Sales Data Nugget

Do Your Reps Own Too Many Accounts?

Michaela Mendes

Head of Content & Strategy

Table of contents:

How many accounts do each of your sales reps own?

We analyzed over 961,000 accounts through our CRM Health Grader and found that the average rep owns 483 accounts.

Is this too many? Not enough? Or just right?

Kevin Davis, CEO and Co-Founder of BoogieBoard, says before you try to decide on an exact account number per rep that’s correct for your team, go a little deeper and ask more questions.

Are your reps able to be effective with the number of accounts they own? Are they focused on the right accounts?

Here are three ways to figure out if there is a link between the number of accounts your reps own and their performance:

Signs your reps have too many accounts

Kevin says reps who own too many accounts aren’t able to operate proactively.

“Reps engage almost exclusively in reactive behaviors at this point. They put out fires, wait for deals to manifest, and generally aren't hustling as much.”

And the metrics won’t lie – you’ll likely see a low opportunity rate to total account percentage, and you’ll also see low rep activity across their accounts.

Signs your reps have too few accounts

If your reps are starting to leave the company altogether, or at least try to get out of their respective territory or book of business, they probably have too few accounts.

“You’ll see reps working overtime chasing deals. And the data will likely show high rep activity, but a lack of pipeline associated with that activity,” said Kevin.

Signs your reps have the wrong accounts

This issue may mimic the “too few accounts” problem, because your sales reps are going to have problems building qualified pipeline and they might be trying to leave the situation.

However, a clear sign they’re focusing on the wrong accounts is how they communicate with the prospect. If their understanding of the value proposition and messaging is way off, this could be a targeting issue. (It could also be a training issue).

The data may show some accounts turn to opportunities, but the close rates will be very bad.