How to Successfully Manage your Sales Territory – In Just 7 Minutes with Steve Benson

Resources/Links:

• Grab Your Free Trial of Badger Route Planner: https://www.badgermapping.com/

Summary

Steve Benson is the founder and CEO of Badger Maps, a route planning and scheduling app for sales reps. He’s also the host of the Outside Sales Talk podcast, where he interviews top leaders and experts in outside sales about the strategies and tactics that made them successful. He was previously a regional sales manager at Google, where he was recognized as the top-performing sales rep in the world for Google Enterprise in 2009.

In this episode, Steve explains why it is important to visualize your sales territory to find your best opportunities.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:51 – Steve’s ideal client: My ideal client is a field salesperson or a team of field salespeople.
• 02:17 – Problem he helps solve: So, field salespeople have a challenge in figuring out who they’re going to focus on, given where they’re already going to be. Meaning they often have, they have some customer meetings scheduled, but they want to fill out their day with the best other customers to work with. So, we have is a pretty robust program that allows them to build a route and a schedule for their day, and focus on the best prospects with their time in the field, given where they’re going to be. We also help them find new leads around where they’re going to be as well. So, we’re hooked up the data systems that show them, if they sold to dentist for example, we tell them where all the dentists are in a given area.
• 03:11 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Steve: often they’ll, so everyone has to do this, and kind of optimize and figure out where they’re going to spend their time, what their schedule is going to be. And they’ll spend a lot of time kind of looking at their CRM, trying to figure out how to focus on if they have a big spreadsheet that they sort based on where they’re going to be. Or if they just try to juggle it in their mind. And then they maybe are building a route or their schedule in their calendar or in Google Maps, that’s often an indication that they’re doing something inefficiently.
• 04:45 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: Field salespeople end up zigzagging around town not following the best route. They often will spend time revisiting the same customers that aren’t the best customers to visit. Doing it in an inefficient way.
• 05:33 – Steve’s Valuable Free Action(VFA):” We have a free trial that people can use our software for a couple weeks for free. And for your listeners just mention this show and each one of our sales reps will give you two months for free just because, for enduring me for seven minutes, you deserve it. .”
• 06:12 – Steve’s Valuable Free Resource(VFR): https://www.badgermapping.com/
• 07:17 – Q: “How leads work in badger??” A: And the way they work is we have access to databases that show basically what every business is, that people could be trying to sell to..

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Field salespeople end up zigzagging around town not following the best route. They often will spend time revisiting the same customers that aren't the best customers to visit. Doing it in an inefficient way.” -@stevebenson Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland: 0:09
Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland. I’m joined today by Steve Benson. Steve, a very good afternoon to you and good day. Where are you hanging out man?

Steve Benson: 0:20
I’m in San Francisco. So, it’s afternoon.

Tom Poland: 0:23
Is it sunny California today or…?

Steve Benson: 0:26
It is in fact sunny. I’m in San Francisco and this time of year is one of the best times a year to come visit us.

Tom Poland: 0:30
Delightful, I would think, autumn in San Fran. For those of you who do not know Steve, he is the founder and CEO of Badger Maps, it’s a route planning and scheduling app for sales reps. He’s also the host of Outside Sales Talk Podcast, where he interviews top leaders and experts in outside sales about the strategies and tactics that made them successful. Now get this one, wait for it, drum roll, he was previously a regional sales manager at Google. Wait for it, we’re not there yet, where he was recognized as the, underlying the top-performing sales rep in the another underlying exclamation mark, world for Google Enterprise in 2009. That is absolutely extraordinary.

Steve Benson: 1:17
Well, thanks, I appreciate it, Tom.

Tom Poland: 1:19
And I think it positions you pretty well too, in terms of being an expert on the subject, which is, our title is, “How to Successfully Manage Your Sales Territory”, in just seven minutes. Now, folks, if you’re not a sales rep, or you’re not a sales manager, I still want you to listen up because this is about sales and some of the principles and tactics that you’re going to learn about in the next seven minutes, again, a very likely uncover a little bit of a hidden goldmine in your particular geographical region. So, Steve, without further ado, our seven minutes starts now. Question number one is, who is your ideal client?

Steve Benson:1:51

Well, my ideal client is a field salesperson or a team of field salespeople. So, you know, some people call them outside sales. Some people call them field sales. Some people call them marketing, frankly. But if you’re going and meeting face to face with customers, either to generate business or to close business, that’s where we help.

Tom Poland: 2:12
Perfect. Thank you. Six and a half minutes left. Question number two, what’s the problem you solve?

Steve Benson: 2:17

Well. So, field salespeople have a challenge in figuring out who they’re going to focus on, given where they’re already going to be.

Meaning they often have, they have some customer meetings scheduled, but they want to fill out their day with the best other customers to work with. So, we have is a pretty robust program that allows them to build a route and a schedule for their day, and focuses on the best prospects with their time in the field, given where they’re going to be. We also help them find new leads around where they’re going to be as well. So, we’re hooked up the data systems that show them, if they sold to a dentist, for example, we tell them where all the dentists are in a given area.

