Sales teams thrive on a balance of structure and freedom. Enough structure that they know what they have to work with and what’s expected of them, enough freedom that they can be creative, run their own territory and make money.

I have found that taking a sales team through a territory review process a couple of times a year can help them, and help me, find that balance. I am on my way to New York tonight to participate in one of the team’s reviews tomorrow with my VP Sales, Todd Rudley.

The first thing that is important, before you can ask a sales person to walk you through his/her strategy and plan, is to be clear on who has what territory. At FirstRain we have defined over 30 territories in the US and Europe (we don’t sell in Asia yet). Every territory is defined by accounts (eg. US majors #1 has a list of named large accounts), by alphabet in a geography (eg. New York A-D), by assets under management (eg. SouthEast