Ideally, no territory should be vacant. However, vacancies do exist due to the high attrition of sales personnel. People keep on changing organisations due to restlessness, job dissatisfaction and various other reasons. The young generation tends to find security in their own abilities. They are more loyal to themselves than to the organisation. Today, for career growth people opt for a change of job or organisation instead of hard work. Increased availability of jobs due to the opening of speciality divisions by most of the organisation is one of the important reasons for the high attrition rate. Mobility is another problem; many a time, people leave the organisation if they are relocated. Because of these reasons one or more of your territories may remain vacant.

Under these circumstances, you have to become proactive. Do not wait for a territory to be vacated before searching for a replacement. Be on the lookout for good prospective candidates in each territory. This issue will be discussed in detail in the next section on Recruitment.

Remember that the management of a vacant territory is one of your important key result areas. Therefore, till a suitable replacement is selected, you need to maintain the sales of the vacant territory.

In order to do that, ensure the regular coverage of all the key or VIP doctors of the vacant territory by you or by one of your team members.