How to Manage a New Sales Territory

Sales Territory Management

Sales territory management can be a daunting task, especially if the territory is brand new to you. When managing a new sales territory, you may be going into it with little to no leads, which means most, if not all of your leads will be cold leads, and will need both time and nurturing to turn into a sale. To provide and achieve efficient sales territory management, you will have to do the following:

1. Know your Leads

In sales territory management, it is crucial to learn who your prospects are and what they will need. If you’re starting from scratch, you probably won’t have any prior knowledge of them, meaning you will have to be completely dedicated to spending time researching. Follow your prospects on social media to gather information of the company on all platforms. This will gain you insight into their current and future plans, giving you ideas on how your product can fit into those plans. Find your target market, and learn what problem is prevalent in the region(s) you are now managing. This way you can cater your calls and meetings to each lead. Keeping in mind what their major pain points are, and how your product can solve them. If you don’t currently have any prospects, get comfortable with cold outreach, through face-to-face meeting, calls, or email.

But don’t forget about your competitors!

As important as it is to get to know your leads, it is also crucial to learn about your competitors. Know who your competition is and where they are located. This will help you become a better salesperson. It will make you aware of your company’s pros and cons retrospectively, which in turn will strengthen your pitch, and help you better cater your product to your potential customers.

Remember to standout and make every meeting count!

2. Organize & Prioritize

Once you have found your customers, you need to categorize them. The best way to do this is to split them up into groups. The first group can be your most trusted customers, the ones that require little effort to work with and generate substantial revenue. A second group can be ones that require a bit more energy, but whose revenue justifies the effort. Lastly, a third group can be customers who require a lot of effort, but produce little return. Grouping your customers this way will help optimize time, and keep you and your team organized. With this system, you will be prepared every time you work with a particular customer.

Once you have divided your customers into their appropriate categories, you can also create sub-groups such as area code, product, or industry, to further your team’s organization and optimization.

Another organizational tactic you can implement is to develop a plan of attack for each group of customers. Add notes each time you speaks with every customer. Decide the best form of communication with each customer, whether it be in person, over the phone, or by email. This will also help with organization and optimization.

3. Review your Progress

Now that you’ve successfully jump started managing your new sales territory, make sure to consistently review your progress. It’s important to be on the right track in order to fulfill your big-picture plan. Make sure you don’t get stuck spending a lot of time on small, insignificant details.

It is important that your territory is balanced and well serviced. You should be consistently seeking out leads, identifying prospects, and spending the ideal amount of time with customers so that none of them end up going to your competitors.

If you have chosen sales territory management as your role in a company, you are contributing more than you think. Sales territory management is an important role in every business because you can boost sales, increase your sales team’s morale, create a larger customer base, and promote team cohesion.