Is my company screwing us?

I work for an American SaaS company, mid-sized, growing and public.


We are closing our H1 today, and while there are a few hours left it looks like in my region and in my role only 2 tenured reps our of 18 are going to hit quota. And not in a 99% achievement kind of way.

I'm excluding a handful of new hires on ramp, as they are SUPPOSED to hit quota.


However the region as i speak is about 25k away from hitting the number.


HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?! it's quite a buffer.


I see this problematic for a million reasons: the first is the VPs are happy, while all the reps want to jump out of the window.


I think it's the first time i see something like this. Is this common in SaaS?


Rumor has it that managers are told that if most of the team do 70% then they are golden

๐Ÿ’ฐ Compensation
๐Ÿงข Sales Management
๐Ÿ“Š Metrics
8
JustGonnaSendIt
Politicker
1
Burn Towns, Get Money
This could be an issue of over-assigning quota to cover budget since you're in a public, reasonably successful company.

I wouldn't say you're getting screwed, but that's not a great way to keep reps motivated and ultimately costs the company money.

I've been in this situation and it usually results in reps getting frustrated because their targets are not founded in reality, but more from top-down 'sales math.'

Leadership still hits their bonus thresholds but the majority of reps are missing OTE and that causes attrition.

The solution is either a more realistic target, or actually a smaller sales team to help concentrate the wins and keep rep morale higher.

Or... you know... leadership could share the wealth and have a tiered system (which could also incentivize reps to hit 100% more often...) or some other kind of bonus for achieving ahead of the YTD goal. But that still doesn't solve a set of expectations that have no foundation in a bottom-up statistical analysis of past performance and future forecasts.

Bummer to hear it's like this for you. It might be worth discussing with your manager in a calm and open way.

Last year my team's director went to bat for us because we all did the math and our total quota assignment was like 4.5x his budget. He thought that was demotivating and would lead to most reps missing quota while a few crushed it.ย 

He fought to lower our quotas successfully. More of us crushed it. What a great boss.
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
Ok, sounds like there may be a bonus structure that is all or nothing and that is why leadership is pleased (25k short is good enough for the board/investors) but it hurts the team bc nobody is getting a nice check at the end of quarter.
FlintIronstag
Notorious Answer
0
Chief Marketing Officer
Ok, sounds like there may be a bonus structure that is all or nothing and that is why leadership is pleased (25k short is good enough for the board/investors) but it hurts the team bc nobody is getting a nice check at the end of quarter.

I don't know if they're screwing you but it certainly could be structured better. We have tiered commish here. If someone is 25% to goal, I want them to get 25% of their quarter bonus. You can always let someone go if they continually underperform but you should always pay someone for their efforts.

Sorry you're in a rough spot, hope my feedback helps in some way.
PhlipOut
Politicker
-1
Account Executive
thanks for the note!ย 

we do get paid commission regardless of attainment percentage, luckily. my issue is more that if the average rep is doing say 70% of the number, the region should not be hitting quota. I think?
it looks fine at the top, but it's actually not
FlintIronstag
Notorious Answer
1
Chief Marketing Officer
I guess I don't understand the pretense of your question then. How are you getting screwed again?
CuriousFox
WR Officer
0
๐ŸฆŠ
I'd like to see a little clarity as well.
LordBusiness
Politicker
0
Chief Revenue Officer
Itโ€™s pretty common to build in a buffer, but sounds like your teams may be a bit extreme. Check out Repvue, they have stats on the % of reps hitting target at companies, sadly most of the numbers arenโ€™t pretty
GDO
Politicker
0
BDM
How are you getting screwed if your getting paid regardless of the attainment?
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
0
ISR
Both can be correct. If you don't like the office policy move on. Chances are they aren't going to become more flexible after you accept the position. I'd imagine they are more strict than they lead you to believe.
Error32
Politicker
0
ISR
Both can be correct. If you don't like the office policy move on. Chances are they aren't going to become more flexible after you accept the position. I'd imagine they are more strict than they lead you to believe.
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