Salesforce territory management can have a critical impact on your sales performance as well as your ability to analyze and improve upon your performance in the future.

In this article, we’ll explain what Salesforce territory management is, its benefits, and potential risks to avoid in practice.

But that’s not all. 

We’ll also show you a way to further enhance sales performance with a unique Salesforce add-on that you won’t want to miss out on.

Further Reading:

• Check out our guide on how to create and manage a Salesforce pipeline
• Our Salesforce forecasting guide has everything you need to know to accurately plan ahead

What are Sales Territories & Salesforce Territory Management

Sales territories are geographical areas or customer segments assigned to sales teams or individual representatives to target and manage sales activities more effectively. 

They're usually based on factors like sales potential, geography, customer details, and competition. 

By assigning territories to sales reps, managers can boost productivity. But it's crucial to create balanced and easy-to-handle territories to use time and resources efficiently without causing internal problems among the sales team, which we’ll get into later.

With Salesforce Territory Management, a feature within the Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, your organization can organize data, customers, and users in Salesforce just like you structure your sales territories. 

Benefits of Salesforce Territory Management

1. Efficient Sales Resource Allocation

Territory Management helps organizations allocate sales resources, such as sales representatives, accounts, leads, and opportunities, more effectively. By assigning specific territories to sales reps based on factors like geography, industry, or revenue potential, organizations ensure that resources are focused where they can generate the most value.

2. Improved Sales Performance

By aligning sales reps with territories tailored to their strengths and expertise, Territory Management can improve sales performance. Reps can focus on cultivating relationships and specific knowledge within their assigned territories, leading to increased engagement, better customer satisfaction, and ultimately, higher sales conversion rates.

3. Enhanced Sales Team Collaboration

Territory Management facilitates better collaboration and coordination among sales teams by providing visibility into territory assignments and activities. Sales reps can easily identify overlapping territories, collaborate on accounts, and share insights to drive collective success.

4. Streamlined Sales Operations

Territory Management streamlines sales operations by automating territory assignment processes. Organizations can define rules and criteria for territory assignments, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency across the sales organization. This automation also enables faster response times to changes in market conditions or business priorities.

5. Better Sales Forecasting and Reporting

With Territory Management, organizations gain better visibility into sales performance by territory. Sales managers can analyze key metrics such as revenue, pipeline, and conversion rates by territory, enabling more accurate sales forecasting and informed decision-making. This data-driven approach helps optimize sales strategies and resource allocation. For example, if a certain territory repeatedly has poor sales results regardless of the individual rep or team assigned to it, then it may make sense to focus efforts on other territories where win rates and revenue attainment are higher and more consistent.

6. Increased Customer Focus

Territory Management enables sales reps to develop deeper relationships with customers within their assigned territories. By understanding the unique needs and preferences of customers in their territories, reps can provide more personalized and relevant sales experiences, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

7. Scalability and Growth

As organizations grow and expand into new markets, Territory Management provides scalability to accommodate changing business needs. New territories can be easily added or modified, and sales resources can be reallocated as needed to support expansion initiatives while maintaining efficiency and effectiveness. 

Instead of new reps entering a chaotic free-for-all where each rep chases leads from anywhere in the world, assigned territories create a more stable environment for new reps to train, learn, and ramp to quota. 

How To Implement Salesforce Territory Management

1. Assessment and Planning

Begin by assessing your organization's sales structure, territories, and requirements. Determine the criteria for defining territories, such as geography, industry, revenue potential, or existing customer relationships. Identify stakeholders and gather requirements to ensure that Territory Management meets the needs of various teams and departments.

2. Enable Territory Management

In the Salesforce setup menu, navigate to Territory Settings and enable Territory Management. Once enabled, this feature will allow you to create territory hierarchies, define rules for territory assignment, and manage territory records.

3. Configure Territory Hierarchy

Design the territory hierarchy that reflects your organization's sales structure. Territories can be organized hierarchically based on regions, sales teams, product lines, or any other relevant criteria. Define parent-child relationships between territories to establish the hierarchy.

4. Define Territory Assignment Rules

Establish rules for automatically assigning accounts, leads, and opportunities to territories and sales representatives. These rules can be based on criteria such as zip codes, industry types, revenue potential, or existing customer relationships. Consider both automated and manual assignment rules to ensure flexibility and accuracy.

