The lack of technology for outside sales stems from venture capitalists' backgrounds in inside software sales. They don't understand the unique needs of field reps and are biased toward funding tools for the sales environment they know, leading to an underserved market.
While route optimization is the advertised feature, its core value is helping salespeople select *which* accounts to visit from hundreds of options. The difficult strategic work isn't finding the shortest path between 10 points, but identifying the right 10 points to visit in the first place.
Instead of a massive, once-a-year project, sales territories should be tweaked constantly using software. This agility allows leaders to react quickly to changes like personnel leave, new hires, or a rep landing a large deal that consumes their time, maximizing overall team efficiency.
Despite its strategic importance, sales territory design is often an unsophisticated process driven by expediency. Sales leaders typically use "a little bit of data and a whole lot of gut" simply to get the task done, rather than performing a rigorous analysis to optimize for fairness and efficiency.
A geographically compressed territory is often more effective than a large one. Salespeople in sprawling territories can feel productive simply by driving long distances because it's part of their assigned "patch," confusing travel time with value-added activity and neglecting more efficient, nearby opportunities.