What is Territory Planning?
Territory planning is the process of segmenting and allocating accounts, industries, or geographic regions to individual sales reps to maximize coverage and minimize overlap.
Territory planning determines which reps own which accounts. Done well, it ensures balanced workloads, fair quota distribution, and maximum market coverage. Done poorly, it creates hotspots of over-coverage, orphaned accounts that nobody owns, and constant rep complaints about fairness.
Territory Planning Approaches
There are four main models. Geographic territories assign reps by region. Named account territories assign specific high-value accounts. Industry/vertical territories group accounts by sector. Hybrid models combine two or more approaches. The right model depends on your ACV, buyer profile, and team size. Most companies below 20 reps use geographic or named account models. Larger orgs layer in vertical specialization.
Common Territory Planning Mistakes
The biggest mistake is planning based on company count rather than revenue potential. A territory with 500 SMB accounts isn't equal to one with 50 enterprise accounts worth 10x the revenue. CROs should balance territories by total addressable revenue, not account count. Other common errors: failing to account for existing pipeline when reassigning territories, creating territories too large for one rep to cover effectively, and changing territories mid-year without quota adjustments.
Technology and Territory Planning
Tools like LeanData and Openprise help automate account routing and territory assignments within Salesforce. Data enrichment platforms like ZoomInfo and Apollo provide the firmographic data (employee count, revenue, industry) needed to score and segment accounts. CROs who invest in data-driven territory planning see more balanced attainment distributions across their teams.
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