Short answer
A territory plan sets out who a rep will sell to and how. A good one defines the territory (place, industry, company size), counts the target accounts from a real source, sorts them into A, B and C tiers, checks the hours that coverage needs against the rep's selling hours, sets revenue, pipeline and activity goals that follow from those numbers, and schedules a quarterly review.
- Count the accounts first: the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns gives establishments by industry, county and size.
- Tier the accounts, then multiply accounts by touches by minutes to see if the territory fits the rep's time.
- A territory needing more than about 100% of selling hours should be narrowed or split before the quarter starts.
- Work the goals backward: quota, average deal, win rate, then the opportunities you need each quarter.
- Review the plan every quarter against what the rep actually did, not just the revenue.
On this page
This page is for account executives and territory managers writing a plan for their patch, and for sales managers drawing or rebalancing territories for a team. It gives you a one-page template, worksheets for tiering accounts and checking capacity, and a sample territory plan filled in with real US Census counts. For what a territory is and the ways to divide one, see the sales territory definition.
What a territory plan is for
A territory plan answers four questions before the quarter starts: which accounts the rep owns, which of them matter most, whether one person can cover them, and what result that coverage should produce. Without it, reps drift to the accounts they already know, the best prospects get one email a year, and quota becomes a guess.
Territories are drawn in one of four ways, and the plan changes with each:
| Territory type | Defined by | Works well when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic | Counties, metros or states | Sales need site visits, or the product is installed locally | Uneven potential between regions |
| Vertical | Industry | Buyers in each industry need specialist knowledge | Reps crossing paths in the same city |
| Named account | A list of specific companies | A few large customers have many sites, like a print management company serving multi-state retailers | Who owns new companies that appear |
| Size or segment | Employee count or revenue band | Small and large buyers need different sales motions | Accounts that grow out of a band mid-deal |
Most real territories combine two, such as "manufacturers with 100 or more employees in Maricopa County".
The territory plan template
Fill this in for each territory, one page per rep. The worksheets after it help with the two hardest sections.
Rep: [name] Period: [quarter or year] Manager: [name] 1. TERRITORY DEFINITION Geography: [counties, metros or states] Industries: [NAICS codes or plain descriptions] Company size: [employee or revenue band] Excluded: [named accounts owned by others, channels, existing customers] 2. MARKET COUNT Target accounts: [number] (source: [e.g. Census County Business Patterns 2023]) Existing customers in territory: [number] Open opportunities carried over: [number, value] 3. ACCOUNT TIERS A ([number]): [criteria, e.g. 250+ employees, trigger in last 6 months] B ([number]): [criteria] C ([number]): [criteria] 4. CAPACITY CHECK Hours needed per quarter: [from the worksheet] Selling hours available: [hours per week x weeks] Load: [needed / available, as a %] 5. GOALS Revenue: [quota] Opportunities needed: [quota / average deal / win rate] Pipeline target: [value] Activity: [meetings or touches per week] 6. COVERAGE PLAN A accounts: [touches per quarter, channels, site visits] B accounts: [touches per quarter, channels] C accounts: [email or marketing only] Travel: [which days go to which part of the territory] 7. TOP 10 ACCOUNTS AND THE REASON FOR EACH 1. [account]: [why now] ... 8. PARTNERS AND SOURCES [associations, events, referral partners, data sources] 9. RISKS [competitor strength, a key customer up for renewal, gaps in data] 10. REVIEW Monthly check-in: [date] Quarterly review: [date]
Worksheet 1: tier the accounts
Tiers decide where the rep's time goes. Use criteria you can check, not instinct.
Criteria (score 0, 1 or 2 each): - Size: [e.g. 0 = 50 to 99 employees, 1 = 100 to 249, 2 = 250+] - Fit: [e.g. 0 = weak, 1 = partial, 2 = matches the ideal customer profile] - Trigger: [e.g. 0 = none, 1 = in the last 12 months, 2 = in the last 6 months] - Access: [e.g. 0 = no contact, 1 = a contact, 2 = a contact who has engaged] Total 6 to 8 = Tier A 3 to 5 = Tier B 0 to 2 = Tier C Account | Size | Fit | Trigger | Access | Total | Tier [name] | | | | | |
A trigger is a recent event that makes buying likely: a new site, an expansion, a new leader, a rise in costs. Finding triggers across hundreds of accounts is the slow part of tiering. Bebop researches each account in a list and explains why it fits, which gives you the fit and trigger scores to check rather than to build from scratch. For a fuller scoring model, use the lead scoring template.
