Managing Sales Territories Effectively

The best ASM I ever worked with used to arrive in a new territory 2 hours before his first outlet visit. He wasn’t doing paperwork. He wasn’t on calls. He was sitting at a dhaba watching traffic. I asked him why once. He said — “jo market dekhta hai pehle, woh market se kamaata hai baad mein.” That stuck with me for 10 years. Most salespeople read their market through data. Beat reports. Secondary numbers. Outlet universe lists. All important. All necessary. But all lagging — they tell you what already happened. Reading a market before your beat starts tells you what’s about to happen. Here is exactly how to do it in 4 steps. Step 1 — The traffic read. Which direction are people moving in the morning? Towards the market, towards the industrial area, towards schools? This tells you which outlets will have footfall and when. A kirana near a school gate does 60% of its daily billing between 7-9am and 3-5pm. If your salesman visits at 11am he’s missing the owner at peak rush. Step 2 — The competitor read. Walk the first 10 outlets without your bag. Just observe. Which brand has the best shelf placement? Which SKU is at eye level? Where is your brand sitting? This takes 20 minutes and tells you more than any mystery shopping report. Step 3 — The relationship read. Which outlets have the same salesman servicing them for 3+ years? Those outlets will be loyal to that salesman’s brand — not yours. You need a different strategy there versus fresh outlets with no relationships yet. Step 4 — The gap read. Which outlet type is completely absent from your current beat? In most Tier 2 territories I’ve worked, medical stores and petrol pumps are massively underpenetrated for FMCG. One petrol pump on a highway does more impulse snack billing than 15 kirana stores combined. The market tells you everything before you sell a single unit. Most people just never learn to listen to it. How do you read a new market before your first beat? What’s your one non-negotiable first step? #FMCG #SalesStrategy #FMCGBlueprint

"Let's just divide accounts evenly among reps." Famous last words from every sales leader who's never done territory math. Six months later: Rep A closes $800K, Rep B closes $200K. Same quota. Same comp plan. Different territories. Folks - territory planning isn't about fairness. It's about math. Here's the formula to always keep in mind: Territory Value = (Account Potential x Win Probability x Coverage Capacity) - Competitive Density. So, how do you apply the formula? Let's bust out our TI-82s and break this down... Step 1: Calculate the true account potential. Don't use company size alone. Use buying indicators: - Recent funding rounds (+50% potential). - Executive hiring sprees (+30% potential). - Tech modernization projects (+40% potential). Example: 500-employee company = $50K base potential + $10M Series B = $75K total. Step 2: Determine the win probability by account type. - Green field (no solution): 25-30% win rate, 4-6 month cycle. - Competitive displacement: 15-20% win rate, 6-9 month cycle. - Expansion accounts: 60-75% win rate, 2-4 month cycle. Step 3: Eval the coverage capacity reality. Each rep can effectively work: - 25-30 ENT accounts (15-20 hours/month each). - 50-75 MM accounts (8-12 hours/month each). - 100-150 SMB accounts (3-5 hours/month each). Step 4: Inspect geographic efficiency. - Dense metro: 8-10 meetings/week (1.0x capacity). - Regional spread: 4-6 meetings/week (0.75x capacity). - National territory: 3-4 meetings/week (0.6x capacity). Step 5: Measure the competitive density tax. - Low competition: +20-30% win rates. - Saturated markets: -25-35% win rates. Here's an example of how to score territories: 1. Territory A: 40 enterprise accounts x $90K potential x 25% win rate x 0.8 geography x 0.9 competition = $648K. 2. Territory B: 60 mid-market accounts x $35K potential x 35% win rate x 1.0 geography x 1.1 competition = $809K. As you'll see, territory B wins despite LOWER account values. Once you've run the math, don't treat all accounts equally. Allocate effort thusly: - Tier 1 (20% accounts, 60% revenue): Weekly touches, exec relationships. - Tier 2 (30% accounts, 30% revenue): Bi-weekly touches, manager relationships. - Tier 3 (50% accounts, 10% revenue): Monthly touches, inside sales. At the end of the day, good territory planning is applied mathematics, not office politics. Equal doesn't mean fair when account potential varies 10x. Run the math. Weight the factors. Track the results. Because the rep with the better territory will always outperform the rep with more accounts. Remember that math doesn't lie, but territory assignments definitely do. :)

