Territory Planning with Salesforce Maps
Advanced Insights and Best Practices
Territory planning is the process of dividing broad regions into smaller, manageable areas assigned to specific sales reps or teams. In large enterprises this process is anything but simple – sales operations must consider many factors (geography, customer value, rep capacity, etc.) to ensure an equitable split and maximize revenue potential. Effective territory planning is crucial for business efficiency: it can increase sales, decrease travel costs, improve customer coverage, and lead to stronger client relationships.
Conversely, poorly planned (unbalanced or overlapping) territories create uneven opportunity distribution and overloaded or idle reps, negatively impacting sales performance. In this blog, we delve into advanced territory planning techniques using Salesforce Maps – a toolset that brings mapping intelligence into Salesforce to streamline and optimize how you design and manage territories.
Key Features for Territory Planning
Territory Visualization and Heat Maps
Salesforce Maps Territory Planning interface showing sales territories color-coded on a map, with a legend of territory names and metrics (e.g. annual revenue) on the right.
Salesforce Maps provides rich territory visualization on an interactive map. Territories can be defined as shapes (polygons) on the map, giving you a clear geographical view of each rep’s area and accounts. You can overlay performance data using heat maps to highlight trends within territories – for example, shading regions by total sales, customer density, or other KPIs.
These visual cues immediately show where you may need to bolster or reduce coverage to meet your sales and service goals. By visualizing territories with color-coding and heat map intensity, sales leaders can quickly identify high-potential areas and gaps in coverage for more informed decision-making.
Automated Territory Balancing
Salesforce Maps Territory Planning optimization example – a “Compare” chart at the bottom shows how reallocating areas changes each territory’s account count and annual revenue (Current vs Proposed), helping to balance territories.
Another powerful feature of Salesforce Maps is its automated territory balancing capability. A built-in optimization engine allows you to automatically rebalance territories with one click of the Optimize button. This tool will reassign accounts/regions between territories based on criteria you choose – for instance, balancing each territory’s total revenue, number of accounts, or any numeric metric you define.
Salesforce Maps can balance territories on any numerical value, ensuring no rep’s patch has significantly more opportunity than another’s by design. After running an optimization, the system provides a comparison of the before vs. after for each territory’s metrics, so you can review changes (e.g. territory A gains 5 accounts, territory B loses $200K in pipeline) prior to accepting them. This removes guesswork and manual effort from territory design. In short, automated balancing helps sales operations maintain fair, data-driven territories as the business grows and changes.
Territory-Based Lead and Customer Segmentation
Salesforce Maps also enables dynamic territory-based segmentation of leads and customers. Using the Territory Planning tool, you can define data sets that filter Salesforce records by territory criteria (such as all accounts in a certain state or region) for focused analysis and planning. This means you can easily segment your market geographically – for example, isolating all prospects in the Northeast territory – and then devise targeted sales or marketing strategies for that segment. In fact, many marketing teams leverage Salesforce Maps for campaign targeting and customer segmentation by location.
Plotting leads and accounts on the map by territory allows you to see clusters of customers and assign outreach accordingly. Territory segmentation in Salesforce Maps also ties into Salesforce assignment rules: as you publish territories, the system can auto-categorize new incoming leads or accounts into the correct territory based on their address. (Geo data like ZIP code or state is a common lead assignment criterion to route leads to the right rep.) This ensures that your segmentation is continuously applied – every new record is tagged to a territory and routed to the appropriate owner without manual intervention. The result is a well-organized CRM where each sales rep is focused only on the leads and customers in their territory, and each customer is clearly owned by a territory rep.
Best Practices for Optimizing Territory Planning in Salesforce Maps
Setting Up and Refining Territories for Maximum Efficiency
When implementing territory planning with Salesforce Maps, preparation and iterative design are key. Begin by ensuring your data is clean and geocoded – every account and lead should have accurate latitude/longitude coordinates so they plot correctly on the map. This may involve running Salesforce’s geocoding on addresses and cleaning up any outdated or duplicate records.
With reliable data in place, define clear criteria for how you will split territories (geography is common, but consider factors like customer tier or product lines as needed). It’s wise to model and refine territories in a sandbox or draft mode using Salesforce Maps Territory Planning, rather than altering live assignments immediately. The territory alignment tool lets you propose changes in a separate planning space so that current sales assignments aren’t affected until you’re ready to publish.
Take advantage of this by creating an initial territory model, then reviewing it with stakeholders. Engage your sales leaders (and even reps) to get feedback and local insights – for example, reps might point out travel barriers or key customer groupings that inform better boundaries. Using Salesforce Maps, you can easily tweak territory borders (dragging boundaries or reassigning ZIP codes between territories) and see the impact instantly. Iterate on the design until each territory is logical and balanced for workload, and each rep can cover their accounts efficiently.
Collaboration in this setup phase is crucial; Salesforce Maps even allows you to add comments and annotations in the Territory Planning interface for team input during the design process. By the time you finalize and publish your territories, you’ll have a well-thought-out alignment that suits your strategy and team capacity.
