Sales territories have probably been around for as long as selling has. And as we’ve long known, territories have been historically defined by:
- Geography
- Calculated sales potential, and
- Other factors based on historical sales data
Brass tacks: By determining what’s worked in the past, revenue teams make their best educated guesses that the same metrics will hold true in the future.
But today’s always-on, rapidly changing world of B2B sales can poke big holes in this traditional approach, resulting in major knowledge gaps and lost opportunities.
Banking future success on past successes doesn’t take the present into account.
Traditionally, sales territories are updated once a year. That might’ve been frequent enough before buying teams increased in size to up to 20 members, and widely diversified their research sources, including blogs, social networks, SaaS review sites and many others. According to Gartner, they usually spend only 5% of their decision-making time speaking with a salesperson.
In this tech-fueled arms race, revenue teams also have more sophisticated sales intelligence tools, too. They use world-class account engagement platforms to detect buyers’ intent data in the Dark Funnel, deanonymize and analyze it, and — powered by AI and machine learning — can automatically determine the best ways to engage those buyers at that moment in their journeys.
Updating sales territories every year is too slow. Even updating them every quarter is too slow.
That’s why many revenue teams are ditching the old approach and embracing dynamic sales territories.
Dynamic Sales Territories: The What and Why
Dynamic sales territories are groups of accounts that fit your company’s ICP and are actively in-market and ready to buy. This means they fit your in-market ideal customer profile — they’re prospects that are good fits for your solution and likely to buy it now.
The “likely to buy it now” aspect is what necessitates these territories being dynamic. Calculating ideal firmographics once a year or quarterly can’t capture the sense of urgency with which prospective customers are looking for your solution.
Successful sales depend on connecting with customers at the critical moments in which they’re most eager to buy. Reducing your prospect lists and only assigning reps in-market accounts improves their chances of success, and offers numerous benefits.
The Upsides of Adopting Dynamic Sales Territories
Revenue teams that are assigned accounts based on dynamic sales territories save an incredible amount of time and effort by pursuing accounts that are ready to buy instead of chasing down every account that looks like a perfect fit on paper.
They can skip all the cold calling and spammy emails too, since they’re only reaching out to prospects ready to hear what they have to say about your solution. That reduces the chances of rejection … which can bring down sales rep morale, and is a better customer experience for prospects as well.
That doesn’t mean they must skip attractive big-name accounts that take longer to woo. Strategic accounts are still important to work, even if they take longer and requires more work.
But assigning reps some easy wins — let’s say about two-thirds of their accounts — can help them reach or exceed their quotas. In fact, after implementing dynamic territories, revenue teams may see more than 100% quota attainment.
Getting Started With Dynamic Sales Territories
Setting up dynamic sales territories starts the same way as it would for traditional sales territories. You’ll need to determine which firmographics your revenue team will take into consideration, such as:
- Country
- Number of employees
- Industry
- Revenue
But since the secret sauce of dynamic sales territories is knowing which accounts are in-market and ready to buy, you’ll need an ABM account engagement platform that delivers intent data and predictive data.
You could try to make educated guesses based on past closed-won data where prospects might be in their buyer’s journey, but it won’t be easy — and chances are, it won’t be accurate. Even if it were possible, updating daily, weekly, or even monthly would take up an unfathomable amount of effort.
Instead, adopting a solution that determines IICP accounts and offers tools for breaking them up into sales territories is the best way to go about it. Prospect lists can be continually monitored and updated on a daily basis to make sure reps are assigned accounts that are in-market.
Accounts can be added or removed quarterly, or at whatever timing you find works best, ensuring your sales reps are always getting fresh, relevant accounts with which to engage.
Conclusion
Assigning your reps “in-market” accounts based on dynamically generated territories can help them reach personal and team-wide sales goals with less time, effort, and stress.
The best way to determine these sales territories is to use technology that captures buyer intent data at the account level and allows revenue teams to assign sales reps accounts that are not just likely to buy, but extremely likely to buy in the immediate future.
Account engagement platforms — such as 6sense — is an example of world-class technology that can help your sales reps prioritize efforts on the accounts most likely to convert now.
