Do Your Sales People Make Their Quotas?

February 27, 2019 Selling Comments Off on Do Your Sales People Make Their Quotas?

The last newsletter discussed how critical to success having an “Individual Sales Plan” is for the sales person and can help separate those that sell from those that do not. A key component of this plan is the sales quota. A sales quota is the minimum assigned individual sales target for a specified period expressed in dollars or number of products or services sold.

Typically, a sales organization is assigned a yearly sales target, a quota, that they are expected to sell to meet the goals of the Strategic Plan and provide the revenue to fund the balance of the goals for the company. This organization sales quota is then divided into team sales quotas and then into individual sales quotas, so every sales person knows what they are to sell during the year to meet expectations.

This process is straightforward, and many organizations do the work and follow the steps to reach the point of having individual sales quotas for each member of the sales team.

Where the real work and challenges come into play are managing these expectations and holding the sales people accountable for meeting their goals. This leads to the simple question, “Do Your Sales People Make Their Quotas”?

Simple questions do not always have simple answers and in this case, it is very common for managers and organizations to have sales teams and sales people that do not make their quota. If your sales people meet their quotas and the quotas are challenging enough to match the revenue needs of the organization, you are in great shape. If not and assuming the quotas are realistic and customized to each territory potential, missing quota usually comes down to lack of leadership, lack of management, the skill set of the sales person or a combination of all three.

You can change this by managing the sales process and holding your sales people accountable for their actions and lack of actions. This can be accomplished by clearly defining expectations and having the sales people speak to their progress weekly and monthly so adjustments can be made and the organization can provide help when needed.

Defining expectations can be accomplished by defining the yearly quota by the month and in some cases the week and even day. The sales person should know their “sales to date” and need to be able to forecast the next 90 days. The sales person needs to find opportunities that allow them to meet their sales quota and every opportunity should have a realistic estimated close date, the status of the opportunity within the customers system and the probability that you will get the order when it is placed defined in your CRM. This opportunity log can be used to manage the follow up and closing process.

Utilizing the opportunity log to define expected sales can lead to establishing daily and weekly schedules so the sales people are in the right place at the right time to get the order. This can provide a focus for daily work and can help set the agenda for the week.

Weekly and monthly sales meetings can discuss the need for more opportunities and what opportunities are going to close and when, so the team can be proactive in winning the orders. Each sales person can talk to the quantity of dollars that will close in the next day, week, month and three months, so you have a starting point to compare forecasted and actual sales to date to the quota.

Holding your sales people accountable to making their quota is a critical step in the process. This can be accomplished if the tools and processes are in place to manage the sales process and the team has the leadership to meet the expectations of the organization.

“A Habit” is not work, but just a thing that is done every day and working with the sales people to make their quota to guide your sales effort for the year is critical to your success in sales and can easily become a Habit.

TIME MANAGEMENT. For Top Performers every task is planned and focused on the goals that earn the results. Top Performers plan and then engage. They act on their plans, they work hard and they get results.

Coaching these skills is a critical part of what we do. We are here to help you develop and implement your Strategic Plan and coach and develop the skills to implement the plan successfully.

We are having great success coaching and implementing these methods and skills and our clients love it!