If you’re looking to maximize sales productivity and the value that your sales team brings to customers, it may be time to review and enhance your sales territory plan.

Good sales territory planning provides a framework to measure sales potential, set goals, and focus your team’s sales efforts for maximum success. It provides your sales team the guidance to properly identify and understand customers and prospects, assess and measure value, and support customers in a way that leads to loyalty.

Table of Contents

What is Sales Territory Planning 
Benefits of Sales Territory Planning
Factors to Consider When Planning Sales Territories
7 Steps to Writing a Successful Sales Territory Plan
5 Sales Territory Management Best Practices to Follow
Essential Tools to Plan Your Sales Territories
5 Ways to Validate a Sales Territory Business Plan

What is Sales Territory Planning?

Territory planning is the process of creating a plan to ensure your sales team targets the right customers (and the most profitable ones).

Historically, most territories were broken down by geography, but in today’s connected world, sales territories can also be divided in many ways, including:

• Industry
• Sales potential
• Customer type

With a clearly defined territory, sales teams can work strategically to address the needs of their assigned market. A strong sales territory plan allows you to:

• Ensure your sales team’s efforts are focused on the who, what, when, where and why that offer the strongest return on investment.
• Align salespeople to the regions, segments, and/or verticals best suited for their background and expertise.
• Partner intelligently across company teams to drive corporate objectives
• Optimize customer experience by aligning accounts with sales teams that understand their unique challenges and opportunities.
• Set the stage for long-term solid customer and market relationships.

Benefits of Sales Territory Planning

If you’re doubting the value of a strong sales territory plan, consider these inarguable benefits:

More time spent selling

A strong territory plan allows organizations to maximize their sales momentum by aligning the right sales teams to the right opportunities. Studies by industry analysts consistently show a decline in sales productivity due to factors such as extensive traveling, the need to learn and understand new segments, and administrative overhead.

With a clear sales territory plan based on geography and sector, salespeople can spend less time traveling and preparing for customer engagements and more time working directly with customers.

Better customer service

By aligning your salespeople to a set of accounts that aligns to their background, expertise, and geography, they are better able to understand customer needs and build solutions that align. With consistent territories, salespeople can build long-term relationships, leading to higher customer loyalty and repeat business.

Balanced workloads

Workload is measured in time and effort required to adequately manage all accounts in a given territory. A strong territory plan compares workloads and designs territories so that each salesperson is at full capacity, maximizing their potential.

To maximize rep production, you need to do some due diligence when it comes to assigning balanced territories.

Factors to Consider When Planning Sales Territories

When segmenting territories among your reps, you want to make sure they’re allocated fairly. To ensure this, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the workload equally divvied up between each member of the team?
• Does the territory design provide equal compensation opportunities?
• Is there a good mix of existing and new accounts per territory?
• Does the territory route allow easy travel time management?

Once you’re able to answer the questions above, it’s time to consider:

1 | Revenue Source

Current Customers. Where are your best customers and prospects located? Geographic and industry-based clusters are the most common focus because it’s easier to get new customers in an area with existing customers. Historical sales data will become your new best friend as it’s the best predictor of future success.

A sales tracking software will give you a complete history of this data.

Inbound Leads. When inbound leads convert, focus on the demographics such as geography, industry and size. Then, build a strategy to divide them as evenly as possible across your sales force.

The focus needs to be on revenue generated from inbound leads as opposed to volume of leads.

Outbound Prospecting. Sales territory design for outbound efforts begins by first laying out the territories to work, then overlaying them with prospecting territories according to how you’re allocating salespeople.

For example, you assign two sales reps to each state (two territories) and one canvasser (one prospecting territory).

2 | Rank Your Team

Create a scorecard and evaluate your sales reps to identify who your top, middle, and low level performers are.

• How much is their quota?
• Do they consistently achieve this number?
• How many current customers and prospects are in their funnel?
• How many viable prospects are located within their territory?

3 | Rank Your Territories

Most Profitable (Least Risky). Evaluate which of your territories are most successful and double down on what’s already working.

Most Growth. If you’re more focused on the long-term instead of the short-term, focus on territories that haven’t been worked yet. It’s likely to take longer to become profitable, but will generate greater growth over time.

Learning / New Markets. To establish yourself in a new market segment or determine if it’s viable, send a canvasser into this territory to accomplish a specific task. This will help determine exactly what’s needed to succeed in that market.

4 | Track and Measure Metrics

Sales metrics are invaluable in understanding the success of every sales team within the company, and entire sales department as a whole. They help you to spot trends and determine efficiencies, and inefficiencies, within the company.

With sales enablement platforms like SPOTIO, you can easily pull results for:

• Team performance in relation to your sales funnel
• Data from custom statuses and fields based on KPIs
• Graphs representing team performance, best time and day to knock, etc.
• The number of attempts it takes to establish contacts, get leads and make sales
• This data gives you the information you need in order to assign balanced workloads across your sales team.

Actionable Data and Insight

With the help of territory management technology, sales territory data helps you accurately evaluate sales performance. This information helps you design effective sales compensation plans and ensure your sales teams are performing at their maximum potential.

Clarify ownership in complex organizations

In organizations with large and complex sales teams, roles and responsibilities are often tangled. With effective sales territory planning, territories are made clear from the get-go, ensuring that salespeople are clear about their target audience and not creating confusion for the team or the customer.

Resilience to change and turnover

Organizational changes such as personnel loss, mergers, acquisitions, alliances, and relocations inevitably effect customers and internal teams. With a strong territory management plan, change is easier to manage.

A well-documented sales territory plan allows new team member’s to ramp up quickly and avoid confusion regarding roles and responsibilities.

Team cohesion and morale

Strong territory planning optimizes the role of the team. By assigning complimentary teams to each territory, you create and environment which allows team members to benefit from each other’s strengths, share workload, and also avoid conflict that arises from unclear territories and boundaries.

7 Step Plan to Write a Successful Sales Territory Business Plan

The next logical question is, where do you start? In this section, we’ll provide an overview of each planning step, along with key questions and suggestions. Depending on your offering, industry, company size, or various other factors, you may use some or all these steps when building your territory plan.

1. Analyze your business goals and objectives

The first step to drafting a solid sales territory plan is bringing clarity to your company’s landscape, defining organizational goals, and evaluating industry trends. This is a basic step to ground you and your team on what you’re trying to accomplish with your sales territory plan.

As you go through the subsequent process, you should continually refer back to this data to maintain a pulse on whether your plan accomplishes what you’ve set out to do.

To get the juices flowing, start by answering these key questions:

1. What is your organization’s most current vision, mission, and north star objective?
2. What are the key trends in your industry or market?
3. What pain do your offerings solve for customers?
4. What are your sales goals, in numbers?
5. What is your conversion rate? Based on this how many prospects should you have in your funnel at any given time to ensure that you’re meeting your sales goals?
6. Are there specific products/services that you are selling more than others? Why?

2. Analyze your prospects and customers

The next step is looking deep into your customer base. In addition to understanding their businesses, challenges, and unique traits, it’s important to identify what makes them unique and what sets them apart from each other.

Key questions to ask yourself include:

1. Who are your most profitable and lucrative prospects and customers defined by industry, region, product, etc.?
2. What do these customers have in common?
3. Which of your prospects or customers offers the most profound growth opportunities for your company?
4. What are your customers buying today and what does this tell you about their challenges and opportunities?
5. Are their industries you serve with success? Are their industries that you’ve had less success with?
6. When customers and prospects object, what is the biggest reason why?

3. Determine your Total Addressable Market

Your Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the entire body of prospects and customers that fit your ideal customer profile. Traditionally, organizations use data including industry, location, size, and revenue to begin mapping their TAM.

While this is still important, technology and tooling makes it easier than ever to identify prospects within your TAM that may not be so obvious.

Using traditional and modern sources, even tools like social media, look for company and industry look-a-likes that may be a suitable candidate for your offering.

Once an ideal customer profile is solidified, the next step is to figure out how large the market opportunity is that fits the description. You may use a matrix to include a range of large and small markets which present large or small opportunities.

While estimating the size of your market used to be a struggle of guesswork and complicated calculations, there are now tools available to businesses to automate the TAM discovery process.

4. Perform a SWOT Analysis

A simple way to evaluate your position in the market is to perform a SWOT (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) analysis. Since we all have blind spots, a SWOT analysis is best performed with the help of a broader team, including other company leadership, as well as members or your sales management and sales rep teams.

• What Strengths will you build upon?
• Which Weaknesses do you need to mitigate?
• Which Opportunities in your marketplace are you suited to take advantage of?
• What Threats in your selling environment will you defend against?

In doing this analysis, you will start to see patterns that indicate areas of your business that require more or less attention for various reasons.

For example, a strength that’s also a large opportunity may need a dedicated territory. On the other hand, an area that aligns to a serious competitive threat may require special attention to protect your company’s place in the industry.

The SWOT characteristics you identify will not always be related to revenue or geography. They may be related to more obscure things like training needs of your sales team, gaps in systems and tools, or even gaps in your products themselves.

Doing this analysis will help you be aware of other ways to think about your business and territories.

5. Determine and Document Sales Territories

Based on the work you perform in the sections above, you should have an idea of how to divide your sales territories. It’s important to document these clearly, outlining details of each territory including things like:

• Geographic Boundaries
• Industry or Segment Boundaries (including any overlap and how that is addressed)
• Revenue Boundaries
• Product Boundaries
• Anything else that may be applicable to your sales organization

6. Devise an Action Plan

Similar to the SWOT analysis, devising an action plan is a group exercise that should include various stakeholders in the company, specifically the leaders of each of your identified territories. Just as well, the action plan should be built to be nimble.

In a world where market opportunities change every day, the sales territory plan should be built to follow, ensuring that your action plan keeps up with changing opportunities and threats.

Gone are the days of an annual territory and action planning session. It’s important that change management is built into the framework to ensure your teams are not caught off guard with changes.

Within each category, you should answer the following questions:

• What is the territory’s quota?
• What is the territory’s quota stretch goal?
• What is the territory’s closed business YTD?
• What is the territory’s gap?
• How much pipeline do I have today?
• What is the territory’s pipeline gap?
• What are my goals for the year?

In addition to the overall territory, you will need to spend time looking at top accounts and where they fit in your territory plan. List top accounts and explain why they are chosen (relationships, industry fit, target profile).  For each, in one sentence, be clear and focused on the outreach strategy.

Next, create an opportunity map and make sure opportunity plans are thorough. What’s the compelling event? Why now? What’s the strategy to engage with a champion and economic buyer? What’s the mutual success plan?

Finally, close out with strategies to build your sales funnel.

In addition to being responsive to external factors, action plans should be reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure your plan isn’t going stale unintentionally.

7. Track Performance and Stay Adaptable

Once you’ve devised and implemented your territory plan, it’s important to regularly measure success in each territory and adapt as needed.

Metric reviews should happen on a regular, defined cadence such as monthly or quarterly, and should be automated using sales performance tools to avoid making this a manual, costly, and easily avoided overhead.

Measures you put in place will vary based on your unique company situation, but some important measures include:

Gross Sales

The most obvious measurement of sales success, gross sales is the sum of all sales that a territory carries out during a defined time frame. Gross sales is a useful metric because it shows the ability of sales professionals to make sales, regardless of what the profit margin is on those sales.

Gross Profit

This is the difference between the selling price for a product and the price the business paid to develop the solution. This measurement is important for businesses that want to encourage their sales forces to focus on high profit margins rather than just sales.

Total Unit Sales

The aggregated number of product units sold within a particular territory, regardless of price, profit or commission. This method of measurement is useful when a company mainly sells a single type of product.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of leads or appointments that result in a sale of some kind. Sales forces with a high sales turnover number are operating at a high level of performance.

Total Commissions

This is the amount of money the sales representatives for the territory in question take home as personal income. Although this measurement does not directly correlate to the competitiveness or degree of success of the business itself, it is effective to use as a means of motivating members of the sales force to achieve higher numbers.

Return Customers

A sign of true development and sustainable growth in a sales territory is the tendency of buyers in that territory to come back and buy again.

For this reason, one important measurement to make is the amount of revenue or profit coming from clients who have bought before. This amount may be expressed as a gross number or as a percentage of gross sales, gross profits or commissions. 

With each review, it’s pertinent to ask your leadership whether the data being measures indicates the need for an adjustment to your territory plans. If you’re proactively monitoring and adjusting, you will maintain a plan that keeps you relevant with your customers and industry.

5 Sales Territory Management Best Practices to Follow

Managing a sales territory is a skill that needs constant development. Moreover, you should adjust and adapt to changes in your area. With summer underway, you have half a year left to grow your business. Propeller suggests four sales territory management best practices for you to implement this week.

1. Using a call rotation schedule to keep in touch with accounts

During the strategy phase, you and your team determined how often to call on each account based on their needs.  Also, note whether it is a phone call or an in-person meeting. Put these in a CRM or a calendar to keep your schedule on track.

2. Note the seasonal account trends

Another essential part of managing sales territories you addressed when building strategy was to determine which accounts were the seasonal business. It’s an excellent idea to check in before the season arrives and reconnect, so you are in touch when the account is ready to buy.

3. Keep the focus on the long-term, account-based goals.

New business is fantastic; however, it should not distract from the goals set for the targeted account-based marketing goals you set. Teaching the team to balance new business development with account management is a vital skill for any salesperson.

4. Explore new ways to divide the leads.

Many sales territory plans are set up by geography, and the leads from that area go to that sales territory rep. However, not every sales territory plan needs to be geographical; the location of the lead is not always the best way to go.

