1. Time and Territory Management
Chapter 7
Time and Territory Management
PowerPoint presentation prepared by
Dr. Rajiv Mehta
New Jersey Institute of Technology

2. Chapter Outline Improving Sales Productivity
Establishing Sales Territories
Setting Up Sales Territories
Revising Sales Territories
Self-Management
Time Management and Routing
Source: Flying Colours Ltd.

3. Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:
1. Describe the basic reasons for establishing sales territories.
2. Apply procedures for setting up sales territories.
3. Evaluate when and why to revise sales territories.
4. Apply the concepts of self-management to sales and sales management.
5. Use the techniques of scheduling and routing for sales success.

4. Improve Sales Productivity by Establishing Sales Territories
A sales territory is usually a specific geographic area that contains present and potential customers and is assigned to a particular salesperson.
Time and territory management strategies help determine these things:
which accounts are called on
when accounts are called on
how often accounts are called on
Time and territory management strategies help improve productivity.

5. Reasons for Sales Territories

6. Procedure for Setting Up Sales Territories

7. Selecting a Geographic Control Unit
Control units should be as small as possible, for two reasons:
(1) pinpoint the geographic location of sales potential
(2) make adjusting territories much easier

8. Conducting an Account Analysis
Conducting an account analysis helps identify customers and prospects and determine the sales potential of each account.
To identify accounts by name, Yellow Pages ( which contains a database of over six million U.S. businesses, can be used.

9. Developing a Salesperson Workload Analysis
A salesperson workload analysis is an estimate of the following:
number of accounts to be called on
frequency of the calls
length of each call
travel time needed
non-selling time required
The workload analysis can help develop the following:
a sales call pattern for each territory
a sales call strategy—see account analysis (next slide)
Source: Digital Vision

10. Account Analysis Strength of Position Account Opportunity Strong Weak
Attractiveness:
Accounts are very attractive, offer high opportunity, and sales organization has strong position.
Accounts are potentially attractive based on high opportunity, but sales organization has weak position.
Accounts are somewhat attractive since sales organization has strong position, but future opportunity is limited.
Accounts are very unattractive since they offer low opportunity and sales organization has weak position.
High
Sales call strategy?
Sales call strategy?
Account Opportunity
Low
Sales call strategy?
Sales call strategy?

11. Account Analysis Strength of Position Account Opportunity Strong Weak
Attractiveness:
Accounts are very attractive, offer high opportunity, and sales organization has strong position.
Accounts are potentially attractive based on high opportunity, but sales organization has weak position.
Accounts are somewhat attractive since sales organization has strong position, but future opportunity is limited.
Accounts are very unattractive since they offer low opportunity and sales organization has weak position.
High
Sales call strategy?
frequent sales calls to strengthen position
Sales call strategy?
frequent sales calls
Account Opportunity
Low
Sales call strategy?
minimal sales calls and migrate personal sales calls to telephone or Internet
Sales call strategy?
moderate frequency to maintain current position

12. Combining Geographic Control Units into Sales Territories
After setting up sales territories either by state, county, or metropolitan statistical area (MSA), identify territories that have a higher sales potential than others. z

13. Assigning Salespeople to Territories
In assigning sales personnel to territories, managers should rank them using these criteria:
relative ability
product and industry knowledge
energy level
persuasiveness
verbal ability
Before assigning salespeople to a territory look for congruity in terms of the following:
the salesperson’s physical, social, and cultural characteristics

14. Signs Indicating the Need for Territorial Revisions
As a company grows, it needs a larger sales force.
If territorial sales potential is inaccurate, sales performance may be misleading.
Morale problems will emerge if there are wide variations in territory potential.
Salesperson jumping necessitates territory revisions:
often leads to higher costs
selling inefficiencies
low morale in the sales force

15. Self-Management: How Salespeople Spend Their Time

16. Account Analysis
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17. How Salespeople Spend Their Time
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18. Dollar Cost of an Hour of a Salesperson’s Selling Time
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19. Self-Management: Achieving Effectiveness and Efficiency
Effectiveness. Salesperson is results oriented and focuses on achieving sales goals.
Efficiency. Salesperson is cost oriented and focuses on making the best possible use of the salesperson’s time and efforts.
Together, the two equal selling success:
S1 (Selling Success) = E1 (Effectiveness) + E2 (Efficiency)

20. Sales Effectiveness
To see a video on the impact of CRM technology on sales effectiveness and productivity, visit

21. Self-Management: Measuring Return on Time Invested
Return on time invested (ROTI) is a financial concept that helps salespeople spend their time more profitably with prospects and customers.
ROTI = designated return/hours spent

22. Self-Management: Setting Priorities
Top-performing salespeople always set priorities in their work, based on the following:
Parkinson’s Law:
Work tends to expand to fill the time allotted for its completion.
Concentration Principle:
Often called the “80-20 rule,” it states that most of a salesperson’s sales, costs, and profits come from a relatively small proportion of customers and products.

