Weeks and months of planning go into defining the optimal sales org design for your organisation: Countless meetings and analysis comparing the benefits of hunter/farmer, stratification, product specialisation or other organisational designs.
Time is spent defining the roles lead development reps, field sales, inside sales account managers and other sales support resources will play. Modelling is completed determining the ideal headcount to cover the market. Once that is completed the work is done, right?
Wrong, defining the strategy is critical, but once the strategy is finalised the work is just beginning. The execution and downstream impact the reorganisation will create is where most reorganisations fall short.
Below are the top five downstream focus areas you need to solve to ensure your sales reorganisation will be a success.
Top 5 downstream focus areas
Territory Design / Account Assignments
1. Create balanced territories by placing the right reps in the right territories
Once the new org design is finalised the next step is to determine the ideal territories / account assignments for each rep.
The goal is to create balanced territories using the account potential of each account. A rep capacity model will also need to be developed to determine how many accounts each rep can work.
Next, the accounts can be assigned to individual reps. You will need to adjust assignments until balanced territories are created and your best reps are covering your best accounts.
2. Account Transitions
Seamlessly transition accounts from previous owner to new owner
The effort to pass an account from one rep to another cannot be overlooked. You must approach this effort through two lenses: internal and external.
Internally, a document should be drafted by the current account owner which details all the important information the new rep will need to know. The new rep will also need to review notes in CRM, account plans and open opportunities to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. The account contacts should not need to explain things to the new rep that they already covered with the former rep.
Externally, a communication plan needs to be put in place to ensure the account contacts are aware of the change and the benefits to them. For high value accounts this needs to be done on a call, while lower value accounts can be communicated to using email.
3. Rules of Engagement
Define how different reps will work with each other in the new sales organisation
- How will different reps work with each other?
- What are the touch points and transition points between reps?
Everyone needs clarity on the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in the sales process.
This could be the lead development team transitioning a prospect to the sales rep, hunters passing customers to farmers, sales enablement working opportunities with the sales rep or inside sales working with field sales.
A full touch-point analysis is needed along with defined rules of engagement to set the team up for success.
4. Quota Setting
Set individual quotas for each rep leveraging the account potential of each account a rep owns
Each rep will now have new accounts they are working.
- How will their quota be determined?
- Every rep should have a unique quota based on the potential of the accounts in their patch.
- Over assignment needs to be calculated at each level to ensure the bottoms up quotas align to the corporate objectives.
5. Compensation Design
Ensure go-forward comp plans are aligned to corporate strategy and new sales organisation design
Odds are your current compensation plans will not work in the new sales organisation. Start with the ‘why’ to determine what the new comp plans should look like:
- Why are we making this change?
- What are the metrics we are trying to impact?
The new compensation plan should be specific for each role and tie to the metrics you are trying to impact.
