chef

Manager, Enterprise Sales

Fire Starter

Contributor

Good Citizen

Sales Managers - Who carries a quota?

Curious what % of sales managers (SaaS) also carry their own individual quota. Who does and who doesn't?

If you do, how is that structured? How many direct reports? How many deals? How do you divide your time?

☁️ Software Tech

🧢 Sales Management

15 comments

Sort by:

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

ugh ive never really been a fan of the player/coach set up. i feel like it distracts the manager from doing what a manager needs to do.

ive seen it work when there is only 1 other AE but outside of that i feel it gets to complicated

SalesMama

Executive

Senior Account Executive

+1 to this - why put a manager in a place to compete with AEs for deals... not a formula for success

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

PREACH!

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

My small company does that, even the owner calls on accounts. Not many but he does. Creates accountability for everyone I think and everyone to be a part of the solution. Instead of “you all have to sell more” it’s “we have to sell more”

I agree at larger corporations this couldn’t work though.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

But how is an owner held to a "quota"

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

A great question! Past performance of clients is pretty transparent, and there is a lot of accountability shared throughout the small company, both up and down the ladder. The owner would be the first to say if he didn’t do something right or if he didn’t hold up his end. But that is how he is as a person as well, might not work elsewhere.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

He gonna put himself on a pip too?

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

Ha! Probably not.

ZVRK

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

A recipe for disaster... I think a manager needs to manage people and be liberated form having to work on full cycles themselves. Maybe help out with some deals but not carry an individual quota..

detectivegibbles

Politicker

Sales Director

Agree with @TennisandSalescomment. Be available and develop. It's easy to get lost in the sauce and prioritize your deals over who you're leading (and understandably so).

ChumpChange

Politicker

Channel Manager

I carry the team of six quota. Not a fan of the player/coach role cause the management role in itself has a ton of admin work. Performance reviews, coaching, interviewing, cross functional meetings, etc. I still do meetings but meetings with significant book value.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Not a manager but my past managers never had this. Though they would help close someof the important deals but never had any quota to chase. They have so much to do and having a quote will not allow them to do what they are meant to

Daedalos

Tycoon

AE / BDRM

Player/Coach here. But first, some context on how I ended up here (Alexa play “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”).

Employee #6 in SaaS B2B startup as 0 experience SDR (1st IC)> 1st AE in 1yr > had to fill in the BDM gap from one that got fired

I wasn’t willing to let go off of the juicy commish % - to compensate for my horrendous base salary, despite juggling both roles due to the joy of living in a poor southern European country.

Got 3 direct BDR reports. Managed to get a 10-15% meeting quota attainment team to 2/3 reps consistently 100%+.

How did I do this:

- mostly overworking :)
- daily standup on hot leads / what’s close to converting into meeting / brainstorming and feedback
- training sessions on detected areas in need of improvement from weekly 1:1s (sometimes 1hr/day, thematically organized)

My day looked like:
- 25% BDM stuff
- 15% internal stuff
- 10% personal prospecting
- 35% AE stuff
- 10% AM stuff (upsells with CS)
- 5% fantasizing a stress free life

Notable mentions:
- I did negotiate reducing AE quota to alleviate double quota pressure (BDM/AE) while keeping all accelerators
- Transparent talks with leadership on expected performance (I’ve contributed 19% of company’s lifetime ARR, so transparency has been cultivated)

Hope this helped chef?

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

Here at my company I believe it's generic as a shared quota for the whole managers combined not like a personal target per each,in another words an Account Target!

KingofGIF

Politicker

I carried quota for a year while managing 7 AEs.
Never again.
I hard to divide your time is best to do something like this: Slack is the devil, unless it's an emergency (you define that) call me, otherwise we are going to have 1:1s bi-weekly, weekly if you need more attention and weekly team meetings.
To avoid falling on the trap of multitasking, be very jealous of your time. Book time for emails + slacks and office hours.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

chef

Sales Managers - Who carries a quota?

15 comments

Related posts

Should Sales Managers be Responsible for Their Own Quota?

To: Sales Managers

Account Managers: Quota comparison