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Sales Effectiveness Services

Sales Force Sizing and Deployment

Through our sales force sizing and deployment service, we help you determine the optimal size and allocation of your sales team to meet your business objectives. We analyze factors such as market opportunities, workload, and sales potential to design a sales force sizing and structure that maximizes coverage and productivity while minimizing costs.

Our sales force sizing and deployment service begins by addressing two pivotal questions:

02.

What is the optimal team size needed to profitably cover the market, i.e., to enhance sales while ensuring profitability for each resource?

01.

How many individuals (across various roles) are required to fulfill our forecast?

The sales process assessment is explained in more detail in the attached presentation and can be summarized as follows:

Sizing generally starts from a point where:
  • Customer segments have been defined
  • The channels and types of sales resources assigned to each segment have been determined
  • The sales process has been designed
The primary objective of sales force sizing and deployment is to “balance” territories
  • The primary consideration is workload balancing

    • If a territory has too much workload, then profitable accounts and prospects will be uncovered, leaving money on the table
    • If a territory has an insufficient workload, the rep will need to cover unprofitable accounts and be less efficient, making it harder to achieve the quota
  • Sales potential is also a consideration

    • A territory must have sufficient sales potential to support the rep
    • But a territory with very high sales potential and one FTE of workload is not necessarily a problem

      • The degree to which it is or is not a problem is partly a function of the incentive plan
  • A third consideration is the configuration of geography and accounts

    • Consider roads, natural barriers, market boundaries, and industry concentrations
The procedure for establishing optimal sales force sizing and deployment includes the following steps:
  • Define the target and accessible market.
  • Quantify the accessible market considering the number, size, and type of current and potential accounts to cover
  • Establish sales capacity, required time to cover existing accounts and prospects across sales roles, expected closure ratios, average sales values, etc.
  • Given a fixed headcount, model the required FTEs  to cover the market to maximize sales.
  • Utilize GIS software to map workload and sales potential, prioritize geographical markets to cover, and delineate territories.