In cases where your sales reps do not have in-person meetings, you can try dividing new leads based on account type (i.e., verticals) or the referral source. Some people divide leads based on the product in which the lead is interested or by the size of the account.

5. Look for cross-selling opportunities.

Analyze the products that an account buys and look for natural partner-products or services, i.e., the “Would you like fries with that?” strategy. Many times, customers might not realize that you offer the full suite of products and services and can make their lives easier by ordering from one supplier.

Essential Tools to Plan Your Sales Territories

Like any job, when you are planning sales territories, you need to have the right tools. The right tools will help you plan, build, and execute a sales territory plan. There is a multitude of options available.  Here are three essentials you need to set yourself up for success, improve productivity and close the best deals.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a how your company keeps track of its customer information and history. Many CRM applications also offer data analysis to help companies with customer retention and account growth. CRM compile data from several sources, including live chat, social media, and email correspondence, among others.

CRM is a significant source for successful sales territory planning.

Spreadsheet: Spreadsheets are data organizers in a tab form that takes data entered in cells and leverages that into different calculations and values, including simple math as well as complex financial and statistical figures. When you have data from various sources, such as a CRM and online sources as an example, you can assemble all the data available in a spreadsheet for quick access and comprehensive analysis.

GPS: Geo Productivity Software (GPS) are software applications that combine standard geolocation and route optimization functions with CRM data to help salespeople address their most relevant and profitable account first. Moreover, the features help salespeople optimize their selling time with customers instead of traveling to and from customers.

Some of the more sophisticated systems incorporate traffic and weather in the optimization of the scheduling.

A 7-Step Template to Create Profitable Sales Territory Plans

Without a strong sales territory plan, your sales team might become disorganized. As a result, you reps may not produce the best results for your customers or your organization. This is obviously a problem. Fortunately, this seven-step template is the answer! Simply follow the process we outline below to build a profitable sales territory business plan.

1. Analyze Your Business Goals

What do you want your sales territory business plan to achieve? Answer the seven questions below to help define and understand your organization’s objectives in this area:

• What is our current vision?
• What are key trends in our industry?
• What pain do we solve for customers?
• What are our sales goals, in numbers?
• What is our current conversion rate?
• How many prospects do we need?
• Which products/services are most popular?

2. Study Your Customer Base

Now that you know what your goals are, take a moment to study your customers. When you understand this unique group of people, you can serve them more effectively.

• Who are our best customers?
• What do these customers have in common?
• Which customer segments offer the biggest growth opportunities?
• What challenges and/or opportunities do our customers meet every day?
• Which industries are we most successful in? Which are we least successful in?
• What are the most common objections our sales reps deal with?

3. Determine Your Total Addressable Market

Your Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the entire body of prospects and customers who fit your ideal customer profile. Use this formula to determine your company’s TAM:

• (Total # of Customers) x (Annual Contract Value) = TAM

Imagine you sell machinery to manufacturers in Texas. To find your annual contract value, multiply your average sales price ($1,000) by the average number of sales you make to each customer per year (3). In this scenario, your average contract value is $3,000.

There are roughly 17,000 manufacturers in Texas. So, your TAM would be $51M, because 17,000 manufacturers multiplied by an average contract value of $3,000 equals $51M.

4. Perform a SWOT Analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Ask yourself the following four questions to perform a SWOT analysis for your organization:

• What Strengths can my company build on?
• Which Weaknesses does my company need to mitigate?
• Which Opportunities is my company able to take advantage of?
• What Threats in the industry can my company defend against?

A SWOT analysis will help you determine which sales territories need your immediate attention.

5. Document Your Sales Territories

Now it’s time to either create or redefine your sales territories. Once you’ve taken this step, document the details of each territory to keep things organized. These questions will help:

• What location boundaries define my territories?
• What industry boundaries define my territories?
• What revenue boundaries define my territories?
• What product boundaries define my territories?
• What other boundaries will define my territories?

6. Devise an Action Plan

You’ve almost finished building your profitable sales territory plan. The next thing you need to do is outline specific data points to collect and goals to strive towards for each territory you create.

• What is the territory’s quota?
• What is the territory’s quota stretch goal?
• What is the territory’s closed business YTD?
• What is the territory’s gap?
• How much pipeline do I have today?
• What is the territory’s pipeline gap?
• What are my goals for the year?

7. Track Performance

Finally, take time to evaluate your efforts on a regular basis. That way you know if your territories are performing the way you want them to, and can make necessary changes. To make things easier on your team, commit to tracking a few key metrics, like:

• Gross Sales
• Gross Profits
• Total Unit Sales
• Conversion Rate
• Total Commissions
• Return Customers

5 Ways to Validate a Sales Territory Business Plan

Measuring your progress toward your goal is a crucial part of managing sales. By looking at specific parts of your process, you can determine what is working on your behalf and, perhaps more importantly, what is not.

Here are five questions you should ask to validate a sales territory business plan courtesy of Steve Andersen, President and founder of Performance Methods Incorporated (PMI).

1. Is your growth of strategic customer relationships on target?

It is critical that the customers you focus on provide new sales opportunities and growth, so ensure you picked the correct ones.

2. Are you adding to and advancing the opportunities in your pipeline?

Systems build excellent account management, and every salesperson should have a system for developing and moving accounts through their pipeline.

3. What is your close rate on targeted opportunities?

Close rates are the number of sales you get divided by the presentations you made. For example, if you close three deals for every eight presentations you make, your closing rate (or closing ratio) is 38%. The higher your close rate on targeted opportunities, then the more valid your sales territory business plan is.

4. How accurate is the sales forecast?

The ability to correctly predict the sales your territory will produce is a vital skill for managing a sales territory.

5. Do you have the right resources deployed to help your team?

Managing resources is significant in the overall strategy of a sales team. The right resources along with the right motivating activity can be the key to success in a sales territory business plan. Ensure you have both deployed appropriately.

Sales territories tells salespeople where they can do business. Proper sales territory planning by you and your team can help them take care of business. Work with your team in a collaborative way to help them target the right accounts that give them best results and you have built a foundation for success that benefits the salesperson’s, the company’s and your bottom-line.

And who doesn’t want that?

A 7-Step Template to Create Profitable Sales Territory Plans

Without a strong sales territory plan, your sales team might become disorganized. As a result, you reps may not produce the best results for your customers or your organization. This is obviously a problem. Fortunately, this seven-step template is the answer! Simply follow the process we outline below to build a profitable sales territory business plan.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

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With a sales territory plan, you can improve the efficiency of your field sales team and ensure no one is working overlapping areas or duplicating sales efforts.

In this post, we’ll look at the sales territory mapping process— what it is, what it entails, and how sales managers can improve it.

What Is A Sales Territory Map?

A sales territory map is a visual layout of your sales territories. You can manually create maps or use territory mapping software to define territories and assign them to the reps that are the best fit for each one.

What Is Sales Territory Mapping?

Sales territory mapping is the creation and assignment of sales territories based on factors like geography, revenue potential, and the individual expertise of sales reps.

Territory planning also incorporates the size of accounts to ensure a fair balance. For example, two large accounts might be equal in revenue to four smaller accounts, so managers might want to rebalance territories to ensure reps have equal opportunities to hit their sales quota.

The Old Approach to Sales Territory Mapping

Territory mapping with Google Maps and a highlighter leaves room for error and confusion. You have no way to determine how many prospects you’re assigning to each rep, how many customers you have in each territory, or whether prospect demographics in each territory align with your ideal customer profile.

Not to mention once you send a rep out with their printed sales territory map, you’ll rarely get it back — and therefore have no idea where you’ve worked or haven’t worked.

Consider this situation:

1. A rep made a sale outside of the territory you assigned them, claiming they weren’t sure where it ended.
2. The rep who was assigned to that territory lost the opportunity to make that sale.

Who do you give the sale to — the rep who closed the deal, or the rep who covers the territory where the sale occurred?

The same issues can occur with other legacy solutions like Streets and Trips and MapPoint. Today, sales organizations can use software to design sales territories, prevent territory disputes among sales teams, and gather the insights sales managers need to adjust territory boundaries or reassign reps.

The Benefits Of Modern Sales Territory Management

Modern sales territory mapping tools help managers:

Assign territories strategically

You wouldn’t assign a junior sales rep to your highest-value territory. With the multiple data points available in territory mapping platforms, you can segment sales territories and assign reps to territories that align with their experience level. This approach to sales planning and territory management ensures your best reps are working the most valuable territories.

Balance workloads

To maintain harmony among your sales team, you should be mapping sales territories in a way that balances the workload. That means looking at more than just the geographic area of each territory — a small territory could contain just as many leads as a territory that spans two ZIP Codes.

Increase rep selling time

The way you map sales territories can help reps maximize their selling time. For example, you might find that shifting the territory boundaries gives each rep a simple sales route, with little distance between stops. Route optimization is one of the best features of territory mapping apps.

Boost rep productivity

In the days of analog territory mapping, field sales reps wasted countless hours jotting notes on paper and marking up maps to keep track of their progress. Digital territory maps integrate with CRM data, giving reps instant access to important data when they’re in the field. And they can update notes from their mobile phones, which eliminates the need for manual entry and increases sales productivity.

4 Ways To Create A Sales Territory

To save time, be more efficient, eliminate confusion, and increase performance, create territories for your sales team using the following strategies:

1. Target Market Demographics

One of the most effective strategies for territory management is to gather market demographics before sending your team out to knock on doors. This will minimize unproductive time for your reps in the field.

Using a tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Machine will help you to identify key territories, target qualified customers that match your ideal customer profile (ICP), and ensure that your team is targeting prospects that have real buying potential.

You’ll also have the ability to track the progress of each of these leads in your sales pipeline through the app. This prevents leads that you’ve spent money on from slipping through the cracks and increases the return on your investment. (This is one of the main features SPOTIO offers that causes many outside sales reps to switch from the competition).

The more information you have about your current customers, the better. You can understand where you’re having the most success and identify higher-quality potential customers with a greater chance of buying.

Download this resource to learn more:

2. Include Current Customers In Each Territory

Your current customers are extremely valuable to your business, and not just because they purchased your product or service.

Your customers can provide you with some of the highest converting and cheapest leads: referrals. You just have to ask.

Start by generating a list of all of your current customers. If you use a sales tracking app like SPOTIO, it’s simple to upload this list into your account, or you can simply sort the pins in your account by the status you created to signify a closed-won deal.

If you’re not using a sales tracking app, you’ll have to map these addresses by hand individually. It will be a much longer process, but well worth it.

Once you’re able to see all of your customers on a map, draw out territories for your reps to work based on these locations.

There are two strategies for this approach:

1. Evenly distribute the number of customers in each sale’s reps territories.
2. The other option, if your customers are more spread out, is to assign a couple of smaller territories to each rep, but still distribute them as evenly as possible.

The goal is to use your current customers as references when pitching a new prospect. You can also have your team visit satisfied customers to ask for referrals.

3. Distribute By Number Of Prospects

Making sure that sales reps have enough prospects to visit is essential to their performance and production.

Without sales territory mapping software, you can spend hours on this process. Sales territory mapping software significantly simplifies this process, saving you many hours and ensuring greater accuracy.

Create and assign territories based on the number of contacts you want each rep to work.

As you start drawing out a sales territory plan in SPOTIO, the app will tell you the estimated number of prospects in that territory.

Using territory mapping software will allow you to create equitable territories for your entire team in less than 10 minutes.

4. Distribute By City/ZIP Code

Creating territories by city or ZIP Code is a little bit trickier because of the size of the area. Even so, distributing territories by city or ZIP Code is one of the easiest methods because there’s no room for misinterpretation.

You can tell a rep, “This is your ZIP Code, and if you get a lead or sale outside of your territory, it’s going to the rep that territory belongs to.” Creating territories this way eliminates a lot of the conflict and guesswork for reps.

These territories won’t be quick to work through and shouldn’t be changed frequently like smaller territories.

How To Evaluate And Optimize Sales Territories

You’ll need to periodically review your sales territories, because circumstances change. Your prospects might move to a new area, a competitor may begin working in your territories, or your staffing levels may increase or decrease.

Review Your Rep Count

If you’ve gained or lost reps or customers since you first defined sales territories, you’ll need to reevaluate. You may need to adjust or merge territories quarterly or yearly.

Consider Your Team’s Skills

You may have new hires with expertise in a certain aspect of sales that makes them a good fit for a territory, or you may find you need two people to cover one territory if you’ve lost the superstar who once covered it.

Analyze Existing Territory Performance

An underperforming territory might not be a result of sales performance. B2B and B2C prospects might have shrinking budgets or new priorities, or a competitor might be luring your prospects away. An underperforming territory always merits closer inspection.

Reassess Market Potential

Has the spending potential within your territories changed? That’s an important question to consider as you review your territory design. Review your sales data for the past year to detect any trends that may help you forecast market potential.

3 Common Mistakes To Avoid In The Territory Mapping Phase

1. Using Limited Data – And The Wrong Territory Management Tool

If you don’t know your client and/or account data, you can’t gauge how well the sales rep is doing, let alone make improvements.

Refrain from making continuous changes to sales territories, as it will negatively impact client engagement. However, you will want the ability to modify territories occasionally.

Find the best sales CRM tool to aid you in this process.

2. Failing To Include Your Sales Team

In order to be effective in territory mapping, you need to involve your sales teams and reps and take their experience and talents into account. If reps feel they have a say in territory planning, they are more likely to feel satisfied in their roles.

3. Relying On Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets won’t help your reps see their territory boundaries. If you want to win in sales performance and motivate your reps/teams, you must incorporate the right tools and applications that improve territory visibility.

