Sales territory planning: The five minute territory plan and template

What is a sales territory plan?

The number one issue for sales leaders today is – pipeline, pipeline, pipeline. How’s your pipeline looking? What’s your pipeline coverage gap look like? Well, we got you covered.

We have proven ways to quickly build self-sourced pipeline and progress pipeline faster too. It all starts with planning – territory planning. Sales territory planning is a proven way to empower sales teams to prioritize accounts and activities to generate more pipeline and close more deals – faster.

A sales territory plan is a strategic document that outlines how a sales team will approach and manage sales activities within a specific geographic area or market segment. The primary goal of a sales territory plan is to optimize the allocation of resources, increase sales effectiveness, and achieve revenue targets within the assigned territory. A territory plan serves as a roadmap for a salesperson and sales team, guiding their efforts and helping them stay focused on achieving success within their assigned territory.

Territory planning offers several benefits to organizations, sales teams and salespeople. Here are some of the advantages.

1. Clear sales objectives
2. Increase sales and revenue
3. Increase sales efficiency
4. Develop more self-sourced pipeline
5. Optimize resource allocation
6. Improved focus and activity prioritization
7. Better customer relationships
8. Deeper understanding of customer and market needs
9. Improved customer retention and growth
10. Enhanced team collaboration

The five minute sales territory plan

We believe there’s nothing better than old school, back to basics, sales territory analysis, planning and prospecting. Here’s a short talk outlining how to get your team embracing territory planning as a path to create self-sourced demand. Imagine what would happen to your business and pipeline if every seller documented their own territory plan and then video recorded a short and thoughtful five minute version of it?

We call this the “Five Minute Territory Plan.”

Reps love the 5 minute territory plan:

“I found recording my sales territory plans to be such an illuminating experience. It helped me identify gaps in my strategy, evaluate what I was saying and why I was saying it. The AI was real time and the feedback was spot on. I feel I’m better for it and looking forward to doing more”. – Ben

Turn territory planning into an interactive experience for your sales teams by making everyone part of the process and accountable for results. I believe our quota carrying, revenue generating sales executives need to own self-sourcing pipeline. Territory planning is the way to reinvigorate it. Here are the secrets to making “territory planning and prospecting” a revenue generating peer activity appreciated versus criticized.

1. Have vision and leadership to make it part of your sales culture
2. Make territory plans relevant, short, and accessible to share best practices
3. Do sales territory planning quarterly or even monthly

Vision and leadership make it happen

Companies that embrace the idea of video recording territory planning with Sales Enablement Platform on a regular basis, with peer reviews, are seeing tremendous increases in self-sourced pipeline and improvements in new hire time to ramp. Think about it. Imagine if every new hire had access to stack-ranked video recordings of territory plans grouped by tenure. What would happen to your team’s time to first deal and time to ramp metrics? The power and value of crowdsourcing is incredible. We all know that some of us are great at planning and others aren’t so great. Making territory planning a team sport is a chance to get everyone to learn how to plan like those who do it best. It takes vision to turn crowdsourcing territory plans into culture. It takes work to align teams on expectations. It takes discipline to make it stick.

Make the plan relevant, short, and accessible

Here are the basics of a sales territory plan proven to create pipeline and generate revenue fast. Start by sharing a territory planning template that’s relevant and short. Click here to download our template. Turn the territory plan into a collaborative business review.

Have your team document the facts of the territory and goals.

My territory summary Quota and stretch goal Closed business YTD Gap to close Open pipeline Pipeline gap Best case finish Goals

Then, move into top prioritizing accounts to prospect. Prioritize 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.

If some of the accounts are ready, have your teams create an opportunity plan and make sure opportunity plans are thorough. It doesn’t take much to know if there is a plan in place.

1. What’s the compelling event?
2. Why now?
3. What’s the strategy to engage with a champion and economic buyer?
4. What’s the mutual success plan?
5. Why no?

We’re not doing deep detailed reviews. You can also follow a MEDDICC/MEDDPICC deal review format too.

Close out the plan with strategies to build pipeline. Don’t forget that we’re living in a 3X or even 5X pipeline-ratio world. Putting “pen to paper” on these territory statistics makes it super clear what needs to get done, to earn a spot on the beach celebrating club.

That’s the flow of the five slide and “Five Minute Territory Plan” template. Download the template now.

The benefits AI and sales territory plans

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can significantly enhance the effectiveness of sales territory planning by providing advanced analytics, automation, insights and coaching. Here are several ways in which AI can assist in sales territory planning:

1. Data Analysis and Insights: AI can analyze vast amounts of data, including customer demographics, purchasing behavior, and market trends, to provide valuable insights into each territory’s potential.

2. Customer Segmentation: AI algorithms can perform advanced customer segmentation based on various factors, enabling sales teams to target specific customer groups with tailored approaches.

