How far of a miss was the average? Did you have any that were somewhat close but just missed due to some BS reason?

You mention unachievable quota, historically has your team hit quota and were the benchmarks far off from where the missed quota was at?

What is the average tenure of your team? Is it all new people that don't have much market history to be able to have a successful quarter?

There could be a lot of variables in this but was just curious and hopefully you are hitting this quarter on better footing.

ventox35

Politicker

Sales Leader

our seasoned and best reps couldn't even hit 50%..as a startup, we never really had a defined quota. but we finally developed one and it's just so unachievable. our new reps definitely struggled mightily-some not making really any sales.

Mobi85

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

Oof yea that is rough, should probably be looking at an adjusted quota moving forward on that one. Sounds like someone thought it was a good plan on paper but fell flat. Did marketing come up with the quota after their blast went out?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

If you have seasoned reps, time to pull their metrics from the previous quarters/years and see if you can map the differences in their achievement (not based on quota - based on what they ACTUALLY did). That should be a good starting point.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

if I was the manager here is what I would do:

1. look at more data. has this happened often? is this the first time its happened?

2. connect with each rep and hear from them. look for common stories. that can be some insight into what is going on.

if it has happened year over year, you ether have bad reps or a bad quota number.

if its just this year, I would dig in to see if the current economic situation is effecting your product.

i was also make sure your team knows what they are doing.

SaaSam

Politicker

Account Executive

Now go find out what hiring managers are telling people when asked what percent of the team is hitting quota.

saaskicker

Celebrated Contributor

Enterprise AE

you need to dig into the data.

# of accounts worked
# of activities (calls, emails, linkedin)
# of meetings set (conversion metric, who cares about open rate IMO)
percentage of first meeting to close

you need a better understanding of the sales funnel to make an educated guess on what could improve this incrementally. is this an SDR or AE team?

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

I'd start from the Pipeline Numbers.

If they're proportional to / worse than sales quota closed, you might have a pipeline problem. 2 necks to be grabbed: Marketing for MQLs and SDR Manager for Pipeline.

If pipeline was decent enough / in place, you either have a Conversion Problem. Or, you might have a very lose definition of Qualified opportunity. Or simply, an AE problem.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Oof sounds like y'all need to rework a few things.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Ouch.

I think some serious investigation needs to be done. Talk to them AND dig into the data

AnchorPoint

Politicker

Business Coach

To what extent is the team involved in setting the goals? Product market fit should be huge concern!

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

How is quota determined?

ventox35

Politicker

Sales Leader

Great question!!
CEO+CFO sat down, sat we want to make xx in revenue this year. we can afford xx sales reps right now. let's do math, then arrive at a number to help us hit our revenue target!

Jeffreed

Politicker

Account exec

This same thing just happened at my company. Series A that has been around a few years. Started within the last year and I have only seen one ramped person hit full quota and they had the entire ENT to themselves for a few months. Compared to the other reps I am a top performer but everyone is still way short of there number that is fully ramped. How is your company proceeding after this happened?

thedue

Valued Contributor

VP of Sales

I might suggest pull last years and year prior to that's, YTD or Q2 results.
Check for deal sizes? Lengths, ACV?
Time to close?
Deal make-up, new stuff, old skus?
Team Ramped level during that time?

Before you hit them with your theories, I would suggest knowing more than them on some of the above.

-Product Market Fit? Could be answered by a new ICP or combination of products? More time taken to close the deals, or not, due to lack of education from the buyer?

-Crazy Quota? Understanding your historical and the Return on Sales (ROS) effort the company expects from you... not always linear and it should be based on the quality of the people (ramp), quality and maturity of the offering.

dncsv

OG Sales Savage

SD manager

This hits too close to home.

KingZ

Personal Narrative

Team Lead/Marketing Analyst

Sounds like I need to be hired, along with an excellent QA Analyst friend of mine in order to work out the kinks and see if the goals are realistic or idealistic. We get deep into analysis and will determine if there are any disconnects between performance and expectations.

Ashing

Opinionated

Senior Account Executive

If you fell that far off the mark, my guess is you don't know WHY your customers buy. Your sales reps don't have the answers, your current client base does. Do a luncheon with all your clients and get feedback, then do a luncheon with everyone that said no and find out why. Or for a real trick, have the Yes clients meet the no prospects and let them do the selling for you.

rharris415

Contributor

Founder

Oh, this is actually a simple solution.

Start interviewing ASAP. If you have the stomach for it, simply quit. (Not if you can't pay bills, etc).

The mere fact executives won't realize they set the goals way to high is all you need to know.

And, considering you just inherited the team, there is nobody else to blame except them. They will blame the previous leader if there is one, but they will not take any accountability IMO. Even if they say they do, it's lip service, and they hope you can find the needle in the haystack.

So my suggestion. Get out now.

hh456

Celebrated Contributor

sales

what are you selling @ventox35? That would help me give some feedback.

lightengine

Executive

AE (Account Executive)

Seems like the previous leadership failed to either: 1) understand their individual team's needs and address any training or understanding gaps, 2) have a poorly defined ICP or off-target messaging, 3) have unrealistic quotas, or are not considering the whole picture, or are severely disconnected to their product or current sales process.

leestar1122

Member

SAE (Senior Account Executive)

The panel agrees that digging through the trends is going to be the way to get some qualitative reasoning. I agree here too.

As some suggested before, it will help to see where the consistencies exist when you sit down with your AE's one to one.

From a qualitative perspective (if this is the first quarter that you're seeing these type of results), then I would also look at how the current market conditions may have an effect on your new customer acquisition. W/O knowing the product you sell or the market you sell into, most start up sales teams will struggle this quarter with uncontrollable factors, especially if your firm focuses on larger transformational deals.

By the book it seems like you and your C-suite set the quotas reasonably, but for most teams that go through uncontrollable events like inflation, COVID and more, they end up hedging anyway.

Also is your firm VC funded? and if so, do your investors establish targets for you?

secks

Executive

Account Executive

PMF can't be solved by the sales team alone. It's systemic. Do you have customers that LOVE you and WOULD TELL PEOPLE LIKE THEM TO BUY?

If so, I'd think about how to get those people in front of your salespeople ASAP and get them to share their stories.

Sounds like your people are bummed right now.

So your job is to inspire. Are you listening to calls? Are they sounding positive? Confident?

Look for problems to solve. Your job is to coach and remove blockers.

If you spend too much time working out why "achievement sucks so bad" then you may be creating a brand new problem. One that gets solved with a meeting between you and HR.

I loved the idea in the comments of asking the reps. They probably know why their quarter was a miss and they certainly won't tell you if they are afraid of how you'll take the news.

For example; Is it possible that every rep on the team feels like they deserved the promotion you received (salespeople are a competitive bunch)?

In terms of the quota, it can be helpful to think less about attainment, and more about conversion rate (you didn't mention yours).

For example; Are fewer customers seeking you out or are you converting at a lower percentage?

Focus on what you can control, and let go of the things you can't; You got this!

nomdeguerre

Executive

Account executive

I think it has all been said really. Only thing I would add is, if all reps miss quota by a mile and multiple quarters, then the problem ain’t your reps.

GoBlue

Old School Bravo

National Account manager

Product fit at least decent? Maybe attracting wrong prospects?

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ventox35

0% Quota Achievement...Yikes!

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