5. Test and Validate

Before fully implementing Territory Management, thoroughly test the configuration to ensure that territories are assigned correctly and that data integrity is maintained. Validate the assignment rules against sample data sets to identify any issues or discrepancies.

6. Train Users

Provide comprehensive training to sales managers, representatives, and other stakeholders on how to use Territory Management within Salesforce. Ensure that users understand how territories are structured, how assignments are made, and how to navigate and manage territory records effectively. 

It’s important to be as transparent as possible and involve your sales reps in this rollout process because it can cause friction amongst team members who perceive certain territories as better than others.

7. Rollout, Monitor, & Iterate

Gradually roll out Territory Management to users, starting with a pilot group if necessary. Monitor the system closely after implementation to identify any issues or areas for improvement. Collect feedback from users and stakeholders to fine-tune the configuration and address any concerns.

Continuously review and optimize Territory Management based on your user and stakeholder feedback, changes in business requirements, and evolving sales strategies. Regularly update territory hierarchies and assignment rules to ensure alignment with organizational goals and objectives.

3 Risks to Avoid When Using Salesforce Territory Management

1. Complexity

Implementing Territory Management can be complex, especially for organizations with intricate sales structures or large sales teams. Configuring rules and hierarchies requires careful planning and may require expertise in Salesforce administration.

2. Data Integrity

Territory Management relies on accurate data to function effectively. If data quality is poor or inconsistent, it can lead to mis-assignments, overlapping territories, or inaccurate reporting, undermining the reliability of sales performance analysis. There’s a way that we can ensure this isn’t the case…

3. Sales Team Morale

Introducing changes to territory assignments can sometimes meet resistance from sales reps accustomed to existing territories or no territories at all. Poor communication or inadequate training on the new system can result in decreased morale and productivity among sales teams. 

At the end of the day, sales people make a large portion of their paycheck based off of the deals they close and if they perceive that the quality or quantity of their leads has diminished due to territory management, this can cause serious fissures among the team. 

It’s important to be fair to your reps and support territory assignments with factual data. Don’t immediately punish reps who’ve been assigned territories with fewer or lower quality leads. Instead inspect why revenue numbers are rising or falling with proactive and in-depth 1:1s and call analysis.

Avoid Complexity & Ensure Quality Data, Happy Salespeople, and Higher Sales Performance with Scratchpad

Employing Salesforce Territory Management isn’t simple so we want to share a Salesforce Chrome Extension to ensure everything runs smoothly for you and your team.

Scratchpad is a Chrome extension that’s a suite of modern tools to help your sales team work faster, collaborate, and give leaders more visibility.

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Here are some key features that will help you with your Salesforce Territory Management and overall sales performance:

• AI Sales Assistant records your calls and provides transcripts, call summaries, and even updated your required Salesforce fields for methodologies like MEDDIC. Scratchpad’s Call Intelligence and AI insights give managers and reps a new experience to inspect deals, track performance, and work better, together.
• Deal Rooms provide visibility into all aspects of your deals at each stage, while creating a collaborative space for teams to work together, faster. Leaders can keep an eye on what’s changing in their team’s pipeline, proactively collaborate with all of the key stakeholders you need, and help your reps follow process.
• Rollups lets you effortlessly consolidate scattered sales data into a cohesive overview, eliminating the need for complex spreadsheets and gives you better insights into which territories or reps are maximizing their performance.
• Waterfall Analytics bring forecast changes into sharp focus, ensuring your sales predictions remain precise.
• Command puts your pipeline, notes, to-dos, and anything Salesforce-related into your digital back pocket. Ensure faster pipeline management, quicker workflows, and higher quality data to avoid lead confusion and enhance deal collaboration across teams.

Summary

Salesforce Territory Management is a really helpful tool for sales teams who want to simplify their process, improve performance, and get better data analysis. This is especially the case for organizations who are scaling and growing quickly and are at-risk of disorganization across their teams and regions.

In order to help your Salesforce Territory Management be effective, try a tool like Scratchpad today or schedule a conversation to learn more about whether it’s a good fit for your team.