Product

SPOTIO Tips & Tricks: Adding Lost Reasons

In this article we discuss why you should add Lost Reasons to your Lost Stage, as well as how to set-up, manage, and edit those reasons.

Simply marking a potential opportunity as lost should not be the final step. You need to add a note so that you or another rep can have context around the lost reason for reference down the road, because chances are it’s not lost forever.

You never know if you will need to re-engage with a lost opportunity, so taking the extra minute to add a note will not only make prospecting easier in the future, it will keep you organized and efficient.

Three Key Benefits:

1. Adding context around why a deal was lost is imperative to keep your team on the same page

2. Reminds you what happened with the deal

3. You can run reports and pull all lost deals around specific reasons for future outreach

An Example of the power of being able to filter based off reason type

You may have spoken with a prospect but they felt pricing was too high. But now you may be in luck at capturing their business because you’re running a pricing special. Because you added “lost to due pricing” for the lost reason, you can now quickly pull up any prospective accounts that failed to convert due to pricing and re-engage with them.

How to Add, Remove or Edit Lost Reasons

Add a Reason

Click on ‘add reason’ to enter the edit mode. Then enter the title of your new lost reason (this can be anything you want it to be). Make sure you click the plus sign and then ‘save’.

Remove a Reason

Click on ‘add reason’ to enter the edit mode. Find the ‘X’ beside bad timing and click on ‘save’. You can also change the order of your loss reasons. If you know that one is more common than another, click on add reason.

Edit a Reason

To enter the edit mode, use your mouse to grab the three lines icon and move your reason up or down. Remember to click ‘save’.

Now you know how to add, remove, or edit loss reasons from the last stage.

See in Action:

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

SPOTIO Raises $4.5 Million from Ballast Point Ventures

January 9, 2020 – SPOTIO, a Dallas-based software company providing cloud-based sales acceleration and performance management solutions for field sales personnel, is pleased to announce a $4.5 million Series A investment from Ballast Point Ventures. The platform’s robust, mobile-first feature set enables sales teams to manage sales territories, execute face-to-face meetings, and optimize the sales pipeline and performance across the outside sales organization. SPOTIO will use the investment to accelerate development of its technology pipeline, add to its sales team, and intensify its marketing efforts.

“Built with the field sales representative and manager in mind, SPOTIO’s platform delivers a comprehensive mobile solution tailored towards providing actionable leads for outside sales reps in the field and unparalleled insight for managers back at the office. We provide both business-to-business outside sales personnel and residential sales teams the tools they need to execute and manage their outside sales activities,” said SPOTIO Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Trey Gibson.

“We are excited to bring an institutional investor into our company and are eager to get to work with Ballast Point Ventures. We look forward to this next leg of the journey and to continue to deliver a comprehensive solution to our many customers.”

“As BPV has gotten to know Trey over the last couple of years, we have been very impressed with the growth and success SPOTIO has been able to achieve with minimal outside investment. Given our focus on partnering with rapidly growing private companies with great management teams in the Southeast and Texas, SPOTIO is a great fit for us,” said Ballast Point Ventures’ Sean Barkman, who will join the SPOTIO Board of Directors.

“We are excited to partner with the entire SPOTIO team to drive continued growth and solidify the platform’s position as the leading outside sales enablement software.”

“We are excited to have another investment in the Dallas area,” continued Robert Faber, who will serve as a Board Observer at SPOTIO. “Trey is exactly the kind of entrepreneur that we want to work with, and we are excited about partnering with him after building a relationship with him for the last several years.”

About SPOTIO

SPOTIO is a mobile-first solution for outside sales teams to eliminate guesswork, and focus on the highest impact activity. The platform provides managers with real-time visibility into their team’s activities for improved sales development. Sales reps receive access to the mobile application with targeted prospect data, historical knowledge of each account, and document management functionality. Thousands of customers rely on SPOTIO to accelerate growth with their sales teams. SPOTIO is a privately held company based in Dallas, Texas.

For additional information, visit www.spotio.com.

About Ballast Point Ventures

Ballast Point Ventures, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, is a later-stage venture capital and growth equity fund founded in 2002 to provide expansion capital for rapidly growing, privately owned companies, with a particular emphasis on companies located in Florida, the Southeast and Texas. The BPV partners have more than 80 years of combined experience investing in and building high-growth companies in several industries, including software, technology-enabled business services, and healthcare. Ballast Point Ventures has $360 million under management across three Funds and seeks to make initial equity investments ranging in size from $4 million to $10 million.

For additional information, visit www.ballastpointventures.com.

SPOTIO, Your MapPoint Alternative

What Was MapPoint?

Just before the turn of this century, Microsoft released MapPoint, a mapping software that helps your team navigate unfamiliar sales territories. MapPoint grew from a consumer version launched in 1988 by NextBase, a group of promising software developers working out of their garage in the UK. In 1994, Microsoft purchased the software originally built to run on DOS-computers.

While other software programs focused on navigation, MapPoint was unique in that it included geographic analysis. In fact, per Chron, Microsoft’s Streets and Trips, the consumer version of the software, was a pared-down version of MapPoint.

Users of MapPoint could not only get where they want to go, but they could also add business data, including sales trends for the area and even individual salespeople’s success rates in the area.

Perhaps most importantly, MapPoint had features that could target potential customers and markets based on geography. Proponents of the program appreciated how it could help with planning and forecasting with real geographic and demographic information.

MapPoint was self-contained, meaning all the data was built into the program without needing anything online. In other words, it didn’t need the Internet—and it came on a CD ROM.