8 Reasons To Use Sales Territory Mapping Software

According to an MIT study, 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. It’s no surprise that visual territory management tools are especially helpful for sales teams.

Sales territory mapping software provides a simple way for sales teams to visualize geographical areas and ensure:

• Territories are a manageable size for reps
• There is no overlap between reps
• Sales leaders and managers are thoughtfully and strategically assigning the top performers to the right territories

Here are eight reasons to use sales territory mapping software:

1. Prevent Deals From Falling Through The Cracks

If one rep has too many leads to manage, some of them will fall through the cracks. Sales territory planning software helps you balance territories and ensure reps have the capacity to manage all leads in their territory.

2. Uncover New Leads In Existing Territories

The temptation to expand to new territories is only natural. But it’s likely that your team hasn’t covered all potential leads within their existing sales territories.

With sales territory management tools like SPOTIO, you can use insights about your territories to reveal new leads in your existing territories.

3. Save Hours With Segmentation

Without territory mapping software, sales managers often have to spend hours creating sales maps.

Solutions like SPOTIO make it easier to categorize areas or regions by:

• High or low sales potential
• High sales volume
• High-quality leads

These features make it easy to map territories quickly while providing a simple-to-use interface for the reps in each territory.

4. Improve Close Rates With Data-Driven Area Assignments

Sales territory mapping solutions help sales leaders place their reps strategically.

With integrated key insights like sales performance, geographical history, total revenue earned, and leads converted, sales leaders can use SPOTIO to place people where they can make the most impact.

Whether this is about placing high performers where they’re needed most, or placing average performers in an environment that allows them to reach their potential, consider your team’s strengths and opportunities as you’re creating a sales territory plan.

5. Optimize sales routes and improve productivity

Without an effective and comprehensive system, territory mapping and sales route planning tend to be two separate activities.

Using smart features like those offered by SPOTIO, you can quickly see which territories landed the most accounts and where the highest-value clients are.

Sales route planning is adjustable on the fly. When new leads arise, the app helps users adjust their route and plan efficiently.

6. Measure Sales Data Across Territories

The best sales territory mapping software solution makes it easy to measure and compare sales data across multiple territories.

For example, using SPOTIO’s smart reporting features, you can quickly see which territories landed the most accounts, where the highest-value clients are, and which territories are underperforming.

This gives you strong visual data to understand where to invest as well as how sales reps are performing by region.

7. Boost Team Morale

When sales territories are unevenly distributed, sales goals may be unattainable for some reps, and morale may suffer. Whether a territory is too small and lacks potential, or the territory is too big for a rep to manage, a workload imbalance can cause frustration and resentment among your team.

With the data you gather from smart sales territory mapping software, you can closely monitor the level of work required to support each territory and allocate your sales team accordingly.

8. Help Your Team Succeed

Most sales territory mapping tools are part of a field sales enablement platform (like SPOTIO). That means you get a suite of tools that reps can use to:

• Add notes about prospects and leads using their mobile device
• Drop real-time location pins as they move through their territories
• Automate reminders to follow up with leads
• Sync data to your CRM remotely
• Share notes and reports
• Access a complete history of all interactions with leads and prospects
• Review essential steps in your sales process

All of these features help reps work more effectively — and reduce the need for time-consuming manual data entry.

Supercharge Sales Productivity And Increase Revenue With Sales Territory Mapping

Organize and divide territories: Define and reorganize territories in just a few minutes with SPOTIO’s intuitive interface.

Visualize lead and customer data: SPOTIO lets reps color-code map pins based on any data point, such as previously contacted leads, new prospects, and existing customers.

Monitor territory performance: Click on a territory to see performance data for sales teams and sales reps, and run reports that show performance metrics for all territories.

Find out how SPOTIO helps field sales teams stay organized, increase productivity, and close more deals. Request a demo today!

Sales mapping software is an essential part of every field sales team’s toolbox. 

No more drawing and sticking pins in paper maps. Today’s sales reps rely on the latest technology to optimize their territories and increase sales.

A glance at several studies underlines the point:

• Optimizing your territory design can increase sales by up to 7%.
• Territory optimization can increase sales productivity by 10%-20%.
• Optimizing sales territory design results in 30% higher sales performance.

In this guide, we’ll show you what features to look for in sales mapping software and then highlight the best sales mapping solutions to consider in 2024.

What is Sales Mapping Software?

Sales mapping software is a business application that integrates sales data with geolocation. Sales managers use it for sales territory mapping and to visualize leads, customers, and areas on a map.

Field sales teams also use it to plan better routes and more effective schedules.

Managers can use sales mapping software to view:

• The locations of customers and leads
• The distribution of customers across target territories
• The distribution of territories among field sales teams

Plus, managers can verify whether their sales reps are where they say they are and work all the accounts they are supposed to during a given time frame.

Why Field Sales Teams Should Invest in Mapping Software

Territory mapping has been around for ages. A few decades ago, your typical door-to-door sales rep used a paper map with a hand-drawn outline of their territory. 

Each neighborhood had prospects with distinct characteristics, personas, and buying potential. Nowadays, sales mapping software has replaced paper maps. 

Sales mapping software does a lot more than help you create maps. It helps you manage sales territories, prevent sales territory overlap between members of your sales team, and identify underperforming territories at a glance.

Let’s take a look at the reasons sales teams should be using mapping software.

Assign Sales Territories Strategically

It stands to reason, you want to squeeze the most sales out of each territory. That means you need to assign your sales resources to match the territory strategically and help your sales team work each territory more efficiently. 

With sales mapping software, you can ensure sales reps have enough accounts to manage, and confirm your top reps are working the most valuable territories.

Uncover new opportunities in existing territories 

You want to expand and move into new territories, but you know your sales eam hasn’t covered all potential leads within their existing sales territories.

With sales mapping software like SPOTIO, you can analyze insights about your existing territories to uncover new opportunities.

Increase time spent on sales activities

According to CSO Insights, just 33% of inside sales reps’ time is spent actively selling. Similarly, SPOTIO also reports that 66% of outside/field sales reps’ day is spent on non-selling activities. With sales mapping software, you can eliminate manual route planning, which is an easy way to increase sales productivity.

Sales mapping software helps reps quickly identify new opportunities in their territory, as well as upsell potential in existing accounts. Also, integrated route planning features reduce windshield time, ensuring reps are spending more time in the field working their accounts and completing daily minimum sales activities.

Optimized sales routes can reduce travel costs, increase the number of clients sales teams can serve in their territories, and improve fuel efficiency.

Improve sales tracking and performance 

Sales mapping software makes mapping territories an intelligent process, using important sales and geographical data points to help managers place their reps strategically.

Sales leaders can use software like SPOTIO to place reps where they can make the most impact based on valuable insights like sales activity reports, plus KPIs for leads, opportunities, and revenue at the rep, org, and territory levels. 

Sales territory mapping software also offers the intelligence you need to realign your territories as your reps and opportunities change.

Whether you want to deploy high performers where they’re needed most, or you want to place average performers in an environment where they can reach their full potential, you can assign reps to a specific sales territory to improve sales performance.

Key Features to Look for in Sales Mapping Software

Not all sales mapping software is created equal, so here are the key features to consider for your business:

Customer mapping

Customer mapping brings your CRM data to life and finds gaps you didn’t know existed. For instance, you can visualize leads and opportunities on a map, filter by a pipeline stage, and find new leads around existing customers. 

Image: Field reps can use SPOTIO to visualize customers while out in the field. 

To make sure reps follow up as expected (and don’t annoy leads), you can filter by visit count/last visited date/days since the last visit.

Equally important, sales territory mapping also helps you segment territories by different demographic, firmographic, or industry data. For example, if you sell various products and services based on industry, then it makes sense to map your territory by industry data.

Territory management

Territory management lets you allocate your sales team to match the territory properly.

You can assign territories by state, county, city, or ZIP code, or by drawing an area on a map. Alternatively, you can assign your top performers to the highest value accounts and opportunities.

Image: Defining and assigning sales territories in SPOTIO. 

Additionally, you can clarify who owns which area, prevent unwanted territory overlaps, and ensure you have the optimal number of reps working a designated sales territory.

Route planning

Sales mapping software can cut the time your sales reps spend planning routes. For example, SPOTIO quickly finds the best route to appointments and plans the entire day, so your sales reps can focus on closing deals instead of working out how to get from meeting to meeting.

Route planning makes it possible for you to optimize your sales reps’ routes to include the greatest number of interactions with leads, prospects, and customers.

Rep tracking

One of the things that sales managers struggle with is not knowing if their reps are where they say they are, or if they are working all the accounts they should be.

Back in the office, it’s not always possible to keep tabs on each team member. But for those managers who want to track reps on the map in real time, SPOTIO’s GPS sales rep tracking holds everyone accountable, especially newer reps who you may want to monitor more closely. For sales teams that prefer more privacy, you can turn the feature on and off.

Permissions and controls

Sales mapping software like SPOTIO allows you to control who can access each lead’s data and keep everyone organized using parent/child hierarchies and permissions. 

No one wants their team to waste time arguing over who owns which leads. By using permissions and controls, you can prevent confusion and culture-eroding arguments, give ops and managers greater visibility, and keep reps focused on their allocated leads.

Sorting and filtering

It’s important for sales teams to stay organized, especially when their maps contain dozens or hundreds of pins.

SPOTIO enables reps to colorize and sort pins based on any data point, such as pipeline stage or the result of a previous visit. This level of filtering and sorting makes it easy for sales reps to distinguish between leads, opportunities, and existing customers while they are out in the field, and in the process, manage their days more efficiently.

CRM integration

Integrating your CRM and field sales data can save you loads of time and boost sales rep productivity by 46%.

SPOTIO’s sales mapping software tools let you send field sales data directly into your existing CRM. (No need to worry if you don’t have one, because SPOTIO comes with a basic CRM for field sales teams.)

The CRM integration automates those time-consuming tasks such as mileage tracking and routing, and automatically prompts every type of follow-up activity.

Performance reports

Without accurate sales performance reports, you can only guess whether your team is on track and if gaps might need plugging.

Image: Measuring leads and pipeline value by territory in SPOTIO. 

The best sales mapping software enable managers to track territory-specific sales activities and gather performance-based metrics. You can track territory performance across the organization and analyze what’s working and what’s not.

With SPOTIO’s My Reports feature, sales managers can set custom parameters so that reports only include the most important sales data for a user or territory, and then save the dashboard as a reusable template.

9 Best Sales Mapping Solutions to Consider in 2024

In this section, we’ll look at the best free, freemium, and premium sales mapping solutions. We’ve included a brief overview of each sales mapping tool and highlighted some of its key features.

Choosing the best sales mapping software will depend on many factors, such as your budget, goals, and business size. Although some sales mapping tools are free, most of them don’t have advanced features. 

Free sales mapping software typically has basic sales mapping features, so if you need a sales mapping solution that covers everything, you’ll need to consider a paid subscription. And if you need free sales mapping software for budget reasons, you should take advantage of the free trials that some of the premium tools offer.

When selecting the best sales mapping software for your business, evaluate all the features and integrations on offer, and check the “best for” section to see if it fits your niche. 

SPOTIO

Source: SPOTIO 

Best for: Field sales teams. SPOTIO is ranked #1 in the Field Sales category and is a 2023 G2 Best Software Winner.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales software because it enables amazing sales productivity, increases sales by 23%, and shortens sales cycles.

Key sales mapping features:

• Create sales territories by ZIP Code, city, county, state, or hand-draw.
• Automate reports on sales territory performance and maximize results.
• Make sense of field data at a glance by visualizing CRM data on a map.
• Organize pins based on different data points such as pipeline stage.
• Customize, filter and sort pins based on your preferred workflow.
• Increase accountability and find sales reps in the field when you need them.
• Integrate with any CRM, including Salesforce and HubSpot.
• Reduce windshield time by planning and routing each day.
• Create role-based hierarchies and measure sales territory performance.
• Locate, monitor, and manage the activity and progress of your sales reps in real-time.

See how SPOTIO compares to other sales mapping solutions here.

Get pricing

Mapline

Source: Mapline

Best for: Academics, banking, insurance, manufacturing, retail, and real estate industries.

Mapline is a web-based mapping platform and data visualization tool. You can easily display data from Excel spreadsheets to optimize logistics, enhance market planning, identify growth opportunities, or reduce market risks.

Key sales mapping features:

• Create a map from a spreadsheet in seconds.
• Add boundaries, create heat maps, and plan routes.
• Optimize sales territories by geographic boundaries or custom shapes.
• Assign customers to sales territories automatically.
• Improve performance reporting with dynamic charts, reports, and dashboards. 

Pricing: Request a price proposal or start mapping for free.

BatchGeo

Source: BatchGeo 

Best for: Data analysts, marketers, journalists, real estate firms, and sales teams.

BatchGeo is the fastest way to create Google Maps from your spreadsheet. Just copy and paste your data — such as addresses, intersections, cities, states, and postal codes — into the tool.

Key sales mapping features:

• Convert spreadsheet data into interactive maps of customers, leads, and assets.
• Find trends, hot spots, and cold zones.
• Drill down to discover insights geographically, such as the total sales value, the number of sales, and the revenue per sale for each state.
• Filter for a specific sales representative’s territories.

Pricing: Buy BatchGeo Pro for $99/month (limit of 10 users).

ZeeMaps

Source: ZeeMaps

Best for: Businesses of all sizes.

ZeeMaps allows you to create and publish interactive maps for analysis and presentations. You can color-code regions, show real-time traffic overlays, aggregate regional data, and more.

Key sales mapping features:

• Add unlimited markers per map.
• Select from 3-level access control for each map: Viewer, Member, and Admin.
• Highlight countries, states, counties, cities, ZIP Codes, or hand-drawn regions.
• Optimize multi-point routes for distance or time.
• Aggregate your regional data.

