Equality is an essential ingredient of a healthy sales culture. By making sure the entire team is given the same opportunities, the same resources and the same expectations, sales leaders will improve morale and increase productivity. Complete uniformity is difficult to achieve given the cyclical, constantly evolving nature of sales — but leaders who know how to level the playing field are leaders who know how to motivate salespeople.

Excuses Don’t Work When Everything is Equal

“I didn’t have any customers when I took over the area.”

“All my customers had just gone through a purchasing cycle when I got here.”

“We don’t have an office in the region to offer me support.”

Excuses are common — and contagious. They lose credence, however, when every single member of the team receives the same sales training, the same resources and the same sales support, as well as similar territories with equal marketing, equal verticals and equal opportunities.

This requires a business analysis — an examination of outbound awareness, lead generation and marketing resources across all accounts. In some cases, however, inherent territorial inequality will determine what action a Sales Director must take in order to level the playing field.

Goaling and Compensation: The Solution to Territorial Inequality

The United States may be a much larger and more lucrative territory than, say, Denmark, for example — but doing business in America presents monumental challenges with regards to logistics, travel and shipping that don’t exist in Europe. Scotland, Wales and Ireland together are the same size as England — but they hardly present the same opportunity as equal sales territories.

Good leaders analyze these variables and level the scales through the process of goaling and compensation.

For example, if a salesperson is assigned to a new territory in the middle of nowhere — in a market that is essentially an outpost on the sales frontier — he or she may be able to make five sales per year. That same salesperson, however, may have easily been able to sell 50 of the same product during the same time period in Downtown London.

Goal and compensation scaling is the only way to overcome this inherent territorial inequality. The salesperson in no man’s land must receive identical compensation for reaching a goal of five that his or her counterpart in the plush, Downtown London territory receives for reaching a goal of 50.

Each team member must receive the same sales training and have access to the same tools in order for both morale and sales numbers to remain high. Allocating resources after a thorough business analysis is the first step. It is up to the Sales Director, however, to recognize and appreciate inherent differences in territorial opportunity and make adjustments that give every salesperson the same shot at success.