MapPoints’ most notable functionality:

– Route planning
– GPS tracking
– Territory management
– Reporting
– Mileage tracking, drive time estimation, and expense calculators

Why was MapPoint discontinued?

Despite MapPoint’s popularity in the U.S. and Europe, MapPoint mapping software was discontinued at the end of 2014. Technical support ended in 2015. At the same time, Microsoft also closed down Autoroute, a popular European version of the software. Commercial (or business) mapping software just didn’t have the appeal any more as it once did.

By that time, Microsoft put their support behind Bing Maps, its web mapping service which was part of its Enterprise framework. The move to discontinue MapPoint and Streets & Trips came at a time when CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft would “be re-evaluating products and processes that don’t make sense for the company’s future.”

If you liked MapPoint, you’re going to love this…

Replace MapPoint and accelerate your sales performance

SPOTIO, Your MapPoint Alternative

Outside sales people are turning to SPOTIO because it combines the familiarity and benefits of MapPoint with more modern functionality with an additional set of features. Features only offered by SPOTIO include: Android/iPhone/iPad compatibility, calendar and CRM integration, mobile enabled, custom fields, daily planner, team accountability, and leaderboards… just to name a few.

After a 20-year run they ended things by recommending those using the tool to turn to PowerBI for Excel and Sharepoint in order to visualize their business data on a map. But there is something better… SPOTIO, your alternative to MapPoint.

A few reasons salespeople used MapPoint:

1. Organization and advanced preparation
2. Optimized routes to save drive time and gas money
3. Route editing and historical customer data on the go

For a product with so much support, you’d think there would be more to it. But, MapPoint was far outdated and required computer access to utilize, and as a result, an alternative to MapPoint became a priority for its users.

7 Important Gains by MapPoint Closing

MapPoint Alternative #1 | Advanced Data & Analytics

SPOTIO’s dashboard provides instant insight for each individual team member. Determine where your sales reps have the most room for improvement. After coaching them, monitor their performance using live metrics to easily visualize and analyze their progress.

– See team performance in relation to your sales funnel
– Reflect data from custom statuses and fields based on KPIs
– Graphs represent team performance, best time and day to knock, and more
– Know the number of attempts it takes to establish contacts, get leads and make sales
– Different views available so you see the data in a way that makes the most sense
– Get automated alerts based on parameters you set

MapPoint Alternative #2 | Live Updates In Real-Time

SPOTIO’s data is live and updated in REAL-TIME. MapPoint was installed and only able to be accessed from a PC.

Whether it’s rep location, customer status, or user data, every piece of information that you have changed is immediately reflected in the platform. This real-time insight is valuable. It increases revenue, maximizes profitability, and boosts productivity.

Real-time knowledge backed with recorded data creates usable information to make immediate decisions to effectively manage your team.

MapPoint Alternative #3 | Access From Any Device

Take advantage of SPOTIO’s complete feature set. It’s robust, yet extremely easy to use no matter which device you prefer. You can download the SPOTIO app on the App Store, Google Play Store, or use the web app for larger administrative tasks.

With access on any device you can:

– Collaborate with management
– Schedule and book appointments
– Use the in-app chat
– Click-for-directions
– Click-to-call
– Click-to-text

And more!

MapPoint Alternative #4 | Complete Visualization

Trying to access your sales funnel in the field to determine where you’re going next is difficult if your just using a list. SPOTIO equips salespeople with the tool to do both. See every prospect and customer’s geographic location on the map or view them in a list format.
Because SPOTIO is 100% customizable to your sales process, you can sort and filter as much as you’d like. Searching for those hot leads is now a breeze and viewing your entire funnel has never been easier.

Create notifications to alert you when you haven’t visited a prospect in a certain number of days or trigger an email campaign based on your specifications. Never have another lead slip through the cracks again.

MapPoint Alternative #5 | Unlimited Integrations & Customization

We understand the importance of each company’s sales process and know that each one is unique. To match this level of adaptability, SPOTIO integrates with over 750 different applications to keep you as lean and efficient as possible.

Customize any field or status in the app, or create your own if you don’t see what you need. Send pins to dozens of CRM’s and continue automating your sales process to make your sales organization more productive than ever.

Some of the cool things you can do with automation:

– Appointment reminder texts / emails
– Handwritten thank you letters
– Email new sales to management
– Collect electronic signatures
– Create new Trello cards

Our most popular integrations include:

MapPoint Alternative #6 | Lead Machine

A convenient tool located within SPOTIO is your one-stop-shop for identifying strong leads and managing sales and canvassing territories based on reliable, up-to-date data. Capturing leads is easy:

draw your ideal areas, choose your target your customer profile, specify your ideal customer, narrow your search for leads, and automatically import into SPOTIO.

SPOTIO’s Lead Machine allows you to identify key territories and target qualified potential customers in a matter of seconds. From age to location to home square footage and household income to the type of dwelling and the ability to search the home’s purchase date, Lead Machine offers 50 unique data points to specify your ideal customer.

We triple-verify this information to ensure its accuracy and make sure you’re not blowing money. SPOTIO’s Lead Machine currently touts a 95% accuracy rating.

MapPoint Alternative #7 | Sales Rep Tracking Made Easy

Have you ever wanted to know if a sales rep was where they said they were? It’s now possible with live GPS tracking. Just push the “Find My Team” and watch the magic. MapPoint doesn’t hold a candle to this level of accountability.

SPOTIO provides the exact location for each salesperson on your team every 2 minutes. You’ll get real-time knowledge of:

Location – Track sales reps to know if they are where they’re say they are.
Status – Know the result of interaction or non-interaction with customer.
User – Identify specific email address of sales rep.
Date & Time Stamped Data – Know the exact day and time a pin is dropped.
“Map It” – See exactly where a pin was dropped in relation to where the rep’s device was pinged.