Pricing: Professional plans start at $19.95/user month. Free version with limited functionality available.

Geopointe

Source: Geopointe

Best for: Marketing, operations, and sales teams and executives.

Geopointe is a leading geolocation application available on the Salesforce AppExchange. It location-enables Salesforce so that you can geographically visualize and manage your accounts, contacts, opportunities, and CRM data. 

Key sales mapping features:

• Build territories visually from predefined boundaries.
• Plan, create, and optimize your routes from any mappable data.
• Distribute leads or manage territory assignments automatically.
• Access real-time field sales activity.
• Integrate with Salesforce CRM.

Pricing: Plans start at $74/user/month.

Maptive

Source: Maptive

Best for: Real estate, sales, supply chain, and more.

Maptive is a global mapping platform that lets you transform any spreadsheet data into a customized Google Map in minutes. You can create custom maps from your data, including heat maps, sales density maps, territory maps, store locators, and more.

Key sales mapping features:

• Draw custom sales territories based on your data. 
• Access important information like sales numbers, demographic details, and customer profiles for each sales territory.
• Create visual boundaries based on predefined regions like cities, states, ZIP Codes, districts, territories, and more.
• Draw a “lasso” around specific locations to create territories. 
• Map the most efficient route between multiple locations.

Pricing: Plans start at $250/user/45 days. Free trial available.

Maptitude

Source: Maptitude

Best for: Data analysts. 

Maptitude’s GIS software gives you the tools, maps, and demographic data you need to analyze and understand how geography affects your territory management. You can create maps and map images from spreadsheets, plus you can see external data on the map from various sources, including Google Maps KML/KMZ files.

Key sales mapping features:

• Find hidden opportunities.
• See where sales are highest.
• Know exactly where your customers are.
• Answer geographic questions that impact your operations.
• Spot geographic patterns and trends that you can’t see in database tables and spreadsheets.

Pricing: Maptitude’s cloud-based platform is $420/user/year. The desktop version starts at $695/user/year. Free trial available.

MapBusinessOnline

Source: MapBusinessOnline

Best for: Marketing, sales, and resource management teams.

MapBusinessOnline is a cloud-based mapping tool you can use to analyze and visualize business data, explore new markets, manage sales territories, and optimize logistics.

Key sales mapping features:

• Visualize customer locations.
• Access advanced sales territory mapping.
• Run market analysis with multiple drive time queries.
• Optimize multi-stop route planning with time windows.
• Share maps or conduct collaborative editing.

Pricing: MapBusinessOnline subscription plans start at $500/user/year. Free trial available.

GeoMetrx

Source: GeoMetrx

Best for: Franchise organizations, retailers, restaurants, commercial brokers, marketers, and sales teams.

GeoMetrx is sales territory mapping software that you can use for franchise territory map making, retail site selection, and territory building. Using the precision of mobile device GPS data, it can deliver expert analysis that provides a more accurate understanding of your sales territories or retail locations.

Key sales mapping features:

• Upload data appended to standard geographies to create reports and thematic maps.
• Select territories by market capture.
• Share data, report formats, and map templates.
• Compare different geographies, including radius versus drive time, or radius versus standard regions.
• Customize maps with increased thematic ranges defined by: Equal Value, Equal Class Counts, Class Percent, Means and Standard Deviations, Individual Values.

Pricing: Available upon request.

Which Sales Mapping Software Are You Going To Try?

All of these sales mapping solutions are good options for customer mapping, territory management, and route planning.

If you’re running a field sales team, then sign up for a free demo of SPOTIO to see how sales mapping software can help you optimize your sales territories, track your sales reps, and increase sales.

That’s because they spend most of their time on administrative tasks like manual sales route planning, keeping track of where leads are in the pipeline, and when to follow up with prospects.

Obviously, that’s not an efficient way to work.

Thankfully, there’s a solution that will save both field reps and managers a lot of time and effort: CRM mapping software.

CRM mapping software.

What is CRM Mapping?

CRM mapping is the act of analyzing sales territories based on the data inside one’s CRM software. It helps field reps see where your customers and leads are physically located on a digital map, which makes route planning much easier.

CRM mapping makes it easier for field sales teams to spot trends, too. This is because data represented on a geographic map gives reps access to more actionable data, allowing them to get the most out of their territories.

What is CRM Mapping Software?

CRM mapping software helps sales reps fully capitalize on their customer relationship management solution by representing prospects and customers on a geographical map.

Once you start using this kind of tool, you’ll be able to easily see where your prospects and customers are located, where each is in your company’s sales pipeline, and how much revenue they represent for your organization.

11 Benefits Of CRM Mapping Software For Sales Teams

Visualize Customers On A Map

CRM mapping software lets reps see customer locations on a digital map, so they can plan more efficient routes between them. (More on this below.) And when filter data points by lead and/or customer — such as pipeline stage or buying habits — they can close deals more consistently.

Visualization helps sales managers, too. A quick look tells you which sales territories perform best and which are underserved. You can then adjust your strategy based on this information.

Distinguish between leads, opportunities and customers

CRM mapping software like SPOTIO makes it easy for reps to distinguish leads from opportunities and customers. How? Every lead, opportunity, and customer in your pipeline can be color-coded to reflect their pipeline stage.

You could, for example, make leads yellow, opportunities green, and customers red. Then, when reps look at your CRM map, they’ll be able to tell which prospects deserve their immediate attention. This is especially helpful if/when your pipeline contains hundreds of prospects. Reps won’t have to waste time manually sorting through them.

Map more efficient sales routes

You manage an outside sales team, which means sales routes, i.e. the path your reps take from one prospect to the next, are extremely important.

The more efficient your reps’ routes are, the more prospects they can meet with on a daily basis. And the more prospects they meet with, the more opportunities they’ll have to close deals and boost revenue for your company.

CRM mapping software makes it super easy to plan efficient sales routes.

Reps will be able to see exactly where their prospects are located on a digital map. They’ll also be able to see which prospects are the closest to making a purchase, as described above. With this information in hand, they can plan direct sales routes from one red-hot lead to another, without wasting valuable time.

But it gets better. Tools like SPOTIO will plan efficient routes for your reps and automatically track their mileage, turning them into productivity superheroes.

Improve territory management

As a sales manager, territory management is an essential part of your job. CRM mapping software helps you manage territories more efficiently.

Once you can see all of your territories on a digital map, the customers inside each territory, and the sales rep the territory has been assigned to — in one quick glance — you’ll have all of the information you need to properly manage your sales team.

You may find that one territory is bursting with potential customers and decide to split it into two territories so multiple reps can work the area. Or you may see that the rep you assigned to a territory is underperforming, which could mean they need additional training.

We should mention that tools like SPOTIO make it easier to create territories, too.

Quickly create new territories by drawing on a map, or by using geographic boundaries like state, county, city, and ZIP Codes. Then quickly assign the territories to the most qualified sales rep on your team.

Automate sales activity capture

SPOTIO automatically captures sales activities so sales managers always know what reps are up to in the field. This feature benefits sales reps, too, because they won’t have to manually enter this kind of data into your CRM.

Knowing where your prospects are in the sales pipeline is only half the battle. Your reps then need to act on this information by making calls, sending emails and texts, or visiting potential customers in person.

Identify existing customers

As stated throughout this article, CRM mapping software will show you where your current customers are, not just the red-hot prospects you’re trying to convert.

Why is this important? Here are a couple of reasons why…

• Current customers are easier to sell to. They’ve already bought one or more of your company’s products. They might be willing to buy your new offering, too. You reps just have to contact them and explain its benefits.
• Current customers provide social proof. Imagine how many more sales you’ll make when your reps can say, “Your neighbor, Company ABC, just purchased from us and they’ve been able to accomplish XYZ.” This bit of social proof will give customers the confidence they need to buy from you.

As you can see, knowing where your existing customers are is super valuable. Fortunately, CRM mapping software like SPOTIO will give you these details..

Spot Trends And New Opportunities In Real Time

As long as your CRM is up to date, you’ll be able to see the information it contains via your digital map, making it easy to spot trends and new opportunities in real time.

For example, you may find that one territory, in particular, has been generating a lot of sales lately. To capitalize on this opportunity, you might assign a second rep to the area, doubling your chances to close deals.

When you know exactly what’s happening and where, you can make smarter decisions that result in more sales.

Use Google Business Profiles To Prospect Smarter And Faster

SPOTIO seamlessly integrates with Google Business Profiles so reps can see the best prospects in their territory within seconds and streamline lead generation.

Let’s say, for example, that restaurants are your target prospects.

With SPOTIO, your reps can do a simple search and see all of the restaurants in their assigned territory. They can also see contact information, business hours, and other details for each establishment. Finally, they can use the route mapping tools inside SPOTIO to plan their visits to each restaurant.

Move Sales Prospects From The Map Into The Pipeline

When your CRM includes mapping capabilities you can move seamlessly between the map of prospects and leads to the integrated sales pipeline.

So, when an outside sales team rep contacts a new lead, for example, they can easily assign them a color-coded status that later appears directly on the map. Later, reps can also attach new events to their prospects, whether it’s an upcoming meeting or an email they need to send with proposals or information. That new event automatically syncs to the rep’s Google Calendar.

Stop Leads From Falling Through The Cracks

It’s easy to forget about leads when you’re constantly on the go. CRM mapping software keeps leads from falling through the cracks by reminding reps which ones are on their current route, and storing all of the important information in one place.

Imagine that one of your reps spoke to a lead, but they weren’t interested in your company’s product at the time. You can set this lead’s status to “Not Interested.” The rep will then receive a reminder to re-engage with them in a few months.

Also, because all leads stay on the map, sales reps can visit disengaged leads or opportunities that have failed to move through the pipeline. And with lead and customer data in one place, you won’t have to switch between multiple tools to find information.

Work With Your Existing Systems

The best CRM mapping software integrates seamlessly with the tools that you and your sales team are already using. That means you won’t have to invest in new mapping software and a new CRM.

We should mention that CRM mapping software can integrate with other tools, too, like Google Calendar, Dropbox, DocuSign, etc. In fact, using Zapier integrations, you can connect CRM mapping software to over 2,000 different tools.

Hit Bigger Numbers With SPOTIO

A CRM mapping solution helps outside sales teams work more efficiently and close more deals. It gives sales managers greater oversight over reps and helps identify bottlenecks in the sales pipeline.

When it comes to sales mapping software, you can’t go wrong with SPOTIO.

SPOTIO is specifically for outside sales teams. As such, it’s loaded with features you and your reps actually need, including technology for planning routes.

SPOTIO is ranked #1 in the Field Sales category, and was a 2023 G2 Best Software Winner. Sign up for a free demo today to see what all the hype is about.

In this post, we’ll talk about how Salesforce Territory Management can help your sales team operate with greater efficiency and close more deals. We’ll also explain how SPOTIO enhances the functionality of territory management software. Using Salesforce Territory Management and SPOTIO will help you create a solid foundation for your sales reps.

About Salesforce

Founded in 1999, Salesforce was the first cloud-based SaaS customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Over the years, Salesforce has expanded its product offerings and features to help sales teams work more effectively.

What is Salesforce Territory Management?

Available in both Classic and Lightning Experience, Salesforce Territory Management creates territories based on rules you define. It’s a scalable solution that lets you easily add, remove, or reconfigure sales territories, see detailed analytics, and filter data by a wide range of options.

For a guided tour of how this works, click here.

Salesforce territory modeling lets you compare performance projections for new assignments and management hierarchies. It also provides management and sales team leaders a range of other tools to effectively collaborate and close more deals.

Salesforce Enterprise Territory Management Features

Let’s take a look at Salesforce Territory Management features for outside sales teams.

Customize Salesforce Territory Settings

Once you’re ready to build out your sales territory management system, simply follow the instructions in Setup under Territory Settings.

If your Salesforce instance already has a role hierarchy in place, all you have to do is assign users to territories based on the predetermined structure.

Clone And Test Sales Territories

Setting up territories is part science, part guesswork, and sometimes territories don’t work out as anticipated. With Salesforce Territory Management, you can create a sales territory, clone it, and test it in the Planning stage before moving it to the Active stage.

Create Reports By Territory

Enterprise Territory Management comes with plenty of custom report types to accommodate your needs, such as:

• Accounts by sales territory
• Territories without accounts
• Users not assigned to territories
• Sales territories per user
• Account fields, such as annual revenue

Set Up Territory Forecasts

Using the Collaborative Forecasts feature, you can access a page that includes forecasting data based on:

• Sales territories assigned to each opportunity
• Sales territories you’re assigned to
• Opportunities in each sales territory

Users can also share forecasts for their own territories within Salesforce.

Advanced Segmentation Across Salesforce Territories

You can divvy up territories in a variety of ways with Salesforce Territory Management:

• Geography – city, state, Zip Code
• Customer type – whether they’re new or existing
• Customer industry – pharma, food and beverage, home improvement, solar, etc.
• Customer revenue – allocate the appropriate resources/personnel
• Product requirements – which of your product offerings suits best
• Sales type – B2B, B2C, distributor, etc.

Salesforce Territory Management Best Practices

Use territory hierarchies

Establishing territory hierarchy helps sales reps understand the “big picture” and establish boundaries. For example, in the image below, it’s easy to see the delineation of sales territories.

Once you’ve created your parent-child hierarchies, you can assign roles to users.

