Factsheet – Number Of Sales Agents Required & Territory Setting

How many sales agents do you need to cover the UK, and how should you divide the territory between them? Here is the realistic picture, including the areas that are harder to cover than you might expect.

How many sales agents to cover the UK?

Typically about 10 to 12 sales agents are needed to cover the UK. This will of course vary. Self-employed commission-only sales agents tend to work on counties, although the most reliable method for the principal is postcodes. County borders are easy to see, but keep moving, and vice versa with postcodes.
Areas cannot normally be set by the principal, it is simply impractical. Established sales agents will normally have their own areas, usually based upon where they can reach, within reason, from their homes. Inevitably, therefore, you will have areas of overlap, and areas of nil coverage. This is part of the compromise you have to accept when dealing with sales agents.
Overlap should ideally be eliminated before setting sales agents on. Commission-only sales agents may tend to grab as big an area as possible, especially if exclusivity and accounts are on offer. Try to establish a sales agent’s true representation in outlying counties and eliminate as much as you can. Don’t be tempted to let sales agents have all the area they want, just so you can cross off all the areas on your map.

A typical 12-agent scenario

A typical 12 sales agent scenario might look like this:

1. Scotland
2. The North East (Newcastle, etc)
3. The North (the Yorkshires)
4. The North West (Manchester, Liverpool, Cumbria, north Wales, etc)
5. The South West (Bristol, south Wales, Devon and Cornwall, etc)
6. The South (Portsmouth, Southampton, etc)
7. The South East (London and southern home counties)
8. The East (northern home counties such as Essex, then East Anglia, etc)
9. Southern Midlands (northern home counties, Oxford, etc)
10. Northern Midlands (West Mids, East Mids, etc)
11. Northern Ireland
12. Southern Ireland

Sometimes areas 1 and 2 are combined, as are 11 and 12.

Multi-layering

You can use a multi-layered approach, where several sales agents cover the same geographic area but operate in separate markets or market sectors. Under this arrangement there is theoretically almost no limit to the number of sales agents that could be used, and exclusivity can be offered on a combination of area and market sector. A few things to bear in mind:

• It can be troublesome unless there is a very clear distinction between market sectors.
• It will multiply your recruitment task and costs.
• The more layers you have, the more it dilutes the opportunity for each layer.
• Some sales agents will refuse to operate with layers.
• Two to three layers is probably the maximum, practically speaking.

Big cities: a coverage challenge

Very big cities can be difficult areas for sales agents. You might hope and expect the opposite, given the high concentration of potential customers. The worst by far is London, followed by Birmingham and Manchester. These areas are often poorly suited to sales agent activity, for a few reasons:

• Difficult to park near a customer. Sales agents may have to carry several different principals’ samples and sales materials, in which case they will not want to walk far.
• Car parking charges, an added expense.
• Parking fines and clamping, if parked illegally.
• Customers tend to be very busy, making it hard for a sales agent to just turn up and be seen. Even where appointments are made, waiting customers will normally take priority over any salesman, and they cause constant interruptions.
• Not very many independent customers: many big-city businesses, such as shops, tend to be multiples.
• Congestion charging and the like in London, and possibly more city centres in future.
• Slow speed of moving around due to traffic, meaning much of the day is spent travelling.

Consequently there are fewer sales agents operating in big cities than you might hope for, so factor that into your coverage expectations.

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