Worksheet 2: check capacity
This is the section most territory plans skip, and the one that tells you whether the goals are possible.
Selling hours available per quarter: [selling hours per week] x [weeks in quarter] = [hours] Hours needed per quarter: Tier A: [accounts] x [touches] x [minutes per touch] / 60 = [hours] Tier B: [accounts] x [touches] x [minutes per touch] / 60 = [hours] Tier C: [accounts] x [touches] x [minutes per touch] / 60 = [hours] Total needed: [hours] Load = total needed / available = [%] Under 70%: room to add accounts or widen the territory 70% to 100%: workable; leave the slack for deals in progress Over 100%: narrow the territory, move Tier C to marketing, or split it
A "touch" is any researched contact: a call, an email, a LinkedIn message, a visit. Minutes per touch should include the research behind it. Use your own figures from a few weeks of tracking; the ones in the example below are illustrative.
Sample territory plan: a solar EPC rep in Maricopa County
Illustrative example. The company, rep and sales figures are fictional; the business counts are real Census Bureau data.
The seller: Brightfield Solar Builders (brightfield.example), a solar EPC firm that designs and builds rooftop and carport solar for commercial sites. Big roofs and daytime loads make manufacturers and warehouses its best prospects. The rep: Lena, newly assigned to Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix and its suburbs).
Step 1: count the market. The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) for 2023 gives establishments by industry, county and employee-size band:
| Maricopa County, 2023 | Manufacturing (NAICS 31 to 33) | Warehousing and storage (NAICS 493) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| All establishments | 2,977 | 263 | 3,240 |
| 20 to 49 employees | 467 | 46 | 513 |
| 50 to 99 employees | 240 | 24 | 264 |
| 100 to 249 employees | 164 | 14 | 178 |
| 250 to 499 employees | 51 | 9 | 60 |
| 500 or more employees | 28 | 14 | 42 |
| 50 or more employees | 483 | 61 | 544 |
| 100 or more employees | 243 | 37 | 280 |
Two cautions about this data. CBP counts establishments (single sites) with paid employees, not companies, so a manufacturer with three plants in the county counts three times. And employee size is a proxy for roof size and power use, not a measure of it. Treat the count as the size of the market to research, not a list of buyers.
Step 2: first draft, every site with 50 or more employees. Lena tiers the 544 sites and runs the capacity worksheet. She has 25 selling hours a week over a 12-week quarter: 300 hours.
| Tier | Sites | Touches per quarter | Minutes per touch | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 55 | 8 | 20 | 147 |
| B | 160 | 4 | 15 | 160 |
| C | 329 | 1 | 10 | 55 |
| Total | 544 | 362 |
Load: 362 ÷ 300 = 121%. The plan fails before it starts: either the A accounts get fewer touches than planned, or the C accounts get none.
Step 3: narrow it. Lena and her manager restrict the territory to sites with 100 or more employees (280 sites) and give the 50 to 99 band to marketing email until a site shows a trigger.
| Tier | Sites | Touches per quarter | Minutes per touch | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 40 | 8 | 20 | 107 |
| B | 120 | 4 | 15 | 120 |
| C | 120 | 1 | 10 | 20 |
| Total | 280 | 247 |
Load: 247 ÷ 300 = 82%. That leaves about 53 hours for proposals, site surveys and deals already in progress.
Step 4: work the goals backward. Lena's annual quota is $2.4 million in signed projects. With an average project of $600,000 and a 20% win rate on qualified opportunities (both illustrative):
- Projects needed: $2.4 million ÷ $600,000 = 4 a year.
- Qualified opportunities needed: 4 ÷ 20% = 20 a year, or 5 a quarter.
- From 160 A and B sites, 5 qualified opportunities a quarter is about 3% of them each quarter. That's a goal she can track weekly.
Step 5: the filled-in plan (key lines).
Territory: Maricopa County, AZ. Manufacturing and warehousing sites with 100+ employees. Excludes the three national accounts owned by the enterprise team. Market count: 280 sites (Census CBP 2023), of which 40 Tier A, 120 Tier B, 120 Tier C. Capacity: 247 of 300 selling hours (82%). Goals: $2.4M signed; 5 qualified opportunities a quarter; 12 first meetings a month. Coverage: Tier A, 8 touches a quarter including one site visit; Tier B, 4 touches; Tier C, one email a quarter plus the marketing program. Travel: Tuesdays in the West Valley industrial parks, Thursdays in the East Valley. Review: monthly with her manager, full re-tier in January.
