People often treat the old riddle about a ton of bricks and a ton of feathers as a neat little trick. Of course they weigh the same. A ton is a ton. Yet the comparison only becomes interesting when someone imagines the space those feathers would swallow compared to a neat stack of bricks. Territory planning works in much the same way, and Atlas Mapping sees this misunderstanding crop up far too often.
Franchisors sometimes chase the idea of “balanced” territories as if two areas with matching numbers on a spreadsheet must offer the same commercial reality. But equal territory opportunities don’t really exist. And pretending they do tends to cause more trouble than clarity.
Take that familiar benchmark: a territory with a population of 100,000. In a major city, such an area might cover only a handful of postcodes. Dense streets, young residents, lively businesses. A bustle of movement that would make even a modest unit hum with life. Shift the same population target into a rural setting and everything stretches. Roads thin out. People are spread far apart. Reaching customers becomes a journey rather than a routine. Atlas Mapping often has to explain that some regions simply aren’t suited to a franchise model because the population density is too sparse for profitable operation.
And that’s before considering the make-up of the population itself. Urban pockets brim with commuters, students, and a rich mix of businesses. Outside the city limits, demographics shift: older age groups, varied wealth, irregular demand. Any retail or commercial cluster might show a surprisingly low resident population, yet still be a sharp place to plant a gym, a shop, or a clinic thanks to the daily tide of visitors. Territory lines alone never tell the whole story.
Then comes the classic puzzle. Imagine a city with 100,000 people. Call it City A. A franchisor wants each territory to hold only 70,000. To keep things “balanced”, they carve out 30,000 residents from City A and hand them to a neighbouring franchisee whose core area sits in City B thirty miles away. On paper, two territories are evenly matched. In practice, the franchisee anchored in City A enjoys influence over most of the population, because the people from City A have no reason to drift towards City B for the same service. The franchisee in City B ends up with a territory that looks strong numerically but behaves weakly in the real world. A mirage of balance.
So what should franchisors do instead?
A few principles help cut through the noise:
Add drive time or distance limits.
How customers reach a franchise matters. Every model has a natural boundary. Whether the business travels to the client or the client travels to the business, there’s a point where geography eats into profitability. Tools like Atlas Mapping’s territory mapping can help anchor this thinking in real-world patterns.
Simplify the criteria.
Many franchisors overcomplicate their territory formula. In truth, customer profiles tend to be broader than expected. When the fundamentals are strong, the business usually flexes well enough to fit each local market. Atlas Mapping’s team of experienced consultants have seen this across hundreds of systems.
Judge franchisees on more than sales alone.
Once it becomes clear that territories aren’t equal, sales figures stop telling the full story. It’s far more useful to consider the slice of the market each franchisee is actually serving. Plot customer locations. Watch how people behave. Some franchisees may draw the bulk of their trade from outside their technical boundary, while others might struggle despite a seemingly strong population count.
Aim for territory minimums rather than artificial balance.
If the business model needs a minimum of 100,000 people to work, then build territories that simply exceed that threshold. If a town holds 170,000 residents, award the whole area to one franchisee or create an add-on later. Either way, the market only supports one operator. Whoever steps in first will naturally access the full 170,000, whether the line on the map says so or not. Atlas Mapping’s Vision Platform is built precisely for this kind of practical, grounded planning.
Franchise success grows faster when territory planning reflects reality rather than symmetry. Once franchisors stop chasing mathematical balance and start shaping territories around behaviour, density, access, and opportunity, everything else becomes easier. And according to the team at Atlas Mapping, that’s often where the real growth begins.
