Introduction
Not only is planning and implementing territories a complex and time-consuming process, but leaders need to bulk update salesforce records and assign territories en mass once the planning process is complete.
This bulk record assignment also occurs as the year goes on and teams need to reassign every time a rep comes or goes, or there’s a riff.
Whether it’s because of an evolving go-to-market strategy or changes within the team, it’s crucial to make changes at the pace of the business. But if you’re stuck reassigning territories by working through spreadsheets and waiting for IT to do bulk updates, it’s not as easy as being able to “go in and update” your territories.
Modernizing your territory management process with a new bulk update or territory reassignment model eliminates complexity. It allows your go-to-market motions to stay nimble so your sales team can get straight to selling.
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3 steps to bulk update Salesforce records for territory reassignment automation
Goodbye manual reassignment, hello mass automation! That’s the key difference between the old way of doing things and the new way for territory assignment in Salesforce. Quantified, it looks like going from hundreds of account conflicts to a 60% reduction, and weeks to months of manual work being done in hours.
Best of all, we’ve broken it down into 3 steps to get your started.
1. (Re)define your territories
Effective territory management starts with a clear definition of your territories. Are you combining, splitting, or creating a new territory?
Either way, you’ll need to analyze your current territories and identify data for regrouping, such as:
- Target Market
- Total Addressable Market (TAM)
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Tier (Enterprise, Mid-Market, SMB)
- Hierarchy data
- Industries
- Products
- Scoring
Here’s a tip: when considering hierarchy data: use a tool like Complete Hierarchies so you’ll have a clear idea of how many subsidiaries belong to an enterprise company. You’ll also be able to roll up data across all child objects in an account and score them accordingly.
In addition to identifying different data points, you should also determine which metrics are important to your business for carving out equal territories. Common metrics to include in your planning and reporting include ARR, number of open opportunities, number of accounts, number of leads, and opportunity win rate.
By asking the right questions and qualifying key decisions, you can be proactive in saving time when account conflicts occur.
Pro Tip: Work closely with sales leadership to create rules of engagement
Working with your sales team to understand how to best score and evaluate accounts will help lead to equal territories. For instance, you may want to break up bigger companies that span across geographies, industries, or multiple subsidiaries. Ensure you align with sales leaders for any context or exceptions (i.e. rep performance). It’s also important to roll out rules of engagement, such as holdover policies, to anticipate any edge cases before they occur.
2. Automate with territory objects
Once you’ve redefined your territories based on your go-to-market strategy, the automation step begins by creating a single source of truth and having a clear understanding of the connections and relationships between different objects and key data.
Custom territory objects allow you to easily reassign records or do bulk updates without the need to export or import large data loads.
A territory object or record is a list of accounts that you can automate. They help you capture and connect relevant account data and related accounts in one place. You can also make more informed decisions when balancing territories and automating ownership rules.
Here’s how it works. Stamp a territory identifier value on all the accounts you wish to split up. This can look like “US – Midwest – Major,” “US – Pacific – Minor,” “US – Atlantic – SME,” etc.
If you don’t have a territory ID, you could set up automation to crawl through and stamp a unique identifier based on existing ownership. But this still slows your processes down and forces you to rely on custom APEX flows, Salesforce Flow, or IT to do the heavy lifting.
Using a territory object record, you can use Complete Automation to automatically reassign territories and related objects in one place, saving time and sanity while removing the risk of spreadsheets and human error.
You can also set customizable rules to determine assignment actions on a larger scale or a record-by-record basis. For example, you could have ownership changes cascaded downward to include all child records or just a select number.
How it works:
1. Add user lookup(s) onto the territory object to associate ownership of a record to its aligned team member.
2. Include mappings to BDRs, SDRs, overlays, etc.
3. Assignment rules can be built that cascade ownership to territory records.
With a new territory view, you can reassign all territories and their related objects simply by changing the owner!
Pro Tip: Use a no-code assignment flow builder and territory alignment screen
A flow builder allows you to bulk update record ownership and related sub-object records. When a change in territory ownership occurs, a flow can trigger that matches all accounts and child records linked to a territory. A territory alignment screen allows you to update territory alignments in real time instead of waiting for Salesforce admins to make the change.
3. Enable your go-to-market team
Reassigning territories means nothing without the team to execute.
Enabling your go-to-market team starts with providing visibility upfront. This builds trust and reduces misunderstandings or unwarranted account conflicts.
Here’s what that might look like:
Have reps complete a territory exercise at the beginning of the year and plan their account strategy. That way, if a sales rep takes over a territory or accounts during the middle of the year there’s a plan, and they can keep the momentum going – instead of starting from scratch.
- Make sure new sales reps can find out everything about a territory, such as associated accounts and who their champion is:
- Map out buying groups to keep track of each stakeholder’s role, advocacy and influence level to ensure you’re spending time talking to the people who can help you win
- Quickly bring leaders and other teams up to speed with the context they need to support a deal so every 1:1 coaching session, QBR, and ABM play is a success
- Struggling with siloed sales notes and empty fields? Keep data in Salesforce so you can accurately report on attribution, opportunity health, and more
Most importantly: Centralize the information and sales notes in Salesforce. Tools like Quip are a great start, but important details and deals can slip through the cracks as sales reps join or leave a team.
Pro Tip: Use a relationship map to improve sales processes and visibility
Mid-market and enterprise companies have complex networks of employees, decision-makers, and relationships. In order to effectively close deals, your sales team needs to have an understanding of who’s an advocate of your brand and product, and who might be pushing for another solution. Relationship and influence maps like Complete Influence allow you to track how strong a relationship is and the decision influence that a person has in a deal. Sales reps can identify key players in a buying cycle and ensure that their efforts are going toward the right people.
Conclusion
Bulk updating Salesforce records takes time and slows you down. When reassigning territories quickly you want to empower your go-to-market team to stay nimble, close more deals, and effectively start selling faster.
To learn more about bulk updates or mass transfer options for territory assignment, book a personalized demo with the Traction Complete team or download our free guide. We look forward to hearing from you!
