Sales Territory Management

[joes01bullitt]

Any of you guys outside sales guys? I'm wanting to get some ideas/input on how other salesmen handle their territories and plan their routes on a day to day basis. I currently separate them on a Google map that I printed out with drop pins. I would like to be more efficient and would rather have this on a CPU or app on my iPhone.

Any helpful ideas/input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Joe

[bcoop]

I manage a large territory, but there is no rhyme or reason to what I do, when, and how.

[Big A]

I cover the north half of California, but fortunately the bulk of my accounts are here in Sacramento, and I get out to see clients on an as needed basis. Being that I already own the lion's share of the market, I spend most my time servicing my existing client-base, rather than having to focus much on finding net-new business.

The quick answer is that they call me when they need something.

[Chili]

I used to do it, and covered a large geographical area, but my customers were clustered. I visited them once a month, each, and had a week at home, so it was pretty straight forward to me.

My area was from Temple, all the way up 35 to OKC, all of West Texas, and all of NM. So one week I would do Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland / Odessa. The next week I would do Albuquerque, Farmington, Las Cruces and El Paso. The next week would all be day trips.. OKC one day, Temple / Waco one day, Abilene / San Angelo another.

For each of those trips, I created a list of customers in each town, and set up a GPS route file. Get up in the morning, grab my folders for each customer I would see that day, and start my nav. As I pulled up to each place I would grab their file and quickly review. When I left I would jot down any notes in the file. Each night I would enter all of the info into our CRM software (Siebel), put away that day's files, and pull the files for the next day.

[Craizie]

I used to do it, and covered a large geographical area, but my customers were clustered. I visited them once a month, each, and had a week at home, so it was pretty straight forward to me.

My area was from Temple, all the way up 35 to OKC, all of West Texas, and all of NM. So one week I would do Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland / Odessa. The next week I would do Albuquerque, Farmington, Las Cruces and El Paso. The next week would all be day trips.. OKC one day, Temple / Waco one day, Abilene / San Angelo another.

For each of those trips, I created a list of customers in each town, and set up a GPS route file. Get up in the morning, grab my folders for each customer I would see that day, and start my nav. As I pulled up to each place I would grab their file and quickly review. When I left I would jot down any notes in the file. Each night I would enter all of the info into our CRM software (Siebel), put away that day's files, and pull the files for the next day.

That sounds exhausting.

[Chili]

That sounds exhausting.

It wasn't terrible.. Most were only 3 day trips, and I was home the 4th week every month (I worked from home when not traveling). For the NM - El Paso trip I would fly into Albuquerque, then rent a car and drive, ending up in El Paso, where I flew home from. Got a bunch of airline and hotel points.

The rest I drove, which I am fine with. I love road trips anyways, and most of the driving was pretty remote. I would take and make calls throughout the day while driving, and email and whatnot.

I also didn't do it for long.. Unfortunately only a little less than a year, when I was laid off. I had a company car (with unlimited personal miles) and gas card, which was a nice perk.

At least back then I had an Impala.. Nowdays my old coworkers have Chevy Volts (Company was GE, and they have some kind of partnership on those).

[Baron Von Crowder]

I used a laptop with ms streets and trips to do my navigating for me.

I covered half of DFW, all areas east to Shreveport up to Texarkana, sherman/denison, and down to Waco/Temple/Killeen, and every now and again out to Lampasas.

[Craizie]

It wasn't terrible.. Most were only 3 day trips, and I was home the 4th week every month (I worked from home when not traveling). For the NM - El Paso trip I would fly into Albuquerque, then rent a car and drive, ending up in El Paso, where I flew home from. Got a bunch of airline and hotel points.

The rest I drove, which I am fine with. I love road trips anyways, and most of the driving was pretty remote. I would take and make calls throughout the day while driving, and email and whatnot.

I also didn't do it for long.. Unfortunately only a little less than a year, when I was laid off. I had a company car (with unlimited personal miles) and gas card, which was a nice perk.

At least back then I had an Impala.. Nowdays my old coworkers have Chevy Volts (Company was GE, and they have some kind of partnership on those).

I love traveling for work, but I hate long drives. Doing what you did would wear me out with a quickness.

[Chili]

I love traveling for work, but I hate long drives. Doing what you did would wear me out with a quickness.

Yeah, it was perfect for me, because I love long drives. Always have. The only down side was being away from the wife and kids 6-9 nights a months. That was probably a bonus for them though.

[Roscoe]

I think what you're looking for is someone that has to do a large number of visits/hits a week to a certain city or metro area. Like a few others mentioned, I typically take a few days and hit a couple of companies in a given area, but my territory used to be a vertical in the US.