Leveraging Historical Data for Smarter Territory Allocation
A data-driven approach to territory planning yields smarter allocations. Leverage historical data and performance metrics to inform how you carve up territories. Before drawing new lines on the map, analyze how past sales, revenue, and customer distribution have played out under your current or previous territory setup. Salesforce Maps’ analytics can overlay these data points, or you can pull reports on key metrics per region. Look for imbalance signs – e.g. one territory generated double the revenue of others, or another territory contains a huge cluster of customers. These insights should guide your realignment.
In Salesforce Maps Territory Planning, you can even compare different alignment scenarios side by side: for example, you might simulate “What if we split the largest territory into two?” and examine the outcome. The tool provides comparison charts that update in real time as you adjust territories (showing metrics like account counts and revenue per territory), which helps immensely in using data to drive decisions. Ensure that each territory has a roughly equal share of the total opportunity based on historical numbers – this might mean each territory has similar total pipeline, or each rep gets a balanced mix of high-value and low-value accounts.
Also consider rep capacity and skills when allocating territories. For instance, a newer rep might initially get a territory with fewer accounts or only smaller clients, whereas a senior rep could handle a larger or more complex territory. Salesforce Maps supports this by allowing you to factor in attributes like account size or expected workload during optimization. In fact, the 2022 enhancements to Territory Planning introduced ways to account for role seniority and expertise when balancing territories – you can ensure new hires are given territories with reduced scope until they ramp up.
Finally, don’t set your territory design in stone on the first pass: use Salesforce Maps to plan multiple scenarios and evaluate them. The tool lets you create up to three what-if scenarios for an alignment. You might create one scenario favoring minimal territory changes, and another that is a radical overhaul, then compare the outcomes (in terms of balanced metrics) to choose the best path. By combining historical performance data, Salesforce’s optimization suggestions, and your own business insights, you can allocate territories in a way that is both fair and strategically sound.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Territory Planning
Even with great tools, there are pitfalls to avoid in territory planning. Here are some common issues and how to prevent them:
Inaccurate or incomplete data: Bad data leads to bad territories. If addresses are wrong or records missing, reps could be assigned accounts outside their area or some accounts might not get assigned at all.
Solution: Perform a thorough data cleanup and ensure all accounts/leads are geocoded before designing territories. Investing time in data quality upfront will pay off in a smoother planning process. (Salesforce Maps will require geocodes for mapping, so use its geocode features as needed.)
Unequal territory load: A classic pitfall is creating territories of unequal potential – one rep ends up with a territory that has far more customers or revenue opportunity than another. This inequity hurts morale and revenue: some reps will be overworked while others can’t meet quota due to a limited patch.
Solution: Use the balancing tools and metrics in Salesforce Maps to even out the workload. Aim to distribute accounts and revenue roughly evenly, or according to objective criteria like market value. Reviewing summary stats by territory side-by-side (e.g. total annual sales per territory) helps ensure no territory is wildly over or under-resourced. Adjust boundaries or account assignments until each territory represents a comparable opportunity.
Overlapping or unclear boundaries: Overlaps in territories (or gaps between them) create confusion and conflict. If two reps can claim the same account because of ambiguous lines, you’ll waste time in turf wars and risk sales coverage gaps.
Solution: Clearly define non-overlapping territory boundaries using the map tools, and document the rules (e.g. “north of Main St belongs to Territory A, south to Territory B”). Salesforce Maps can plot precise shapes down to ZIP or even street level, preventing overlap. Additionally, maintain account ownership integrity – if you have related accounts (parent/child companies), assign them under one territory or account owner to avoid internal competition. By using Salesforce’s territory hierarchy and assignment rules, you can enforce these boundaries so that each account lives in only one territory at a time.
Static territories that never change: Markets and business strategies evolve, and a territory model that was perfect two years ago might be obsolete now. A common pitfall is failing to revisit and adjust territories over time – resulting in missed opportunities or lopsided workloads as some regions grow and others shrink.
Solution: Regularly track territory performance and revisit your alignment. Salesforce Maps, in conjunction with CRM analytics, makes it easy to monitor how each territory is doing (pipeline, win rates, new customers, etc.). Set a cadence (e.g. quarterly or biannually) to evaluate if territories need tweaking. Perhaps you need to split a booming territory into two, or reassign a set of accounts due to a shift in market focus. By treating territory planning as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task, you can adapt quickly to change. Salesforce Maps Territory Planning supports this agility – you can keep an alignment model on hand for “compelling events” (like a merger or a market expansion) and use it to run scenarios when change is needed. Avoid the “set and forget” trap and instead make territory optimization a continuous improvement exercise.
By sidestepping these pitfalls, you ensure your territory plan remains fair, efficient, and effective over the long term.
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Integrations with Other Salesforce Products
One of the strengths of Salesforce Maps for territory planning is how it integrates with the rest of the Salesforce ecosystem. Your territory definitions in Maps can directly influence lead assignment, field service scheduling, and analytics reporting. Here are a few key integrations experienced users should take advantage of:
Salesforce Sales Cloud (Territory-Based Lead Assignment)
Territory planning in Salesforce Maps works hand-in-hand with Sales Cloud’s features, especially for lead and account assignment. You can publish your finalized territories into Salesforce’s territory management (Enterprise Territory Management in Sales Cloud) so that your CRM’s official territory models match what you designed on the map. Once published, these territories can drive account ownership and role hierarchies in Sales Cloud.