Define User Roles

Setting up roles ensures that everyone on your sales team sees only the information that’s directly relevant to them. Here’s an example of how that would work, based on the hierarchy image above:

Bill is head of sales for the western division. Mary covers “West 1,” and James covers “West 2.” Bill can see all sales data for the western division and its child hierarchies. James and Mary can see only the data for their individual territories.

Use lead assignment rules

You can use Salesforce Territory Management to assign prospects to the best-suited sales rep. As an example: If Shauna has really dialed-in her pitch and is able to resonate with a certain type of prospect, Salesforce Territory Management makes it easy to assign her leads that she’s likely to have success with.

With SPOTIO’s Salesforce integration, you can create custom account assignment rules, set unique pin colors for each rule, and automatically distribute leads to your reps.

Assign Forecast Managers

To successfully establish a fruitful territory management strategy, you need forecast managers.

Assigning someone as a forecast manager means that all forecasts from users below that user in the forecast hierarchy roll up to that person.

For example, an executive and executive assistant can have the same roles in Salesforce, but the executive is the assigned forecast manager in the forecast hierarchy. Both the executive and executive assistant can create forecasts, but only the executive can access forecasts from other users.

How SPOTIO Helps Sales Managers Succeed With Salesforce

So you know how to use Salesforce Territory Management, but what if you need even more specificity when it comes to sales records on the go?

SPOTIO is designed to keep your field data and CRM working as a synchronized unit.

Two-way integration with Salesforce syncs your information in real time, allowing reps to leverage the power of historical territory data and enriched lead information no matter where they are. And SPOTIO will automatically update your CRM with any notes your sales team adds to accounts while in the field.

Assign territories as granularly as you want with SPOTIO, even down to multiple child territories for each parent territory.

SPOTIO’s flexible integration includes field-mapping, as well as task sequences. When you complete an activity or update a pin within SPOTIO, a new task is created in Salesforce, ready for when you get back to the office.

Here are just a few of the powerful features and benefits SPOTIO offers:

Visual customer mapping for logical routes

The ability to see data from your CRM on a map gives you an easy way to see the performance of each sales territory and sales rep.

Leveraging colorization, you can sort and filter the map to reflect any of the data points you associated with your pins. Do you want to see all current opportunities? How about pipeline stage or last activity with a customer? Simply select the criteria and filter the map view accordingly.

Real-time outside sales tracking

SPOTIO’s Sales Tracking feature helps you see what’s happening in the field so you can coach, train, and help reps be more successful.

Get field sales tracking insights and see detailed location activity of sales reps for better management:

• Monitor and find reps with GPS-verified location tracking.
• With Sales Leaderboards, measure and monitor the sales performance for each rep.
• Create customized activity reports so you can track sales activities that matter most to your business.
• Gain a holistic understanding of how leads are moving through the pipeline.

Real-time performance metrics

It’s easy to optimize your sales engine when you have visibility into a variety of activity metrics and access to performance reports. Pull metrics by sales territory or rep so you can spot any underproductive territories or fix any bottlenecks in your sales cadence.

Custom maps of territories and assignments

Our integration allows you to sync to either the lead or account object. Leads and accounts created in SPOTIO are automatically created in Salesforce with the field mapping criteria you established.

Create Sales Processes By Territory

Depending on the structure of your sales territory hierarchy, your sales process may be unique in each territory. With SPOTIO AutoPlay, you can define each step in the process and automate reminders for your sales team members.

Reps can add notes explaining the results of each step, and that information will sync to Salesforce Territory Management.

Sell More With SPOTIO

Statistics show that sales reps spend just a third of their time selling, and only 65% hit their sales quotas. Managing territories effectively can help reps stay focused on their goals.

No matter how good your reps may be, there’s always a need to find better ways to improve sales accountability. Re-evaluating and optimizing sales territory management is essential to meeting your core goals and quotas.

With the intuitive integration of SPOTIO’s sales support and Salesforce’s Enterprise Territory Management, your reps and teams will reach peak sales performance.

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SPOTIO is the #1 field sales engagement and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

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Sales metrics might answer that question, but too often, sales managers look at metrics that are outside of their control. A Harvard Business Review study found that of 306 metrics sales managers track, only 17% are sales activities. The key to effective sales activity management is focusing on the metrics that matter — the ones you can actually influence.

In this guide, we’re going to look at:

What is Sales Activity Management? 
Why You Should Track Sales Activities
8 Ways to Implement Sales Activity Management For Your Sales Team

Let’s dive in.

What is Sales Activity Management?

Sales activity management is defining the sales activities that will help your sales reps meet their goals, tracking associated metrics, and optimizing activities that aren’t producing the right outcomes.

Let’s get this out of the way: Sales activity management is not an excuse for team leaders to micromanage their sales reps. Instead, it’s a way to find leaks in a sales pipeline and reflect on a rep’s sales activities to sell smarter and close more deals.  

As Salesforce found, the majority of sales leaders are now looking to technology to help them enhance sales activity management. As selling activities become more intertwined with tech, it makes sense that team leaders are seeking out ways to digitally track, monitor, and motivate their team on the ground.

Why You Should Track Sales Activities

The main reason to track sales activities is that they directly impact your profits. But profits don’t happen without people, so effective sales activity management means focusing on how you can support reps in their work. 

Visibility

If you’re using software for sales activity management, you can slice-and-dice data to look for trends. For example, if you notice sales are lagging in a specific territory, you can check to see whether the rep covering that area is spending too much time getting from one appointment to the next. If that’s the case, route optimization could improve that rep’s efficiency and help them close more deals.

Goal Setting

Sales reps may have a quota, but they may need a little guidance on their way to that goal. Here’s an example that illustrates that concept:

Without Sales Activity Tracking
Sam knows he needs to close $20,000 in sales in Q1. His sales manager hasn’t defined which activities he should focus on to achieve that goal. As a result, Sam neglects to follow up with several leads and misses his sales goal.

With Sales Activity Tracking
Sam’s manager reviews sales data in the company sales management platform. Based on the past three quarters, Sam’s manager sees that to hit $20,000, a rep will need to make X number of sales calls and set X number of appointments. A rep will also need to follow up with leads at least twice before they convert. The sales manager then uses the software to automate these steps; Sam follows them and makes his quarterly sales goal.

Retention and Growth

By regularly analyzing sales team performance, you can see who your top performers are and who needs additional training. You can use that information to recognize your stars and grow talent from within. And you can even create incentive programs based on sales activity achievements

8 Ways to Implement Sales Activity Management for Your Sales Team

1. Discover Which Sales Activities Matter Most to Your Business

To take full advantage of sales activity management, it’s essential to look at key selling activities that are actually helping your sales team close deals.

• How are your sales reps contacting prospects?
• How many touchpoints did they need to move the prospect along in the pipeline?
• How many leads are they hitting in their assigned territories?
• How many demos are they booking?

By analyzing the numbers and results of your failed deals, it’s easier to spot where your team has gone wrong. Sales activity management can pinpoint when a deal stopped progressing, what the obstacle was, and how your sales rep tried to overcome it.

Using software takes the pain out of figuring out what these roadblocks were, and when they appeared.  For example, sales managers can use SPOTIO’s lead management capabilities to track and manage leads by tagging them as:

• A “Not Interested” lead: If a lead isn’t interested, sales leaders can run a report six months or so down the road and create a list of prospects to re-engage.
  
• A “Future” lead: This helps sales reps flag “hot” prospects to come back to in a particular territory.
  
• A “Re-assigned” lead: Sales leaders can re-assign a lead from one rep to another based on their territories or lead management strategy.

All of this happens inside SPOTIO’s lead management software and its dedicated app, so reps have access to lead-specific information even when they’re out pounding the pavement.

2. Assign “Balanced” Sales Territories 

Maximizing sales productivity means having your field reps selling in the right places. Building a sales territory plan assigning reps a balanced workload can help boost your team’s sales activity.

Sales territories segment customers for each rep using clear cut boundaries. Territories can be based on geography and other factors such as sales potential, referral source, or product type.

An example of a sales territory in SPOTIO

With clearly defined territories, sales leaders can spread the workload across their sales team structure while strategically addressing the needs of their assigned markets.

3. Track Your Field Reps in Real-Time

Have you ever been in the office while your reps are out selling and wondered if they’re making progress?

Sales activity management can help team leaders track their reps in the field in real time. Location verification tags — or pins — show each of your sales reps’ locations on a map, so you know where they are.

Tracking sales activity in real time makes it easier to schedule and plan what areas reps should target, and you can change up their strategy from afar.

Using SPOTIO, sales leaders can track the exact position of a sales rep in the field and access other information such as their:

• Location: Is the rep in the correct territory?
  
• Status: Are they interacting with a prospect or en-route to meet another lead?
  
• Date and time-stamped data: Who did they visit yesterday, and when?

An example of field rep tracking using SPOTIO. Tracking a field rep’s activity allows sales managers to make smarter decisions in real-time.

Between prospecting, meetings, and closing deals, sales teams have a lot to juggle when they leave the office. Using software like SPOTIO gives field sales reps and managers the information they need to make decisions about where the rep should be and what move they should make next.

4. Empower Reps to Sign Contracts While In The Field

Equipping your sales reps in the field with sales activity management software allows them to close contracts anywhere, even at a prospect’s door.

Emailing back-and-forth to get a contract signed can take up a lot of time. Instead, specialized software gives your reps immediate access to the files they need to close a deal on the spot. Using e-Contract functionality, reps can access files like product spec sheets and presentations and even collect signatures right from their mobile devices.

Cutting out the paperwork allows your reps to instantly move deals along in their sales pipelines without having to wait until they’re back in the office to prepare and send out contracts.

5. Use a Leaderboard to Track Performance (and Motivate Reps)

Every sales rep on your team is eager to hit their quota.

However, some sales leaders are now using leaderboards to encourage healthy competition in their teams and reward sales reps who hit their goals.

Using a leaderboard means when a metric does fall behind, a sales manager can help refocus a rep’s efforts to get them back on track.

For example, if your reps are falling behind on their number of monthly door knocks, try running a team contest to help unite your team and boost the number for the following month.

Using SPOTIO, teams can build customer leaderboards and measure performance against each other to push towards mutual goals and targets.

Having a team leaderboard that’s visible to the entire team is the perfect way to create some healthy in-house competition amongst your sales reps.

6. Stay in Contact with Your Field Reps

We all know communication is key when it comes to closing deals, especially when you’ve got sales reps out in the field.

Having a team leaderboard that’s visible to the entire team is the perfect way to create some healthy in-house competition among your sales reps.

Creating channels for reps to communicate with each other and the main office while out in the field is vital to keeping everyone on the same page.

A group messaging platform is the easiest solution for dispersed teams, and even better if it’s connected to your sales activity management platform.

For example, using SPOTIO’s in-app chat feature, sales managers can split reps into teams (i.e. Chicago southside team), which makes it easier to send information to specific sales territories.

Think of it as a Slack #channel inside your sales activity management software!

7. Use Sales Activity Data to See Where Your Reps Underperform

Without data, it’s almost impossible to plug holes in your sales funnels and pinpoint underperforming reps.

Collecting and analyzing sales activity data makes it easier for sales managers to find where their reps are struggling and identify whether a team member needs help.

More importantly, it gives managers the numbers they need to see which sales reps on their team aren’t getting their activities done.

Let’s imagine a sales rep isn’t booking the number of demos they should be. Are they finding it hard to qualify leads? Or are they struggling to turn prospects into demo opportunities?

By tracking sales activity and data, it’s easier for managers to see where the rep is struggling and come up with a solution to solve the problem. Once again, software makes this process a lot easier (not to mention saving a ton of time for sales managers.)

Using SPOTIO, sales managers can create pipeline and activity benchmarks and view custom dashboard reports to measure team performance and pinpoint funnel leaks.

At the click of a button, sales managers can use SPOTIO to track how many leads a sales rep has created or how many territories they’ve visited.

8. Forecast Growth

Last but not least, sales activity management makes it easier for teams to forecast. Sales forecasting is vital for finding potential problems before they ever arise.

Forecasting is only successful when sales activities are monitored along a pipeline from start to finish. It’s crucial sales managers know the details of every deal, from prospecting to demo to how long it took to sign the deal. The only way to keep track of everything is to feed every piece of data back into a CRM or sales activity management software.

At the end of every month, quarter, or year, sales managers can then access the data quickly to produce accurate sales forecasts and work backwards from their initial goals.

Wrapping Up

The selling game for field reps has changed — for the better.

The days of door knocking with a clipboard and briefcase are over. Thanks to the rise of tech for field reps, it’s never been easier for sales teams to work together and communicate when they’re on the move. Team leaders can use sales activity management software to assign sales territories, track their reps, and even help them sign contracts on the go.

It’s clear that the majority of sales leaders see sales activity management software as the way of the future. How would a sales management platform improve your bottom line?

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

Sales canvassing is the process used to initiate contact with a prospect or lead that you don’t have an appointment set or meeting scheduled with. In other words, you’re going in cold. Sales canvassing can be done in person, over the phone or via email. It involves identifying and qualifying prospects that would benefit from your product or service.

Sales Canvassing Tips

Sales canvassing is a critical step in building a sales pipeline, but many field sales struggle with how to get started. Below, we’ll cover 13 tips you can use to canvass more efficiently and generate a consistent pipeline for your reps. :

1. Set activity-based goals.

Canvassers should be trying to make a certain number of contacts each day in order to keep the pipeline flowing. These are the controllable factors. When there are activity-based goals at the forefront, it keeps canvassers focused and productive.

2. Identify quality prospects

This starts by knowing who your ideal customer is. Identify prospects that would benefit from your product or service before you start canvassing to give yourself a better chance of turning prospects into leads.

