Territories, regions, and divisions are geographic segmentation designed to enhance and organize the sales management process. These sales territory alignment areas of account responsibility provide a platform for communicating goals, sales accountability, and tracking progress against goals.
A sales manager in charge of a region focuses on the big company picture. She is directing her team of territory managers toward their regional sales goals.
All the regional sales revenues and expenses roll up into the divisional numbers. A division sales manager is laser-focused on the bigger picture. She needs to ensure her regional managers have all the resources required to achieve the company goals for the year.
MapBusinessOnline Standard provides easy-to-use mapping software for sales territories. Its sales territory creation process allows the choice between incremental cursor selection, polygon tool lassoing of areas, and a territory spreadsheet import to create new territories.
Easy territory editing tools let the territory builder quickly alter their ZIP code, county, or other map layer selections. MapPoint users will find MapBusinessOnline a vital step forward in digital sales territory management while providing a familiar map interface.
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Creating Hierarchical Territories
The thing to remember about developing territories, regions, and divisions is that they are built-in hierarchical fashion – territories first, followed by regions, and then divisions. One builds upon the other. Hierarchical Region and Division creation are only available in MapBusinessOnline Pro.
- Create Territories First
- Territories in MapBusinessOnline can be created using spreadsheets referencing ZIP codes, counties, or state map layers, plus a column for Territory Name. (Other map layers can be added, including, Census tracts, Marketing Statistical Areas, and ZIP 3 areas.)
- Territories are also constructed using a polygon search tool to lasso a series of ZIP codes, counties, or states into a territory.
- A user can create territories incrementally by selecting one ZIP code or county at a time with your mouse cursor (hold down the shift key for multi-select.)
- Regions are created by merging territories with a polygon search tool. Once you’ve chosen your target group, finish the polygon and name the region. Do this for all your regions.
- Divisions are the Final Step – A division is created similarly to the regions. The only difference for division creation is that the polygon search tool selects groups of regions.
In hierarchical construction, Regions cover territories, and divisions cover regions. While you create territories, or later as you develop regions and divisions, you will notice that the various layers obstruct the visibility layers underneath. MapBusinessOnline provides map layer editing tools to resolve the overlaying visibility challenges in Map and Data.
Focus on Regions & Divisions
Adjusting Your Territory Map’s Look and Feel
Use Map and Data‘s Edit Map Layer Properties function to edit the look and feel of the various map layers. These editing tools help users create exactly the map view their map audience needs to see. Read more about Map and Data here.
To access these map adjustment tools, hover your mouse cursor over the Territory Map Layer and click the Edit Map Properties Button. A panel opens up and displays various tools that support territory map editing. Within the map and data layer tools, you will find tools to:
- Adjust the thickness and color of territory map boundaries.
- Adjust the color fill of the territory areas. The Transparency Scroll Bar is critical to territory, region, and division management. Transparency controls allow your viewers to see all hierarchical layers at once if you desire it.
- Choose to Hide Internal Boundaries (like ZIP code areas) in your territory map. You may leave base layers visible if they are essential to your map audience.
- Choose to color code the territory map based on demographic data or a numeric element, such as sales results included with your imported data.
Under Territory Options, Map and Data also allow the map creator to enable and display areas of territory overlap. Users typically show that overlap with a specific color choice, like bright red. Here, toward the bottom of Map and Data, the user can choose an appropriate map background – or none at all.
All of these tools impact the way your map looks. And this means you will have to decide what look and feel best supports your business’s territory map requirements. Read about business map look and feel recommendations here. But in general:
- Avoid obnoxious colors.
- Keep boundaries dark and not too thick.
- Make any text concise and keep it pertinent to your map intent.
- Avoid map clutter – too many data layers can be overbearing.
- Try a variety of color schemes and select the most appropriate.
- Ask a colleague for their perspective.
Import and Display Business Data
A critical aspect of sales territory maps is aggregating sales data by segment, especially with regions and divisions. With MapBusinessOnline, imported data should include sales by time segment. Customer data imported by customer address would consist of a column for total sales by account. These sales records or points on the map can be easily aggregated into sales totals by territory, region, and division.
MapBusinessOnline labeling tools are located in Map and Data. Click Edit Map Properties and choose the Label Tab. Here you’ll be able to fill five flexible fields under each territory or region label with your most critical data totals. You could also fill in these fields with demographic data included with your subscription. Read more about map labeling here.
The above-described sales territory mapping tools provide various visual options to help your sales managers better monitor and manage sales progress against the territory, region, or division goals. Use these tools to share progress with your sales team or present results to the management team.
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Discover why over 25,000 business users log into www.MapBusinessOnline.com for their business mapping software and advanced sales territory mapping solution. The best replacement for Microsoft MapPoint happens to be the most affordable.
To access MapBusinessOnline, please register and download the Map App from the website – https://www.mapbusinessonline.com/App-Download.aspx.
After installing the Map App, the MapBusinessOnline launch button will be in the Windows Start Menu or Mac Application folder. Find the MapBusinessOnline folder in the Start Menu scrollbar. Click the folder’s dropdown arrow and choose the MapBusinessOnline option.
The Map App includes the Map Viewer app for free non-subscriber map sharing.
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Contact: Geoffrey Ives at geoffives@spatialteq.com or Jason Henderson at jhenderson@spatialteq.com.