Here are few additional features solidifying SPOTIO as the number one MapPoint replacement on the market:

Territory Performance Dashboard
Unlimited Territory Management
Customizable Sales Funnels
Verified Pins
Mobile Enabled

SPOTIO is the best MapPoint replacement option

Not only will SPOTIO enable your sales team to increase productivity by 46%, but we can identify inefficiencies in your sales process. Plus, you can see what’s working (and what isn’t) by tracking the team’s performance. Let us show you how using SPOTIO’s software by targeting and managing the territories you create can drive more revenue for your organization.

Difficult situations often result in great opportunity for change and progress. MapPoint paved the way for technological advancement in outside sales and SPOTIO is continuing that trend.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 sales acceleration platformed designed to increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost your team’s productivity in just 2 weeks.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

SPOTIO Polled Outside Sales Professionals to Uncover the Top Challenges Faced

SPOTIO surveyed more than 250 B2B outside sales professionals and leaders to uncover:

1) The top challenges in the field
2) How reps and leaders spend their time
3) The biggest opportunities for increasing efficiency
4) Market trends

Drawing upon detailed responses study participants from SMB and Enterprise organizations to create a picture of outside sales as it is today, the State of Field Sales 2019 report highlights the nuanced elements of an outside sales team and areas where companies should invest for greater success.

Top Challenges Facing Reps and Leaders

According to the study, more than a quarter of outside sales reps reported that their number one challenge in the field is building a pipeline of quality leads. On the other hand, sales leaders are more concerned with getting the most from their investment in training and onboarding.

While the hard and soft costs of turnover is well documented, the fight to retain talent continues for today’s outside sales leaders.

The study reveals one struggle they have in common: the need to acquire and adopt better tools and technology to support the business. Although this issue presents itself in various ways, poor technology implementations are failing to promote communication, collaboration, and transparency.

Key Issues

Potentially related to the poor adoption of technology, data accuracy is also identified as a pervasive issue for sales organizations, with incomplete and inaccurate data muddying the water. In fact, sales reps report that they spend as much time manually entering data (13 percent of their time) as they do connecting with customers.

This is only one ineffective administrative burden taking reps away from selling. The findings imply that ineffective technology is not only providing inadequate value; it is taking up too much valuable time for sales reps.

For the second year in a row, the study reveals that reps are spending way too much time on non-selling activities. The inside sales industry has seen an explosion in technology to minimize administrative burden while improving insights and efficiency. But the outside sales industry has not seen the same kind of investment. Paving the way for outside sales team that are serious about improving the efficiency of the sales efforts.

How Outside Sales Rep’s Spend Their Time

To Conclude

The State of Field Sales report drew on insight from the sales reps, sales managers, and executives alike. The one thing they all agree on: Poor quality leads, lack of tools, and ineffective technology implementations are inhibiting growth and success for sales organizations.

Even though outside sales teams make up 71% of the sales force, outside sales’ CRM adoption is lacking. Without mapping tools, comprehensive lead nurturing, pre-qualified leads, and enhanced communication capabilities, outside sales teams are missing major opportunities.

Access the full report here.

About SPOTIO

SPOTIO is the leading field sales enablement solution for sales managers and reps to facilitate unprecedented productivity, increased revenue, and shorter sales cycles. The platform provides managers with real-time visibility into their team’s activities for improved sales development. Sales reps receive access to the mobile application with targeted prospect data, historical knowledge of each account, and document management functionality.

Thousands of customers rely on SPOTIO to accelerate growth with their sales teams such as Vodafone, Renewal by Andersen, and Oak Street Health.

SPOTIO Included in Dallas Business Journal’s ‘2019 Best Places to Work’

SPOTIO selected as a top workplace in North Texas.

Dallas, TX – August 26, 2019 – SPOTIO, the leading field sales acceleration platform for outside sales teams, is excited to announce that it has been named one of the Dallas Business Journal’s 2019 Best Places to Work. SPOTIO ranked #17 on this year’s list.

Every year, The Dallas Business Journal recognizes the top employee-centric companies in Dallas based off employee survey results around culture, work environment, and employee satisfaction.

At SPOTIO, our focus is building a culture that is collaborative, transparent. One where each team member can make a positive impact while enjoying what they do, and who they do it with, says SPOTIO’s Founder and CEO Trey Gibson.

Building great software is what we do, but our people are the driving force behind our success. The quality of product and value our customers receive starts with a happy team, and being honored as a Best Place to Work is validation that we’re building SPOTIO right. I’m very grateful to have such an incredible and dedicated team.

SPOTIO, along with the other companies recognized, will be celebrated at Dallas Business Journal’s Best Places to Work awards program in the Fall.

To see the full list of “2019 Best Places to Work,” visit: www.bizjournals.com

About SPOTIO

SPOTIO is the leading field sales acceleration platform for outside sales teams to build pipeline, improve productivity, and close more deals. SPOTIO centralizes outside sales team activities and provides sales organizations with the visibility and insight needed to drive revenue. Thousands of customers worldwide rely on SPOTIO to accelerate growth with their outside sales teams. SPOTIO is a privately held company based in Dallas, Texas.

To learn more, visit: www.spotio.com.

SPOTIO #477 on Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies in the U.S.

DALLAS, TX. August 19, 2019 – Inc. magazine revealed that SPOTIO, Inc., the leading field sales acceleration platform for outside sales teams, is No. 477 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses.

Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

We are ecstatic to be recognized for our recent growth, said SPOTIO Founder and CEO, Trey Gibson. This honor speaks to the hard work of our team members and the exponential value we deliver to our customers.

Not only are the companies on the 2019 Inc. 5000 very competitive within their respective markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists. The 2019 Inc. 5000 achieved an astounding three-year average growth of 454 percent, and a median rate of 157 percent. The Inc. 5000’s aggregate revenue was $237.7 billion in 2018, accounting for 1,216,308 jobs over the past three years.

The companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have followed so many different paths to success, says Inc. editor in chief James Ledbetter. There’s no single course you can follow or investment you can take that will guarantee this kind of spectacular growth. But what they have in common is persistence and seizing opportunities.

Methodology

The 2019 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2015 and 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2015. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2018. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2015 is $100,000; the minimum for 2018 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.’s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000.

About SPOTIO

SPOTIO is the leading field sales acceleration platform for outside sales teams to build pipeline, improve productivity, and close more deals. SPOTIO centralizes outside sales team activities and provides sales organizations with the visibility and insight needed to drive revenue in the field. Thousands of customers worldwide rely on SPOTIO to accelerate growth with their outside sales teams. SPOTIO is a privately held company based in Dallas, Texas. To learn more, visit www.spotio.com

About Inc. Media

Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures, Inc. is the only major brand dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies, with the aim to deliver real solutions for today’s innovative company builders. Inc. took home the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in both 2014 and 2012. The total monthly audience reach for the brand has been growing significantly, from 2,000,000 in 2010 to more than 20,000,000 today. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

The Complete Guide to Sales Territory Mapping (and Software)

There’s a lot of strategy and leg-work that goes into proper sales territory mapping. This is a crucial part in setting your team up for success.

It can be a tedious process, but it’s necessary to ensure your team is canvassing the right area and not just going in blindly.

What is a Sales Territory Map?

A sales territory map is a plan of attack for your sales reps. Mapping gives you the ability to designate areas and assign specific territories to each rep. With Territory mapping software, cut territories that meet your criteria and allocate across your sales team. Not only does mapping out territories mean you only targeting prospects that are viable contenders to make a purchase, it keeps reps from overlapping and poaching each other’s sales.

Benefits of a Clearly Defined Sales Territory Map

Cut territories. Map out territories and assign to reps.
Territory hierarchy. Create hierarchies so everyone on the team knows exactly where to go.
Real-time visibility. Managers and reps can work together to ensure every territory is fully covered.
Stay organized. Easily edit, manage and delete territories as reps move around.

The Old School Approach to Sales Territory Mapping

One of the reasons this process has been such a pain for so long is because of how it’s been done.

Territory mapping with Google Maps and a highlighter leaves a ton of room for error and confusion. You have no way to determine how many homes you’re assigning to each rep, how many customers you have in each territory you assign, or the demographics for the homeowners you should be targeting.

Not to mention once you send the team out with their printed maps you rarely ever get them back therefore have no historical idea where you’ve worked or haven’t worked.

Using highlighters and maps leaves a lot of room for dispute between sales reps.

Consider this situation:

1. They’ll knock outside of the territory you assigned them claiming they weren’t sure where it ended.
2. Then, the rep who is assigned to that territory will get upset about the sale another rep made in their territory.

Who do you give the sale to; the rep who closed the deal or the rep whose territory that sale is assigned to?

Turning what should be a celebration into a dramatic debacle.

Note: the same issues occur with other legacy solutions like Streets and Trips and MapPoint.

4 Ways to Map Sales Territories

To save time, be more efficient, eliminate confusion and increase performance, create and assign territories for your team using the following strategies:

1. Target Market Demographics
2. Current Customers in Each Territory
3. Evenly Distributed by Number of Homes
4. Evenly Distributed by City / Zip

1. Target Market Demographics

One of the most effective strategies for creating territories is to gather the demographics of your target market before sending your team out to knock doors.

This will eliminate the amount of time your reps spend in the field knocking aimlessly. You shouldn’t want your reps making attempts on homes you know either won’t close, or have a low possibility of closing.

Using a tool like SPOTIO’s Lead Machine will help you to identify key territories, target qualified customers that match your ideal customer profile (ICP), and ensure that your team is knocking doors that have real buying potential.

You’ll also have the ability to track the progress of each of these leads in your funnel through the app. This will prevent leads that you’ve spent money on from slipping through the cracks and increase the return on your investment. This is one of main features that is causing many field sales reps to switch from the competition.

Obviously you have to be able to identify your target market in order to purchase any type of leads. Some criteria are more important than others, like homeowners vs. renters, credit score, home market value and median home income.

The more information you have about your current customers, the better. It will allow you to understand where you’re having the most success and help you to identify higher quality potential customers with a greater chance of buying.

Another tool you can check out is a website called City Data. Scroll down and choose your state and then you’ll have access to hundreds of segmentation options.

To learn how to best use this site download our free ebook below:

2. Current Customers by Territory

Your current customers are extremely valuable to your business, and not just because they purchased your product or service.

Your customers can provide you with some of the highest converting and cheapest leads – referrals. You just have to ask.

Start by generating a list of all of your current customers. If you use a sales tracking app like SPOTIO, it’s simple to upload this list into your account, or you can simply sort the pins in your account by the status you created to signify a closed-won deal.

If you’re not using a sales tracking app, you’ll have to map these addresses by hand individually. It will be a much longer process, but well worth it.

Once you’re able to see all of your customers on a map, draw out territories for your reps to work based on these locations.

There are two strategies to this approach:

1. The first is to evenly distribute the number of customers in each territory for your sales reps.
2. The other option if your customers are more spread out is to assign a couple smaller territories to each rep, but still distribute them as evenly as possible.

