The LeanScale Podcast · Episode 9

Practical Territory Design

Cameron Legge on designing fair, efficient sales territories for B2B SaaS

Cameron Legge · Engagement Manager, LeanScale · LeanScale Hosted by Anthony Enrico
Published Updated 00:15:14 13 min read 2,571 words
Revenue Operations Sales Leadership GTM Strategy Enterprise & Public-Sector Sales Outbound & Sales Development
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Executive Summary

The one-paragraph brief, extended

Why this conversation matters — and who should spend the hour.

Territory design is one of the quietest, most consequential jobs in a revenue org — and one almost nobody feels they do well. In this practical, tools-in-hand episode, LeanScale host Anthony Enrico sits down with co-founder Cameron Legge, who has run dozens of territory-design engagements for LeanScale's B2B SaaS customers and carried sales quotas himself, to demystify how to actually cut territories that are fair, efficient, and defensible.

The starting premise is a reframe: fairness is not only a morale problem. Yes, a rep dropped into a weak territory (or stripped of a good one) is an attrition and morale risk you want to avoid — 'pissing off sales reps,' as Cameron bluntly puts it, is what keeps operators up at night. But Anthony pushes the 'ops mind' angle: fair territories also maximize the use of your sales resources. Equalize a great territory and a bad one and, in aggregate, the system produces more revenue from the same headcount. The human case and the business case point the same way.

From there the two get tactical. Cameron lays out the five main buckets for segmenting a team — geographic (regions, time zones), product or service specialization, industry/vertical, firmographic tier (enterprise vs. mid-market vs. SMB), and, when those don't apply, a fair round-robin or named-accounts approach. The design itself, he insists, 'comes down to data, data, data': mine historical SQLs and closed-won deals sliced by those buckets, backfill anything missing, and gather feedback from reps, product, and marketing before you draw a single line. Early-stage teams without much pipeline data should map their universe from a data source like ZoomInfo into Salesforce or HubSpot and make comfortable assumptions rather than freeze.

The episode closes on the two things people most often get wrong: the rollout and the over-cut. Roll territories out at natural calendar breaks and define clear holdover plans, or the trickle-down surprises will torch the trust you were trying to build. And resist the urge to slice too finely — Anthony's default stack starts firmographic (because enterprise and high-velocity SMB motions require genuinely different sellers), then geographic by time zone in a distributed-work world, then product or industry only if they truly differ, keeping bigger buckets with round-robin inside so you don't manufacture dry patches and inequity.

Who should listen: RevOps and GTM operators tasked with a territory redesign, sales leaders restructuring to 'do more with less,' and founders standing up their first real sales team. The payoff is a repeatable, data-first way to think about carving up a market — plus a healthy reminder that the goal is a system where everyone has a fair chance to win.

Key Takeaways

10 things worth stealing

The load-bearing ideas, each with the business implication and who should care.

01

Fair territories are an efficiency lever, not just a morale lever

Beyond avoiding attrition and hurt feelings, balancing a strong and a weak territory means you're maximizing the use of your sales resources. As Anthony frames it, if you make two lopsided territories fair, the overall system should produce more revenue from the same team.

Why it matters: Sell a territory redesign internally on both fronts: it protects your best people and it raises total output. The business case and the human case reinforce each other, which makes the change easier to defend.

RevOps LeadersSales LeadersRevenue Executives
02

Rep anxiety about imbalance is the hardest part of the job

Whether a sales leader, an in-house ops team, or an outside advisor is doing it, everyone shares the same fear: creating territories where reps feel a peer 'across the aisle' has more to go after. That imbalance drives the morale problems and attrition operators are trying to eliminate.

Why it matters: Treat perceived fairness as a first-class design constraint, not an afterthought. The relationships you protect are key positions in the growth engine, and their trust is expensive to rebuild once lost.

Sales LeadersRevOps Leaders
03

Match the sophistication of your territory design to your growth stage

People's minds jump straight to extremely sophisticated territory design, but the level required depends on where you are and what your sales team looks like. A young team does not need the same machinery as a scaled org.

