Introduction to Sales Territory Mapping

What are Sales Territories: a Quick and Easy Definition

A sales territory is a geographic area of interest that contains a group of existing or prospective customers.

A good sales territory is one a single salesperson or a sales team can handle without wasting time or becoming overworked. It is also one that helps improve efficiency, empower and motivate your sales force. So, sales territory planning is a crucial part of any sales strategy.

Sales territories are commonly defined by groupings of ZIP codes, counties, states, or other geographic areas.

Why Maps Are a Better Way to Represent Your Sales Territories Than an Excel Spreadsheet

Yes, you could list your sales rep names and plan the territories assigned to them in an Excel spreadsheet. But spreadsheets will never be as efficient and insightful as a sales territory map. And here’s why.

One of the reasons man invented maps was to show boundaries. A plain Excel sheet won't display geographies. You can't tell if your planned territories are logical, compact, or coherent. You can't see if they are reasonable in terms of travel costs, if they intersect, or if you have underserved areas you could cover. You can’t tell if reassigning county X to rep Y was a more logical decision based on logistics.

Sales territory mapping is the process of defining specific market areas that your sales reps or teams are responsible for.

Territory mapping provides visualizations and enables spatial analysis of your business data. Data visualization is a benefit of business maps that many people mention often. This benefit never gets old. Every day, territory map users import data onto a map and are surprised by what they see. Sales data, overlaid and viewed on a territory map can be very powerful. But more powerful still is the ability to see your data and its relationships to other datasets. It's about getting insights from viewing spatial relationships. Your data can be compared and contrasted with other data layers:

• View sales by ZIP code and include US Census demographic data for market analysis.
• Compare critical business locations with competitor locations against a demographic county map background.
• Show all medical sales in the Northeast and include all hospital locations.

The possibilities are almost endless.

Let’s look at the various benefits you can get from mapping your sales territories.

Benefits of Sales Territory Mapping

In the world of sales, it's crucial to understand your customer base from both a demographic and geographic perspective. By using sales territory mapping, you can organize the complex variables of both categories in overlays. Demography and geography can be easily combined or viewed separately. Each overlay can be constructed by anyone with access to a PC or a Mac. Regardless of the product or service being sold, there are many benefits that sales teams enjoy when using territory mapping.

Improve Your Sales Team Performance

Make more efficient sales rep assignments based on capabilities. With your territory map optimized and overlaid with location data, drive time polygons, and sales potential, you can easily assign territories to the right sales reps. You can consider the rep’s level of experience and match sales quota with territory potential. Whereas with poor territory assignment, a sales team's efforts may be wasted on weak leads. Conversely, salespeople can be overworked by assigning them too much ground to cover. Low sales results and overworked reps can lead to an unmotivated workforce. This could frustrate prospective clients and decrease customer conversions.

Balance workloads or opportunities. When a company aligns their sales territories based on factors like population or sales revenue potential, the workload and opportunities become balanced for everyone on the team. Keep in mind, territory map balancing is an ongoing challenge. Any change in staff capabilities, business goals, or prospect lists can be easily accommodated by rebalancing a territory map. It makes updating, splitting, or merging your sales territories fast and easy.

More time selling. Imported lists of potential customers are arranged geographically on a map and filtered to your specification. Time spent sorting and assigning prospect lists is significantly reduced. Team members can spend more hours each day closing sales, gaining new customers, and building brand loyalty. Sales accountability is enhanced.

Clearly communicated areas of responsibility. The purpose of using sales territories is to assign sales accountability and to measure sales progress. In most cases, sales managers want their salespeople separated into clearly defined sales areas or territories. Clearly assigned territories help salespeople understand and achieve their own unique set of goals. These area-based assignments help drive accountability. Territory mapping makes it easy to divide work among departments and staff. A department staffer can view maps and overlays that contain only the information appropriate for his or her responsibilities within the company. With each salesperson understanding which rules to follow, and each team focused on their territory, work runs more efficiently, and the company makes more money.

Analyze sales team performance and evaluate individual contribution. Management can use sales territory mapping software to analyze company performance on a team-by-team or person-by-person basis. In the past, you may have only checked an individual's or a sales team’s sales figures. A business map opens many new variables for evaluating performance. For example, if teams are assigned to different counties, and teams A and D are thriving while teams B and C are lagging, we can evaluate the causes. Are they due to external factors like demographics, stronger competitors, or route planning? Or are B and C's problems due to poor leadership or unmotivated salespeople? If a salesperson generates far fewer contacts and sales than his or her colleagues in similar territories, mapping variables can show if external factors are to blame.