The goal by doing this is to use your current customers as references when pitching a new prospect. You can also have your team visit satisfied customers to ask for referrals.

3. Evenly Distributed by Number of Homes

Making sure that sales reps have enough doors to knock is essential to their performance and production.

Without a sales territory mapping software, you can spend hours on this process. A sales territory mapping software significantly simplifies this process, saving you many hours and ensuring greater accuracy.

Create and assign territories based on the number of houses you want each rep to work at one time.

Start this process by determining the number of houses you want each rep on your team to have. As you start drawing out an area in SPOTIO, the app will tell you the estimated number of homes in that territory. You can always adjust it if there’s too many or note enough.

Using a territory mapping software will allow you to create even territories for your entire team in less than 10 minutes. If you choose 500 as the total number of homes you want to be in each territory, you just need to be close to that number. It’s not important for it to be exact; 475 or 525 is close enough.

If you want to guesstimate the number of houses in a sales territory consider that on ¼ acre lots which are common you will get 1,000 houses in a 1 mile by 1mile areas.

4. Distributed by City or Zip Code

Creating territories by city or zip code is a little bit trickier because of the size of the area. Even if every city was the exact same size, the number of homes wouldn’t be.

There’s a variety of factors in play when creating territories by city or zip code. The demographics in each city can vary dramatically and will influence the number of potential customers for a rep to visit.

Distributing territories by city or zip code is one of the easiest methods because it’s black and white; there’s no grey area.

You tell a rep, “This is your city or zip code, and if you get a lead or sale outside of your territory, it’s going to the rep that territory belongs to.” Creating territories this way eliminates a lot of the conflict and guesswork for sales reps.

Because cities or zip codes vary in the number of houses, you may need to assign two or three to a rep.

These territories will have a ton of homes to work. They’re not going to be quick to work through and shouldn’t be changed frequently like smaller territories may be. Using a territory mapping software will help you to ensure you distribute the number of houses for each rep to work evenly by the city or zip code.

Bonus: Here’s a free Zip Code map you can use to slice and dice your marketplace by zip codes if you want to create your sales territories this way.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in the Territory Mapping Phase

Here is a short list of issues and errors managers can implement, which will improve their effectiveness in territory mapping:

Mistake #1: Using limited data – and using the wrong territory management tool.

If you don’t know your client and, or account data, you can’t accurately know how well the sales rep is doing let alone make improvements. You also want to refrain from making continuous changes to sales territories, as it will negatively impact client engagement. However, you will want the ability to make modifications in the territories occasionally. Key here, find the ‘BEST’ CRM tool to aid you in this process.

Mistake #2: Leaving your sales team out of the picture.

In order to be effective in territory mapping, you NEED to involve your sales reps and teams. Taking into account the experience of your sales reps/teams will help to motivate them. This will encourage you to have the right reps in the right territories and make sure that the business is in their prospective territory. By doing so, you will ensure you have a plan in place that your sales reps/teams can embrace, and get behind.

Mistake # 3: Getting overwhelmed with spreadsheets.

If you want to ‘win’ in sales performance and motivate your reps/teams, you MUST incorporate the right tools and applications to help you manage and evaluate your reps/teams. This will give your reps/teams the visibility into their targets, schedules, and the ability to align the right reps with the right accounts/products, which will minimize the sales assignment process and increase sales.

In defining a sales territory and determine if the territory mapping is efficient, you need to make sure of a few things:

Make sure the product that’s being sold in the territory is in demand, in the right market, and that there is the adequate transport facilities. You also need to know your competition! If sales are being made on a consistent basis and sales goals are being met, you’ve got the right territory mapping in place!

Examples of how to determine territory workload:

Workload (#) = [Current accounts (#) x Average time to service an active account (#)] + [Prospects (#) x Time spent trying to convert a prospect into an active account (#)]

The sales potential in a territory can be determined as follows:

Sales Potential ($) = Number of possible accounts (#) x Buying power ($)

There is no ‘one size’ fits all when it comes to territory mapping. The most popular territories are done via geographical lines, and doing so will prevent companies from leveraging and optimizing revenue.

The round-robin method is best if going after a targeted market. Geographic distribution is best if you have boots on the ground. With the new advancements that technology is providing via account-based marketing, the best method is obviously going to be scattered among the states aiding in the new territory of adding a time-zone territory as well. So, as you can see, you really need to know your product, competition, market and sales reps to determine the best territory option for your organization.

Highest performing territories – sales by client, new contacts, opportunity-to-win rates, average deal size?

The best and highest performing territories are those that have been ‘optimized’ as read in this article from Alexander Group. Basically, if you’re not ‘optimizing’, you’re throwing caution to the wind and losing revenue while helping your sales reps underperform. Here are 5 things to consider when ‘optimizing’ your territories:

1. Define the most important targets.
2. Weigh each target accurately.
3. Calibrate your index.
4. Review your results.
5. Make changes to the territories based on those results.

As stated, you can have great products and great sales reps BUT if you don’t ‘optimize’ your sales rep’s territories, you’re losing revenue and not utilizing your best sales reps.

The Business Case for Sales Territory Mapping Software

Science is finally backing up what you’ve always known: a picture is worth a thousand words. According to an MIT study, 90 percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. An Aberdeen Group study revealed that managers using visual data tools are 28 percent more likely to be able to find the information they need to make informed decisions.

With all this talk about the value of visual data, it’s no surprise that visual management tools are especially helpful for sales leaders. One of these useful tools is sales territory mapping software, which provides a simple, easy-to-consume way for sales leaders to visualize geographical areas and ensure:

– Territories are a manageable size for reps
– There is no overlap between reps
– Sales leaders and managers are thoughtfully and strategically assigning the top performers.