Why it matters: Don't over-engineer. Resist importing the complex model from your last company; right-size the design to the data and team you actually have today.

FoundersRevOps LeadersSales Leaders
04

There are five main buckets for cutting territories

Cameron's menu: geographic (regions, time zones), product/service specialization, industry/vertical, firmographic tier (enterprise / mid-market / SMB), and — when none of those apply cleanly — a fair round-robin or named-accounts approach. Most designs layer a few of these together.

Why it matters: Start from a known set of segmentation lenses rather than a blank page. Evaluate each bucket against your product and buyer, then combine the ones that actually change how you sell.

RevOps LeadersSales Leaders
05

Firmographic is usually the first and most important cut

Both hosts land on firmographic as the default starting point for B2B SaaS. The enterprise motion — multithreading, stakeholder buy-in, long cycles — is fundamentally different from a high-velocity SMB sale, and it needs different people. Most other skills are coachable; that experience gap is not.

Why it matters: Differentiate enterprise and SMB sellers right out the gate. Putting the wrong profile against the wrong deal size is the mismatch that most reliably wastes a territory.

Sales LeadersRevOps LeadersRevenue Executives
06

Design from data — historicals plus a backfill

The process 'comes down to data, data, data.' Look at historical SQLs and closed-won deals sliced by the segmentation buckets, and if you skipped capturing something, there's real value in going back to populate and backfill it so you can feel confident in the design.

Why it matters: Invest in the data layer before drawing lines. Capturing the right fields on leads and deals is what lets you build intelligent territories instead of guessing.

RevOps LeadersSales Leaders
07

Gather feedback from reps, product, and marketing before you draw lines

Data isn't only numbers. Talk to the reps about what they think would work, ask product what's on the roadmap, and ask marketing how they're targeting campaigns and demographics. Those internal stakeholders make you more confident in the territories you design.

Why it matters: Run territory design as a cross-functional exercise, not a spreadsheet done in isolation. The people closest to the buyer surface constraints your historicals won't show.

RevOps LeadersSales LeadersMarketing Leaders
08

Early-stage teams should make comfortable assumptions, not freeze

If you're early and don't have much sales or pipeline-creation data, don't stall. Take a data dump from a source like ZoomInfo, load it into Salesforce or HubSpot, and at least map where the potential universe is so you can start from something real.

Why it matters: Thin data is not an excuse for no design. Map the addressable universe, make explicit assumptions from what has worked, and refine as pipeline data accumulates.

FoundersRevOps Leaders
09

The rollout is where good plans die — timing and holdover rules

The major pitfall isn't the design, it's the rollout. Cut over at natural calendar breaks (a new quarter or month), and define clear criteria for what reps can and can't hold onto after the reshuffle. Miss the holdover plan and the trickle-down surprises blindside your team.

Why it matters: Plan the change-management as carefully as the segmentation. A 360-degree view of the rollout — holdovers, timing, communication — is what keeps a smart design from becoming a disaster.

Sales LeadersRevOps Leaders
10

Distribute geography by time zone, not by HQ — and don't over-cut

In a distributed-work world there's often no HQ to visit, so Anthony spreads reps across time zones based on what prospects need most: someone available during their business hours. And he warns that slicing a market too many ways creates dry patches and unequal territories, so he keeps bigger buckets with a round-robin inside.

Why it matters: Optimize geography for buyer availability rather than office coverage, and stop cutting once further granularity would starve some reps. Fewer, fairer buckets beat many brittle ones.

Sales LeadersRevOps Leaders
Frameworks Discussed

5 named models

Every framework Jimmy names, defined and time-stamped.

The Five Territory Segmentation Buckets

05:00

The main lenses for cutting a sales team's territories: (1) geographic — international/domestic regions, time zones, states; (2) product or service specialization; (3) industry/vertical; (4) firmographic tier — enterprise / mid-market / SMB; and (5) a fair round-robin or named-accounts approach when the others don't apply.