Tom Poland: 2:57
Very clever. Very clever. Thank you. Five minutes, 40 seconds left. Question number three, what are some of the typical symptoms that sales reps and outdoor salespeople would have if they don’t have your app, your service?

Steve Benson: 3:11
Well, often they’ll, so everyone has to do this, and kind of optimize and figure out where they’re going to spend their time, what their schedule is going to be, whether they have us or not. And they’ll spend a lot of time kind of looking at their CRM, trying to figure out how to focus on if they have a big spreadsheet that they sort based on where they’re going to be. Or if they just try to juggle it in their mind. And then they maybe are building a route or their schedule in their calendar or in Google Maps, that’s often an indication that they’re doing something inefficiently. And they could do it in minutes with us and do it better than they could if they were doing it by hand, so to speak. We’ll integrate with their CRM system. So, all the data that’s in the CRM, we’ll put on the map and then give them this ability to interact with their customer and prospect information right there on the map. And then build their route with that information.

Tom Poland: 4:01
So, you’re synchronizing and synthesizing all the disparate bits of information that are out there and putting into one neat little thing so people can optimize their opportunity every day. Very nice. Very nice. So question number four, and just over four minutes left, what are some of the common mistakes that people make that you know, you get new clients on board and they go, oh, my goodness, this is so much better, and they tried stuff before they found you. What are some of the things they tried that just didn’t work? So, some of the common mistakes that people make, trying to solve that problem alleviate those symptoms before they find your service.

Steve Benson: 4:35

Well, like I said, every salesperson that’s in the field has to do this already. And they’re just doing it the hard way, basically.

The results of those common mistakes are that they end up zigzagging around town not following the best route, but the following kind of the route that they are able to hack together. They often will spend time revisiting the same customers that aren’t the best customers to visit. Doing it in an efficient way. You know, one of the first things people see when they start using our product is, they’ll end up driving about 20% fewer miles. And that’s very accountable, right? Because a lot of people turn on their mileage reports. And then they also will get about 20% more meetings. So, less time behind the wheel more time in front of customers are kind of the symptoms of not using this and mistakes people are making.

Tom Poland:5:20
Okay. Thank you, sir. So, question number five, and three-minutes left, what’s one valuable free action that someone listening to this could take? It’s not going to solve the whole problem, but it will take them a step in the right direction.

Steve Benson: 5:33
Well, that’s an easy one. We have a free trial that people can use our software for a couple of weeks for free. And for your listeners just mention this show and each one of our sales reps will give you two months for free just because, for enduring me for seven minutes, you deserve it. Even if you use this for two months, it’ll vastly be improved, and then never buy it or use it again, that’ll still vastly improve your situation and give you kind of a lot of really valuable information and routes that you can use going forward.

Tom Poland: 6:02
Right. Thank you. So just over two minutes left. Question number six is a valuable free resource. I guess that is a valuable free resource. Where do people go to sign up for that, to have a crack at it?

Steve Benson: 6:12
So just badgermapping.com. So, you can google badger maps or just go to badgermapping.com. The other valuable free resource, you mentioned that I have a podcast, Outside Sales Talk. If you’re an outside salesperson, some great information there, we bring on top sales leaders and interview them. And if someone’s written a book on negotiation, we’ll pick their brain for a half-hour on how people, or listeners, can be a better negotiator. And every week, it’s different, different experts. So, it’s really pretty useful stuff.

Tom Poland: 6:41
So Outside Sales Talk Podcast, make sure you go and subscribe to that, folks. And also, badger, with a D for those who are non-American, B-A-D-G-E-R, mapping dot com. Sign up for the free trial and mention this interview and you get two months.

Steve Benson: 6:56
Badger like the animal.

Tom Poland: 6:57
Badger like the animal,

Steve Benson: 6:58
You have badgers in Australia, right?

Tom Poland: 6:59
Not too many of them, no. We’ve got a lot of other things like wombats and all sorts of things but no badgers. So just over a minute left, having discussed the floor and form our bat contents, question number seven is, what’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Steve Benson: 7:17

This is a show about leads, you should ask me, how leads work in badger? And the way they work is we have access to databases that show basically what every business is, that people could be trying to sell to. And so, if you run a search and we show you where those leads are on a map around you, so if you sell stuff to gas stations, we know we’re all the gas stations are. If you sell to pharmaceutical companies, we know where all the pharmaceutical companies are. Whatever, if it got four walls, the different data sets and sources that we use to building has four walls on it, we probably know what business is going on inside of it.

Tom Poland: 7:51
Brilliant. Brilliant. Steve Benson, thanks so much for your time.

Steve Benson: 7:54
Thanks for having me, Tom.

Tom Poland: 7:56
Cheers.

Tom Poland: 7:57
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.