A simple way to accomplish this can be done using SPOTIO’s sales intelligence tool, Lead Machine. You can pull and filter a wide variety of data (200+ attributes) such as, neighborhood information, phone number, household salaries, credit capacity, and property types to find the most qualified prospects to start working in the field.

If you’re selling solar, as an example, you want to be able to identify homes that are owned (not rented) and don’t already have solar. Lead Machine puts this information at your canvassers fingertips.

3. Map sales territories

Once you have the prospecting criteria in place, it’s time to map and assign territories so that reps or canvassers have enough prospects to work, and that they are not treading on each other’s toes.

SPOTIO’s Territory Mapping tool enables you to:

• Map out your entire territory on an actual map and break territories down by zip-code or create zones based on economic potential
• Track all sales activities
• Add leads
• Record feedback received at the door
• Use real-time data to determine where to knock next
• All data sent back to your manager, so no time is wasted reporting back

4. Polish your canvassing script.

Scripts are created to make your job easier and give you a proven system, based on principles that work. It is very important to remain conversational with the person at the door to build trust so that when you ask for the appointment, it’s like the person is taking advice from a trusted friend.

Give yourself freedom to edit the pitch to make it your own, while following the basic script your manager has taught you. You are not a robot and potential leads don’t expect you to be because they see a human on their doorstep. So, personalize your engagement with people at the door.

Make small tweaks that fit your personality to demonstrate to the person at the door that you identify with them and understand how your product or service will solve their main issue.

5. Be prepared.

Decide and commit to maintaining a positive attitude. The more positivity you radiate, the more positive people will be around you. And, with such happiness in the air, it’s really hard to say “no” or respond negatively.

Being prepared doesn’t have to be complicated:

• Be nice;
• Be genuinely interested in the potential lead at the door;
• Respect all potential leads’ time;
• Nurture your “not interested” or “not at this time” leads; and
• Follow through on everything that you promise at the door.

6. Use data to make decisions.

Real-time data to track your sales activities, based specifically on your canvassing efforts, will lead to understanding the true impact of your canvassing performance.

To get more leads while canvassing, you need consistency and proficiency based on actual data, not some made-up numbers or playing a guessing game of where to knock. Consider tracking the following daily metrics and analyzing them to gain more knowledge on where to knock, what types of neighborhoods yield the most leads, etc.:

• Total number of leads generated;
• What territories yielded the most leads;
• Number of leads that scheduled appointments; and
• Which leads to add to your follow-up program.

7. Use qualifying questions.

As soon as you make contact with someone at the door, start the qualification process of transitioning them over to an actual lead, even if the person at the door is just a little interested. Here some examples of qualifying questions to consider and record the answers in SPOTIO:

• Does the person at the door need your product or service?
• How are they solving this problem now?
• What are their top priorities in a solution?
• What results would you like to see?
• Are they happy with their current solution?
• What’s their budget?
• Does the person at the door understand and see the value it will provide by agreeing to the price point?
• Is the person at the door able to commit to a certain amount of time for the appointment?
• What would prevent us from becoming partners?

By qualifying people at the door and then transitioning them to a lead when canvassing, you ensure your product or service solves a major issue for the person. The person will either respond by scheduling an appointment or saying they’re not interested.

To gain more leads, be sure to put everyone who was “not interested” in a follow-up program and nurture them so that you and your product or service stays top of mind. Also, when they are interested, they will know to contact you.

8. Transfer leads to reps

The handoff is important. Canvassers have worked hard to qualify the prospect and deem it a lead, so it’s important the transfer from canvassers to salespeople is smooth and that all details about the account are conveyed to the rep.

SPOTIO knows the “art of the transfer” and helps your sales canvassing team master this with features and functionality to help streamline and organize this step.

• All notes taken are automatically transferred to your CRM, automating the tedious task of logging activities
• Any communication channel (call, text, email, visit) a canvasser used is documented in SPOTIO
• Lead data and activity history of every lead is captured

9. Integrate with a CRM.

CRMs are notoriously despised by your field sales teams due to the extra work it requires to keep contact records up-to-date and populated with accurate information. But what if there’s an intuitive mobile application that allows salespeople to easily log activities on the fly and have that data automatically populate your CRM?

SPOTIO’s Mobile CRM connects seamlessly with your system of record to capture activities and notes from the field back into your CRM. Now, all prospect and account records are up-to-date, giving reps full context when re-engaging with leads.

10. Leave sales collateral at the door.

As soon as you knock on the door, place a door hanger or flier around the door where it is stable and most likely to be seen. This serves two purposes:

1. If the homeowner answers the door, it will serve as a reminder of your visit; or
2. If no one answers, it will serve as a notification that plants a seed in the homeowner’s mind that you were at their door and why.

By pre-engaging potential leads with collateral about you and your company, you automatically get the homeowner thinking about you and what you are offering (and reduce the chance of rejection). When you follow-up, it will be easier to convert them to an actual lead because they have already been introduced to you and your product or service.

11. Always follow-up.

When a person at the door responds with “I’m not interested,” it doesn’t mean they will never be interested. The potential lead is not telling you “no,” he or she is telling you “not yet.” So, dedicate yourself and follow-up with them until they become a qualified lead, which in the long run, yields getting more leads while canvassing.

With SPOTIO Autoplays, you can set up a series of outreach sequences for different channels (calls, texts, emails, visits) to automate the follow-up process. Simply template out scripts for emails and texts, set the intervals you want the messages to go out, and your follow-up sequences will fire automatically without any manual work from canvassers or sales reps.

Keep prospects engaged and your product or service at the top of their mind.

Creating Autoplay sequences removes the guesswork of “What do I do next?” – or – “Who do I need to follow-up with today?”, ensuring no opportunity falls through the cracks due to lack of follow-up.

12. Knock on the right door.

Just because a door faces the street doesn’t mean this is the door that the homeowner uses on a regular basis. To increase your door open rate, knock on the door that looks like the most accessible and most used.

Check for these signs to determine if there may be another door to knock:

• No mailbox or mail slot in the door;
• A build-up of newspapers/flyers around the door; or
• A pathway or driveway that leads to another door.

Bonus Tip: Think safety first! Always stay visible from the street. Never go around to the back of a house alone, even if you believe the back door is the most used door.

13. Don’t get discouraged.

Getting prospects on the hook is hard work. It requires persistence, creativity, and pure grit. This isn’t easy and giving up is all too tempting.

Some advice on how to eliminate frustration and shorten what can be a lengthy back and forth, or worse, non-responsive prospect is to make sure you keep your pitch short, relevant and valuable.

Interact with prospects like real people, not like a sales goal; showing them that you want to help creates trust. By establishing a relationship based on empathy will prove dividends to your success.

Don’t give up! It’s like they say, nothing good ever came easy.

Level Up Your Sales Canvassing Today

Every neighborhood is full of potential buyers for you and your team to go after, which makes sales canvassing they key to growth. It takes time and effort, but when a plan is in place and your team has the tools they need to help automate, organize and simplify the selling process, your bottom line will thank you.

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SPOTIO is the #1 field sales engagement and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

According to Technology Advice, 70% of marketers at B2B companies reported that “improving lead quality” was the primary concern. Also, 54%said getting more leads was a top objective as well.

When it comes to prospecting, B2B companies face a quality and quantity problem.

In this B2B prospecting guide we’ll cover:

• What Is B2B Prospecting?
• The B2B Buyer Journey
• Top B2B Prospecting Challenges
• 7 Prospecting Myths – Debunked By Data
• 8-Step B2B Prospecting System
• 8 B2B Prospecting Techniques That Will Fill Your Sales Pipeline
• 8 Powerful B2B Prospecting Tools
• 4 Metrics That Measure Prospecting Performance

What is B2B Sales Prospecting?

B2B sales prospecting is the process of evaluating leads and prospective customers as potential sources of new business. Prospecting requires research, shrewd timing, and exemplary communication skills.

Leads vs. Prospects

The terms “leads” and “prospects” are often used interchangeably. However, they are not the same.

So, what is the difference between a prospect and a lead?

Leads: Potential customers that have shown interest in your product or service – visited your website, subscribed to a blog, or downloaded a gated resource, for example.

Prospects: A lead that fits the profile of your target customer. A prospect is someone whose company could benefit from your product or service and has the authority to purchase it.

The B2B Buyer Journey

The B2B buying experience has changed. This is why you may need to adjust your B2B sales prospecting techniques.

Today, there are buying teams rather than one decision maker for a company. The average number of decision makers involved in evaluating and making purchases has risen to 6.8. 

The consumer mindset is also changing. Price used to be the primary concern, but now there is also a value mindset. When prospecting for new customers, sales teams need to consider these changes and adapt their prospecting methods accordingly.

The traditional prospecting strategy works but is not comprehensive enough to work in all situations. In other words, cold calling is useful, but it should n’ot be your only B2B prospecting strategy.

Top B2B Prospecting Challenges

B2B sales prospecting is crucial to any organization. However, there is a significant problem most B2B companies face: Sales teams hate it.

HubSpot found that 42 percent of sales professionals say it is the most challenging part of the sales process.

However, the dread might be based on a misconception. Let’s take a look at a few of the top myths about outbound sales prospecting methods.

7 Prospecting Myths — Debunked by Data

Myth #1: Cold Calling is Dead

This claim isn’t valid. In its survey of 488 buyers and 489 sellers, the RAIN Group Center for Sales research found that 54% of the buyers agreed to their most recent meeting based on cold calling from the seller.

Myth #2: Scripts Are Too Impersonal

Some salespeople don’t like scripts because they think the pre-written lines get in the way of building natural rapport, but a proper script won’t interfere with your ability to make a connection with a prospect. Instead, it’ll help you focus on the right questions to ask to get to know your potential customer. It will also help you deliver your sales pitch with confidence.

Myth #3: Prospecting Takes a Lot of Time

Prospecting is a piece of the sales process that takes time, but not as much time if you have a system and the right tools and technology in place. For example, a tool like SPOTIO can help your sales team focus on the targets that best match your customer profile.

Myth #4: Buyers Hate Speaking to Sales Reps

Buyers don’t hate talking to salespeople. In fact, the RAIN study found:

• 82% of buyers take meetings after talking to sellers
• 71% of buyers said they want to talk to sellers early in the sales process
• 62% of buyers take meetings to discuss solutions with sellers

Myth #5: Buyers Don’t Want to Hear About Your Product Features

Buyers do want to hear about product features. Sales Hacker found 67% of buyers said that product descriptions influenced their decision to take a meeting.

Myth #6: Prospecting is a numbers game

This myth could have substance if you’re working with unqualified leads. However, if you have qualified leads, you can more easily move them along in the pipeline. The lesson here is that quality matters more than quantity.

Myth #7: The Gatekeeper is the Enemy

Sure, the gatekeeper sometimes blocks your way. However, they’re also your potential ally when prospecting, because they can give you access to decision makers.

8-Step B2B Prospecting System

In many ways, the sales process is a race against the clock. A salesperson must make the most of their time in order to hit their numbers for new leads by the end of the month, quarter, or year. Yet only 35.2% of a sales rep’s time is spent actively selling.

To maximize your time, here is our 8-Step B2B Prospecting System:

1. Research: It’s vital to learn as much as possible about prospects and target companies.
2. Qualify: In this step, you determine whether the prospect is ready, willing, and able to purchase.
3. Prioritize: Based on your qualifying step, you should divide sales prospects into high, medium, and low priority segments within your lead management system.
4. Prep Outreach: Knowing some of your prospect’s top pain points, you can begin to think about how you’ll personalize your approach from the first contact.
5. First Touch: It is time to make contact. The goal is to build rapport.
6. Follow Up: Don’t underestimate the importance of this step. When you do what you said you would do in the first touch, you begin to build trust — an essential ingredient to closing the deal and developing relationships.
7. Track: Keeping records of what works and what doesn’t helps you streamline your process and focus efforts on actions that yield results.
8. Learn: When reviewing your results, Sales Hacker says you should ask yourself the following five questions:

What led to the prospect saying no?
What features did your competitor offer that convinced your prospect to buy?
Which part of your process has opportunities for improvement?
Is there potential for a future relationship with this prospect?
Did they have a referral for you?

Once you have identified a system that works, document it for future prospecting strategy efforts.

B2B Prospecting Techniques That Will Fill Your Sales Pipeline

Let’s explore the different ways you can approach B2B prospecting.

1. Door-to-Door

Also called canvassing, this method involves visiting a prospect and introducing yourself in person. Many times, door-to-door canvassing takes place in a geographic area or an office park. It can be useful because of the personal connection a face-to-face meeting can inspire.

For more information, check out this comprehensive door-to-door sales guide.  

2. Cold Calling

Cold calling is when you call a person you haven’t met to determine whether they have any interest in or need for your product or service. It’s effective because you have direct contact with the prospect and can get immediate feedback. Plus, it can help create a personal connection.

3. Social Selling

Social selling uses social media to connect with potential customers. It can mean prospecting with connections on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or other social platforms.

4. Cold Emailing

Like cold calling, cold emailing is when you email a person you don’t have a relationship with to determine whether they’re a suitable prospect. With specific targeting and a particular message, you send emails to potential prospects to see if they respond — and you can often bypass gatekeepers.

Cold emailing gives the recipient an opportunity to get back to you when they have time. Here are some cold email templates to help you get started.

5. Warm Emailing

When the recipient has interacted with your company in some way, they’re considered a warm lead. An example of a warm email is a follow-up from a web inquiry or after an in-person interaction at a trade show or conference. You can manage this process with email templates and drip campaigns.

6. Conferences or Events

Meeting people at industry events is an excellent way to find leads for your sales funnel. The secret to this method is to socialize and network with people.