🚀 2 months in at Deel. Here's my advice. When you join a new sales role, everyone tells you to “learn the product” or “meet the team.” ✅ Important. ❌ Not enough. If you want to perform fast, you need a clear, actionable strategy - especially when doing Outbound. Here’s mine: 🎯 MAP YOUR ENTIRE TERRITORY INTO 4 TIERS It’s simple, scalable, and it gives you clarity from Day 1. 1️⃣ Tier 1 – Your dream accounts (Top 10%) - Huge potential, strong signals - Full personalization - Maximum effort Example: active hiring, recent funding, perfect ICP 2️⃣ Tier 2 – Good accounts (30%) - Solid fit, decent potential - Semi-personalized outreach - High cadence Example: steady growth, relevant industry 3️⃣ Tier 3 – Lower potential accounts (50%) - No clear signals yet - Automated sequences, lower effort - Still worth testing 4️⃣ Tier 4 – No potential (10%) - Companies shut down, wrong fit, duplicates - Ditch them early 💡 Use your SDR (if you’re lucky enough to have one) – Share this strategy – Focus together on Tier 1 + Tier 2 – Align every week 🔍 What factors to consider when doing your tiering? - Size & headcount - Recent fundraising - Hiring velocity - Global presence - Industry & tech stack - Past opps + churned customers The goal? 👉 Start every day knowing exactly who to go after — and how. New AE? Don’t wait 6 months to figure it out. Build your playbook from Day 1. What would you add to this?

Don’t get fired at your Quarterly Business Review Sellers have a love/hate relationship with QBRs We love to connect with our teammates But we hate the prep, inspection, and interrogation AEs know it’s not just a business review session It’s also a job interview I’ve seen AEs get fired immediately after the QBR The threat is real, but usually justified Some will sink and some will swim Some reps go all out with their decks Others check the box The format is not that important But I must admit, a good deck is impressive 𝐐𝐁𝐑 𝐏𝐢𝐭𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 -      Complaining and negativity -      Too much time on details -      Too many slides -      Going off on tangents -      Nobody listening -      Overloaded schedule -      Done over zoom 𝐐𝐁𝐑 𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 -      Meet in person -      Collaboration -      Honesty, transparency, authenticity -      Training and development -      Team building -      Less time presenting, more time strategizing As a leader, I am evaluating my team on the 4 Ps 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘪𝘱𝘦 Here is the typical format of the QBR deck. ---------------------------- 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 -      A Accounts, B accounts, C Accounts -      # customers, # prospects -      # of open opportunities 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐐𝐭𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 -      Quota -      Bookings YTD, and previous qtr -      Top deals -      New pipeline generated -      What’s working -      Challenges -      Lessons learned 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐐𝐭𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 -      Quota -      Pipeline value -      # of deals (new vs upsell) -      Ratio of pipe to quota -      Forecast -      Commit -      Upside 𝐓𝐨𝐩 5 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬 -      Opportunities -      Renewals -      Value, Close Date, sales stage -      Use cases -      Risks & competitive threats -      Org chart for each account -      Partners involved 𝐏𝐢𝐩𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧 -      Top 5 Accounts -      Sales plays / strategy -      $ Goal 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐬 -      Actions -      Owner -      Due date 𝐀𝐬𝐤𝐬 -      Top 3 sales enabling asks -      Sales Management, Product, Marketing, Finance, etc