Moreover, Salesforce Maps can automatically create assignment rules to route records to the proper territories and owners. For example, if you define Territory A as certain postal codes, the system can generate rules so that any new lead or account with a ZIP in Territory A gets assigned to Territory A’s owner (and team) automatically. Geo-based lead assignment is a common practice – companies often use a lead’s state or ZIP code to determine which rep should follow up, and Salesforce Maps makes this seamless by tying territory boundaries to those criteria. The integration means that when a sales rep opens Salesforce, the leads and opportunities they see have already been filtered to their territory. It eliminates manual triage of inbound leads.
Sales Cloud and Maps together ensure that territory planning isn’t just a planning exercise, but operationalized – the moment you finalize a new territory alignment, you can deploy it so that leads and accounts start flowing to the right people. This tight integration reduces lag time and errors in reassigning accounts, keeping your CRM data aligned with your latest territory strategy.
Salesforce Field Service (Optimized Scheduling by Territory)
Salesforce Maps Territory Planning can also feed into Salesforce Field Service to improve service coverage and scheduling. Once you’ve defined sales territories or service regions on the map, you have the option to publish these as Field Service territories complete with their geographic boundaries.
In practice, this means the same polygons you drew for sales reps can be used to create Service Territory records in Field Service, which designate the areas that field technicians cover. This integration is incredibly useful for operations teams: your dispatchers and scheduling algorithms will respect those territory boundaries when assigning work. For example, if a maintenance job pops up in Territory West, the Field Service logic will assign it to a technician who is responsible for (and ideally located in) Territory West, rather than someone from across the country.
Optimized territory-based scheduling cuts down travel time and ensures technicians are familiar with the region they serve. It also prevents overlapping dispatch where two techs unknowingly cover the same area. By aligning sales territories with service territories, you create a unified approach to how customers in a region are managed. Salesforce Maps makes it easy to maintain this consistency – if you adjust territory boundaries in a realignment, you can publish the update to Field Service so that your service team’s regions stay in sync. The result is faster response times and more efficient service delivery, as each field agent operates within a well-defined zone.
Einstein Analytics (Territory Performance Reporting)
To truly optimize territories, you need to continuously analyze their performance – this is where Einstein Analytics (CRM Analytics) comes into play. Salesforce Maps doesn’t operate in a vacuum; it produces data (like territory definitions, assignment results, coverage maps) that can be combined with your sales performance data in Einstein Analytics for powerful insights.
Experienced Salesforce users build custom territory performance dashboards that track key metrics per territory: pipeline, closed sales, quota attainment, customer satisfaction, etc. By integrating territory data, you can create visualizations such as a map-based dashboard showing each territory colored by % of quota achieved, or a comparison of service response times by territory. Einstein Analytics allows you to overlay geographic territory boundaries with business data to spot trends and outliers. For instance, you might discover that one territory has significantly lower customer penetration than its neighbors, or that Territory B consistently exceeds its targets while Territory C struggles – indicating a need to redistribute accounts or resources. Salesforce Maps provides some in-app reports, but Einstein Analytics takes it further with custom analyses and AI-driven insights.
Best practices include scheduling a Territory Performance dashboard for sales managers that refreshes automatically, so they can gauge health of their territories at a glance. Regular analysis helps you answer questions like: Are our territories yielding the expected revenue? Do we need to re-balance based on market changes? Which territories might need additional reps or marketing support? By leveraging Einstein/CRM Analytics in tandem with Salesforce Maps, you get a continuous feedback loop – plan territories, execute, measure results, and then refine territories – driving a cycle of continuous improvement in your sales coverage model.
Summary
In conclusion, Salesforce Maps Territory Planning brings a sophisticated, data-driven approach to territory design that can greatly enhance sales and service efficiency. By visualizing territories on a map, optimizing their balance with automation, and integrating the outcomes with lead routing, dispatch, and analytics, organizations can ensure every patch is equitable and strategically assigned. Well-planned territories lead to reps spending more time with customers and less time driving or dealing with internal conflicts, which in turn drives more revenue and better customer satisfaction.
As Salesforce’s own product leaders have noted, ensuring territories are balanced effectively allows sales teams to fully capitalize on their capacity and maximize growth. The advanced insights and tools we discussed here are geared toward experienced Salesforce users – if you’re managing a complex sales organization, Salesforce Maps can become a game-changer for your territory strategy.
If you are looking to elevate its territory planning process with Salesforce Maps, consider reaching out to Cloud 9 Consulting. Our team of Salesforce experts has deep experience in implementing and optimizing Salesforce Maps Territory Planning for businesses just like yours. We can help you apply the best practices outlined above, from configuring the Maps package to designing data-driven territory models tailored to your market. Don’t leave your sales performance to geography chance – let Cloud 9 Consulting guide you in carving out territories that drive efficiency and growth.
Contact us today to unlock the full potential of Salesforce Maps and take your territory planning to the next level.
