Common Sense - Product Line vs Territory

Several weeks ago, I was asked would I build a sales program around territories [geographical] or a product line.  Without even a second  thought I said product line.  Now, I have no hard data or any scientific fact to support my statement but to me it is  completely common sense. 

Sales is a number game; the more people you know, network with, Linked In with, build business relationships with the better chance you have at success.  Good sales people have the skills needed to network into their market segment as well as to use probing questions to establish current and future needs,  additional  internal clients and referrals to external clients in the same market segment.  Why would anyone place a territorial boundary on this type of skill?

When I was in graduate school, I was working in the proprietary chemical market. I received call from a bearing manufacture from  inside of my territory.  They had been importing bears from Eastern Europe which arrived rusted and therefore ruined.  What the company wanted to know was, did we have a rust inhibitor that would survive XX  days on the water - meaning the ocean voyage.  Being the good sales representative, I said yes, met with their chemists, did some successful testing and took the order for fifty 55 gallon drums.

When I took the order, the company requested that drums be dropped shipped to a dock in New Jersey for transit over seas.  At the time, I did not think anything about it.  I did all the paper work and set everything in motion.  For the time, this was a huge order and I was feeling pretty impressed with myself - then the problems.

First months commission statement comes and there is nothing about the 50 drum order.  I call my company's headquarters and am told  since it was dropped shipped to New Jersey, the representative in that territory would get the credit and commission.Now, here is where the story gets interesting.


Commissions were paid during the middle of the month, so near the end of that month, I am once again called by the bearing company to come in and work with them for another 50 drum order.  A time was set and I went into their office. Director of Purchasing tells me he had to call our headquarters about some exporting manifests that were not completed correctly and knowing how these type of companies work,  asked about commissions.  He quietly looks at me  and states he knew I was not getting nor would I get the credit/commission.  He explained he had  been playing this purchasing game for many years and  that the only reason my company had been given a chance for this business was that I had come highly recommended by one of his  competitors and luckily for me,  I had lived up to that recommendation. To him it was all about relationships and territories be damned.  He wanted someone he could "Get my hands around his neck when something went wrong and something always goes wrong".

We did not get the next  few orders because my company could not see passed the territory issue.  Finally, one of the National Sales people called to explain how this was the correct the situation but from what I heard, the bearing company had a little come to jesus with them and as Magical Max stated, "Give me the 65, I back on the job."

My point is simple, if you hire a person with all the needed skills for networking, relationship building and the ability to probe deep into the market or company, why limit those skills?  This makes no sense in my way of thinking