SaaS Savages,
I could use some input from the brilliant minds in this group.
I currently work at a startup on an extremely lean sales team. 4 reps total for the entire world, most of our business is in the US. There's 2 reps (1 ENT AE and 1 ISR/Junior AE) who manage CA through the Southwest, I manage all of the rockies and great lakes, and our last rep manages the east coast. We have outsourced SDRs and most of our opportunities come from our partner network and all reps are busy working deals.
Yesterday during my 1:1 with my manager, he mentioned we're hiring 3 more reps in 2021 and that he is entertaining the idea of moving us from a geography-based territory model to a target account model. The rationale is most of us are too busy to truly prospect a specific territory, and the majority of deals we work are not local to where we live (for example, I live in Denver but most of my opps are Michigan, West coast rep lives in Portland and mostly closes business in Texas), and if we carved out 3 more territories, it would take too many key regions from those of us who have stuck with the company during COVID.
In the target account model, we'd each have 150 target accounts that are not tied to a specific region, and then we would round robin any of the inbound leads that come in. He asked me to think on it overnight and if I had any serious objections or opinion, to let him know.
I've only ever worked in a geo-based territory model, so my question for those who currently or previously worked in a target acct-based model, what are the pros/cons? Do you prefer it to geo-based territories? What have you seen work best in your orgs?
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