I'm building a comp plan for a new SMB team I'm building and something occurred to me:
What's the point of quota?
Hear me out. What if, instead of a quota, you just had a commission rate?
Now, as a leader, I can work back from what I want/expect you to sell, and give you a rate based on that.
But, as a sales rep, do you really need a quota?
Would you take a job where they said "There's no quota. You have a $50k base. You get paid 10% of everything you close. Good luck!" Would it make a difference?
I can do the math. In the scenario above, I want you to close $500k, so your OTE is $100k. I can even report up to my CRO on expectations. I can coach reps who are struggling, I can manage territories, I can even choose to get rid of reps who don't cut it - literally nothing changes.
Except you, the AE, doesn't have a $500k number floating over your head that you have to sweat about every day.
Am I overthinking this? I just had this weird moment where I was like "WTF is a quota even good for?"
Maybe my whiskey level is low, I don't know. But seriously, why do we have quotas?
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