Sales Territory Plan Template
Every account in the patch, how often you cover it, and where the patch is thin.
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| Territory | [territory] |
| Owner | [owner] |
| Period | [date] to [date] |
1. Accounts and coverage
| Account | Tier | Annual value | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| [add one account per line] |
2. Targets
| Measure | Target |
|---|---|
| [add one target per line] |
3. Where the territory is thin
[add one gap per line]
What is a Sales Territory Plan?
A territory plan sets out every account in your patch, how much attention each one gets, and where the patch is thin. It converts a list of companies into a working week. Without one, coverage follows the phone: the accounts that call get visited, the quiet ones with more potential never do, and the gap only becomes visible when a competitor has already been working them for a year.
Field sales teams, medical and industrial representatives, regional managers, distributors and channel teams write territory plans, usually at the start of a financial year or after a patch has been redrawn. Inside-sales teams write the same document with call blocks instead of drive time. It is used to justify a quota, to plan cover during leave, and at handover, when the next person needs to know which twenty accounts out of three hundred actually matter.
Redrawing a territory has employment consequences and they vary. Whether commission already earned on a reassigned account remains payable usually turns on your contract and on local wage law — several US states treat earned commissions as wages with specific payment rules, UK contractual variation may require consultation and agreement, and Australian awards or enterprise agreements may set terms. In India the applicable state Shops and Establishments Act and any certified standing orders are the starting point. Post-employment customer restrictions differ widely in enforceability, so check before publishing a new map.
A territory plan does not set the quota; it shows whether the quota is reachable given the accounts and the hours available. It does not allocate commission, which is the compensation plan's job, and it does not replace an account plan for the largest customers — the territory plan says how often you cover them, the account plan says what you are trying to achieve there. It is also not a routing tool: leave day-by-day sequencing to a map or a scheduler.
What to put in a Sales Territory Plan
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Your address | For example: Unit 7, Barton Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Account owner | For example: Sarah Chen |
| Territory | For example: North West — Central Ohio and Kentucky |
| Period from | Free text |
| Period to | Free text |
| Accounts | One per line: Account | Tier | Annual value | Coverage |
| Targets | One per line: Measure | Target |
| Where the territory is thin | One per line |
How to write a Sales Territory Plan
List every account and where it sits
One row per account with location, current annual value, product lines held, contract end dates and last contact. Include the ones nobody has called for two years, and include competitor-held accounts you know about. The list is tedious and it is the whole basis of the plan — a territory analysis built from memory always over-represents the accounts you enjoy visiting.
Segment by value and by potential
Two axes, not one. Current spend on one, realistic potential on the other, giving four groups: large and growing, large and static, small but promising, and small with no prospect. The dangerous group is small but promising, which looks like a low priority on any list sorted by revenue and is where next year's growth actually comes from.
Set a coverage frequency per group
Decide how often each group gets contact and in what form — quarterly on site, monthly by call, twice a year through an email campaign. Write the rule down rather than deciding case by case, then check it against the calendar. Forty accounts at monthly visits is not a plan if the territory takes three hours to cross.
Do the capacity arithmetic honestly
Multiply out the visits and calls implied by your coverage rules and compare the total with the selling days actually available, after leave, training, internal meetings and travel. Where the two do not meet, change the coverage rules or the account list. A plan needing more days than the year contains fails quietly, and it always fails on the low-value accounts you meant to develop.
Name the gaps and what you need
Finish with the specific weaknesses — a city with no reference customer, a product line with no installed base, three large accounts held by one competitor — and what would change each: a local event, a partner, a pricing exception, a technical resource for two days. A territory plan that asks for nothing is usually one that has not been tested against the numbers.
Common mistakes
- Building the account list from active CRM records only, which leaves out every dormant and competitor-held account and makes the territory look fully covered.
- Ranking accounts by current spend alone, so the small account about to open four new sites gets the same attention as a static one of similar size.
- Setting a visit frequency that ignores travel time, which produces a plan that collapses in week three and takes the low-priority accounts down with it.
- Redrawing territories without checking how the compensation plan treats deals already in progress, which creates a pay dispute and a distracted team.
- Writing the plan in January and never comparing it with where the time actually went, so the same over-serviced accounts absorb the same hours next year.
Frequently asked questions
What is a sales territory plan?
A written plan for a defined patch — geographic, sector or named-account based — listing the accounts in it, how they are prioritised, how often each is covered, and where the growth is expected to come from. It sits between the compensation plan, which sets the target, and the account plans, which cover individual major customers in far more depth.
How do I divide a sales territory fairly?
Balance on potential rather than on account count or geography alone, since a hundred small accounts in one city can be worth less than fifteen in another. Use current value plus a potential estimate for each account, then split so the totals are comparable. Publish the basis you used, and check the compensation consequences of moving accounts between people before announcing anything.
How many accounts should one representative cover?
It depends entirely on visit frequency and travel, which is why the capacity calculation matters more than any benchmark. Work it backwards: available selling days multiplied by meetings per day, divided by the contacts each account needs per year. If that gives a smaller number than your current list, the surplus accounts are not being covered, whatever the plan says.
How often should territories be reviewed?
Annually as part of planning, with a mid-year check on coverage against the plan. Redraw more often than that and you disrupt relationships and commission for little gain. Between reviews, adjust the coverage rules rather than the boundaries — moving accounts between people carries a real cost in trust and continuity that a spreadsheet does not show.
What is territory whitespace?
Accounts or product lines in the patch that you do not currently sell to: companies matching your target profile with no relationship, customers buying one line and not the others, and sites of existing customers that use a competitor. Listing it turns a vague sense that there must be more out there into a specific set of named targets you can plan against.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.