Cameron's core menu for territory design. Most real designs layer a few of these buckets together, chosen by evaluating which ones actually change how you sell to a given customer. The named-accounts variant fits outbound; a round-robin fits inbound channels.

Fairness = Resource Efficiency

04:19

Balancing territories is not only a morale-and-attrition safeguard; it's a pure-business lever. Equalize a strong territory and a weak one and, in aggregate, the same sales headcount produces more revenue.

Anthony's 'ops mind' reframe of Cameron's fairness point: the human case (don't put people in unfair situations that drive attrition) and the efficiency case (maximize use of sales resources) point in the same direction, which makes a redesign easier to justify.

Data-First Design (Historicals + Stakeholder Feedback)

08:56

Design territories from evidence: mine historical SQLs and closed-won deals sliced by each segmentation bucket, backfill any data you failed to capture, and gather feedback from reps, product, and marketing before drawing the lines.

'It comes down to data, data, data.' The quantitative half is historical pipeline sliced by segment; the qualitative half is internal stakeholder input on roadmap, messaging, and what reps believe will work. Both raise confidence in the final cuts.

Rollout Timing & Holdover Plans

11:34

Roll new territories out at natural calendar breaks (a new quarter or month) and define explicit holdover criteria governing which prospects a rep can keep working after the reshuffle.

The most common pitfall isn't the design but the rollout. Skipping a 360-degree view of the trickle-down — especially clear holdover rules — blindsides reps and undoes the trust the redesign was meant to protect.

The Default B2B SaaS Territory Stack

13:19

Anthony's go-to sequence for a typical B2B SaaS company: start firmographic (enterprise vs. SMB motions need different sellers), then geographic by time zone (buyer availability), then product or industry only if they genuinely differ, and fill the rest with round-robin or named accounts inside bigger buckets.

The ordering encodes the reframes from the episode: firmographic first because the experience gap between enterprise and velocity selling isn't coachable; geography by time zone because most teams are distributed; and deliberately coarse buckets to avoid dry patches and inequity from over-cutting.

Best Quotes

13 lines worth clipping

Pulled verbatim. Copy or share any of them.

“Fair territories means you're maximizing the use of your sales resources. So if you have somebody who has a really, really good territory and they're doing really well and somebody who doesn't have a good territory — well, if you made them fair, in the end, overall, the system should produce more.”
Anthony Enrico 00:00
“A lot of companies are restructuring their teams. They're trying to do more with less. Territory design is a good way to do that.”
Anthony Enrico 01:23
“We all have anxiety around territory imbalance — creating territories where sales reps are getting upset because they feel like a rep across the aisle has more to go after.”
Cameron Legge 01:55
“Those are key positions in your growth engine and your revenue engine that you're going to want to relatively keep happy — so you're not causing things like attrition and bringing on new reps and the ramp.”
Cameron Legge 02:36
“The immediate assumption typically goes to geographic — how can I get reps in seats in the right regions?”
Cameron Legge 05:00
“It's amazing to work with a sales rep that really knows the product well and can address questions right on any step or any meeting in the sales process.”
Cameron Legge 06:22
“It comes down to data, data, data. And I'll say it again — data. So it's about the data gathering process.”
Cameron Legge 08:56
“Get feedback from internal stakeholders. If you're designing a sales territory for the first time, talk to the reps themselves. Talk to product. Even talk to marketing.”
Cameron Legge 10:02
“The big thing I've seen from a missed perspective is having the right holdover plans for reps is extremely important.”
Cameron Legge 12:12
“I always like starting where you started — meet your prospects where they are. Whatever makes sense in the buyer journey, I would use that as the inspiration to start.”
Anthony Enrico 13:19
“Nine times out of ten what works for a typical B2B SaaS company, I start with firmographic. The selling motion of an enterprise sale versus a high-velocity SMB sale is just completely different.”
Anthony Enrico 13:19
“I like to distribute geographically across time zones, because that's what prospects need the most. Are you available during my business hours and can I connect with you then?”
Anthony Enrico 13:55
“If you try to cut it too many ways, you end up with some dry patches and you end up with some people who have better territories than others. It just doesn't end up being very efficient.”
Anthony Enrico 14:29
Practical Advice

What should you actually do?