If you adopt the best sales territory planning solution, your organization will experience the following benefits.

1. Prevent deals from falling through the cracks

If one territory has too many leads, some leads will fall through the cracks. The result of this unbalance is lost sales. Sales territory mapping software helps you ensure territories are correctly balanced and each territory reaches its full potential.

2. Uncover new leads in existing territories

The temptation to expand to new territories is only natural. But it’s extremely likely that your team hasn’t covered all potential leads within their existing sales territories. With territory management tools like SPOTIO, you can use insights about your territories to reveal and locate new leads in your existing territories.

3. Save hours with segmentation

Without territory mapping software, sales leaders often have to spend hours and hours creating sales maps. Solutions like SPOTIO make it easier to categorize things like:

– Areas or regions with high or low potential
– Areas or regions with a high volume
– Areas or regions with high quality leads

These features make it easy to map territories quickly while providing a simple-to-use interface for the reps in each territory. Everyone wins.

4. Improve close rates with data-driven area assignments

Sales territory mapping solutions make mapping territories an intelligent process, using important data-points to help sales leaders place their reps strategically.

With integrated key insights like sales performance, geographical history, total revenue earned and leads converted, sales leaders can use SPOTIO to place people where they can make the most impact.

Whether this is about placing high performers where they’re needed most, or placing average performers in an environment that allows them to reach their potential, you can use a better understanding of your team’s strengths and opportunities to adjust you mapping strategy.

5. Optimize sales routes & improve productivity

Without an effective and comprehensive system, territory mapping and sales route planning tend to be two separate activities. By using a smart solution, you can combine these two important and interconnected activities to ensure you make the best use of your salesforce’s valuable time, ensuring that you cover you sales territory map thoroughly.

Sales route planning is adjustable on the fly. When new leads arise, the app helps users adjust their route and plan efficiently.

6. Measure performance across territories

A dynamic sales territory solution makes it easy to measure and compare performance across multiple territories. Using smart features like those offered by SPOTIO, you can quickly see which territories landed the most accounts, where the highest value clients are located and more. This gives you strong visual data to understand where to invest as well as how sales reps are performing by region.

7. Boost Team Morale

When sales territories are uneven and unfairly distributed, morale takes a hit. Whether a territory is too small and lacks enough potential to enable success, or the territory is too big, causing a sales rep or team to be overworked, a poorly balanced territory can kill your morale. With the data you gather from smart sales territory mapping solutions, you can closely monitor the level of work required to support each territory and allocate your sales team accordingly.

What to Do Next

At this point you’ve either already been creating sales territories for your team or you haven’t. If you have, congrats! You’re one of the organized ones. Feel free to modify your approach based on the information above and if you have anything to add feel free to chime in.

If you don’t currently use sales territories for your team don’t fret. It’s not too late!

Check out these other blog posts to learn more about Territory Management

Below you will find great information on territory management and how you can set your team up for success by utilizing the best practices associated with it. Feel free to check it out and if you have any input let us know.

Stop Guessing: The Truth about Territory Management

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

Best Sales Territory Management: A Thorough Guide for Reps & Managers

In most verticals, competition is at an all-time high and top sales organizations are looking to get the most value from their teams. With a focus on efficiency, sales territory management is a main driver for ensuring that the time and energy of each outside sales rep is focused on the activities that will have the most impact.

What is Outside Sales Territory Management?

Sales territory management is the process of using data to segment customers and prospects to ensure the best use of company resources. In addition to cutting out the noise of low-return accounts, thoughtful sales territory management aligns salespeople with the most appropriate customer base – whether that’s by geography, vertical, expertise, or past relationship.

Many field sales teams neglect to prioritize solid sales territory planning; even when they do, they often have trouble adapting and revising based off sales performance. In this post, we’ll introduce 6 steps to create a winning sales territory plan, best practices for managing sales territories, and finally, we’ll introduce six tools that are helpful for managing sales territories of any size.

Image Source: SPOTIO’s Visual Mapping tool from the Territory Mapping feature.

6 Steps to Create a Winning Sales Territory Plan

# 1 | Analyze Your Customers

The first step in the process is analyzing your current and prospective customers. You should think about what characteristics your customers have in common.

Some key things to note about your customers are:
– Their locations
– The products or services they purchase from your business
– What types of problems your products or services solve for them
– What types of events lead customers to buy (or not buy) your products or services.

It is also important to seek out needs within the market that are not currently being fulfilled. This can help you to develop a unique plan that provides products or services in a way that your competition cannot or will not provide them.

# 2 | Analyze and Develop Your Team and Resources

The next step is to analyze your business’s resources and personnel. You should have an accurate picture of the type and volume of customer that your business is equipped to handle.

It’s particularly important to note the strengths and weaknesses of your business team to ensure that you can further develop and utilize strengths while simultaneously working to improve any weak areas. You should also consider the resources currently available, in addition to ways that you can best utilize or improve those resources.

# 3 | Set Measurable Goals

Using the data gathered from analyzing your customers, team, and resources, you should develop goals for your business. Some of the best goals you might consider are:

1. Income generated per month
2. Number of sales attempts per week or month
3. Number of sales closed per week or month
4. Ratio of leads to sales closed per week or month

After identifying goals for your sales territory plan, you should create a measurable strategy for meeting each of these goals.

Each goal strategy should include:

Goal statement: Putting a goal on paper transforms if from abstract to concrete. The goal statement should address what you’re planning to achieve and what is at stake.