3. Automation of Routine Tasks: AI can automate routine and repetitive tasks, such as data entry, report generation, and administrative activities. This allows sales teams to focus more on strategic planning and customer engagement. SalesHood’s AI Call Recaps and AI Coach are great examples.

4. Content recommendations: AI-driven personalization can enhance sales effectiveness within each territory by tailoring campaigns to the specific preferences and needs of local customers.Recommendation engines can suggest personalized offers and content, increasing the relevance of marketing materials.

5. Coaching: AI-powered collaboration platforms facilitate communication and knowledge-sharing among sales team members working in different territories.

A great use of AI is to provide coaching feedback to salespeople in real-time on their sales territory plans. The power of AI with territory planning is that you will make your review process more effective and efficient. It’s a game-changer for sales leaders, sales managers and sellers. Here are the benefits of using AI to inspect, review and coach territory plans:

• Reps and team show up ready for team reviews
• 10X review volume and quality
• Coaching in the moment

Here’s a video explaining the benefits of using AI to coach sellers and provide feedback – especially relevant for account and territory reviews.

Overcome territory planning objections and barriers

For many, sales territory planning is not perceived as a revenue generating and pipeline building activity. It’s our job as managers and coaches to guide our teams to breakthrough these barriers. Here are some questions to pose during a team meeting, kickoff event or one-on-one.

1. What limiting beliefs are holding us back?
2. What do we have to do to achieve greatness?
3. How do we need to grow personally and professionally?
4. How should we think differently?
5. What behaviors need to develop, change, and evolve?

Sales territory planning cadence

Given the sales territory plan template is short, forward thinking leaders are building monthly and quarterly territory planning cadence. The short plans get sellers to focus on strategy and execution versus too much time filling out slides that aren’t relevant. We want to see more sellers take the time to be thoughtful about their plan and business. What we love most about this process is getting everyone to limit their territory planning to five minutes. Less is more. Less slides and less words is hard to accomplish.. We’ve learned when territory planning video recordings are five minutes or less (and accessible), sellers will invest the time to watch up to fifteen peer territory plans. We have also witnessed that with AI sellers are taking time to get feedback multiple times on their plans before submitting for approval by their managers.

The process and benefits apply to account planning too. If you want to learn more about Account Planning, here’s another blog you can read. You can scale Territory Planning and Account Planning with our AI Coach.

We have proven ways to quickly build self-sourced pipeline and progress pipeline faster too. Sharing hyper-personalized sites to educate and elevate prospecting outreach is working wonders for many of our customers.

✅ 60% pipeline conversion
✅ Win-rates are up 2X
✅ Deal velocity up 15%
✅ Deal size up 400%

Who doesn’t want these results? Click here to learn more and start a free trial.

How does SalesHood help with territory planning?

SalesHood is an AI-powered revenue execution platform designed to support various aspects of sales effectiveness, including training, coaching, and collaboration. SalesHood plays a role in facilitating certain aspects of the sales territory planning process including planning, prospecting and personalization. Here’s how SalesHood can contribute:

1. Training and onboarding: SalesHood provides a platform for creating and delivering training content. For sales teams involved in territory planning, this can be valuable for onboarding new team members or ensuring that existing team members are up-to-date on the latest strategies and approaches related to territory management.

2. Content creation and best practice sharing: SalesHood allows organizations to create and share content related to sales strategies, market insights, and best practices. This can be useful in the context of territory planning by providing a centralized repository for information that can be accessed by sales teams as they plan and execute strategies within their assigned territories.

3. Collaboration and communication: The collaboration features of SalesHood facilitate communication and knowledge-sharing among sales team members. This can be beneficial for coordinating activities within and across territories, allowing teams to share insights, success stories, and challenges.

4. Coaching and feedback: SalesHood supports coaching and feedback mechanisms, enabling managers and peers to provide guidance to sales representatives. This can be particularly useful in the context of territory planning, where feedback can help refine strategies and improve performance.

5. Hyper-personalized prospecting with Client Sites: Guide sellers what to do, what to share and what to say with
   hyper-personalized prospecting. There’s so much noise out there. Rise above the crowd with a differentiated and personalized approach to prospecting. We have proven ways to quickly build self-sourced pipeline and progress pipeline faster too. Sharing hyper-personalized sites to educate and elevate prospecting outreach is working wonders for many of our customers. Salesforce says that only 29% of sellers use videos to prospect. SalesLoft reports that using video to prospect can lead to a 26% higher response rate compared to simple email text.

SalesHood complements the sales territory planning process by providing a platform for ongoing learning, collaboration, and prospecting. Integrating SalesHood with other tools and processes tailored to territory planning can create a more comprehensive and effective approach to sales management and pipeline development.