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GeneralFriend

Account Manager

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Territories vs Strategic Accounts

When thinking about stratifying your market, is it better to place salespeople in territories by geography or place them in strategic account groups by size?

Curious on benefits and drawbacks of each. Can a sales org do both? Any insight would be helpful!

Which is better?

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Mobi85
Politicker
5
Regional Sales Manager
Both have their time and place and honestly could work seamlessly if done correctly. At our org we have both Territories and Strategic accounts being run at the same time. We have hundreds/thousands of potential accounts that our territory reps are working and going after but then there is a smaller subset of strategic accounts that will be a longer sales process that our strategic reps are going after.

The biggest trouble that we run in to is that the companies that we are going after the turnover rates are fairly high and so we will have situations that arise where contacts within strategic accounts go to new territory accounts but want to work with the same person as previous and vice versa. We just have to be upfront about it at first and still works smoothly.
Sunbunny31
Politicker
2
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Very similar experience here. I’ve also seen strategic vertical teams work very well in addition to geo territories pursuing anything not named out.
TennisandSales
Politicker
4
Head Of Sales
both can be done in the same org if needed. But it depends on the company.

With me, territory wouldnt be a good idea since one part of the country has the majority of the large accounts.

Ive seen the strategic account approach work really well if the AE is also involved in renewals and upsells.
Pachacuti
Politicker
3
They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy
I have found that geographic territories causes the least amount of conflict.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
3
🦊
I really think it's situational based on product, size, dollar amount, vertical, etc.
Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
2
Sales Rep
IMO I would say there needs to be some happy medium. Its best to have similar accounts within size/industry since its easy to know the company's challenges. However, having a big change in time zones can lead to half the day lost with supporting certain clients.
JustGonnaSendIt
Politicker
2
Burn Towns, Get Money
Both have a place. This is a good question though - Account segmentation and resource allocation is the dirty secret behind why some sales teams are wildly successful and some are constantly dragging ass.

All orgs I have sold with have had some kind of segmentation that went like this:
- Strategic (Top revenue-generating accounts; usually no more than 5 accounts / rep; 90%+ farming role)
- Enterprise (Large customers that just don't make the cut for Strategic. Still need hands-on dedicated resources; usually no more than 20 accounts / rep; hunting / farming combo role where you want to grow these accounts into strategic)
- Territory (can be segmented further based on size of target; generally a hunting role)
GOLFaaS
Politicker
1
Sales Leader
There is no one size fits all answer but my best advice is the structure complements the groups sales strategy.
1nbatopshotfan
Politicker
1
Sales
For the product we sell it’s done by vertical. Geography has no effect on where they team can perform. We want people to become “experts” in the vertical. Find that to be more valuable than someone owning the Midwest or whatever region they have to be in.
Beans
Big Shot
0
Enterprise Account Executive
Combo of the two for our our, Rev Band + Territory. Bout 70~ reps.

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