person?

• When you have reviewed past business revenues and potential customer opportunities. If you see new opportunities in the community or new product lines being offered by your company, it may be time to take a look at the territories. Is it becoming more time-consuming for sales- people to talk with customers about so many new products? Are there new clinics or rehabilitation centers opening in a new part of town that need to be prospected?

Now try the next steps in realigning your company's sales territories.

• Look at a list of your customer locations, sales force commissions and the markets you want to target. Are commissions particularly low for any salesperson due to the small number of accounts in that territory?

• Look at the number of prospects in each territory. You are looking to develop an equitable distribution of the workforce. There are many variables to consider, but you do not want one salesperson spending 25 percent of his time driving from appointment to appointment and another traveling less than 10 percent of the day.