Matthew Johndrow

Senior Director of Sales at Rivet Work

Should a VP/Dir of Sales at an early stage company (less than $2M in ARR) carry a higher quota than the rollup of his team?

Hey Savages - I recently joined an early stage company as the Sr Director of Sales tasked with building out a sales org. I have 3 AEs and 6 SDRs. Ive been assigned a quota that is much higher than the rollup of my AEs. My quota is $150k higher than the rollup of my three AEs. Im being told by my CEO that this is common practice, although Ive never heard anything like this. If anything i would expect my quota to be the same or slightly lower than the rollup of my direct reports . (although never worked at this early of a company before). Can anyone confirm or deny this is standard practice for this stage of a company?

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23 comments

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oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

So, let me make sure I understand this. You are responsible for managing the entire staff and also for outselling their combined revenue total as a group?

This is not common practice. This is borderline insane. This is going to burn you out faster then a cheap kerosene lamp. And why is this brilliant CEO character holding back the VP of Sales title? Certainly if you're capable of performing at that level, you deserve the tag.

Just. No. nononononononsense. I'm scratching Rivet Work off my best places to work list.

Senior Director of Sales

Appreciate the response. This was my reaction but would love to gather other independent opinions just to make sure I’m not missing something that is considered industry practice for this stage of a company’s growth.

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

In my experience, I've never seen anything like this at any stage. If the org is nearing $2M, I don't believe you should be carrying a personal quota at all. You've got to be able to drive the company, not your own deals. Not sure what leverage this gives you to fight it off, but for sanity's sake. You're spot on with your hunch.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

a leader needs to lead the sheep, not be a sheep too.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

baaaaa 🐑

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Everything @oldcloser said. This is all KINDS of fucked up

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

They are expecting you to manage AND sell. Very common in smaller orgs.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I'm beginning to understand where all these "bad managers" we hear about are coming from.
It's bad practice that comes from bad executives.

Senior Director of Sales

What I’m having a hard time with this thought process is - where are these extra deals coming from that i am selling? Am I taking deals out of my AE’s pipeline? I can’t understand how this is expected to work…..

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

You need to carve out a territory of your own.

Senior Director of Sales

This is my question - is this common practice as the Sales Leader to carve accounts away from my AEs, carry an additional quota myself while being expected to manage both the AE and SDR teams? This is common practice?

Revenue_Rambo

Politicker

Director, Revenue Enablement

No it’s not, but in this case doing so would be a matter of survival. Feed yourself and the top of your AEs first.

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Or you can cherry pick the largest of the accounts and call them “house accounts”.

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

That's how you lose good AE's. I'd be mad if my Director was cherry picking accounts out of my territory.

Senior Director of Sales

I refuse to cherry-pick accounts, let alone take any accounts away from the AE's. That makes no sense and will kill any trust I have earned with this team. What I am trying to understand is, is this an industry standard where Sales Leadership is expected to find more than what the AE team is rolling up? I'm struggling to understand how I am to be expected to somehow come up with this extra ARR. Before I make a case to my leadership I'm just trying to gather more information. I thought this would be a good forum to ask somewhat anonymously.

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

I mean, the owner is putting you in a spot where you'd have to.
If all your reps hit 100% quota, which is statistically improbable, you're still short of your number. The only thing that would help me understand would be if the reps currently have a few MONSTER deals in the pipleine that are going to put them 200%+ of quota.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

I would assume less, do you get overlay with reps you go sell with? Only then it makes sense

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

Hmmm...I'm not sure the owner understands what a VP/DIr SHOULD be doing. Sounds like they are expecting you to be running deals of your own, when you should be overseeing big picture things and assisting with the monster deals that your AEs are closing.
If you end up having to cherry pick accounts, I imagine your AEs aren't going to be too happy as they watch the key accounts be pulled out from under them.

unclespacejam

Politicker

ur dad’s brother

I’ve seen Jason Lemkin say many times that in early stage it’s important to have a VP Sales carry a bag for the first quarter or two BUT he’s also always said that quota should be no more than 50%. The point is to ensure that VP is in touch with the process, not a permanent solution. JFC this is rough dog

GDO

Politicker

BDM

No. He should have a target of the combined group.

UserNotFound

Politicker

Account Executive

That’s absolutely wild! With what everyone else already highlighted aside, competing with/against your reps is never good. A good month they’ll get pissy, a bad month and they’ll question your chops. Such a fucked situation.

Lurking

Account Executive

Hard to answer without better understanding of account/territory assignment.
But, this isn’t common. Situation could be lucrative if you’re mainly farming.

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Matthew Johndrow

Should a VP/Dir of Sales at an early stage company (less than $2M in ARR) carry a higher quota than the rollup of his team?

23 comments

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