23. Ranking Customers According to the Concentration Principle

24. Examples of the 80-20 Principle
20 percent of customers
20 percent of time
20 percent of products
20 percent of sales force
80 percent of sales
80 percent of selling
80 percent of profits
80 percent of revenues

25. Time Allocation Problems
Here are some examples of salesperson time allocation problems:
deciding which accounts to call on
dividing time between selling and paperwork
allocating time between present customers, prospective customers, and service calls
allocating time to spend with demanding customers or new prospects

26. Managing Salesperson Time
To maximize their productive time, salespeople can take these steps:
Avoid time traps.
Allocate time.
Set weekly and daily goals.
Manage time during sales calls.
Evaluate (monitor) time usage over time.

27. Newly Appointed Sales Manager Coaching Salespeople to Effectively Manage Time
To see a video on how sales managers can coach salespersons to manage time, go to

28. Common Time Traps
Salesperson calls on unqualified or unprofitable prospects.
Salesperson fails to prioritize work.
Salesperson insufficiently plans each day’s activities.
Salesperson procrastinates on major projects, resulting in redundant preparation and paperwork.
Salesperson makes poor territorial routing and travel plans.
Salesperson inefficiently handles paperwork and keeps disorganized records.
Salesperson takes long lunch hours and too many coffee breaks.
Salesperson fails to break up huge, long-range projects into small, currently manageable tasks.
Salesperson makes poor use of waiting time between appointments.
Salesperson ends workdays early, especially on Friday afternoons.
Salesperson spends too much time entertaining prospects and customers.
Salesperson fails to insulate self from interruptions or sales calls or while doing paperwork.
Salesperson does not use modern telecommunications equipment like a cell phone, pager, facsimile, and laptop computer.
Salesperson conducts unnecessary meetings, visits, and phone calls.
Salesperson does tasks that could be delegated to a staff person or to automated equipment.
Salesperson neglects customer service until a small problem becomes a large one that takes more time to resolve.

29. Routing Patterns
Territorial routing is devising a travel plan or pattern to use when making sales calls to efficiently cover a territory.
A properly designed routing system has three primary advantages:
reduced travel time and selling costs
improved territory coverage
improved communication (since managers know where salespeople are)

30. Routing Patterns
Before developing a routing plan, the salesperson must determine the following:
the number of calls to be made each day
the call frequency on each class of customer
the distance to each account
the method of transportation

31. Routing Patterns

32. Routing Patterns Here are some types of routing patterns:
Straight-line route
Salesperson starts at the office and makes calls in one direction until reaching the end of the territory.
Circular patterns
Salesperson starts at the office and moves in a circle of stops until ending up back at the office.

33. Routing Patterns Cloverleaf route
A cloverleaf route is similar to a circular pattern.
But rather than covering an entire territory, the route circles only part of a territory.
The next trip is an adjacent circle and the pattern continues until the entire territory is covered.
Reprinted from PERSONAL SELLING, 2nd Edition, by Anderson/Dubinsky/Mehta © 2007 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

34. Routing Patterns Hopscotch pattern
The salesperson starts at the farthest point from the office and hops back and forth calling on accounts on either side of a straight line back to the office.
Reprinted from PERSONAL SELLING, 2nd Edition, by Anderson/Dubinsky/Mehta © 2007 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

35. Routing Patterns Outer-ring approach
The salesperson first draws an outer ring around the customers to be called upon.
Then, those customers inside the ring are connected to the outer-ring route using angles that are as obtuse as possible.
Reprinted from PERSONAL SELLING, 2nd Edition, by Anderson/Dubinsky/Mehta © 2007 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

36. Using Computer Programs in Routing
Numerous computer-based interactive models have been successfully applied to sales force routing and territory management.

37. Using Computer Programs in Routing
To learn about optimization software programs that assist in designing sales territory routing paths, go to
To learn about enhancing territory management skills, see
Au: The fourth link on this page doesn’t work.

38. Ethical Situation: What Would You Do?
Discussion Question
As the district sales manager for your company, you decide which salespeople to assign to which territories. Among your territories are two which have very low sales potential according to Sales & Marketing Management magazine’s latest annual estimates. You are thinking about assigning your two lowest performing salespeople to these two territories because you think this extra challenge will either motivate them or cause them to quit which would be okay since it would allow you to avoid the unpleasant task of possibly firing them later anyway. No matter what the outcome, it seems like a win-win from your perspective.