The playbook, split by the seat you sit in.

Founders

  • Don't over-engineer your first territory design — match its sophistication to your growth stage and the team you actually have, not the machinery from a scaled company.
  • If you're early with thin pipeline data, don't freeze: pull a data dump from a source like ZoomInfo into Salesforce or HubSpot, map your addressable universe, and make explicit assumptions you can refine later.
  • Start firmographic — hire and deploy different sellers for enterprise versus high-velocity SMB motions, because that experience gap is the one thing you can't easily coach.

RevOps Leaders

  • Build the data layer first: capture the fields on leads and deals that let you slice historical SQLs and closed-won by segment, and backfill anything you missed before designing.
  • Frame the redesign on both axes — fairness protects your best reps from attrition, and balanced territories maximize revenue from the same headcount.
  • Own the rollout, not just the design: cut over at calendar breaks and publish clear holdover rules so the trickle-down doesn't blindside the field.
  • Keep bigger buckets with a round-robin or named accounts inside rather than slicing the market so finely you create dry patches and inequity.

Sales Leaders

  • Treat perceived fairness as a design constraint — rep anxiety about a peer having a better patch is the fastest way to create morale and attrition problems.
  • Evaluate the five segmentation buckets (geographic, product, vertical, firmographic, round-robin/named) and layer only the ones that genuinely change how you sell.
  • Distribute geography by time zone for buyer availability, not by HQ, in a distributed-work world.
  • Pull reps, product, and marketing into the design conversation before you draw lines — their context surfaces constraints your historicals won't.
Operations Takeaways

By function

The same conversation, filtered for RevOps, pipeline/marketing ops, and customer ops.

Revenue Operations

  • Fairness is efficiency. Balanced territories both protect reps from attrition and let the same headcount produce more revenue — pitch the redesign on both axes.
  • Data is the foundation. Slice historical SQLs and closed-won by segment, and backfill missing fields, before drawing a single line.
  • Right-size the sophistication. Match the complexity of the design to your growth stage and team; don't import a scaled company's model into an early-stage org.
  • Own the rollout. Cut over at calendar breaks and publish holdover rules; the rollout, not the design, is where territory plans usually fail.

Pipeline & Marketing Ops

  • Historicals are the truth serum. SQLs and closed-won deals sliced by segment tell you where the real opportunity lives and where a territory is thin.
  • Named accounts vs. round-robin. Use a named-accounts approach for outbound and a fair round-robin for inbound channels when finer segmentation doesn't apply.
  • Firmographic tiers set the motion. Enterprise multithreading versus high-velocity SMB are different pipeline motions and demand different sellers and cadences.
Metrics Mentioned

The numbers, with context

5–6
Segmentation buckets

The number of main lenses (geographic, product, vertical, firmographic, round-robin/named accounts) Cameron uses to start cutting territories.

Firmographic (9 of 10)
Default first cut

Anthony starts with firmographic for nine out of ten typical B2B SaaS companies because enterprise and SMB motions require different sellers.

Entities

Companies, people & tools mentioned

Auto-extracted and linked into the knowledge graph.

Companies

LeanScaleGTM Operations

Anthony and Cameron's firm; territory design is a recurring advisory engagement they run for B2B SaaS customers, and they're building tech to capture the data needed for intelligent territories.

01:23 · 03:48Company →
ZoomInfoGTM Data / Sales Intelligence

Cited as the kind of data source an early-stage team can dump into its CRM to map the potential universe before enough first-party pipeline data exists.

11:03Company →

People

Cameron Leggeguest

Customer-success professional and early LeanScale Engagement Manager; a CS practitioner who argues customer success is a company's 'front porch' and most underrated growth engine.

