Are you struggling to meet your sales quotas? Achieving sales targets can be a daunting task, but with the right strategies, it can happen!
What Is a Sales Quota?
A sales quota is a numerical goal that reps and sales teams are expected to meet within a set period of time. Sales quotas can be set based on revenue, the total number of sales, or another key performance indicator (KPI). Sales managers set monthly, quarterly, or yearly quotas to motivate and to track their team’s performance. Setting sales quotas isn’t just about ensuring goals are met—they also determine compensation. If sales reps meet goals successfully, sales quotas ensure top performers are rewarded for their efforts.
Sales Quota Examples
There are different types of sales quotas and most fall into one of the following categories:
Profit Quotas
Profit quotas are dollar amount goals that each rep should meet consistently. Setting profit quotas helps to motivate sales reps and easily keep track of their progress. They’re also a great way for sales leaders to assess the effectiveness of different strategies that reps use to generate sales.
Volume Quotas
Instead of setting profit quotas, some businesses set quotas based on volume, such as 200 units per month, rather than dollar amount. This helps keep their inventory moving and take advantage of upsells and cross-sells.
Activity Quotas
Activity quotas are goals your reps need to meet to hit their sales targets by performing certain activities that generate sales, such as outbound emails, phone calls, messages sent, or meetings scheduled. For example, if you assign a quota of 100 emails sent per week, your rep knows they need to reach that goal to have a successful week.
Cost-Based Quotas
Cost-based quotas take into account how much it costs to land a sale. Setting quotas based on costs enables the company to achieve more conversions at a lower cost. With cost-based quotas, sales reps are encouraged to maximize the amount of value of each sale without overspending on resources.
Forecast Quotas
Forecast quotas can be valuable for companies with consistent seasonal sales trends. Setting forecast quotas involves using past sales data over multiple years to analyze seasonal patterns where sales have declined or increased over time.
Combination Quotas
Combination quotas allow sales leaders to measure progress from multiple perspectives to make more informed decisions about how to achieve their objectives. The key to using combination quotas is to determine which metrics are the most important for measuring success. For example, a combination quota might include sales targets, customer satisfaction targets, and other KPIs.
Tips to Meet Your Sales Quotas
You can give people sales quotas, but it’s also your job as the sales leader to agree on key activities that will help reps reach them. Below are some tips to help your team meet sales quotas:
Update Your CRM, Every Time
All sales reps know the feeling of coming back from a successful sales call, feeling energized and ready to close the deal. Then, they forget one small thing—updating yourr CRM. It’s not the most exciting part of the job, but it’s essential. By ensuring your reps are documenting every conversation they have with prospects, they’re more likely to close the deal. For example, if a prospect mentions that they plan on making a decision in six months, there’s no way a rep can remember that deadline without a CRM. Whether it’s in six months or six days, keeping an organized, updated CRM gives your sales reps what they need to get the job done. Plus, it gives you as the business owner the ability to check the status of any prospect at any time.
Adopt a Consistent Sales Process
A consistent sales process is essential even for small businesses. When all the members of your sales team take the same actions to achieve the same goals, you can all speak the same language when troubleshooting and discussing best practices. You can improve consistency on your sales team by reviewing and adjusting your activity numbers, developing specific sales positions, and creating a standard message or scripts.
Implement Needs-Based Sales
Your sales team should never treat their calls like a presentation—the key to meeting quotas is to ask questions to learn the customer’s needs. On sales calls, have your reps ask needs-based questions before discussing the benefits of your services. Needs-based questions should start with words like ‘what’ and ‘how’ to make them open-ended questions:
- What are your company’s long term goals?
- What’s keeping you from meeting your goals today?
- How are you meeting your goals today?
- What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
Asking questions to get to the bottom of the customer’s needs allows reps to learn the struggles and motivations of your ideal customer, close the deal, and get one step closer to meeting their quota.
Invest in Sales Coaching
Hitting their sales targets is one of the biggest challenges companies face. You’re not alone… Fortunately, partnering with an experienced business coach that specializes in sales coaching can help your team members overcome challenges unique to sales.
Meet Your Sales Quotas With Sales Coaching
Are you looking for a way to meet your sales quotas? At Inspire Results Business Coaching, we provide sales coaching services to help you and your team reach your goals. Our experienced coaches specialize in expert sales skills and sales management skills and can teach your reps how to ensure their CRM is always updated, uncover needs, close a sale, and build relationships with your customers. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you meet your quotas with sales coaching.
