Right here’s a query about gross sales territory disputes that’ll make your head spin: What do you do when overlapping territories and shared relationships flip your gross sales staff into a set of lone wolves preventing over who owns what?
That’s the precise predicament confronted by Kayla Lujan, VP of Gross sales at Right down to Earth Panorama and Irrigation in Orlando, Florida. Her staff manages outlined territories, however their enterprise mannequin creates inevitable crossover with HOA managers who oversee a number of properties spanning throughout totally different reps’ territories.
As she put it: “I’ve actually seen the staff type of lose deal with working as one or staff promoting and extra of type of like a what’s mine versus working collectively.”
When you’re nodding your head proper now, you’re not alone. Territory disputes are one of the vital harmful forces in gross sales organizations, they usually’re costing corporations their collaborative tradition and their greatest offers.
The Psychology Behind Gross sales Territory Wars
Right here’s the brutal fact about salespeople: we’re wired to win. And when territories overlap, that aggressive drive turns inward, creating inside battles that harm everybody.
I realized this lesson the arduous manner after I was a VP of gross sales managing native and regional account executives. We had massive regional accounts sitting in native territories, and the preventing was relentless. Native reps would work across the system, disguise alternatives, and undergo again doorways to guard “their” accounts.
The consequence? We misplaced main offers as a result of the mistaken individual with inadequate expertise was working them solo, or we’d win the enterprise solely to have explosive fee disputes after the very fact.
However right here’s what shocked me most: Once we gave individuals the selection between cash or credit score on the rating report, they fought tougher over the credit score than the fee. They’d take 100% of the cash however wage battle over who obtained recognition for closing the deal.
That tells you every part it’s worthwhile to find out about gross sales psychology. It’s not nearly cash—it’s about profitable, recognition, and standing.
The Actual Value of Territorial Pondering
Territory disputes don’t simply create uncomfortable staff conferences. They destroy your gross sales effectiveness in three important methods:
Misplaced Deal Worth: When the mistaken rep works a deal alone as a result of they’re defending their turf, you lose the collective experience that would shut greater alternatives.
Relationship Injury: Prospects get confused when a number of reps strategy them with out coordination, making your group look disorganized and unprofessional.
Prime Performer Exodus: Your greatest salespeople get annoyed with the politics and infighting, main them to hunt alternatives at corporations with higher staff cultures.
The businesses that determine this out win massive. Those that don’t hemorrhage expertise and income to organizations that really know the best way to construct high-performing gross sales groups.
The Answer: Strategic Fee Swimming pools and Clear Possession
For Kayla’s HOA problem—and related overlapping territory conditions—right here’s the framework that really works:
Assign Relationship Possession: The rep with the core relationship (the HOA headquarters contact) owns account retention and enlargement. They’re liable for maintaining that account long-term and get compensated accordingly.
Create Native Alternative Roles: Native reps in every territory deal with constructing relationships with on-site contacts—facility managers, groundskeepers, neighborhood middle employees. They get compensated for brand spanking new challenge acquisition and spot alternatives inside their geographic space.
Implement Fee Swimming pools: As a substitute of preventing over who will get what proportion, create a fee pool for every main account. The pool will get divided primarily based on roles and contributions, not territorial claims.
Power Up-Entrance Agreements: Right here’s the essential half—make concerned events agree on fee splits earlier than any work begins. Submit-deal disputes are exponentially tougher to resolve than pre-deal agreements.
The Management Mindset Shift
The toughest a part of fixing territory wars isn’t the compensation construction—it’s the management mindset required to handle it successfully.
As I informed Kayla, transferring into VP-level roles means moving into two worlds concurrently. You should be tactical sufficient to handle these day-to-day disputes whereas being strategic sufficient to construct methods that forestall them.
The tactical facet requires you to be King Solomon when reps can’t agree, making selections that no person loves however everybody can reside with. The strategic facet means creating compensation constructions and territory designs that naturally encourage collaboration.
However right here’s what most new gross sales leaders miss: you’re not simply managing gross sales processes anymore. You’re a part of the manager staff, and your territory selections impression operations, finance, and general enterprise technique. Your gross sales management must steadiness staff dynamics with enterprise targets.
The “We Win as a Workforce” Actuality Examine
I inform my staff continually: “We win as a staff.” And sure, fistfights nonetheless ensue. The phrase doesn’t magically clear up territorial disputes, nevertheless it units the expectation that collaboration is the usual, not the exception.
Management typically means repeating your self till you’re blue within the face, then getting up and repeating your self some extra. The message must be constant: particular person wins that harm staff efficiency are losses for everybody.
This requires recognizing and rewarding collaborative habits publicly whereas addressing territorial habits privately and instantly. You possibly can’t let territorial considering fester as a result of it spreads sooner than good teamwork habits.
Your Motion Plan
When you’re coping with territory wars:
Audit Your Present Construction: Map out the place overlaps happen and which accounts create essentially the most disputes. These are your highest-priority fixes.
Design Fee Swimming pools: Create clear, written agreements about how shared alternatives will probably be compensated earlier than offers start.
Outline Relationship Possession: Set up who owns which relationships and what their tasks are for retention versus enlargement.
Put money into Workforce Tradition: Make collaboration a measured and rewarded habits, not simply one thing you discuss in conferences.
The businesses that clear up the territory puzzle don’t eradicate competitors—they channel it towards the suitable targets. As a substitute of preventing one another, your staff fights collectively to win extra enterprise and serve prospects higher.
That’s the way you rework territorial lone wolves right into a collaborative pack that dominates your market.
For extra insights on constructing efficient gross sales groups and management methods, discover our gross sales administration coaching packages on Gross sales Gravy College.