Engagement Manager, LeanScaleProfile →
Anthony Enricohost

Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast.

Co-FounderProfile →

Tools & software

SalesforceCRM

Named as a CRM destination for loading a mapped account universe when designing territories with limited historical data.

Website ↗
HubSpotCRM

Named alongside Salesforce as the CRM where an early-stage team maps its territory universe from a purchased data set.

Website ↗
Related LeanScale Services

Where this shows up in the work

Fractional RevOps

Embedded, field-facing RevOps leadership and execution — the operator model Jimmy describes, delivered as a service.

Territory design is a core LeanScale RevOps advisory engagement — exactly the field-facing, data-first work Cameron describes running for customers.

Forecasting & ARR Definition

Define a raise-worthy ARR and build a reliable consumption forecast across finance, data science, and go-to-market.

The same historical SQL and closed-won data used to cut fair territories underpins reliable pipeline and revenue forecasting.

Sales Enablement Build

Stand up a zero-based, sales-academy enablement motion sized to your span of control and sales complexity.

Territory design decides who sells to whom, the upstream structure that a sales-enablement and go-to-market build then supports.

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers

Generated from the conversation, marked up for search and AI extraction.

What is sales territory design and why does it matter?

Territory design is how you divide a market and its accounts among your sales reps. It matters because fair territories do two things at once: they protect rep morale and reduce attrition, and they maximize the use of your sales resources so the overall team produces more revenue from the same headcount. Done poorly, it creates imbalance, resentment, and wasted capacity.

Why is territory design so hard?

The core difficulty is fairness. Everyone — sales leaders, in-house ops, and outside advisors — has anxiety about creating territories where reps feel a peer has more to go after, which drives morale problems and attrition. People also assume territory design must be extremely sophisticated, when the right level of complexity actually depends on your growth stage and team. And it's hard to do well without the data to build intelligent territories.

What are the main ways to segment sales territories?

There are five main buckets: geographic (regions, time zones, states); product or service specialization; industry or vertical; firmographic tier (enterprise, mid-market, SMB); and, when none of those apply cleanly, a fair round-robin or a named-accounts approach. Most real designs layer a few of these together, chosen by which ones actually change how you sell.

Where should you start when designing territories for a B2B SaaS company?

Nine times out of ten, start firmographic. The enterprise selling motion — multithreading, stakeholder buy-in, longer cycles — is completely different from a high-velocity SMB sale and needs different people, and that experience gap is hard to coach. After firmographic, geographic (ideally by time zone for buyer availability) is a good next cut, then product or industry only if they genuinely differ.

How do you use data to design territories?

Design comes down to data. Look at historical SQLs and closed-won deals sliced by your segmentation buckets, and if you failed to capture something, backfill it so you can be confident in the design. Pair that with feedback from internal stakeholders — reps, product, and marketing. If you're early and lack pipeline data, load a data set from a source like ZoomInfo into Salesforce or HubSpot to map your universe and make reasonable assumptions.

When should you roll out new territories, and what's the biggest pitfall?

Roll territories out at natural calendar breaks — a new quarter or month is cleaner than mid-cycle. The biggest pitfall is failing to plan holdover rules: clear criteria for which prospects a rep can keep working after the reshuffle. Ignore the 360-degree trickle-down of a rollout and the surprises will blindside your reps and undermine the trust you were trying to protect.

How should you handle geography when your sales team is remote?

In a distributed-work world there's often no HQ for reps to visit, so optimize geography for buyer availability instead of office coverage. Distribute reps across time zones so a prospect can reach someone during their own business hours. And don't over-cut geography — slicing the market too finely creates dry patches and unequal territories, so keep bigger buckets with a round-robin inside.

Timeline

Jump through the conversation

Click any chapter to open it in the transcript.