Yesterday, I watched a rep waste 6 weeks chasing a $15K deal while a $400K opportunity went cold in the same territory. Here's what happened. New rep gets 47 accounts. No system. No framework. Just "go sell something." He did what 90% of reps do … chased whoever responded first. Big mistake. After 15+ years building territories, here's the exact 4 step system that turns any territory into a revenue machine: #1 Foundation security Visit all Tier 1 accounts ($1M+ potential) within 30 days. These represent 80% of your quota. Assess relationship health, competitive threats, and expansion opportunities first. #2 Intelligence gathering During every discovery call collect: current usage, integration challenges, team growth plans, budget cycles, decision maker org chart. Pro tip: Always connect with the IT/Operations team. They influence 60% of buying decisions and know where the real pain points are. (Just don’t get stuck here) #3 Opportunity matrix Look for accounts doing $150K with you but $1M+ with competitors/in-house. High service volume = high sales potential. (adjust these numbers accordingly based on your ARR) #4 Land and expand Never try to replace everything at once. Week 1-2: Identify competitor/in-house gaps. Week 3-4: Lead with complementary solutions. Week 5+: Prove value with wins. Week 7+: Expand footprint. Priority scoring formula: 60% time on High Value + High Probability (existing customers with large expansion opps) 30% time on High Value + Lower Probability (large accounts with competitor/in-house entrenchment) 10% time on everything else This system helped teams increase territory performance 40%+ in 90 days. Check out the carousel for more details how this works. — Sales leaders! Want to run better QBRs?! Check this out: https://lnkd.in/gW9ApfMZ

If I ran a commercial sales team of 20 reps and I wanted to beat my 2025 plan by $1M ARR, here’s what I’d do. First, some math. Let’s assume a $20k ACV and 20% win rate. To get an extra $1M ARR, I need: 50 more c/w deals ($1M / $20k) 250 new opportunities (60 / 20%) 12.5 more opportunities per rep (250 / 20) ~1 more opportunity per month per rep (12.5 / 12) That’s it. It's just 1 more opportunity per rep per month[1]. I don’t control marketing, so I’m not going to pray they have a breakthrough—I’m going to focus on outbound. I’d do this: 1️⃣ Identify Customer Lookalikes 2️⃣ Equip the Story 3️⃣ Prioritize Ruthlessly 4️⃣ Measure Account Coverage, Not Activity Let's go into detail. 1️⃣ Identify Customer Lookalikes Identify the prospect accounts in my team’s segment that look like *today’s* successful customers—the ones that do the same things and have roughly the same firmographics and technographics. Tag them AND identify the specific customers they look like. A black box score won't work here. 2️⃣ Equip the Story Give my team 1 paragraph with a use case and outcome for each customer with the most lookalikes. I’d lean on product marketing or write it myself after talking to CS. I might even be able to use AI to summarize CSM notes. 3️⃣ Prioritize Ruthlessly Prioritize these accounts for my team. That might mean a view into their current territory with those accounts ranked at the top or it might mean a full dynamic books approach where I assign those accounts in a small focused book. 4️⃣ Measure Account Coverage, Not Activity Measure my reps on *account coverage* not raw activity. I’d use every 1:1 and every team dashboard to highlight how many of those accounts we’re engaging, how much, how deeply and how well. If a rep isn’t actively working those accounts at all times AND basing their engagement on the right customer story, I’d need a very good reason why. If I don't get one, I’d reassign the prospect to someone else. If I’m disciplined about this[2], I’d bet my 2025 comp on that additional 1 opportunity per rep per month. And if that happens, so does my incremental $1MM. — [1] Yes, it’s actually 1.04 opps/rep/month but even I’m not that pedantic in a LinkedIn post. [2] I’d personally do all this with Gradient Works, but I’m obviously biased.

