In our last lesson, we mapped company relationships and ownership structures.

Next, we'll put that data to work solving one of the biggest headaches in sales operations: territory management.

📍 The Problem with Traditional Territory Assignment

Most sales teams still assign territories based on geographic boundaries or alphabetical company lists.

This approach made sense when companies served local markets and had straightforward structures. But today's business world has transformed. Companies sprawl across multiple countries, operate through webs of subsidiaries, and make purchasing decisions that don't match their org charts.

Here's what happens when territories aren't based on corporate hierarchies:

Imagine your West Coast rep is working hard to close Acme Corp while your East Coast rep is pursuing Global Industries - not realizing it's Acme's parent company. Suddenly you've got confused prospects getting duplicate outreach, internal conflicts, and deals that fall apart.

Then there's the missed opportunity problem. Your team celebrates closing a $50K deal with a subsidiary, only to discover months later that the parent company has twelve other subsidiaries that could have been part of a massive $500K enterprise deal.

And it might look equal on paper, but it's not. Two reps might each have 100 companies in their territories, but if one rep's list includes several major parent companies with dozens of subsidiaries, their territory actually has 10 times the revenue potential.

🎯 The Solution: Corporate Family-Based Territories

The solution: build territory assignments around corporate families, not individual domains.

Here's where it gets interesting - the primary owner gets assigned the parent company AND all subsidiaries worldwide. They're the ones owning the strategic relationship, coordinating activities across all subsidiaries, and driving those big enterprise-wide deals.

Now, you don't have to abandon geographic coverage completely. You'll still have local reps providing support for things like on-site meetings and regional events. But - and this is important - they don't own the accounts. Their job is to support the primary owner's strategy. Similarly, you might bring in product experts for technical evaluations, but the primary owner always maintains control of the relationship.

Don't forget to establish clear commission sharing rules right from the start. Everyone needs to know exactly how credit gets split when deals close.

📊 Example: Managing Microsoft

What does this look like with Microsoft?

Think about traditional territory setups. You'd have one rep handling Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle, another working with their development center in Austin, different people managing their European subsidiaries, and yet more reps covering various product divisions. It gets messy, fast.

But with hierarchy-based territories? One primary owner manages the ENTIRE Microsoft relationship. They're the ones who understand the big picture - the corporate strategy, the key decision makers, how everything fits together. They coordinate all opportunities across every subsidiary.

Now, this doesn't mean they do everything alone. When Microsoft's Austin team wants an on-site demo, we'll send in the local Texas rep to handle that meeting. If Microsoft Europe needs GDPR documentation, our EMEA specialist jumps in to provide that support. But the primary owner is always orchestrating everything behind the scenes, leveraging all that local expertise to serve the broader relationship.

🔧 Implementation for RevOps and Sales Ops

Here's how RevOps and Sales Ops teams implement this.

First, you'll need to build a proper data architecture. Here's what I recommend: create two core tables - a master account table that contains only parent companies, and a subsidiary tracking table that links every subsidiary back to its parent.

Your master account table becomes your source of truth for territory assignments. When you assign each parent company to one primary owner, that ownership automatically extends to all of its subsidiaries.

Then your subsidiary tracking table handles all the complexity. It shows which subsidiaries exist, their locations, and most importantly - how they connect to parent company decision-making.

Next, merge all your subsidiary records under their parent accounts so reps can see complete corporate families at a glance. And don't forget to set up automated routing so primary owners get instantly notified when any subsidiary in their portfolio shows buying activity.

💡 The Strategic Advantage

Better territory management creates a strategic advantage that directly impacts your bottom line.

When you align your sales approach with how companies actually make buying decisions through their corporate structure, you'll see the difference. Instead of being seen as just another vendor trying to sell to individual subsidiaries, you become a strategic partner who understands the bigger picture.

🔮 What's Next

In our next lesson, we'll explore how HG Insights helps with forecasting accuracy, giving you even more visibility into your pipeline.