00:00Cold open: what fair territories really buy you 00:28Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast 00:39Meet Cameron Legge — why is territory design so hard? 01:55Rep anxiety and the fairness problem 03:11How much sophistication do you actually need? 03:48Why it comes down to data 04:19Fairness as resource efficiency 05:00The five segmentation buckets 06:59Firmographic tiers and named accounts 08:20Recap of the buckets 08:56The design process: data, data, data 10:02Gathering internal stakeholder feedback 11:03Early stage: make comfortable assumptions 11:34Rollout pitfalls and holdover plans 12:46What works best for B2B SaaS? 13:19Anthony's default: firmographic, then time zones 14:29Don't over-cut — wrap up
Full Transcript

The whole conversation

Broken into chapters, searchable, verbatim from the audio. Speakers inferred (not diarized).

Transcript as markdown ↓ Whole episode as markdown ↓
00:00Cold open: what fair territories really buy you

0:00 Fair territories means you're maximizing the use of your sales resources. So if you have somebody who has a really, really good territory, and they're doing really well, and somebody who doesn't have a good territory, well, if you made them fair, in the end, overall, the system should produce more.

00:28Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast

0:28 Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast, where we talk about everything RevOps. Thank you for listening.

00:39Meet Cameron Legge — why is territory design so hard?

0:39 Today we're going to be talking about territories. I have Cameron Legge here with me to help me go through this with everybody. Cameron, you've done a ton of territory design projects with our customers and your sales positions in the past. So I'm really excited to hear how you approach territory design, and then leave everybody with some real practical tools that they can use to design better and more efficient territories. Where I want to start is, why is it so hard? Territory designing is not something where the job is ever done, and it's not something that's really easy to do. But what makes it so challenging?

1:23 Yeah, and as you mentioned, just to start things off, this is something that we do all the time at LeanScale. It seems like even recently, it's becoming more and more of a topic that we're leaning in with our customers and advisory around design. So I think this is really relevant. So happy we're diving in here today on this episode. Well, and that's because a lot of companies are restructuring their teams. They're trying to do more with less. Territory design is a good way to do that, right? So I think that's probably what's driving the uptick of redesigning territory so much right now.

01:55Rep anxiety and the fairness problem

1:55 Absolutely. That's a great point. To answer your question, why is territory design considered so challenging? I think the main thing is around the fairness of each territory that you're designing. And sales, whether it's a sales leader that's tackling this territory design, or an ops team that's in-house, or somebody like LeanScale that's advising you, we all have anxiety around territory imbalance, creating territories where sales reps are getting upset because they feel like a rep across the aisle has more to go after, or they're just getting more on their plate to take out bats.

2:36 That's something that we all have anxiety about, pissing off sales reps for lack of a better way to put it, which causes a whole host of problems, right? Those are key positions in your growth engine and your revenue engine that you're going to want to relatively keep happy and pleased and enjoying the process of working within a territory. So you're not causing things like attrition and bringing on new reps and the ramp and all the stuff that we know we're trying to reduce from an operational standpoint. Those are the things that just keep us up at night when it comes to territory design.

03:11How much sophistication do you actually need?

3:11 And then I also think there's a layer to the assumptions of what territories need to be. I know if you ask people whether it's in a GTM capacity or a sales leader capacity, their mind immediately goes to extremely sophisticated territory design, whether that's coming from experience and where they've been, or just some general assumptions of what they think territories need to be to be successful. And I think we're ready within this episode to unpack some of the level of sophistication that's required. Oftentimes, it depends on where you're at in your growth stage and what your sales team looks like.

03:48Why it comes down to data

3:48 And then I think the other aspect of making it challenging is making sure that you have the data. So that's something that we're focused on at LeanScale every day, is building out the tech to make sure you have that data and you're capturing the data that you're going to need to build intelligent territories for your sales team to just continue to drive revenue. Yeah, and I want to double click on something you said. So when you talk about fairness, of course, there's issues where if you recruit somebody into the team and you put them in a poor territory,

04:19Fairness as resource efficiency

4:19 you may experience attrition, or if you have somebody who's been on your team and you take away some of their territory, there are attrition concerns and there's concerns of the morale of the team and how well they're doing. And maybe this is my ops mind talking, but also fair territories means you're maximizing the use of your sales resources. So if you have somebody who has a really, really good territory and they're doing really well and somebody who doesn't have a good territory, well, if you made them fair, in the end, overall, the system should produce more. So I don't want to take away from the human side of it. Absolutely.