Key milestones and deadline: The road to achieving a goal is much clearer when it can be broken into several smaller milestones. For example, if your goal is to attain $9k in revenue for the month for a given product, you can track progress by breaking it into smaller milestones, such as $3k by day ten, 6k by day 20, etc.

Metrics for measuring success in the field: Clearly defined KPIs will provide you with a highly specific way to ensure that your business’s goals are met expediently. Measurements such as leads created, leads contacted, and leads closed, available on the SPOTIO sales dashboard, give great insight into productivity and can give you insight into how your tracking against goals.

These goals will inform your sales territory plan by helping you determine which segmentations will best equip you to meet these goals. Goals should be realistic and manageable, but at the same time, they should push your business to expand and grow to competitively meet the needs of your customer base.

Need help hitting your goals? This free template will help:

# 4 | Define Sales Territories

Based on the work you perform in the sections above, you should have an idea of how to divide your sales territories. It’s important to document these clearly, outlining details of each territory including things like:

– Geographic Boundaries
– Industry or Segment Boundaries (including any overlap and how that is addressed)
– Revenue Boundaries
– Product Boundaries
– Anything else that may be applicable to your sales organization

Creating a plan that differentiates territories will help you to organize and separate areas and ensure that you can develop a plan for your outside sales reps to reach out to every potential customer.

# 5 | Territory Action Plan

Once you have outlined your sales territories, it’s time to create routes for your sales representatives. This will prevent any overlap between territories or reps, which will save time, effort, and money. As you create routes, set a schedule that ensures that all parties along the route are visited in a timely and effective manner, determine how often to call on each account and whether the calls should be in person or by phone.

By investing in planning routes for your sales team, you’ll minimize time wasted by wandering sales reps.

# 6 | Field Data Entry – “Notes as you go”

As you implement your sales territory plan, keep an accurate and up-to-date record of its outcomes using your CRM. This record will help you to track successful aspects of your plan, in addition to what parts of the plan were not as effective. Using this information, you can adjust and optimize your best sales territory plan as needed.

Entering meeting notes as you leave each appointment is extremely valuable, both from a time savings and organizational perspective. Often times you have multiple meeting blocks and forget valuable nuggets of information you learned from that meeting. With a sales tools like SPOTIO, you can jot down your notes from your mobile device and sync them directly into Salesforce.

Now, not only are your client notes and meeting records full of fully recalled and valuable information, you just updated your CRM in real-time. As an added bonus, you don’t have to spend time after hours backtracking and manually entering notes from the days meetings.

Since no two territories and no two field sales reps are alike, you can use a tool like the SPOTIO sales dashboard to track performance and adjust as required. Insights you may track include how the team is tracking against KPIs, the average number of attempts it is taking to establish contacts, or the number of leads closed.

8 Sales Territory Management Best Practices

1. How to handle territory conflict

This is a fickle subject. As a manager, how can you fairly assign territories? And once assigned, how do you ensure reps are not poaching accounts from fellow reps? To be fair with territory assignments, being mindful in how you go about dividing them up is where you’ll win:

Size. The reps who perform better with smaller businesses need to be assigned more accounts, while those who excel with large accounts should be assigned less. Although the number of accounts varies, the total possible revenue goal for each rep is equal.

Zip Code. Make sure rep assignments are in close proximity to on another to avoid them spending more time selling and less time in the car getting from one to the next.

Vertical. Some people connected better with specific industries. Once you identify each reps strong suit, give them more accounts with the business types they excel.

By understanding their strengths you can assign territories to match strong suits. When your sales team is excelling and closing business, territory conflict seems to disappear.

2. Mileage and expense tracking

What’s the company’s policy in terms of mileage reimbursement? Outside reps with a lot of ground to cover should receive some degree of compensation for their travel expenses (gas, oil changes and basic maintenance). When reps are reimbursed for their travel, they will be less likely to avoid meeting with a prospect or checking in with a current account in an effort to save money on travel.

Not sure what reimbursement plan is best? We’ve got you covered:

Mileage as a Tax Deduction

Employed and independent salespeople can claim mileage as a tax deduction. The mileage works as an expense, and those with intensive sales routes can write off the standard rate for every mile they drive for work.

Standard Mileage Reimbursement

Mileage rates are subject to change in each tax year. The standard rates are determined based on market research that determines normal expense ranges for using a vehicle. The rate increased from 2017 to 2018. The 2018 IRS rate for normal business use is 54.5 cents per mile. Additionally, you can write off 18 cents per mile for vehicle use relating to medical purposes. The standard 2018 rate for any charitable use is 14 cents per mile.

Reimbursement Based on Sales Routes

Salespeople are often reimbursed for mileage using the standard rates or a rate increase based on individual company policies.

Tracking Mileage

Diligent mileage tracking is critical for reimbursement. The ability to prove every mile to your employer and/or the IRS is imperative for you to receive the reimbursement or deduction. A spreadsheet that lists the date, starting mileage, ending mileage, total miles and notes is easy to store on a clipboard and log each day. Mileage-tracking phone apps are also convenient; they track trips and allow you to make notes and log those miles. For dedicated sales routes, a physical log is convenient and will not fail to record when your phone dies or loses service. (Source)

3. Create a rotating schedule for contacting customers

This will help to ensure you regularly communicate with prospects in a timely manner. It is important that your sales representatives not contact prospects too often, as this can be an annoyance. However, your reps should contact customers on a regular basis to ensure that their needs are being met.

4. Meet needs of current accounts while finding new leads

For the best sales territory management plan, it should have a dual focus on providing services to high value accounts, and developing relationships with potential new accounts.

