Salamander

Client Sales Executive

45% increase in annual quota. Stay or go?

Most of the reps in my segment did well this year. About 80% of us are well over OTE and some outliers are will be earning more than 2.5X OTE. My director gave me some warning that management is looking at a big hike. Assuming I don't magically get 45% more productive, I'm looking at $50k to $80k drop in compensation.

I've been assured that this has been tried before and if enough people start missing they'll course correct and give uplifts throughout the year. But I don't know...should I stay or start looking elsewhere?

It's a big company so one or two people threatening to quit won't make a difference.

☁️ Software Tech

💰 Compensation

🧠 Advice

18 comments

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

The fact that you have 2.5x achievers means that the org is justified in raising your quota.

Stick it out and do your job. If every rep left an org that raised quota because their team did well then SFDC would have died a long time ago.

sketchysales

Politicker

Sales Manager

I couldnt agree more with this comment, quota has to be raised as a company grows and if theres some big over quota performances and most are hitting it with ease, raising it shouldnt be a concern. 45% is a big jump but do you think its possible? Will the company be raising prices for example?

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I think 45% is a moonshot number that will be scaled back to something around 30% as the year goes on in this org. However, for some reps, it's entirely possible they'll meet those numbers as they head into H2 of 2022...prompting another interesting conversation among leadership, along with some unfortunate stack-ranking exercises.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Stay and see what happens. What if you do well? 🤷‍♀️

LordOfWar

Tycoon

Blow it up

Why are there so many bad companies out there?

My comp is based on total revenue, not some magic incentive that can change at the whim of someone not working the frontlines of sales.

If you're crushing sales you should be making more every year, not struggling to make the same comp while hitting a higher quota.

GingerBarbarian

Opinionated

Lead Sales

I hate that "Quotas" and "Goals" have become the same thing. Not every employee has the same goals. Some people are happy at $75K and then being able to coach their son's basketball team. Another person may be OK with working 80 hours a week and making $200K. Treating all employees the exact same as one another will end up with making it so you cannot get the best people.

Quotas should be set at a bare minimum to make sure it is worth paying a base. Goals should be set individually. Increasing quota 45% should only happen if base pay or benefits increase similarly.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

god I HATE it when companies do this.

Increase quota, sure. Happens all the time. But dont they realize that raising quota does not mean everyone will do better??

We all love to hit and exceed our number.

If they increase everything but that much, it will backfire on them.

If it was me? I would start looking at what the other options are.

buckets1

Politicker

Agreed @TennisandSales my company went a little overboard on this this year (we were one of the lucky ones with pandemic tailwinds in 2020). It’s resulted in many former top performers giving up completely on the year...leaving a ton of revenue on the table the company really needs to hit top level goals.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

This super crazy, increasing a quota is okay but 1.5 times is nuts when you know you will start to earn less. Aren't they correcting the base to make sure you have atleast something more.

I would wait a while a see where its taking me unless I have a great offer that I cannot resist.

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

I guess raising quota sorta makes sense if you’re still getting credit for & paid on what u already sold. For instance, if u sell $1M, and $750K of that is retained & your new number is $1.75M that makes sense & assumes you sell the same new YOY.
But if it’s trying to pay u less for selling more, which a quota uplift is all about, then no. I will say that an uplift from Y1 to Y2 makes some sense because your onboarding & won’t sell as much in your first year, but other than that, makes no sense to the seller. Other jobs don’t accept this kind of treatment. In fact, they quit.

TheMatador19

Member

Head of Sales

If 80% hit quota, it's a justified raise. That's also how companies grow. Hire more and have the current team sell more. If you weren't part of the 80% that hit quota, I'd start looking elsewhere. If you can hold your own, I'd say thanks for the additional leads that come with the quota increase and crush 2022.

ChunkyButters

Tycoon

I mean, you guys are all at or over the number. You've proven that you and the team can sell.

So, obviously management is going to forecast higher numbers which means the team is required to sell more. You gotta worry about selling the number before you worry about accelerators.

If they are asking that much of an increase (and you were that far over target), I'd ask for a raise based around the increased pressure/requirements for quota. Keeping to a traditional 50/50 break should make up a lot of that difference.

papaganoush

Opinionated

Onboarding Coach

Hit it and quit it my man. Hit it and quit it.

Corpslovechild

Politicker

Inbound Sales Manager

Did you hit your OTE 145%?

Upper_Class_SaaS

Politicker

Account Executive

That is a big jump, is the comp changing as well?

Salamander

Fire Starter

Client Sales Executive

We’re getting an 8.5% bump in OTE. And a few other changes that haven’t been announced yet. But essentially moving the goal post quite a bit further out.

Upper_Class_SaaS

Politicker

Account Executive

Yea a hike of 45% in quota and 8.5% in OTE is a little bit off imo

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Go Go Go:)

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