What Is a Sales Quota? Understanding Types, How to Set, and How to Achieve It

You’ve been working hard all quarter — smilin’ and dialin’, sending out beautifully crafted outreach, and prospecting like a pro. You know you’ve brought some incredible deals over the line, but how do you prove it? How do you show your management you deserve that commission or that next promotion? 

Enter the sales quota. 

As a sales professional, achieving and exceeding goals are critical indicators of success, and sales quotas are an objective and measurable way to show the results of your hard work. 

In this article, we’ll explore the fundamentals of sales quotas, the different types of quotas, and strategies for establishing and meeting challenging yet achievable sales goals. Whether you’re a sales leader looking to optimize your quota system or an individual rep striving to exceed your targets, this guide will provide the insights you need to drive sales success.

What Is a Sales Quota? 

A sales quota is a numerical benchmark established for individual sales reps or teams within a business that act as a standard by which performance and productivity are measured.

Sales quotas are essential for achieving business growth and profitability, as they offer a defined framework for sales teams, directing their efforts toward particular outcomes. Sales quotas also serve as a motivator for salespeople by establishing clear expectations and creating measurable objectives that align individual, team, and organizational goals.

Types of Sales Quota

While sales quotas are ultimately intended to assist your firm meet its sales targets, the sort of quota you select for yourself or your team is determined by your product or service and business requirements. Here are five of the most popular sales quota types:

1. Activity Quota

These quotas are based on the amount of lead nurturing actions your salespeople perform to progress a transaction from early-stage awareness to assessment and closure. This involves cold calling, emailing, and booking meetings. Activity quotas are frequently used when a corporation wants to focus on prospecting to increase market share with a new product or service.

To illustrate what activity quotas might look like, imagine your company introduces a new AI product and wants to sell it to new clients that match their buyer persona. As a sales manager, you want to raise awareness and interest in the new product., To achieve this, you set activity quotas to assist your team produce new leads: 25 calls, 40 outreach emails, and two meetings scheduled with prospects per day.

2. Profit Quota

A profit quota compels salespeople to reach a specific amount of profit (sales income after selling expenses) every transaction or quarter. In this context, selling expenses or cost of goods sold (COGS) may include flights to meet with a customer, materials required to nurture the sale, etc. This sort of quota focuses on high-margin offerings rather than selling larger volumes of lower-margin deals. 

Profit Quota Calculation: Revenue – COGS

Profit quota example: Let’s return to the previous example. Assume you, the sales manager, set a profit quota of $5,000 on each sale. Alice, a sales representative, negotiates an $8,000 deal with a $2,000 COGS. In this case, Alice has made a $6,000 profit and exceeded her profit quota. 

3. Forecast Quota

Forecast quotas are estimated sales objectives generated by reviewing sales statistics from prior years or quarters while accounting for organizational growth goals and market factors, such as supply chain challenges or economic fluctuations that may affect future sales. Forecast quotas are frequently utilized when organizations have performed consistently over time and sales-influencing elements such as market circumstances remain relatively steady; without drastically altering variables, managers can reliably predict how much they will sell.

Forecast quota example:

A retailer had favorable market circumstances at the conclusion of each year for at least a decade. Last year, the company set a new sales record of $2.5 million. In Q4, the store had 120 sales representatives on-site at its brick-and-mortar locations, with each selling $20,000 on average. This year, the firm will hire 40 additional representatives. With market circumstances expected to stay positive, the business has a revenue goal of $3.5 million in the coming year. Taking into consideration the newly hired salespeople, the quota for the following quarter will be set at $21,000 per salesperson to fulfill the $3.5 million target.

4. Volume Quota

A volume quota is based on the total number of units sold by a sales representative. This form of quota is effective for encouraging teams to sell more of a specific product, which is especially valuable when launching a new product or service. Volume limitations can also assist in clearing surplus inventories.  

Example of volume quota: A technology wholesaler seeks to remove 150 units of old inventory to create a place for new items in the upcoming quarter. They established a quota for their sales staff to sell 50 units every month, for a total of 150 by the end of the quarter. This provides efficient turnover, allowing the wholesaler to remain competitive in the market.