05:00The five segmentation buckets

5:00 We don't want to put people in unfair situations, but also from a pure business perspective, fair territories mean you're being very efficient too. So what are some ways to develop territories and make those territorial cuts? Yeah, I'll dive into a few of the main buckets that we feel like are good for segmentation into territory design. So the first one, and when I mentioned assumptions in my opening monologue there in answer to your question, the immediate assumption typically goes to geographic. How can I get reps in seats in the right regions of whether that's international regions?

5:41 We know them well, domestic regions, right, more of an east-west, or if you want to cut the US in four quarters. Or we see things like time zones and looking at states. So definitely geographic is one of those main buckets. So that main assumption of what a territory could and should be is definitely one of those buckets that you can look at and evaluate. Another one is your product, right? So do you have multiple products? Are your customers going to be best served by having a rep that's really deep in the weeds and deep in knowledge around that product or that specific service? And having that specialized focus can pay off dividends.

6:22 We know in the sales process, it's amazing to work with a sales rep that really knows the product well and can address questions right on any step or any meeting in the sales process. So that's certainly one as well, as well as looking at industries or verticals. So I'll use a plain example. So let's say you're in your product serves the restaurant industry. You may have a different sale between a fast food restaurant to a fast casual restaurant to a sit down restaurant. So all those sales may look different. And that's just for example's sake. You know, shout out to all the B2B tech restaurant companies out there.

06:59Firmographic tiers and named accounts

6:59 But that's just an example of looking at what kind of industries and verticals your product or service is going to serve. And then we'll move into more of the firmographic, which is definitely a key one. So really being able to tier leads and things that are coming into the system as well as, you know, what your sales reps are going after on an outbound motion basis by an enterprise, a mid market, an SMB type sale. We know each of those comes with their own challenges. And we look at those separately, even outside of territory design, but making sure you're designing territories to put the right reps into serving the right prospects.

7:40 We know an enterprise sale and the amount of multithreading it takes and getting the right stakeholder buy in is going to look different from an enterprise to more of an SMB sale. So having the team and sales group itself organized by those firmographic tiers is extremely important. And then from there, it can be more of a round robin. And so one thing we've implemented recently for more of a less sophisticated or more basic territory design is even looking at more of a named accounts approach from an outbound perspective. And then from an inbound perspective, you know, you're looking at more of just a fair round robin through those channels.

08:20Recap of the buckets

8:20 So those are some of the main buckets that we look at of how to start territory design. Yeah, I like those a lot. I like those a lot. So just to recap, we've got geographic, product or service, industry vertical. I see the industry vertical one. I think often I throw like government in there too. So like government or financial institutions, they have just completely different selling cycles and processes you need to get used to if you're selling into those verticals. Firmographic and then, you know, all this fails round robin or find some randomization way to just make sure it's equitable and fair.

08:56The design process: data, data, data

8:56 So those are some tools. So you have a couple of tools in your bucket to start cutting up territories. How do you begin to sit down and start designing? What's what's the process you follow when you're designing territories for your customers? Yeah, it comes down to data, data, data. And I'll say it again, data. So it's about the data gathering process. So let's look at historicals as long as your business and your ICP is relatively maintained or staying the same.

9:27 Let's look at SQLs that you've generated. Let's look at closed one deals that have come through and let's start to look at them by some of those segmentation and tearing buckets, as we just mentioned about five or six of them. Let's look at those and let's start to dig into the data. And if it's something that you may feel like you missed in those process, there's definitely value in going back and looking and starting to do some data population and data backfill on some of those things. So you can start to feel more confident about the territories that you're about to design.

