A sales rep finishes a morning meeting at 9:15 AM, then drives 22 miles for a 10:30 appointment, only to hit unexpected construction and arrive eight minutes late.
The rest of their day goes similarly: appointments are poorly scheduled, and routes overlap, resulting in only four meetings instead of six by 5 PM.
This is common for sales teams. According to Salesforce, reps spend about 70% of their time on non-selling tasks, hurting revenue.
Drive time maps directly address this challenge. These tools let sales managers and reps see how far they can travel in a set amount of time, factoring in roads and traffic. With this, teams can create logical territories, schedule appointments in order, and avoid routes that waste time.
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Most sales territories get drawn based on zip codes, county lines, or simple geographic boundaries. A manager looks at a map, divides it into sections, and assigns reps to each piece. The logic seems sound until you consider how those boundaries actually function in practice.
A territory might look balanced on paper, but have a dense city area on one side and wide suburbs on the other. One rep covers 15 square miles with 40 accounts close together. Another covers 80 square miles with the same number of accounts spread out over a 45-minute drive. Both have the same number of accounts, but their workloads are very different.
This imbalance creates several problems. Reps with spread-out territories can’t see as many clients each day. They spend more on gas, drive more miles, and wear out their tires more quickly. Over time, they focus on accounts near home and neglect those farther away.
According to Alexander Group research, sales organizations that thoughtfully design and optimize territories can realize 10% to 20% increases in sales productivity. The gains come from better alignment between rep capacity and account distribution.
A drive-time map shows what a rep can really reach within a set time, not just what looks close on a map. The tool draws shapes around a starting point to show all places reachable in 15, 30, or 45 minutes, or any time you choose. These shapes consider real roads, speed limits, and traffic.
This changes how you plan territories. Instead of giving a rep an entire county and hoping it works, a manager can draw a 30-minute drive-time area around the rep’s home and see which accounts fit. Territories are based on real travel limits, not just lines on a map.
The benefits appear quickly. According to Perenso, sales route planning can cut reps’ travel time by up to 30%. Their site also reports that companies using this software see a 20-40% increase in daily calls per rep.
Drive time data helps with more than just territory design. It also changes how reps plan their days.
Without considering geography, reps schedule appointments based only on client needs. They might book a 9 am meeting on the north side, an 11 AM on the south side, and a 2 PM back near the start. This leads to more driving than selling.
With drive-time data, the rep can group appointments that are close together. They might book three morning meetings within 15 minutes of each other, take a lunch break, then handle afternoon meetings in another area. This way, they have more meetings and drive less.
According to OptimoRoute, route optimization can help businesses cut planning time by up to 80% and save on fuel costs. Upper Inc. reports that teams following route-optimization strategies achieve 35% to 45% productivity improvements within six months.
A documented case study shows these numbers in action. Michelin, using intelligent sales route planning, achieved a 20% reduction in unplanned downtime and added customer visits every day, resulting in increased pipeline growth.
Some might ask why territory coverage matters when so much business happens remotely. The data suggests that field sales remain highly effective, particularly for certain types of selling.
According to Qwilr’s 2024 data, field sales teams account for approximately 71.2% of the total sales force. About 65% of outside account executives meet their sales quotas, which runs 10% higher than their inside sales counterparts. Forbes found that 82% of business leaders believe in-person meetings help build stronger, more meaningful relationships with clients.
Research from Accor, based on insights from 9,000 professionals worldwide, found that professionals believe their ability to generate revenue could increase by 36% if all critical meetings were held in person. McKinsey reports that companies using hybrid sales approaches see up to 50% higher revenue growth than those relying on a single approach.
The takeaway is clear: spending more time with clients in person leads to better results. Drive time maps help reps fit more of these critical meetings into each day.
Territory balance shapes more than productivity. It builds rep morale, improves customer service quality, and strengthens team retention.
If one rep has an easy territory with nearby accounts and another has a large area that requires extensive travel, frustration grows. The rep with the more complex territory earns less commission, even though they work harder. They may start looking for other jobs. At the same time, customers on the edges get less attention because they’re harder to reach.
Drive-time data lets managers build territories that distribute the workload more evenly. Instead of balancing by account count alone, they can balance by total drive time required to serve all accounts. A rep might have fewer accounts in a territory with difficult geography, while another rep handles more accounts in a tightly clustered area. Both reps end up with similar daily workloads.
Companies with optimized territory plans usually generate greater sales productivity and revenue. Businesses that use territory mapping and optimization tools often reduce costs and increase customer visits.
Samsung provides a concrete example. By optimizing territory coverage, Samsung cut operational costs by $8.8 million, representing a 25% reduction, and increased customer visits by 50%.
A drive-time polygon starts with a location, such as a rep’s home, an office, or a primary account. The tool then determines all the places you can reach within a given time, taking roads and current traffic into account.
The result is an uneven shape that matches real driving routes. Highways stretch the shape in some directions, while busy city areas make it smaller in others. This polygon shows absolute travel limits, not just straight-line distance.
Sales managers can use these shapes in different ways. They can check which accounts are within a specific time window from any starting point, draw boundaries around offices, and assign clients to reps based on travel time rather than just distance.
Optimized sales territories boost sales by deploying the correct number of reps to meet customer demand. Companies using territory and route planning tools also cut costs and raise sales productivity with travel-efficient, balanced territories.
The best tools fit with your current processes, so teams avoid starting from scratch. Sales teams already use customer relationship management software to track accounts and activities. Drive time planning works best when it connects to these systems.
Modern platforms integrate with popular customer relationship management tools such as Salesforce, Zoho, Keap, Pipedrive, and HubSpot. When you add a new lead, it shows up on the map. When a rep logs a visit, the territory updates. This keeps everyone working with up-to-date information.
Route optimization is even more helpful with live data. A rep can plan their daily route in the morning, including all appointments and finding the best order. If a meeting is canceled during the day, they can update the route right away.
Maptive’s platform provides the tools sales teams need to apply these principles in practice. The Drive Time Polygon Tool uses Google Maps data to generate estimated drive-time polygons, analyzing road networks and traffic to build accurate polygons around any starting location.
Our platform allows users to create territories based on predefined regions such as counties, states, and zip codes, or to draw custom territories based on their specific data. Once territories are defined, users can access sales numbers, demographic details, and customer profiles for each territory. The Automated Territory Optimization feature uses customer relationship management data and custom-defined constraints to generate balanced sales territory maps automatically.
For daily planning, we enable users to map the most efficient route between multiple locations, optimizing routes with 20 or more stops. The drive-time radius feature shows which locations are within driving distance of any point on the map. Reps can schedule appointments based on the drive time between clients and find the most efficient path through their day.
Most teams can start making maps in just 30 minutes. Users can build working dashboards on day one since the software runs in a browser and doesn’t need to be installed.
Want to see how drive time mapping can help your sales team cover more ground and close more deals? Try a free 10-day trial and demo to see how data-driven territory management works for yourself.
Fred Metterhausen is a Chicago based computer programmer, and product owner of the current version of Maptive. He has over 15 years of experience developing mapping applications as a freelance developer, including 12 with Maptive. He has seen how thousands of companies have used mapping to optimize various aspects of their workflow.
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