High value accounts are those guaranteed to bring in higher volume sales in shorter amounts of time when compared to other accounts. While high value accounts are extremely valuable to the stability of your business, it is also important to cultivate new accounts, as these will bring about business growth. You plan should prioritize both of these customer types.

5. Consider the seasonal needs of customers

Depending on the type of products or services your business provides, your customer base may have needs of a more seasonal nature. You should take care to recognize these seasonal needs when determining when to contact customers and prospects. Understanding their seasonality also helps you ensure that you can meet their needs in a timely and effective manner.

6. Ensure data can be updated and accessed synchronously

Synchronous data updates allow your sales representatives to update and access customer data in real time. This means all reps will always be able to view the most current customer information. This allows them to further expedite the sales process.

7. Keep thorough and up-to-date notes on customers

Any communication with customers should be documented and accessible to sales representatives. This should include personal information such as the customer’s favorite food, in addition to more sales-specific information such as the customer’s budget.

8. Think big picture

It is important to think big picture when it comes to producing your best sales territory plan. You should always be seeking out ways to foster the growth and development of your business. Thinking long-term will help to ensure that your business does not stagnate, but instead continues to flourish and grow.

6 SPOTIO Features to Manage Sales Territories of Any Size

Tool Name: Customer Mapping

What it does: Customer mapping software allows you to create a map of your territories. You can drop pins on specific locations, which allows you to track routes within territories.

Why it is important for a manager or rep: Customer mapping software can help you to optimize sales routes. With a tool like Spotio’s Precise Location Tool, you can drop pins on a map, creating a visual way to design the most logical sales routes. This saves valuable time and money so that you can introduce more customers to your product or service.

Tool Name: Outside Sales Tracking

What it does: Outside sales tracking enhances the sales process by providing real-time updates about the locations and activities of sales representatives.

Why it is important for a manager or rep: This feature saves time for managers by providing a quick and easy method to map out and assign territories to sales reps. It also helps managers to quickly recognize any areas where sales reps may be struggling and in need of additional coaching or training.

Tool Name: Territory Manager

What it does: The territory manager enables managers to create custom maps of different territories for assignment to sales reps.

Why it is important for a manager or rep: The ease with which territories can be created, assigned, and viewed means that managers will no longer have to spend hours reviewing physical maps and drawing out territories for assignment by hand.

Tool Name: Sales Dashboard

What it does: The sales dashboard provides data in real time related to the performance of your sales representatives.

Why it is important for a manager or rep: The sales dashboard promotes organization and allows managers to easily track their teams’ activities.

Tool Name: Lead Management

What it does: Lead management software organizes information related to leads and provides it to users in an organized and easy-to-understand format.

Why it is important for a manager or rep: This software helps to generate more sales by ensuring that leads are organized and easily accessible for users.

Evaluating Sales Territory Performance

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are defined as, “a set of quantifiable measures that a company uses to gauge its performance over time. These metrics are used to determine a company’s progress in achieving its strategic and operational goals, and also to compare a company’s finances and performance against other businesses within its industry.”

KPIs are measured in different industry-specific ways. According to Steve Andersen, these measurements can include this such as the following:

Growth of current accounts
Development of new sales opportunities
Advancement of sales against a consistent set of criteria
Development and success of a high percentage of sales targeted
Ability to accurately predict sales within a given territory

Sales dashboards can help you to track KPIs to ensure that your business has a specific set of standards that can be used to measure its success. One such sales dashboard is Spotio.

Sales territory management can help your business to grow by collecting and organizing all information you need. This is beneficial to all team members at any level of your organization. Understanding and utilizing sales territory management software in an effective manner can ensure that your business will flourish in the modern sales market.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com.

SPOTIO is the #1 sales acceleration and territory management app to increase your revenue, maximize your profitability, and increase your team’s productivity in just 2 weeks.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.

SPOTIO Recognized as a Top Sales Tool by Smart Selling

Smart Selling Tools, an analyst and consulting firm specializing in sales productivity and performance technology, has just released their 2019 Top Sales Tools Guide and recognized SPOTIO as the leading Field Sales Engagement Tool.

“SPOTIO recognized that outside sales reps suffer from a lack of tools compared to their colleagues in inside sales. So, they created a platform designed to address the specific needs of field salespeople like, customer mapping, route planning and lead management”, said Nancy Nardin, Founder & CEO, Smart Selling Tools.

“By recognizing and solving this pressing need, SPOTIO was a shoe-in for this years accolades.”

Smart Selling Tools evaluated a multitude of sales software and solutions across seven technology categories to produce this years guide. SPOTIO received recognition in the Field Sales Engagement category.

“Our goal is to provide outside sales teams with tools and resources designed specifically for selling in the field, and we’re thrilled to have our efforts recognized.”

“SPOTIO is focused on making outside sales teams more efficient, productive and successful. The development of our one of a kind software provides outside reps the technology they need to be successful.”

– Ryan Dunagan, VP of Marketing, SPOTIO

About Smart Selling Tools

Smart Selling Tools, Inc., is an analyst and consulting firm that specializes in sales productivity and sales performance improvement through the use of smart sales tools. Businesses of all sizes can find suggestions and reviews for sales and marketing software along with great resources to learn about revenue generating tools.

Smart Selling Tools doesn’t sell sales software. They just provide great information to help you find the right sales tools for your organization.

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Questions or comments? Contact SPOTIO at info@spotio.com or comment below.

SPOTIO is the #1 field sales acceleration and performance management software that will increase revenue, maximize profitability, and boost sales productivity.

Want to see a product demonstration? Click here to see how SPOTIO can take your sales game to the next level.