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Territory and quota planning is one of the most important disciplines for a sales org to get right. So important, in fact, that sales leaders this year told us it was their top priority area for improvement.
But my experience has been that it can easily turn into an incredibly difficult, drawn-out process.
Done right you’ll have motivated sellers, a more predictable revenue engine, and the ability to pivot - should you need to.
As Global Head of Revenue Operations at Pigment, that’s my reality - the way we do territory and quota planning here is superior to every company I’ve worked at before.
We take both an approach that merges data-driven insight with human/institutional intuition.
With that in mind, I wanted to share our blueprint for success.
Step 1: Defining a first draft
First, we use Pigment to define equitable sales territories - which we refer to internally as Books of Business (BoBs).
We ensure that quotas are tightly aligned with the true potential of each territory, using a formula that takes into account firmographic, intent to buy, and propensity to buy data. This is a mix of our own first-party data, as well as some from 3rd party sources like G2.
With Pigment, this process takes a matter of weeks - not months. Having all our data in one place means we have a low number of dependencies from other teams, which can often be the source of costly delays.
The process was also built with flexibility in mind, allowing us to iterate and make necessary adjustments before rollout to the field:
- Fine-tuned permission and version control allows us to ‘test’ Boards and Applications with select individuals before a full roll-out
- Cleanly structured data in Pigment makes adjustments as simple as drag-and-drop
Step 2: Refining the output
Next, we ask sales leaders to review their assigned BoBs and apply qualitative insights based on their deep understanding of their teams and local market dynamics.
While the data-driven models provide a strong foundation, they don’t always capture territory-specific nuances—like relationship history, recent organizational changes at the customer level, or strategic plays in motion.
Using Pigment, sales leaders can directly interact with the plan, layering in their perspective.
They collaborate with RevOps in real-time - whether that means reallocating accounts, shifting quotas, or something else.
Finally, we lock down our BoBs and perform analysis across the full team to ensure what we’ve ended up with is fair and equitable across factors like quality, intent to buy, customer vs prospect, and more.
Step 3: Monitor continuously
Looking ahead, we continuously monitor performance trends - both positive and negative - at a granular level. Pigment enables us to dynamically respond to shifts in the business.
Whether it's resizing a territory, reallocating headcount, or investing more resources where opportunity is emerging, we can act fast and accurately.
Ultimately, it’s Pigment’s flexibility and collaborative interface that make this adaptive approach to territory and quota planning possible.
Hierarchy management is incredibly simple, and all the data we’re working with is pulled live from source.
Next steps
See quota and territory planning in action here:
If you’re interested to learn more about territory and quota planning in Pigment, click here.