10:02Gathering internal stakeholder feedback

10:02 I think another layer to this tactically, I know we like to get into the tactics here is get feedback from internal stakeholders. If you're designing a sales territory for the first time, if that's the stage you're at with your sales team, talk to the reps themselves. What do they think would be a good way to design territories for their sales team? Talk to product. Talk to the product team. What's on their roadmap? What do they feel like is going to be most efficient in serving eventual customers?

10:31 Even talking to marketing, what are some of the messaging that they're going out with? How are they targeting or setting up campaigns to specific demographics or certain criteria of organizations? I think those are some of the big things where from a data gathering perspective, get that data, it'll make you more confident in the territories that you're designing. Yeah, and if you're early in the process, like you were mentioning, you may not have a lot of sales data, you may not have a lot of pipeline creation data yet, or maybe enough to where you feel comfortable.

11:03Early stage: make comfortable assumptions

11:03 Just feel comfortable making some assumptions. So based on what you have seen, what's worked, what's not worked, take the data dump from Zoom info or whatever other data tool you're using, throw it into Salesforce or HubSpot, and make sure you can start to at least maybe map out where the potential universe is. And I think that's a good way to start. Order some pitfalls. Order some things that you have seen where you thought you had a good plan and it turned out to be a disaster. Maybe not you personally, but maybe you saw somebody else's plan not work out.

11:34Rollout pitfalls and holdover plans

11:34 Yeah, yeah, I'll do a quick one here. I think one of the major pitfalls is when you're rolling out these territories, certainly there's going to be a level of reevaluation, right? Certainly as part of an annual process and looking towards the following year and seeing what worked, what didn't, and how we can adjust territories and design better territories in the year following. But I think when you're ready to roll out of territory, which I think anytime is a good one, certainly there's some more calendar breaks that make some more sense, right? If you're going into a new quarter, hey, let's roll these out then or rolling into a new month.

12:12 But I think the big thing that I've seen from a missed perspective is having the right holdover plans for reps is extremely important because you're going to roll these out and be really excited about what you designed. But unless there's clear criteria for what reps can and can't do to hold on certain organizations that they've been working with from a prospect perspective, that's certainly one of the major pitfalls we've seen when you just don't think about that territory roll out in a full 360-degree view and some of the trickle-down effect of rolling that out.

12:46What works best for B2B SaaS?

12:46 So I think that's one of the major pitfalls. But I think as we wrap things up here, Anthony, I'll ask you, we went through some of the different buckets and tiering and segmentation. What do you think works the most in terms of our experience and certainly your experience in doing territory planning for B2B SaaS companies? Yeah, that's a good question. I always like starting where you started. So meet your prospects where they are. So whatever makes sense in the buyer journey, I would use that as the inspiration to start.

13:19Anthony's default: firmographic, then time zones

13:19 But if you're talking about nine times out of 10 what works for a typical B2B SaaS company, I start with firmographic. So I think the selling motion of an enterprise sale versus a high-velocity SMB sale is just completely different and you have very different people selling into those roles. I think everything else could potentially be coachable and trainable. But the level of experience you're going to need on the enterprise side is just something that is worth differentiating right out the gate.

13:55 After firmographic, I like to go geographic. But my style of geographic, especially now, I mean, most people are working from home or at least distributed in some way, you know, it's not like everybody has a major HQ to go visit anymore. I like to distribute geographically across time zones, because that's what prospects need the most. Are you available during my business hours and can I connect with you then? And then outside of that, it really depends on the business. Do you need a differentiation on your product? If it's a single product, maybe not.

14:29Don't over-cut — wrap up

14:29 Are the use cases across industries that different? If they are, then maybe start to subsegment that way. And then all those fails, I like keeping bigger general buckets of territories and then doing a round robin within that territory or naming accounts within a bigger territory. I find if you try to cut it too many ways, you end up with some dry patches and you end up with some people who have better territories than others. And it just doesn't end up being very efficient. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like the discussion, please like share and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a new episode.