OldDogNewTricks

Sales guy

What's the biggest year on year increase in quota/target you've ever experienced?

Our financial year starts in July... our targets just got raised 2.4x their previous number.

I'm a little gun-shy in sharing exact specifics, but let's just say it's like going from a 100k monthly target to a 240k monthly target.

Naturally, we are pushing back. The fact we smashed our last year's targets out of the park hasn't helped, but we didn't write anywhere near the new target very regularly. It's beyond a stretch.

Anyone else had a similar huge spike in expectation?

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Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

Had a similar situation a couple years ago. Standard quarterly quota was $500k. We happen to get a massive deal (3.8 million) the year before. Management took this as a sign that we could find similar sized deal on the reg and set our quota at 4.4million. Month 1, I did $175k in sales and got a $100 commission check...........

Most of the team quit over the next few months and management was shocked.

Morale of the story: such a quick and massive jump in quota size is a big dumb-dumb move.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

You worked for fucking morons. I hope somebody told them they were morons on the way out the door.

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

Oh we did. There was nearly a mutiny at the end of the quarter when every rep was at <20% quota and management told us it was one of the best quarters we'd had as a team.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

Oh wow, that's some unbelievable inability to read the room.

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

Fucked up @Phillip_J_Fry! That shitty hindsight is where i worry we're heading.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

$100??? Holy Shit I would rage quit

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

I think you hit the nail on the head with "we smashed out previous years targets out of the park". I'll give you a leadership perspective here. If that many team members "smashed" numbers, then the previous years numbers were just built incorrectly. What you are seeing for your upcoming fiscal is likely a course correct. The good news is, it sounds like your leadership team didn't change your numbers mid year - which trust me is a feather in their cap, most leaders I've seen would have. (I'm not one of those leaders). To answer your question directly, yes - I've seen this level of spike (and even bigger).

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

Thanks @LordBusiness for weighing in. I should've made it clearer: 2 of us, the enterprise reps, wrote 1.4x last years annual quota. The whole team finished about 70ish% to quota. Every year our number is increased by 20ish percent... This new number is increased by 2.4x, a 140% increase. Across the whole team.

Its beyond a course correct in my opinion (Ive also been VP/head of sales previous businesses)

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

Yeah based on those numbers it would appears so. I'd be curious to what the why is though? Finance come in and "math the market?" New Leadership?

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

"Math the market"! I haven't heard that, but yep spot on! Consultants driving the new growth goals, everyone's number skyrocketed as a result

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

Oh also i totally agree its better than quotas changing mid year! Been there on both the seller and manager side (having to sell it into my team)... shitty situation!

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

Last year my company 'reorganized' us from selling all portfolio products into specialist roles selling one product (on the previous team I was on).

Quotas after the change were 4x the previous. With the same size patch selling less stuff.

End of H2 only 2 reps out of a team of 24 were at 50%+ of quota. Which isn't terrible (Q4 is like 33% of our business), but still a bad leading indicator.

Luckily I got promoted and now have a much more reasonable set of expectations.

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

Yikes...

Good on you getting your ass promoted outta there!

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

Yeah we lost just barely less than half of the team before 1H was over. Not a good play at all. Glad I escaped!

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

I don't have a formal quota that I have to reach, as I have a hybrid role of managing resellers and doing my own direct sales, but this year our monthly "expected sales" has gone up 300%, no joke.
I have not been hitting the new number as it is not based in reality.

The other fun part is in the same week, we were told that our commission was being cut IN HALF. So that is my life now.

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

FUCK THAT.

Go find something new, @DungeonsNDemos

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

I hear you @Mookums , I'm mulling over what my future looks like. I'm a bit underpaid on base compared to SaaS AEs, but I'm in an interesting niche, plus I'm given special privileges and not ever held against the numbers, so I'm seeing if this pans out since there actually is a way I could make bank.

But yeah on the other hand I could always go to a fast paced startup/tech company and jump back to the SaaS world as an AE.
On tougher days it definitely rises to the surface of my thoughts lol

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

WOW. One place I worked the quotas got raised so high (while the teams more than tripled) that only one rep in the world made club out of about 50. That was, if I remember correctly, a 57% increase. But if I were you, I'd be asking for a massive raise. Everyone's hiring right now, so I'd start making some calls.

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

Fair call, and the raise option has been, erm, raised...and rejected. We'll keep raising and fighting this

Ta for the context @CaneWolf

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

Worth mentioning - you fucking crushed it last year. Not sure what your industry is but I am hearing some ridiculous figures for hires being thrown around at a bunch of software orgs for AEs/CSMs. Y'all could all just go get offers and be like "keep me."

Tomahawk

Member

Director of Commercial Sales

Taking into account a typical ramp for the company, the biggest hit I saw was 3x+ in one quarter due to ‘book performance’ basically making it impossible for that rep to hit quota or get accelerators for their first year. Sucked for sure but now he’s killing it over and over.

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

This stuff kills me. There is a sweet spot where the math overlaps of reps cashing solid comms, and the business grows without harming their GP. Takes diligence and negotiation and empathy...but it does exist!

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

I think you hit the nail on the head with "we smashed out previous years targets out of the park".

GDO

Politicker

BDM

X2,4 that’s just stupid. Or is there a reason why your quota would be attainable at that level?

OldDogNewTricks

Opinionated

Sales guy

Nope, just big growth dreams laddering down from management

Error32

Politicker

ISR

I’ve always been ACV, but am going somewhere with MRR. It’s the first time I had heard of that payout structure!

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OldDogNewTricks

What's the biggest year on year increase in quota/target you've ever experienced?

26 comments

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