How salespeople invest their sales time is a critical factor influencing territory sales. Due to the increasing cost of direct selling, high transportation costs, and the limited resource of time, salespeople have to focus on these factors. Proper time and territory from the salesperson. This helps to reduce sales expenses by avoiding duplicated effort in traveling and customer contacts. Finally, territories allow better matching of salespeople to customer needs and ultimately benefit salespeople and the company.

There also are disadvantages to developing sales territories. Some salespeople may not be motivated if they feel restricted by a particular territory. Also, a company may be too small to segment its market or management may not want to take time to develop territories.

Time and territory management is continuous for a salesperson; it involves seven key elements. The first major element is establishing the territory sales quota. The second element is account analysis, which involves identifying current and potential customers and estimating their sales potential. In analyzing these accounts, salespeople may use the undifferentiated-selling approach if they view accounts as similar; or, if accounts have different characteristics, they use the account-segmentation approach.

Developing objectives and sales quotas for individual accounts is the third element. How salespeople allocate time in their territories is another key element. Salespeople have to manage time, plan schedules, and use spare time effectively. The fifth element of time and territorial management is developing the sales-call objective, profile, benefit program, and selling strategies for individual customers. Salespeople have to learn everything they can about customers and maintain records on each one. Once this is done, they can create the proper selling strategies to meet customers' needs.

Another major element is scheduling sales calls at specific times and places and routing the salesperson’s movement and travel pattern around the territory. Finally, established objectives and quotas are used to determine how effectively the salesperson performs. Actual performance is compared to these standards for evaluation purposes.