When to split, merge or rebalance a territory
| What you see at the quarterly review | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Load over 100%, A accounts under-touched | Territory too big | Narrow by size or industry, or split it |
| Load under 70%, rep hitting activity goals | Territory too small | Add a county, a size band or an industry |
| One account is more than a third of the territory's pipeline | Concentration risk | Make it a named account with its own plan |
| Travel takes more than a day a week | Geography too spread out | Redraw around clusters, or move far sites to inside sales |
| Two reps working the same companies | Overlapping rules | Write tie-break rules: by headquarters, or by site |
Quarterly territory review
Territory: [name] Quarter: [Q] Rep: [name] Planned vs actual: Touches on Tier A: [planned] / [actual] First meetings: [planned] / [actual] Qualified opportunities: [planned] / [actual] Revenue signed: [planned] / [actual] Accounts that moved tier, and why: [list] Triggers seen this quarter: [list] Capacity load next quarter: [%] Changes to the territory: [none / narrowed / widened / split] Top 10 accounts for next quarter: [list]
Compare activity before revenue. If the rep touched the A accounts as planned and opportunities still lagged, the problem is the tiers or the message. If the touches never happened, the problem is capacity, and next quarter's plan should be smaller.
Mistakes to avoid
- Goals without a count. A quota set before anyone counts the accounts is a guess. Count them from a real source and write the source down.
- Treating every account the same. Spreading touches evenly means the best 40 accounts get the same attention as the weakest 300.
- Skipping the capacity check. A plan that needs 120% of the rep's time quietly drops the accounts that matter.
- Counting sites as companies. Census figures count establishments. Merge sites that belong to one company before you assign them.
- Never revisiting the plan. Triggers change monthly. Re-tier at least every quarter.
Checklist
- The territory has a written definition: place, industry, size and exclusions.
- The account count comes from a named, dated source.
- Every account has a tier, scored on criteria anyone could check.
- The capacity load is between 70% and 100%.
- Goals follow from quota, average deal and win rate.
- Each tier has a coverage plan with touches and channels.
- The top 10 accounts each have a reason to contact them now.
- The review dates are in the calendar.
Next step: turn the top 10 accounts in your plan into account plans with the account plan template.
Sources
- County Business Patterns (CBP), 2023, US Census Bureau, accessed 26 October 2026
- About County Business Patterns, US Census Bureau, accessed 26 October 2026
Written by the Bebop team at Blackpearl Group. Last updated .
Questions people ask
What should a territory plan include?
A definition of the territory (place, industry, company size and exclusions), a count of target accounts from a named source, account tiers, a capacity check against the rep's selling hours, revenue, pipeline and activity goals, a coverage plan for each tier, the top accounts with a reason to contact each, partners and data sources, risks, and review dates. One page per rep is usually enough.
How do I write a sales territory plan?
Define the territory, count the target accounts from a source such as Census County Business Patterns, and tier them by size, fit, recent triggers and access. Multiply accounts by touches and minutes per touch to check the work fits the rep's hours. Then set goals backward from quota, average deal size and win rate, plan coverage for each tier and book a quarterly review.
How many accounts should a sales rep have in a territory?
As many as the rep can cover at the planned intensity, which depends on how many touches each tier needs and how long each takes. In the example on this page, 280 sites fit in 82% of a rep's selling time, while 544 needed 121%. Run the capacity worksheet with your own touch counts and times rather than borrowing a rule of thumb.
What is a sample territory plan?
A territory plan filled in for a real or realistic case, so you can see how each section works. The sample on this page covers a solar installer's rep in Maricopa County, Arizona: 280 manufacturing and warehousing sites with 100 or more employees, counted from 2023 Census data, tiered 40, 120 and 120, using 247 of 300 selling hours, with goals worked back from a $2.4 million quota.
Where can I find data to size a sales territory?
In the US, start with the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns, which counts establishments with paid employees by industry, county and employee-size band. Add state licensing boards and business registries for named lists, trade association directories, and your CRM for existing customers. Remember that Census counts sites, not companies, so merge multi-site companies before assigning accounts.
How often should a territory plan be reviewed?
Check progress monthly and review the whole plan every quarter. At the quarterly review, compare planned and actual touches, meetings and qualified opportunities before revenue, re-tier accounts that have new triggers, and rerun the capacity check. Redraw the territory if the load is over 100% or under 70%, or if one account dominates the pipeline.