Empower and motivate sales reps. A key aspect of sales is to maximize revenue. This applies to the company and to individual salespeople. By clearly defining sales accountability by territory, sellers spend more time selling products and achieve higher earning potential. When salespeople make more money, they're more energized about the job and feel a much greater sense of career satisfaction. Simply put, increased earning potential is the ultimate work incentive. Once a company is a top seller in its industry, its sales staff will be less likely to seek other jobs. Lower employee turnover creates a stable sales force.

Reduce Travel Costs

Design compact territories requiring less travel. One salesperson might travel more than another in your existing sales territories. Or perhaps a salesperson has to drive through another salesperson’s territory on the way to his own. With a sales territory mapping tool, you can easily see such issues and adjust the boundaries.

Reduce overall windshield time and travel costs using optimized routing. One of the biggest challenges in a sales operation is the management of sales visits, especially when it comes to destinations that are off the beaten path. A territory map lets you optimize routes to each destination. This can greatly reduce travel costs. A sales rep can get an optimized sequence of stops taking into account historic traffic information. Gas is expensive. Each mile saved on travel routes saves money. The business can use it for better products, higher-paid staff, and more revenue. In addition to increased fuel efficiency, route optimization makes it easier to reach more people in less time, which means more customer facetime, faster deliveries, and improved customer satisfaction. A reputation for quick delivery and efficient sales calls gives the company an edge in the market. Additionally, route optimization can expand a customer base. It can make salespeople aware of nearby prospects at known stops. Less organized systems would miss these customers.

Discover New Markets

See where a product or service generates the most interest. It's important to know where a product or service generates the most interest, and crucial that these products be sold effectively to each category of customer. Promotions that work in the northeast might not work in the south. Campaigns that appeal to urban populations might not have the same effect on prospects in rural areas. A business map makes the trends visible.

Replicate successful territories based on demographic characteristics or sales data. A sales territory map makes regional preference trends visible. Territory maps can help identify ZIP codes in far flung regions that are demographically similar to successful sales ZIP codes in known areas. Mapping Census data showing population, age, households, and income makes profiling each territory easy and effective.

Generate leads using business listings data. You can search for and display 3rd party business listings data on any territory map. Business listings can be filtered and queried by industry, name, and company size. This helps identify prospects in each territory. Manage lead contacts more effectively by knowing their placement relative to your business locations, resource requirements, and competitor facilities. Sales territory maps make it easy to match business listing leads to the right sales rep. You can include new leads in sales routes. Lead generation can also help identify territories that need more sales staff.

What Tools Do You Need to Map Your Sales Territories?

If you are ready to start drawing sales territory maps, you need to pick the right tools. If you're thinking of using the tools at hand, like Google Maps, MS Paint, a printer, highlighters, and sticky notes – think again.

Any extra requirement (like color coding, adding complex labels or displaying more data) would require a new tool. It would add to the already messy toolbox. You would waste time trying to make it all work together. And making changes to a map would be a nightmare. Remember, territory maps require regular updates. Territory maps must accommodate changes in staff, customer list, or business goals.

CRM products may seem like a better tool for defining and adjusting your sales territories. But, if your CRM lacks mapping, you're losing significant benefits.

Thankfully there is a proper, specialized toolset for the task.

The Solution: Business Mapping Software

Modern business mapping software is a one-stop solution for managing sales staff, distributing leads and driving sales. It lets your company enjoy all the above noted benefits and avoid having to use the tricky toolbox of non-specialized software and office supplies. Sales territory mapping software belongs in the arsenal of business tools alongside ERP, CRM, and SEO.

So, you saw a sales territory map somewhere and you immediately recognized the value a business map could bring to your business. You’ve done some light research online and you’re a little overwhelmed by all the options. You’re anxious to get cracking, creating that one map that describes your whole business. Where to begin?

We suggest that you try MapBusinessOnline. For nearly three decades, MapBusinessOnline has been providing innovative sales territory mapping software that empower sales organizations across a wide range of industries. Our software is designed for general business users, as opposed to GIS professionals. Sales and marketing pros rely on our tools for better route planning, establishing clear sales accountability and efficient resource allocation, and performing informative market analysis. Businesses use MapBusinessOnline to expose hidden sales opportunities, analyze competitors across a target area, and develop successful marketing campaigns.

Top 4 Reasons to Choose MapBusinessOnline Territory Mapping Software

1. High-quality ZIP Code data, including point ZIP codes, for more accurate territory representation.
2. Shared interactive territory maps using a free viewer for efficient teamwork.
3. Rich selection of geographic, demographic, and firmographic data is included in the subscription.
4. All-in-one business mapping tool: Affordably achieve more than just territory management.