Blog · Territory, capacity and quota planning · Sales teams
How a sales leader measures the load on each rep from the CRM export, accounts and open opportunities weighted by expected effort, sets the norm from the team's own best-performing reps, and finds the two failure modes the headcount plan hides: reps with too many accounts to touch and reps with too few to hit number.
A headcount plan divides the account list by the number of reps and calls it balanced. Three months later one rep has forty accounts nobody has heard from and another has six accounts and no path to quota. The CRM export knew both on day one. This guide sets out rep load, the weighting, the norm, and the two failure modes.
Per rep:
Weighted load = Σ accounts × tier weight + Σ open opportunities × stage weight
Weights from the team's own activity: median touches per month per tier and per stage.
Account and rep identifiers only.
Reps who hit quota in at least three of the last four quarters, and their weighted load. The band is the interquartile range among them. A rep above the band is overloaded; below it, underloaded. The band is computed from the data, shown on the report, and moves as the team changes.
| Load | Coverage | Reading | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above band | Low | Overloaded; untouched accounts | Move accounts off |
| Above band | High | Strong rep | None |
| In band | Low | Activity problem, not load | Coaching |
| Below band | Any | Cannot reach quota on this book | Move accounts on |
Norm band from six attainers: 180 to 240.
| Rep | Accounts | Opps | Weighted load | Coverage | Attainment | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R-04 | 62 | 31 | 318 | 54% | 88% | Overloaded |
| R-11 | 44 | 22 | 214 | 81% | 106% | In band |
| R-17 | 18 | 9 | 97 | 92% | 61% | Underloaded |
| R-22 | 41 | 19 | 201 | 47% | 72% | Activity |
Rep R-04 is carrying a third more than any attainer and has left almost half the book untouched. Rep R-17 touches everything and cannot make number on eighteen accounts. Moving twelve of R-04's accounts to R-17 brings both into the band, and the load figure is how many and which tier.
Unweighted counts. Forty transactional accounts and forty strategic ones are not the same load.
Norm from a benchmark. Somebody else's team's load says nothing about this team's products and cycle. Use the attainers.
Load read without coverage. A high load looks like a problem when it is a strong rep. Read both.
Opportunities excluded. A rep with few accounts and thirty late-stage deals is fully loaded. Include the pipeline.
Mapped once, the CRM export produces the weights, the band, and the load and coverage per rep every month, with the moves suggested. Covirage builds this from the export as it is. The sales teams page describes the setup, and the capacity planning guide covers the headcount arithmetic that rep load feeds.
From the team's own activity data: the median touches per month on accounts of each tier over the last year. A tier that gets four touches a month weighs four; one that gets one weighs one. The weights are stated on the report and the same for every rep.
The weighted load carried by reps who reached quota in the last four quarters. Not an external benchmark. If the team's attainers carry a weighted load of 180 to 240, that is the band, and reps outside it are the finding.
A high load with high coverage is a strong rep. A high load with low coverage is an overloaded one, and the untouched accounts are the cost. The load is read beside coverage, never alone.