How to Build a Smarter Sales Territory

Efficiently managing your sales territory is just as essential for hitting targets as picking up the phone. Thankfully, modern technologies such as Google Maps make it infinitely easier to effectively manage our territories. But, this term doesn’t necessarily refer only to geographical locations. It can also mean sales verticals.

If you’re considering an initiative to more effectively manage sales territories, it’s always worth considering if improvements can be made between the location and vertical. Typically, location is more worthwhile when there are a greater number of businesses in an area. If this is the case, it should be all about getting salespeople out on the field and building up those relationships. Whichever method you think best, here’s the best way to turn your salespeople into territorial experts.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

No one wants to waste time and be embarrassed. Let’s start off by talking about common mistakes that can result in precisely these two things.

Visiting accounts you already own

This is the embarrassing one. There’s nothing worse than heading into a local business and asking “hello, who deals with your payroll services?” Only to have a response of “you do”… This is a primary reason why the CallProof app includes territory tracking to easily show which salespeople manage what businesses and opportunities in a territory at a glance and without room for doubt.

Spreading the sales team too thin

It’s tempting to see how far you can push each salesperson to cover more ground and more prospects. Unfortunately, things don’t work this way and this approach can be detrimental, leaving inadequate time for each prospect to get the necessary attention.

Failure to train on time management

Managing travel times correctly is a critical skill for any field salesperson. A common mistake is to assume (or perhaps hope) the salesperson will find their way around in the most logical manner that meets the most prospects without any training. Another common mistake is to not use tracking to make sure that this is actually done effectively.

How to Get More from Your Territory

Getting more clients from your sales territory means visiting more clients in the first place. Here are three steps that will help you do just that.

Maximize Sales travel

When you find yourself having to spend several thousand dollars to fly a salesperson to meet a high value prospect, don’t let the plane ticket go to waste. Make sure they get on the phone ASAP and start talking with other potentially high value clients they can drop in on while they’re in the area.

Turn 1 appointment into 3 appointments

The idea of maximizing the number of prospects visited can be used whether there’s a costly plane ticket on the expenses bill or not. Make it mandatory that when a salesperson visits an area they must at least attempt to see one or two new additional clients in the same area on that trip.

The assumptive close pre-appointment email

You don’t need an appointment to attend an appointment. Before any new visit, have your salesperson send an email something to the effect of:

“Hey Mr Prospect, I just wanted to let you know I’d be popping round later to discuss X product and service. Do let me know if you have any questions and I’ll catch up with you then.”

If you don’t give the prospect an opportunity to say no to the meeting, how can your appointment booking ever be met with rejection? If they don’t want to see you, they can always reply saying so. Otherwise, you can assume you’re good to go.

This kind face-to-face appointment is infinitely more effective than any telephone call or email for closing more business and squeezing more juice from a sales territory. Best of luck out there in the field.