Events are most useful for B2B prospecting when the conference attendees also match the ideal buyer persona for your organization — e.g., the meeting is for dentists who want additional training for running their private practice, and you have a practice management software platform for dentists.

7. Direct Mail

From letters to postcards and automated mailers, “snail mail” can be an excellent channel for your B2B prospecting strategy.

Unlike cluttered online channels, direct mail stands out and catches the prospect’s eye, which can lead to a warmer first conversation.

8. Referrals

A referral is a lead received you receive from someone you know or have called upon. An excellent referral source is your current customer base. Ask customers whether they have any associates that would be interested in your product or services.

7 Powerful B2B Prospecting Tools

SPOTIO

SPOTIO’s Sales Prospecting Software helps you identify which prospects are most likely to close so you can focus on the best opportunities. With SPOTIO Lead Machine, sales reps can generate a lead list by territory and access prospect data while in the field, and with calendar integration and appointment setting features, reps can easily schedule appointments for themselves or their associates.

How to use it:

• Visually organize prospect data in a map view — Reps can sort and filter color-coded pins by 50+ data points, including customer pipeline stage, last visit, and number of visits.
• Push field notes to your CRM — SPOTIO’s CRM integration lets reps add notes via mobile that automatically update prospect records in your CRM.
• Map your routes — Increase day-to-day efficiency with a mapping feature that optimizes your routes.
• Share digital business cards — Make sure prospects know how to reach you. Share your contact information via text, email, or QR code, using SPOTIO’s Digital Business Card.

Salesforce CRM

Salesforce is a scalable sales and service solution with numerous benefits for sales teams engaged in B2B prospecting. And teams can make even better use of this platform with SPOTIO’s bi-directional integration.

How to use it: Salesforce is at its heart a CRM that records all the data about interactions with your customers and can provide a snapshot of what’s going on in your business. With SPOTIO’s integration, any activities you create in SPOTIO automatically generate tasks in Salesforce, and you can configure which fields you want to sync across both platforms.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes social selling easy with sales tools that focus on helping you find the right prospects to build trusted relationships. Scale your social selling and start putting your sales’ team network to work.

How to use it: The lead recommendation feature suggests companies to target with your sales prospecting, and the search feature helps you find the right person to contact The CRM feature automatically saves your activity and the reporting features help you manage your sales funnel.

SellHack

Sellhack is designed to find prospects, build lists for leads, confirm correct email addresses, and integrate with Salesforce CRM.

How to use it: You build your list and then use SellHack’s email verification software to send cold emails and follow-ups automatically. There’s also a drip-marketing feature that helps you stay in contact with potential prospects.

Hunter.io

Hunter.io is an email finder that can find any email address for a potential customer.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Hunter, you should check out UpLead’s email finder.

How to use it: You enter the name and company of the contact’s email you are hoping to find, and it will tell you. The tool can also find email addresses in bulk.

Datanyze

Datanyze calls themselves the leader in technographics, which identifies and segments potential customers based on demographics, psychographics, and lifestyles.

How to use it: Datanyze monitors the search activity of your potential customers and alerts you when they’re preparing to make a technology-based purchase.

NerdyData

NerdyData searches more than 20 million websites to determine what technology they’re using and their budget for new tech.

How to use it: Use results to make a list of target accounts, develop a specific value proposition for ads, and ascertain market share for you and your competitors.

4 Metrics That Measure Prospecting Performance

Analyzing performance is critical for success in B2B sales prospecting. You need to know what’s working, and perhaps more importantly, what isn’t. Here are four essential metrics around prospecting for leads that you should measure frequently.

Prospects

How many are you getting and how long does it take? You need these numbers as the baseline for the next two metrics, and also to ensure that you’re getting sufficient opportunities quickly enough to fill that sales funnel.

Activities

Do you know how many activities it takes to get a prospect on the hook? You can’t generate any new prospects if you don’t consistently execute a set number of sales activities each day, week, and month.

Response Rate

How many of your contacts elicit action from the prospect? You determine your response rate by dividing the number of people who reply by the total number of people you contacted. Your response rate shows you which tactics get the best response and whether you need to reevaluate how you target prospects.

Prospect-To-SQL Ratio

How many of your prospects become sales-qualified leads (SQL)? Like a response rate, you divide the number of SQL by the total number of prospects you contacted. If you find that you have a low SQL ratio, you will likely need to reexamine how you qualify leads.

Find High-Quality B2B Sales Prospects

When it comes to how to prospect for sales, you have many channels and sales tools at your disposal. B2B sales prospects have ways they like to be contacted, namely email, direct mail, and phone calls. However, social selling and content marketing are highly effective as well.

The B2B prospecting tools we shared today can help streamline your efficiency and maximize your results. Combined with SPOTIO’s field sales capabilities, these prospecting techniques can improve your SQL ratio and keep the pipeline full.

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SPOTIO is the #1 field sales engagement software designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

Sources:

Peterson, Aleks. “The Hottest B2B Prospecting Strategies for 2016.” Technologyadvice.com. 12 February 2016. Web. 17 December 2018. https://technologyadvice.com/blog/marketing/the-hottest-b2b-prospecting-strategies-for-2016/

Altschuler, Max. “8 Updated B2B Sales Prospecting Strategies to Think About Now Before You Start Another Quarter.” Saleshacker.com. 27 March 2018. Web. 17 December 2018. https://www.saleshacker.com/b2b-sales-prospecting/.

Davies, Cambria. “The Ultimate Guide to Sales Prospecting: Tips, Techniques, & Tools to Succeed.” Blog.hubspot.com 15 May 2018. Web. 17 December 2018. https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/prospecting

Elledge, Shawn. “Why B2B Sales Prospecting is So Damn Difficult—and How to Make it Easier.” Broadsuite.com. 31 July 2017. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://broadsuite.com/why-b2b-sales-prospecting-is-so-damn-difficult-and-how-to-make-it-easier/>.

“Is 2017 the Year of Value Selling?” avitage.wittyparrot.com. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://avitage.wittyparrot.com/witlink/e18836b8-315d-489f-8dc6-962f2294a9c9/view>.

Levey, Steven. “Have You Adjusted to These Three Changes in The B2B Buying Process?” www.forbes.com. 22 May 2018. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/05/22/have-you-adjusted-to-these-three-changes-in-the-b2b-buying-process/#2d1fecffc445>.

Mehring, Jessica. “What is the Modern B2B Buying Process?” Snapapp.com. 11 July 2017. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://www.snapapp.com/blog/modern-b2b-buying-process/>.

“Part of the sales process reps struggle with.” Research.hubspot.com. 7 February 2016. Web. 17 December 2018. < https://research.hubspot.com/charts/part-of-the-sales-process-reps-struggle-with>.

Stancu, Livia. “Sales Prospecting Myths Busted.” Blog.insidesales.com. 5 February 2018. Web. 18 December 2018. < https://blog.insidesales.com/prospecting/myths-about-sales-prospecting/>.

“5 Sales Prospecting Myths Debunked.” Pipedrive.com. Web. 18 December 2018. < https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/sales-prospecting-myths>.

March, Andrew. “10 Myths About Prospecting.” Naturaltraining.com. 19 March 2015. Web. 18 December 2018. < https://www.naturaltraining.com/about/natural-difference/?doing_wp_cron=1545170583.5641059875488281250000>.

Schultz, Mike. “The Top Prospecting Methods (According to Your Buyers).” www.salesforce.com. Web. 18 December 2018.

“Sales Prospecting: A Comprehensive Guide.” Blog.klenty.com. 15 October 2018. Web. 20 December 2018. https://blog.klenty.com/sales-prospecting/.

It’s a huge pain point.

Even though sales reps know how important it is to follow up, most of them find it’s a turn-off.

It’s certainly not what they had in mind when they started selling. On the other hand, closing deals, topping the sales leaderboard, and popping celebratory champagne is infinitely more appealing.

But what many reps fail to realize is that the top sales pros are not afraid to graft. Following up for the umpteenth time in a day and getting cut-off while holding for eternity doesn’t deter the best reps.

Instead, your average sales rep tries a couple of times before giving up, which means potential customers fall through the cracks, and a pile of money is left on the table.

But what if there was a way to make the whole sales follow-up process more efficient and less laborious?

Well, the good news is, there is.

In this guide, we’ll show you eleven ways to improve your sales follow-up process right now so that you don’t lose any more potential customers and your reps actually embrace the strategy.

The Importance of Sales Follow-Ups

It’s highly improbable that you can make a sales pitch and close a deal the first time around.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: would you buy a product or service the first time you heard about it?

Making a positive first impression is crucial. And understandably, most sales reps ensure their presentation, product demo, or sales email is spot on.

But then they fail to follow up. And as a result, potential sales are lost.

Statistics show that 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the first meeting. Yet, rather alarmingly, 44% of sales reps give up after following up only once, and 92% of sales pros quit after the 4th call, just one follow-up short of closing a deal.

That’s an incredible amount of potential sales that are not being closed. And a stack of valuable revenue that’s being lost.

And that’s why sales follow-ups are critical if your business is going to succeed.

11 Ways to Improve the Sales Follow-Up Process

In this section, we’ve identified eleven ways you can improve your sales follow-up process and generate more revenue.

1. Determine your benchmark

You can see from the figures above that most sales reps fail to follow up after the first call.

But it’s vital that you calculate the benchmark for your team, so you can see precisely how many follow-ups it takes to convert a prospect into a customer. Then set that number as your baseline for all reps to hit within a specific timeframe.

How to calculate:

Total (#) of Follow-up Attempts / Total (#) of Leads = Average (#) Follow-up Attempts Per Lead.

2. Follow up on multiple channels

It’s understandable why sales reps might give up after getting no reply to three carefully crafted follow-up emails.

But instead of walking away, it might be better to change channels and try phoning or visiting your prospect.

After all, on average, professionals have more than 200 emails in their inbox at any one time, receive 120 new ones each day, but respond to only 25% of them.

Of course, it’s not just emails that get ignored – phone calls also get blocked or diverted. The point is, sales reps have to be prepared to follow up multiple times on various channels if they want to close the deal.

3. Automate follow-up sequences

One way to ensure your sales reps never forget to follow up with prospects again is by automating the sales follow-up process.

Autoplays enable sales managers and reps to create activity sequences that remind reps when to follow up, with what message, and on which channels.

For example, the follow-up process might look something like this:

• Step 1 – Call | Day 1
• Step 1 – Auto Email | Day 1
• Step 2 – Visit | Day 2
• Step 3 – Call | Day 3
• Step 4 – Email | Day 4
• Step 5 – Visit | Day 5

By sticking to a disciplined autoplay sequence, reps are held accountable for following a sales process that is proven to generate pipeline, and as a result, fewer leads fall through the cracks.

4. Follow up fast

Following up quickly can impact your success rate.

An analysis of more than 2,200 American companies found that those who attempted to reach leads within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to have meaningful conversations with decision-makers than those who waited even sixty minutes.

5. Keep it short

As highlighted earlier, your prospects are busy people. If you want to have any chance of reaching them, you need to keep your follow-up short and on point.

There’s definitely no room for waffling emails, lengthy phone calls, or endless Zoom meetings.

Ideally, your email follow-up should only be around six lines long, and your follow-up telephone calls should not exceed ten minutes.

You’ve only got a moment to capture your prospect’s attention and move them to the next step in the sales pipeline, so don’t hang around – get straight to the point.

6. Remind prospects of their pain

One solid reason to follow up is to remind prospects of their pain. You already know that your product or service can take that pain away, but there’s nothing wrong in agitating the problem and highlighting again how you can help.

7. End every interaction with a clear next step

The easiest time to get your prospect to commit to the next meeting is at the end of your current appointment.

They’ll likely have their calendar open in front of them, so what better time to capitalize. You can even send an invitation while you’re talking to them so that the follow-up date is set and accepted.

Whatever you do, don’t end your current meeting without a firm date in your calendar. Otherwise, you’ll end up playing cat and mouse, trying to tie them down. Plus, it gives you a valid reason for the next follow-up.

8. Map your cadence to the sales cycle

One thing to bear in mind is not to go from one extreme to another. Following up too often is almost as bad as not following up at all.

You want to stagger your follow-ups enough to avoid being annoying but also remaining top of mind.

The follow-up cadence will be driven mainly by the length of the sales cycle. For instance, the B2B sales cycle is longer than B2C sales, as there’s usually more than one stakeholder making the purchasing decision, plus the order value is significantly higher.

If you’re unsure of the right cadence, check with your manager and other sales reps to see what works best in your situation.

9. Don’t forget about existing customers

With all the focus on following up prospects, it’s easy to forget about your existing customers. Not all sales efforts have to target new customers. In fact, it’s easier to sell to existing customers than chase new leads.

The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, compared to the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%.

It pays to follow up with your existing customers, keep them warm, and look for opportunities to increase revenue through upselling and cross-selling.

Customer mapping software, such as SPOTIO, can integrate with your CRM and make it easier for reps to distinguish between leads, opportunities and existing customers within a specific sales territory.

10. Hold reps accountable

Sales reps need to know that they will be held accountable for completing their daily, weekly, and monthly sales activities, many of which will entail follow-ups across different channels as outlined in the sales process.

This is where sales activity tracking software comes in:

Sales tracking software enables sales managers to create activity reports that pull insights and analytics by individual reps or teams and by territories, so they can measure and report on the sales activity that’s most important and make smarter decisions.

The software also updates your CRM automatically, so managers don’t need to rely on reps recording their sales activities.

11. Track and refine the follow-up process

No sales and marketing process would be complete without tracking your results and refining the process accordingly.

