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Money Matters: What’s missing from your territory planning? Teamwork!

By J’Nel Wright - Special to the Daily Herald | Jan 11, 2025

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For sales departments, teamwork is key to achieving success.

When it comes to sales territory planning, most people think of maps, metrics and market potential — but what about teamwork? Behind every successful territory plan lies a hidden superpower: collaboration.

Sure, it might not sound as exciting as snagging a big deal or closing a challenging sale, but without cross-functional input, even the best-laid plans can lose focus.

Sales territory planning isn’t just about drawing lines on a map; it’s about aligning teams, sharing insights and creating a strategy that works for everyone — especially your customers. Studies show that companies experience 36% higher revenue growth when sales and marketing are aligned.

Let’s look closer at why collaboration is often overlooked in territory planning and why it deserves a front-row seat in the planning process.

Perception of territory planning as a sales-only task

Territory planning is often viewed as the sole responsibility of the sales team or leadership. This narrow focus means that valuable insight from other departments, like marketing or customer success, goes untapped. It also means that sales teams prioritize short-term revenue objectives over long-term strategic alignment. As a result, they often neglect to incorporate input from other teams that could improve customer experiences and sales efficiency.

Fortunately, we see a change in new territory planning practices. Although only 30% of sales reps say their sales and marketing teams are strongly aligned, HubSpot research found that 61% of these sales professionals say team alignment is more important than in previous years. That sets the stage for breaking down department siloes for more comprehensive and effective territory planning.

Siloed organizational structures

The sales team only knows what they know. So, if sales, marketing and customer success don’t share their lead data or customer insight with other teams, the entire Go-to-Market suffers from missed opportunities to align territory plans with broader business strategies that define sales targets and streamline Go-to-Market strategy.

A dedicated RevOps leader, armed with a CRM providing a reliable data source on a single platform, is instrumental in formalizing a structured process that includes other teams in territory planning instead of defaulting to traditional, sales-centric approaches.

Seventy-eight percent of sales reps believe their CRM is instrumental in aligning sales and marketing teams. At Fullcast, using a tool with features that analyze shared data and simplify collective, artificial-intelligence-supported territory management is an advantageous addition to a customer relationship management system.

Time constraints

For sales reps who are ready to hit the new quarter with a new territory, time is quite literally money. The pressure to finalize territories quickly can push collaboration aside, as gathering input from multiple teams is seen as time-consuming. Frankly, when territory management relies on spreadsheets and guesswork, it does, indeed, require time.

Automation is key. AI-backed territory management software facilitates collaboration by providing shared insights and analytics across teams. A territory management platform can analyze historical sales data, market potential and customer behavior through intelligent territory design and recommend optimal territory boundaries while balancing workload among sales reps.

Since the bottom line is never far from view among all departments, predictive analytics can guide resource allocation and flag underperforming territories. At the same time, automated rule enforcement streamlines territory management by reducing manual errors and ensuring smooth transitions during internal sales rep changes or territory realignment.

Resistance to change

Sales teams accustomed to working independently may not see the value in seeking input from other departments. In this case, moving forward with a collaborative approach to territory planning must start from the top with a shift in work culture that supports strong collaboration among teams.

“True GTM alignment isn’t limited to managers,” said Megan Ross, RevOps manager at Fullcast. “Collaboration among all teams thrives because it brings together diverse strengths, perspectives and expertise. Each member of the Go-to-Market team has unique skills and experiences. When these are pooled, they drive innovation and problem-solving. By leaning into each other’s strengths, teams can achieve more than individuals working in silos ever could.”

It’s an exciting time for a more cohesive Go-to-Market. By addressing these challenges and building a collaborative culture, organizations can leverage better-aligned territories based on data-driven and team-approved input for effective sales outcomes.

J’Nel Wright is a content writer at Fullcast, a Silicon Slopes-based, end-to-end RevOps platform that allows companies to design, manage and track the performance of their revenue-generating teams.