One of my biggest mistakes while running PlanGrid was not paying enough attention to sales operations, particularly around quota planning and territory assignments.  Our quota overassignment revolved around 40%, from the front-line reps all the way up to the head of sales.  In other words, we assigned 40% more street quota than our actual company revenue target.  Even though we hit our aggressive triple-digit growth goals during those years, we weren’t able to generate the pipeline needed for every rep to succeed.  As a result, many sales reps consistently missed their targets, leading to high turnover. My board taught me to focus obsessively on financial metrics like magic number, NDR, gross margin, churn, which are all important.  But these metrics offer an incomplete view of the business, as they’re far removed from the day-to-day reality and culture of the customer facing organization. Hindsight is 20/20.  In 2016–2018, most of our sales team wasn't hitting quota, even though the head of sales and company did.  That’s a broken model.  A small percentage of top performers carried the team, while the majority of the team struggled to hit their OTE.  Many reps weren’t making enough to support their families.  Naturally, they self-selected out.  That attrition came at a high cost: we lost tribal knowledge, had to spend time and resources recruiting replacements, and then had to ramp new hires from scratch. If I could timewarp back to 2015, when our first sales reps joined, here’s what I would do differently: 1. Limit Quota Overassignment (low single digits) This would place more responsibility on managers to help their teams succeed and align the full organization around achievable goals. 2. Ensure Equitable Territories With a land-and-expand business, new reps without a renewal base had no realistic shot at hitting their OTE in year one.  If we had allowed managers to participate in territory planning and fairly distribute accounts, we could have better retained talent and improved team wide performance. Transparency is key.  It would have relieved a lot of disputes about account assignments. 3. Adjust Quotas in Down Years No one enjoys hitting only 70% of quota, regardless of the number.  People don’t wake up aiming to do a C-minus job.  In years when the majority of the team was significantly below target, we should have reduced quotas to protect morale and performance. Our HR team estimated that it cost about $7,000 to hire a sales or marketing employee, and $10,000 per engineering hire (just for sourcing, process, and interviews).  Attrition is expensive. Note: these benchmarks are from the mid 2010s. 4. Ask Better Questions A few critical questions to revisit regularly: "How do we raise the bar without breaking the team?" "Who carries the weight, reps, managers, or leaders?" and “Does our compensation reflect that?” "Which segments do we double down on, and where do we shift territories to maximize growth.”

India isn’t one market. It’s 100s of evolving micro-consumer clusters. A ₹10 biscuit sells out in one district, but sits unsold in the next. A Tier 3 town gets a new airport and starts consuming like a metro suburb. A WhatsApp seller goes viral and outpaces a national D2C brand locally. What’s really going on? India may have 780 districts, but the consumer market is shaped by over 100s of micro-clusters unique ecosystems defined by: • Local infrastructure • Cultural habits • Income patterns • Digital maturity • And most importantly regional and informal competition Motorcycles- In metros: Royal Enfield competes with Harley-style aspiration. In Bihar or MP: It competes with local modifiers, second-hand dealers, and even bullet replicas. Apparel- In metros: It’s a digital battle SEO, influencer campaigns, e-commerce visibility. In small towns: The real fight is with WhatsApp sellers, local boutiques, and unbranded inventory from Surat or Ludhiana. A simple tool to decode this: The CLUE Framework To help decode and design for India’s micro-clusters C - Consumers - includes demographics, aspirations, digital behaviour L - Local Competition - map out formal and informal market players U - Unique Events - new infrastructure project, festivals, viral trend E - Ecosystem - connectivity, logistics, local economy Each cluster is a living ecosystem, not just a territory. Ignoring this nuance can make national strategies ineffective at the last mile. What should brands do? • Go beyond dashboards: listen to retailers, agents, and field teams • Re-map competition regularly: include regional and unorganised players • Treat clusters as test labs: run pilots on pricing, packaging, and media • Monitor infrastructure shifts: airports, malls, roads change aspirations and access Why this matters A strategy that wins in Ahmedabad might fail in Rajkot. Because the value perception, competition, and sales channels are all different. Micro-cluster strategy is not about adding complexity. It’s about reducing guesswork. In a country where the market evolves every 100 km and every 100 days, adaptability isn’t optional. It’s the edge. As my dear friend Pratyasha Shishodia says, In one town, a biscuit ad needs a Bollywood star. In the next, it just needs to say: ‘Now with more crunch than Sharmaji’s gossip!' #IndiaStrategy #ConsumerInsights #MicroMarkets #RetailIndia #LocalCompetition #CLUEFramework #Leadership #HareshReflects #Tier2India #BusinessGrowth #LinkedInNewsIndia

