Sales capacity planning is the process of determining whether your sales team has the right number of reps with the right skills in the right places to meet revenue goals.
It involves analyzing data like workload, territory potential, and travel time to balance resources and avoid over- or under-servicing accounts. eSpatial's flexible mapping software allows you to visualize this data geographically, which is a game-changer when planning your sales capacity.
Getting stuck in a rut is bad for business, especially when it comes to your sales team. Just because you've had five sales reps in a region for years doesn't mean it's the ideal number. That's why you need a sales capacity model.
If you haven't reviewed your sales territories recently, business activity may have drastically changed. And if your sales reps have too many accounts or leads to follow up with, you're probably missing out on sales. On the other hand, if things have slowed down, you may be able to save on expenses by reducing staffing levels.
You need to track the right performance and planning metrics to model sales capacity effectively. These data points help you align revenue goals with real-world team output and territory coverage.
Key metrics include:
You've done your research, and here's what you've found: each territory has capacity for nine new business appointments each week, but they're averaging three. You've spoken to the sales reps and managers, and >everyone has tried to get those numbers up, but it seems like there just aren't enough new leads in the territories for that level of activity.
Now you need to consider cutting one of the five territories and redistributing the workload. In order to eliminate one territory, the other four would each have to add about four new meetings per week: three existing customers and >one new lead.