5. Combination Quota

As the name suggests, a combination quota combines two or more forms of sales quotas. Companies will establish this sort of quota when they wish to achieve several goals, such as expanding market share for a given product while maintaining high profitability.

Combination quota example: A shipping firm has low customer satisfaction and wants to increase profits. By analyzing their data, they realize that new consumers are dissatisfied with their sales staff’s lack of communication. To remedy this situation, the leadership team establishes a combination quota: each salesperson is assigned a $25,000 profit quota as well as an activity quota of calling 10 customers every week.

How to Set Sales Quota

To build realistic sales quotas that allow you and your team to stay motivated while remaining achievable, you must be able to track your sales data in real time. Begin by entering your data into your customer relationship management (CRM) platform. This will function as your single source of truth. Then, consider what your team can sell based on past performance statistics and current market conditions. Use this information to influence quota setting, whether top-down or bottom-up. Let’s take a detailed look at each approach:

1. Top-Down Sales Quota Setting:

In a top-down approach, sales quotas are established by higher-level management or company leadership and then communicated to individual sales teams or reps.

Example: Assume a company’s CEO sets an overall sales objective for the year at $10 million. This goal is then divided among several teams based on past performance, market potential, or other criteria. Each team is then allotted a set quota based on their division.

2. Bottom-Up Sales Quota Setting:

Bottom-up sales quota setting involves soliciting feedback from individual salespeople or teams to identify realistic and achievable sales objectives. These objectives are then combined to create  a team or organization’s total sales quota. In this strategy, sales professionals offer feedback on their predicted sales success based on criteria such as market trends, client demand, and their own skills. The sales manager gathers this information and then utilizes it to set either departmental or corporate quotas. 

For example, if you are in charge of setting a bottom-up sales quota, and each of the 20 salespeople on your team expects to sell $500,000 worth of product next quarter, the total quota for your team will be $10 million.

In simple terms, top-down means that quotas are set by higher-level managers and then handed down. Whereas bottom-up entails receiving feedback from the sales staff and setting quotas together. Both techniques seek to set tough yet feasible goals to improve sales performance and drive corporate growth.

How to Meet Sales Quotas

You have specified the quotas. You’ve aligned with the leadership. Now, how does your team meet its targets? It all boils down to preparation, customer attention, and constant execution of your goals. Here are a few tips:

1. Establish Milestones to Ensure Progress:

Break down the whole sales quota into smaller, more manageable milestones or objectives. This makes the overall objective more manageable and facilitates tracking progress along the way.

For example, if your yearly team’s sales quota is $1 million, divide it into quarterly objectives of $250,000 each, or even a monthly target of $62,500. This enables your salespeople to focus on short-term targets while working toward the greater goal.

2. Focus on Customer Problems, Not Just Meeting Quotas:

Instead of just hitting quotas, prioritize understanding and resolving customer issues. As a sales professional, you create trust and loyalty by meeting your customers’ requirements, adding value, and relieving their pain points which ultimately leads to better sales results.

Instead of pushing items to fulfill sales objectives, listen to your clients’ concerns and develop tailored solutions that solve their needs.

3. Manage Your Time:

Effective time management is critical for attaining sales quotas. To maximize productivity, prioritize work, manage time properly, and limit distractions.

Plan your day with specific times for tasks.

Clearly define the amount of time you need to spend on prospecting, email outreach, follow-ups, calling, responding to emails and so on. 

The amount of time a company’s sales reps spend on different activities can vary a lot depending on the vertical market the company is in, its size, and a few other key factors. For example what kind of technographics stack they have, including their sales cadence tools, CRM, B2B contact data intelligence platform and so on.

Prepare to Crush Your Quotas

Sales are a crucial component of any high-performing sales team quotas, but they’re more than just numbers — they are a reflection of your overall business strategy and a means to align your sales team’s efforts with your organization’s objectives. By understanding the purpose and types of sales quotas, establishing effective quota-setting practices, and equipping your sales team with the right tools and strategies, you can create a sales culture that is focused, motivated, and consistently achieving its goals.