Here is an overview of a cohesive B2B demand generation and ABM function (and 6 steps to develop it). 1. DEFINE CLEAR ICP CRITERIA. - Firmographics/technographics - Account qualification and disqualification - Buying committee roles 2. DEFINE ACCOUNT PRIORITIZATION CRITERIA. Develop an internal opportunity likelihood assessment: Which accounts can become sales opportunities this quarter? - What tells us that this account is "vendor aware"? - What information do we need to have to be able to create a personalized offer? - What signals can tell us they have a need in our product? - What is the revenue potential of accounts we want to focus on? Prioritize Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts. 3. DEFINE SOURCES OF INTENT AND ENGAGEMENT DATA. Prioritize: - Social repetitive engagement - Website intent - Event sign ups - Champions/power users joined a new company - Content hubs Define an engagement threshold to select accounts that are already aware of you. 4. SEGMENT ACCOUNTS INTO THREE LISTS. Segment all accounts into 3 lists: - Cluster ICP: vendor unaware, product need is not known. Goals: make them vendor aware, get engagement from the buying committee members. - Future pipeline: vendor aware, product need is not known. Goals: collect information about account needs, build relationship with potential Champions. - Active Focus: vendor aware, product need is known + strong buying signals. Goals: create internal Champions, generate sales opportunities. To create champions you need to generate enough credibility and set up a belief that you have the right solution to their challenge. Spend 20% of marketing and sales activities on Future Pipeline and 80% - on Active Focus. Cluster ICP (where accounts from territory planning should fall down) should be added to your demand gen program. 5. ACCOUNT MAPPING. If you are targeting enterprise companies, you can easily end up with hundreds of people who have VP/ Chief / Head Of ..<your solution>. Define the right buyers you need to engage with, understand their jobs-to-be-done, KPIs, roles in the strategic account initiatives. Then, align them with the buying committee roles: champions, decision-makers, blockers, etc. 6. PLAN LIST ACTIVITIES. Answer 3 questions: - What content and activities should we run to create vendor awareness and generate demand for our product among cluster ICP? - How can we build relationships with the buying committee of Future Pipeline accounts and validate their challenges? - How can we nurture and accelerate buyer journey of Active Focus accounts to generate a sales opportunity? --- Not all accounts that demonstrate high engagement are ready to buy. Instead of siloed functions, we should focus on marketing across the whole funnel. This model helps you create a cohesive loop to activate accounts that are ready to talk to you and stay top of the mind of the companies that are not ready to buy. #abm #demandgen #b2bmarketing

AE complains about territory → Executive says work harder → RevOps does a simple audit and finds out the AE actually had a good point. 🤷♂️ Seen that movie before? It's easy to shrug off AE or SDR complaints. But if you assume your sellers have a good sense for the market, then the complaints may be pointing to an ICP targeting issue. The next step is to bring some data to this question. Here's how we approach it with Keyplay customers: 1.) Pull 3 reports -- Current Territories. -- Top customers (top quartile NDR and/or ACV). -- DQ'd leads. 2.) Model account fit based on top customers (and model anti-ICP based on DQ'd leads). -- Identify patterns: signals, themes, and segments. -- Create scoring. -- Backtest. 3.) Analyze territories vs model. -- Report on ICP vs non-ICP. -- Compare ratios across AEs. With this data you'll know what to do next. The key to maintaining this is having a back-tested ICP model that you can easily adjust. Then you'll know which segments and accounts actually belong in your sales territories.