Ask any sales Account Executive what the most stressful part of their job is, and almost all will tell you “hitting quota.”
Compensation in sales consists of two parts: base salary, and commission. The split between the two will often vary but usually commission makes up a larger percentage as an incentive for sale reps to sell.
Compensation is always presented as “OTE” or “On Target Earnings” for the year, with some sort of percentage and quota. For example: Large Enterprise Account Executive, $250k OTE (OTE is made up of $100k base and $150k as a percentage of hitting your quota).
Sounds pretty good right?! Of course it does, and many sales reps jump at a job offer with a large OTE without asking the million dollar question: what is the quota, and what percentage of sales reps in this role hit their quota?
The average in software sales of reps that hit quota is roughly 50%, which isn’t a great number if you’re banking on OTE number to pay your rent.
It might seem counterintuitive but the secret to hitting your sales quota is to not focus on it.
Your sales quota is an outcome; and we don’t control outcomes. We only control our own actions and efforts. Over the past 12 years this mindset has helped me hit my sales quota 100% of the time on a fully ramped sales year.
It works because by focusing on your efforts and not the numbers, your energy is spent on things you can control and not worrying about things you can’t.
I cannot control my quota, but I can control the work I put into achieving it.
Here are 3 steps to hitting my sales quota every time.
- Get organized: Hitting quota starts at the beginning of the year (or even the year before if your accounts are pretty consistent). Your first step is making sure to organize your accounts by creating a detailed excel spreadsheet which includes details such as company name, main contacts, location, revenue, employees. Etc.
Then use this spreadsheet to map out your “whitespace” or solutions that the company owns and which ones they don’t. In order to sell, you need to know what products your customer has, and which products they don’t already own that might benefit them.
From here you have a good idea of potential opportunities to explore with your customers, and you can even add potential dollar values to each of those so that you know where to focus an what the total potential looks like in your patch. - Build your relationships: Every account has multiple people that influence buying decisions, but you will always have your primary contact in an account and it’s important to build and develop this relationship. This will be the person to explore potential opportunities with and start to narrow down those that will benefit their business. This will also be the person throughout the sales cycle to give you updates, and let you know when things change (such as timelines and requirements).
This relationship is gold – make sure to strengthen this relationship however you can. The little things are so important, such as how much face to face time you’re having, what your response times are, and whether they feel “heard”. Focus on serving your customer however you can – your role after all, is to help them buy. Help, being the key word.
That being said, in every account it helps to have more than one relationship – turnover is high in most organizations and you don’t want to focus on just one person and then they leave and you’re starting all over. - Have backfill. Always be building your pipeline. Assume deals will fall through and sure things will disappear. That’s okay when you have so much on the go that your deals naturally backfill and slipped deals just become future opportunity. No one wants to buy from a desperate salesperson.
When you focus on your own needs, people can tell. You come across needy and self-serving.
Instead, lead with empathy, curiosity and a true desire to serve and support your clients. When you focus on how you can serve your customer, and how to improve your own efficiencies, and time management – outcomes will flow naturally and positively.
Have I been stressed in my sales roles? Absolutely! But I’ve never been stressed about not hitting my quota.
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