• Are there particular channels that are more effective in re-engaging a prospect/lead/existing customer?
• Is there specific messaging, such as subject lines or CTAs, that works better across different channels?
• How many touchpoints on average are required? Was our benchmark accurate? Does it need to be altered?

Continually monitor, test, and refine the sales follow-up process, whether that involves adding or removing channels, altering the cadence, or adjusting the messaging.

How Technology Enhances the Follow-Up Process

As you’ve seen, and probably experienced, following up is incredibly important if you want to succeed in sales. But it’s also extremely tedious.

Thankfully, technology can cut out the boring bits and enhance your entire follow-up process.

Let’s take a look at how sales tracking software like SPOTIO can make your job easier, more profitable, and more enjoyable.

Automate

With SPOTIO, sales reps can also build custom follow-up sequences with the Autoplays feature. You can customize the touchpoints for each lead in your pipeline to account for their follow-up cadence so that prospects are consistently engaged, and nothing falls through the cracks.

Capture

A staggering 91% of CRM data is either incomplete or inaccurate. But with SPOTIO, you can rest easy knowing that it captures every visit, call, text, and email in real-time.

Your sales reps can dedicate their time to following up with prospects on their preferred channel, while SPOTIO takes care of the tedious record-keeping in the back end. And more importantly, you get the complete picture of their sales activities and performance.

Integrate

SPOTIO’S sales activity management software automatically captures every sales activity (without any extra work for your reps) and sends the data directly into your CRM. Sales reps always have information to hand when following up again, so they can quickly get up to speed on the latest activity.

Ultimately, tech should sit on top of your existing workflows and improve the process.

Measure

When it comes to measuring sales performance, SPOTIO’s sales tracking software ensures you have the latest data and insights at your fingertips. You can track all your daily, weekly, and monthly reports from one dashboard.

Plus, you can also get executive summaries emailed directly to your inbox. You no longer have to guess if your reps are following up and performing as expected – you can check their figures and adjust your plans accordingly.

Embrace the Follow-Up

The sales follow-up process is essential to closing more deals and generating more revenue – it’s what separates your #1 sales rep from the pack. Nobody likes to brag about their follow-up activities – they’re hardly exciting – but at the end of the day, results speak for themselves.

However, technology like the SPOTIO platform makes the sales follow-up process a whole lot easier, tighter, and more profitable as no potential customers fall between the cracks.

With customized autoplays, multichannel communication, and sales activity tracking, you can rest assured that your sales reps will actually embrace the follow-up process and start generating more revenue for your business.

In addition to what you should be doing, sales time management often comes down to what you shouldn’t be doing.

In order to double your selling time you need to place as much of a focus on eliminating the tasks you shouldn’t be doing as the ones you should. The primary reason for this is the countless number of activities that simply waste your time each day without contributing to helping achieve sales targets.

The timeless phrase “time is money” has never been more accurate for field sales organizations. Prioritizing your workday can often result in the difference between closing a deal and being shut out. When your time is used in a strategic approach, you’re more likely to record your biggest week or break out of a slump.

While there’s many upsides to this specific topic, organization is commonly one of the most challenging things for field sales reps to completely comprehend and implement. With the number of things that need to be done on a day to day basis, field salespeople have numerous things competing for their attention.

Time management in sales comes down to how you’ll prioritize and maximize your time each day. Instead of working more hours, which takes you away from your personal life, a few easy-to-use organizational tips can drastically improve your efficiency.

Table of Contents:

1. Reduce Administrative Tasks
2. Route Planning
3. Qualify Prospects
4. Automation
5. Stop Procrastinating
6. Learn to Say No
7. Dial in The Process
8. Ride the Momentum
9. Avoid The Urge to Multitask
10. Manage Your Inbox
11. Eliminate Distractions
12. Create Your To-Do List The Night Before
13. Use Time Blocks
14. 80/20 Rule
15. Build Your Schedule Around The Buyer
16. Expect To Pivot

16 Tips to Better Manage Your Days, Stay Organized and Increase Efficiency

1. Reduce Administrative Tasks

Administrative tasks are the number one thing preventing sales from spending more time in the field, where they should be. Look for the admin work that can be automated through one tool or another. The minutes, and even seconds, you can save will begin to add up quickly, even if you don’t realize it initially.

Aside from just saving time, you will feel less flustered by the number of things weighing on them on a daily basis. This will allow sales reps to divert more of their energy and attention away from mundane tasks, and focus on things like running demos or answering questions that show buying potential.

A couple tips:

• To-do List: a to-do list app, uses AI to learn your personal productivity habits and schedule your overdue tasks accordingly. In other words, the app will figure out the optimal time for you to get everything done.
• Mailchimp: the world’s largest marketing automation platform. It’s like a second brain that helps millions of customers—from small e-commerce shops to big online retailers—find their audience and engage their customers.

2. Route Planning

Implementing a tool with route optimization is an extremely simple way to boost the production of your field team. When you give reps the power to optimize their routes, they won’t be wasting valuable time driving back and forth across town.

3. Qualify Prospects

Use the lead machine prospecting tool to narrow in on ONLY those people in your territory that meet the demographic details of your ideal customer profile.

As you add your desired customer criteria, the number of leads decrease as Lead Machine hones in on your target customers. No more time wasted selling to people who have no interest in your product or service.

4. Automation

The more you can automate, the more efficient you become. And thanks to the world of technology and open API’s, to some degree or another, you have the ability to automate almost every part of your day.

But what – and how – are sale professionals such as yourself automating their business processes?

Whether it’s lead creation, CRM data entry, opportunity creation, or document management (just to name a few), sales enablement platforms like SPOTIO give you the power to choose from hundreds of business process services to expedite every facet of your sales activity and tracking tasks.  

As a sales person, the more redundant and administrative type tasks you can streamline, the more time you will spend face to face charming your next buyer into a purchase.

5. Stop Procrastinating

Procrastination is extremely detrimental to field sales reps. It’s most often associated with the tasks salespeople despise, like updating their CRM and other administrative work. Utilizing time blocks is a great way to eliminate procrastinating. Breaking your work down into smaller steps is also an effective sales organization tip. Being detailed in your daily tasks is another technique that has proven effective. By knowing exactly what you have to do throughout the day, you can remain focused.

6. Learn to Say No

Saying no to a manager or superior can be a scary proposition, but it’s one of the best sales rep organization tips to get the most out of your day. The first marketing manager we had at SPOTIO is the inspiration for this salesman organization technique. He often told people in our organization that he couldn’t answer our questions or help us complete a task we needed assistance on.

He handled it in a very respectful way. He told us when he had time available or requested that we schedule an appointment on his calendar. What surprised our team was that he handled these situations the same way with everyone in the company, including the CEO.

It wasn’t until after talking to the CEO about how he structured his day that I really put much thought into it. Our CEO had a lot of respect for how plugged in he was on a daily basis, and how he had the discipline to tell each of us that he couldn’t do what we needed the second we asked him. This structure allowed him to remain extremely dialed in and focused on the task at hand.

Might we recommend the book ‘Essentialism’.  This is a great reach which shows you how streamline your days by focusing only on things that are crucial to your end goal, and eliminating all things that are not absolutely necessary.

7. Dial in The Process

One task inhibiting sales rep organization is their pitch. Scripts are often looked down on, and not a “fan favorite” for salespeople, but they usually serve a quality purpose. Many prospects are similar to each other, which is why your company develops their ideal customer profile.

Instead of generating a completely new list of qualification questions for each prospect you speak with, create a set of core questions that you can use as your framework and customize when needed. This framework can be applied to other tasks that eat up a lot of time as well.

Some Example Questions You Can Use:

• How many salespeople do you have?
• What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to managing your sales reps?
• Tell me about your situation… why are you on the market for a new product?
• What’s your biggest challenge right now?
• How long has this problem been going on?
• Have you tried to fix it?
• What do you think it’s costing you?
• How quickly do you need it fixed?

Take prospecting, for example. Develop a way to research and find prospects based on the previous accounts you’ve won. Look for the similarities that show up throughout these accounts over and over. Once you know which data sources are the most valuable, you can immediately go to those sources when researching new opportunities.

8. Ride the Momentum

After winning a deal, completing an important task, or reaching a milestone, your sales reps first instinct may be to reward themselves with a break. But this seemingly harmless practice is actually counterproductive. Instead of taking a break, it’s best to build on our success and dive right into another call.

Momentum is powerful, and difficult to come by. Your salespeople should use the positive flow of energy and confidence to get going right away with another opportunity.

9. Avoid The Urge to Multitask

The perception that those who are blessed with the ability to multitask are more productive workers could not be farther from the truth. Multitasking is a productivity facade. Yes, you’re checking off more boxes and hustinling down your to-do list, but you’re not putting forth your best work. Liken this to quantity versus quality.

A study reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that you lose up to 40% of your productivity when trying to do more than one thing at the same time.

The reason is because your mind operates far better when it can focus on one thing at a time. Each type of task requires you to think in a unique way, so by switching from one to-do to another, you’re confusing your brain. So instead of pulling the rug out from under your current task, stay the course and avoid switching to something new. Let your mind get comfy and settle on one thing at a time.

10. Manage Your Inbox

If you’re like most people, your inbox is sure to be a cluttered mess on a daily basis. Start by blocking off time on your calendar each day to read and respond to emails. Remember that time blocks are going to be your best friend. Eliminate all distractions during this time to complete the task as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Create an auto-reply email that goes out anytime you receive a new message. Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour Work Week created a pretty witty template you can replicate:

“Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to email twice daily at 12:00pm ET [or your time zone] and 4:00pm ET.

If you require urgent assistance (please ensure it is urgent) that cannot wait until either 12:00pm or 4:00pm, please contact me via phone at 555-555-5555.”

As you work through the sorting process, identify emails you can take action on immediately. The thought is to prevent delaying something until a later time when you can accomplish a desired action immediately. Look for the emails that you can instantly delete, like spam or promos. Use labels and folders as much as possible to remain as organized as possible without doing any work.

The final thing you can do to manage your inbox more effectively is to unsubscribe from unwanted messages. Sure, it might take a minute or two to complete that process, but it is much more efficient to unsubscribe than it is to get an email from the same company twice a week that you’re just going to delete anyways.

We suggest using a tool like unroll.me to manage and automate this process.

11. Eliminate Distractions

It can be hard to stay focused when your favorite time-wasting site is just a click away. To ensure you stay focused, ruthlessly get rid of every distraction. If you don’t use a website for your job, block it using the browser extension Blocksite.

Reps should also stow their cell phones out of sight. It’s all too tempting to check social media or your texts if you can see or hear notifications come up.

12. Create Your To-Do List The Night Before

Instead of wasting your productive mornings organizing your day, do it right before you leave for the night. That way, you can get right to work when you come into the office the next day. Save taskslike these for when you’re burned out in the evenings, and make the most of the time you have.

13. Use Time Blocks

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy invented by Francesco Cirillo designed to boost productivity by segmenting your day between bouts of intense focus and short breaks.

14. 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) is nothing new to the majority of salespeople. The rule follows the principle that 20% of your time produces 80% of your results. The goal is to focus your time, 

effort and energy on the tasks that will result in a maximum return on your investment. Reduce the hours you put into the tasks that are likely to have minimal impact on achieving your sales targets.

For field sales reps, the best way to think of and apply the 80/20 rule is to recognize that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers.

Sales rep organization comes down to knowing where to focus your attention. This places an increased emphasis on qualifying prospects sooner rather than later.

Qualification is exceptionally important as it pertains to the 80/20 rule because you’ll undoubtedly have names in your pipeline that will never convert, while others will become high-value, long-term customers, but you have to know how to spot them. Keep this in mind: if you’re speaking to an unqualified prospect, you’re not actually selling.

15. Build Your Schedule Around The Buyer

According to experts, the best time to connect with prospects is in the afternoon, the very early morning, the evening, the late-mid early morning, or on weekends. I think that about covers it. As you probably know, there is no perfect time to connect with your target buyers. It really depends on that particular buyer’s behavior and the way they allocate time to get their jobs done.

If a salesperson is selling to contractors, calling at 10:00 a.m. isn’t going to work because they’re already busy on the job site. Calling on a restaurant with a thriving lunch and dinner business any time after noon is probably not going to yield a favorable conversation. Strive to structure your day around your target buyer’s schedule to avoid wasted time and unanswered calls.

16. Expect To Pivot

Being in outside sales, organize your leads by location and always have the date of your last contact for each prospect noted. If you get stood up for an appointment, you can quickly regroup and connect with other nearby prospects to secure a new meeting rather than drive back to the office or cool your heels in a coffee shop until the next meeting. To help manage this process, a tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Management feature is a tremendous help improving sales efficiency while you’re out in the field.  

This tactic also applies to inside sales. Prospects cancel all the time, so salespeople should always be prepared to pivot into other profitable activities. The trick is to not shift gears on those activities. Say you’re prepared to have an exploratory call scheduled to run an hour and the prospects flakes on you. Since you’re already in the mindset of the exploratory call, spend that reclaimed hour prepping for other exploratory calls you have booked that week. Your mind is already focused on the exploratory process. Keep it there.

I’m sure some of you are saying to yourselves, that’s foolish advice — you should use that time to prospect or make follow-up calls. But here’s the thing. Unless you have your leads at the ready and you’re fully prepped to prospect, the odds are you’ll waste time getting ready to make those calls.

Conclusion

The goal is to work smarter as opposed to harder. Nobody wants to work longer hours to make the same money or meet their sales targets. By eliminating distractions and having a strategic, focused approach, you’re going to spend more time doing the things that will actually lead to sales.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 outside sales platform designed specifically for outside sales managers and reps to squeeze every drop out of their field sales efforts.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.