by For the modern sales team, competition has never been fiercer. It seems like every organization is looking for new ways to boost its sales performance and efficiency. But to unlock this potential for your business, you need a detailed plan with clearly defined territories. What does that mean, exactly?
A sales territory plan allows you to strategically assign sales reps to specific areas based on geography, demographics, field sales data, and other criteria. With this equitable and efficient distribution, you won't have to worry about multiple reps overlapping or competing for the same prospects. That way, you can create a successful strategy for your sales team that targets ideal prospects and customers to maximize sales potential.
While sales territory planning might sound intimidating, there are a number of great tools that can help you streamline workflows and get better results. Enterprise Territory Management is one of the most widely used tools for Salesforce CRM users, and, while it can be complicated to use, it offers a few key capabilities.
Let’s take a closer look at what this software is and a few best practices to keep in mind while using it.
What is Salesforce Territory Management?
Territory management is the process of organizing account and opportunity data and sorting it by customer segment (e.g., industry, role, location, etc.). Just like planning, effective sales territory management requires continual improvement and vigilance to stay ahead of the competition.
Salesforce Enterprise Territory Management is a software tool that enables organizations to better manage their accounts and opportunities by territory. As a direct integration with the Salesforce CRM, this tool gives you access to all of your organization’s customer data. Organize accounts by any field and create a territory hierarchy based on role or region. With Salesforce Territory Management, there’s tons of flexibility for your unique business needs.
Why is territory management so important?
Whether you define territories based on geographic location, industry, product type, or any other factor, you want to make sure you have the right amount of reps visiting high-priority stops. That’s why any organization selling across multiple territories can benefit from effective management.
Territory alignment is a key part in this process, strategically redistributing accounts to reps based on your sales strategy. But you also need to make sure your reps aren’t under or overloaded with work. Balancing accounts across sales reps and their territories ensures that everyone receives equitable opportunity and has a manageable quota and sales target.
To stay on top of territory management, you need to look at every part of the sales process, from the plan, maps, and routes to the technology your sales team uses.
Best practices for Salesforce Territory Management
Like Salesforce Maps, Salesforce Territory Management can be a powerful tool for sales professionals — that is, if you know how to use it. You’re likely already familiar with how challenging the software is to use, so let’s get right into it.
Here are our top five best practices for managing multiple territories in Salesforce:
1. Leverage role hierarchy in territory management
Not everyone in your organization should have equal access to data. For both security purposes and clarity, it’s important to create a role hierarchy. This system of data permissions allows you to restrict access to unnecessary files for specific employees. You can also use it to create reporting rollups, configure management relationships, and structure other hierarchical workflows.
2. Only use territories with forecast managers
When you’re forecasting in Salesforce, a territory will only be included in the final report if it has an assigned forecast manager. If there is no manager, you still need to add a placeholder — otherwise, you’ll receive incomplete data. It’s always a good idea to double-check that each territory has a designated forecast manager with access to necessary data.
3. Accurately define your named accounts
Oftentimes, a sales leader might assign specific accounts to an individual rep who is capable of handling them. These “named accounts” are typically best for smaller customers with few accounts. With Salesforce Territory Management, you can use the rule criteria feature to assign accounts based on field information, such as name or number.
4. Improve performance with granular locking
Some territory hierarchy-related tasks require exclusive administration locks that can temporarily restrict other users from performing activities on the platform. Granular locking attempts lock only the necessary portions of the table, reducing the impact on other administrators. This is great for operations that do a group lock, such as adding or removing a user to a territory, creating or deleting a territory in the hierarchy, and configuring forecast managers.
5. Consider using an integrated territory solution
While Salesforce Territory Management can be a great tool for some organizations, it’s also notoriously difficult to use. A comprehensive territory software integration for Salesforce offers the best of both worlds. You get seamless access to your Salesforce CRM data with easy-to-use, advanced territory management tools. But what can an integrated solution do that Salesforce can’t?
Why use a Salesforce Territory Management integration?
Salesforce has become a juggernaut in the CRM space, used by countless organizations around the globe. However, Salesforce Maps and Territory Management are relatively new additions to the lineup that the company acquired. As a result, users find the interface and customer support a little lackluster.
With an integrated Salesforce solution like eSpatial, you get the benefits of using your Salesforce CRM with all the advantages of a comprehensive sales mapping, territory planning, and routing solution.
The benefits of eSpatial territory optimization
eSpatial makes it easier than ever to design, manage, align, and optimize your territories to perfection. Seamless integration with your Salesforce CRM provides you with all the data you need to get started. Or, you can upload non-Salesforce data like Excel spreadsheets or .CSV files. With eSpatial, you can:
- Create, align, and balance territories with intuitive optimization tools
- Uncover hidden opportunities and potential with sales map visualizations
- Develop efficient, optimized routes to ensure maximum sales productivity
How to optimize territory management with eSpatial
Optimizing sales territories is easy with eSpatial. Simply upload your Salesforce data or spreadsheets and advanced algorithms automatically generate a vibrant map with geographic information and rich insights. From there, you can draw your territory boundaries based on region, ZIP codes, or points. Add visual context with demographic overlays and advanced styling options. As your plans turn to action, eSpatial allows you to monitor sales performance across territories to see what’s working and identify areas for improvement.
To help you design better territories in eSpatial, here are a few tips to consider:
1. Prioritize high-value accounts
Start by assessing the value of each account within your segments. Be sure to identify and prioritize important prospects and customers to target them when it comes time to design your territory.
2. Divide sales reps based on business objectives
While you’re dividing reps into territories, you’ll want to preserve any existing customer relationships. For instance, if one sales rep has worked with a specific client for a while, it’s a good idea to keep them in their territory to avoid unnecessary disruption.
3. Experiment with territory design
A sales territory plan doesn’t have to be set in stone. As trends and markets change, you’ll need to adapt your strategy to match. Be prepared to regularly review your territory plan to re-align or balance as needed.
4. Track territory performance over time
To ensure you’re making the right decisions around territory management, it’s crucial to track sales performance between each region. With a full view of your territory and sales activity, you get deeper insights that can drive efficiency and productivity.