How to Create A Sales Territory Plan [Guide + Examples]

Expanding into Europe? Read this before drawing your sales territory map.

Europe isn’t a single market - it’s 27 unique ones. Each with its own culture, economy, language (24 of them), and way of doing business.

Get it right, and your sales team could be unlocking high-growth opportunities. Get it wrong, and you’ll waste time, misfire messaging, and burn resources.

That’s why a one-size-fits-all strategy simply won’t cut it.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to build a sales territory plan that’s not just organised - but culturally tuned, regulation-aware, and tailored to win market share across Europe's fragmented landscape.

A territory plan can help you understand these differences and ensure your company’s products, services, and messaging are positioned correctly to capture market share.

What is a sales territory plan?

A sales territory plan is the strategic process of dividing, organising, and segmenting a business’s ideal customer base and prospects into distinct territories to help maximise sales productivity and revenue.

These territories group accounts based on common attributes, including geography, industry, and company size.

A sales territory plan helps businesses target the right customers and effectively allocate their resources across different regions.

It also helps teams develop targeted sales and marketing campaigns and strategies tailored to each demographic and customer segment.

This is especially important when expanding into Europe, and Cognism has adjusted and iterated its territory plan to optimise its sales and marketing strategies. Let’s look at this in more detail (from our real-life experience).

Why is a sales territory plan important?

Previously, Cognism’s territory management lacked organisation and clarity, and reps were often assigned to accounts at random.

This meant there would be various finance, marketing, and recruitment companies within each segment, all of different sizes.

This would result in uneven performance and fluctuation across mid-market and enterprise segments and a lack of precision in Cognism’s outbound sales strategy.

As Jonathon Ilett, VP of Global Sales at Cognism, explained:

“We had a real lack of focus on what a good fit account looked like because we were randomising the accounts that reps were being assigned to.”

“This meant that our reps didn’t know the correct go-to-market strategy for the right accounts, and our sales efforts were not focused on bringing in the right type of customers.”

Jonathon added:

“We hadn’t allocated our resources optimally across our market segments, and our geographic coverage strategy was unclear.” 

“We expanded into new European regions, but when we referred to a region, sales managers weren’t sure if that meant where the actual account was based, where the Account Executive was placed, or where the purchase process took place.”

This also resulted in a lack of focus on Cognism’s ideal customer profile, as sales and marketing were not focusing on areas with the highest win rates and best retention metrics.

It made the SDRs and AEs’ jobs more complex and less repeatable, as they had to continuously switch who they were selling to, which reduced sales productivity and efficiency, and constantly altered the context of their pitches.

These common mistakes also meant Cognism’s sales teams couldn’t examine their geographical performance. Because Cognism was emerging in new regions, UK reps often sold to both DACH and the US, while US reps sometimes sold to France.

Therefore, Cognism couldn’t understand what teams were doing well and where they saw success, as every team was selling everywhere.

As Rob Tomchick, Chief Revenue Officer at Cognism, also shared:

“The first time we rolled out tactical territories, we had random account lists that were not organised. It was difficult for our sales team to put a strategy together that they knew would be successful.”

“A rep covering the Nordic region should not be using a success story and case study from an account based in the UK.”

“If these sales territories had been set up correctly and a rep was primarily selling to software companies in the UK, they could have created a repeatable strategy, messaging and set of success stories that they knew would resonate.”

If you’re expanding into new markets, check out our International Expansion Zone. It’s packed with videos, blogs and playbooks to help you with your strategy.

How to create a sales territory plan: 6 simple steps

Cognism knew its strategy had to be more focused, especially when expanding into European countries.

Jon explained some of the changes that were made:

Jon went onto say:

Here are the steps:

1. Identify which regions to target and allocate your resources

When identifying which regions to allocate resources, Cognism analysed its international conversions and inbound requests.

Rob said:

2. Segment your customer base

When creating your sales territory plan, you must decide how to split out where you sell.

Depending on market size and potential, you might split territories based on regions, company size and industry.

Here’s what Rob said about Cognism’s expansion into Europe:

Geographical territories are the most standardised approach to sales divisions.

This approach remains relevant for several reasons, as factors such as time zones, languages, and cultural nuances still matter.

Geographical territories are ideal for in-person or remote sellers and align selling styles with regional cultures.

You might divide your territories by industry sectors if your product/service applies to specific verticals. This means salespeople become familiar with specialised buyer profiles, and industry-specific jargon becomes second nature.

You can also tailor selling processes to industry needs; that way, salespeople can develop an in-depth knowledge of unique product applications.

Rob broke down Cognism’s sales territory strategy:

Previously, Cognism referred to regions as where the sales team member sits. Now, it’s defined by where a company's headquarters and GTM operations are located.

