A sales quota is the financial goal that individual salespeople and teams must achieve by the end of a specific period, usually a month or a quarter. Quotas are set by sales leaders, and achieving the quotas usually results in a performance bonus for the salesperson.
Sales Quotas vs Sales Goal
Are sales quotas and sales goals the same thing? Not exactly. Sales quotas are often part of a series of actions set to help salespeople achieve a certain goal.
For example, if a company sets a goal to increase finance directors email lists revenue by 25% in 2021, sales leadership will identify how many sales they need to close in 2021 to reach that revenue goal.
They will then calculate how many deals their salespeople need to close per quarter to contribute to that goal. The financial value of those deals would be the salesperson's quota.
A salesperson's quota is often directly related to their compensation plan, including commissions and bonuses.
Another sales metric that is confused with sales quota is sales goal. Sales goals differ from sales quotas in that goals are typically defined for a team rather than an individual. Sales goals describe how many products or service packages your team needs to sell to meet revenue goals over a specific time period. Sales goals help salespeople break down their sales goals and sales quotas into achievable chunks.
Sales Quota Agreement
Once sales quotas are set and sales goals and objectives are accounted for, sales reps are given a sales quota agreement that outlines each of these elements. The purpose of a sales quota agreement is to provide transparency into what is required to meet the quota and how that quota will be calculated over the sales period. Sales quota agreements hold salespeople accountable for meeting goals and hold managers responsible for accurately rewarding performance.