The Downside of Territory Misalignment

Are you getting the most out of your sales territories?

Every sales manager understands the upside of effective sales territory management—increased revenue due to maximum productivity from a high performing field sales team. But how many fully understand what the downside can be when territories are misaligned or even being re-aligned?

In their periodic attempts to realign territories to keep up with market changes, sales managers are faced with inevitable slowdowns. Reps make fewer calls as their territory and their client and/or product mix change. If you figure one less call per day for as long as it takes (say one month at the least) at a cost of $100 per call, that’s $2,000 less revenue per rep. If you’ve got a team of 100 reps, the cost to the company is now $200,000 for the month-long period of territory shift.

Regular tweaks to territories need to be made in order to stay competitive. Once you know the cost of territory change, the secret is to make the changes with as little disruption to productivity as possible.