Cognism looks to go after the following regions:

• US HQs with EMEA operations.
• US HQs without EMEA operations.
• France.
• DACH.
• EMEA.
• APAC.
• Extending countries.

Cognism organised the team around regional strategies. This meant they could continue executing a segmentation strategy and adjusting resource allocation based on where reps succeeded in their ideal customer profile. This empowered reps to create, iterate, and win.

When expanding into a new European region where you haven’t got a massive amount of data or revenue, it’s difficult to understand what industries you will succeed in and what your ICP will be.

So, by using geographical groupings, you can focus on understanding your sweet spot for each region.

Once you’ve settled in a region with a wide range of customer types, you can identify the optimal industries to target and assign specific sales representatives to those verticals.

Reps in those verticals will specialise in a set industry and become thought leaders, resulting in a much higher win rate when competing with competitors.

Rob explained:

3. Create localised and tailored strategies

Once you’ve created an effective sales territory management plan, your sales and marketing teams can work together to determine the right sales tactics and messaging to push to each market and territory.

Each geographical location will have unique messaging catered to cultural and regional nuances. Adjusting your sales and marketing process to local business customs and decision-making timelines is crucial.

As Rob shared:

Rob also went on to say:

A well-designed sales territory division also means your sales team can adapt your value proposition to resonate with local cultures and regulations.

Liam Bartholomew, VP of Marketing at Cognism, added:

Similarly, for a US-headquartered company with EMEA operations, Cognism’s value proposition would focus on providing the highest-quality, most relevant, and compliant data in EMEA.

Contrastingly, Cognism would focus on its reliable mobile data in North America for a US-headquartered company without EMEA operations. Its competitive advantage would be its Diamond Data® and the fact that it has the best mobile numbers with the highest connection rate.

You also want to ensure your content and messaging address local pain points, interests and communication styles.

For example, when expanding into Europe, Cognism found that communication styles in Germany and Switzerland often leaned towards being more direct and to the point when it came to outbound sales.

However, a more indirect and nuanced approach is more common in France and Spain, whilst British audiences generally appreciate a process that builds on relationships. Designing a territory plan helps reps become familiar with these nuances.

Here are some of the mistakes and triumphs we saw when expanding into DACH:

4. Define your ICP

As mentioned, knowing which customers to prioritise is essential when approaching a new region or market. Here, defining your ICP is key.

Antoine Cornet, Head of Revenue Operations at Cognism, explained:

When refining your ICP across each region, you might want to conduct surveys and interviews with potential customers, analyse successful competitors’ customer bases, and consider how cultural differences affect buying behaviour and preferences.

Once Cognism has expanded into a region, it determines its ICP by looking at the following factors:

• High engagement: Frequent, consistent use; adopt new features.
• Higher Lifetime value: long subscriptions, high revenue.
• Strong fit: product solves their pain points, high satisfaction.
• Efficient sales cycle: quick decisions, understanding value.
• Low churn rate: high retention, renewed contracts.
• Positive advocacy: provide testimonials and refer others.
• Strategic alignment: Share company values and be open to long-term partnerships.

5. Create an account allocation strategy

When it comes to account allocation, you want to identify and assign key strategic accounts to specific sales managers.

Here, it’s essential to ensure each salesperson has a manageable number of accounts and sales opportunities and to align account complexities with salesperson experience and skills.

Consider language skills and cultural understanding when assigning territories and accounts.

It’s essential to evaluate the value of each account within the market and prioritise each account through your sales territory plan. That way, your sales reps won’t waste their time and can optimise their efforts and resources.

Cognism ranks accounts through tiers. For initiatives such as its ABM play, Cognism can best position itself for success in top-tier industries and accounts.

6. Understand which metrics to track and assign quota

When it comes to setting quotas and sales goals, here’s what Rob said:

He added:

Here are some key metrics to track:

• Sales metrics: Revenue growth, customer acquisition cost and average deal size.
• Marketing metrics: Lead generation, conversion rates and brand awareness.
• Operational metrics: Customer satisfaction scores, and support response times.
• Financial metrics: Profitability by country and return on investment.
• Revenue Targets: Set realistic sales revenue goals based on market potential and resources.
• Market Share Objectives: Define the target market share for each territory.
• Customer Acquisition Goals: Set targets for new customer acquisition and account growth.
• Activity Metrics: Establish expectations for sales activities and customer engagements.

Creating a sales territory plan: Key takeaways

Creating an effective sales territory plan will help optimise resource allocation and improve marketing and sales efficiency.

It helps improve customer experiences by allowing businesses to develop expertise in specific industries and tailor strategies to customers, their regional business environments, and cultural nuances.

A well-structured territory design helps identify untapped markets and create consistent sales growth opportunities, making it easier to expand sales teams into new regions or industries.

It helps improve alignment with your ICP, leading to higher conversion rates, more consistent and repeatable selling motions for AEs, and higher win rates.