In the highly competitive sales world, achieving consistent revenue growth is critical. But it’s also undoubtedly challenging. That’s why setting realistic sales quotas can be a powerful tool for charting the course for success by providing a clear target for sales teams.
Yet, many leaders are still setting aggressive or unrealistic sales quotas, leading to demotivation and burnout among sales reps. In this article, we’ll explore six realistic sales quota examples to help sales teams win more deals and achieve sustainable revenue growth in a way that inspires reps to do more:
- What is a Sales Quota?
- Sales Quotas vs Sales Goals: What’s the difference?
- Sales Quotas vs Sales Targets: What’s the difference?Â
- 6 Types of Sales Quotas That Help Sales Teams Win MORE Deals
- Avoid Setting Unrealistic Quotas
- How to Set a Winning Sales Quota for Your Sales Team
- Helpful Sales Quota Calculators
- Common Sales Quota Mistakes
What is a Sales Quota?
A sales quota is a specific target or financial goal for sales representatives or a sales team to achieve within a certain period.
The quota is usually based on a revenue or sales volume target and is used to measure the performance of sales reps or teams. These targets are set mainly by sales leaders and are measured in numerous ways, such as profit, sales or activities.
Meeting or exceeding the quota is often tied to incentives or bonuses and helps drive revenue growth for the company.
The Importance of Setting Effective Sales Quotas
While these metrics aid sales forecasting and monitor overall rep activity, they’re also responsible for keeping sales reps motivated to reach a certain activity level.
Balancing motivation with achieving goals is hard. But it’s even harder to make progress without setting a clearly defined goal. That’s because standards give us something to strive for and help us recognize when we’re improving.
Beyond motivation, quotas also provide a crucial layer of accountability. Without clear goals in place, sales reps might become complacent, leading to inconsistent performance across the team.
Having set quotas ensures that reps stay focused, know exactly what’s expected of them, and are held accountable for their results.
This accountability isn’t just important for individual performance; it directly impacts overall team morale and success, ensuring everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Additionally, sales quotas assist sales managers, and leaders ensure that all compensation plans and commissions are fair and effective by creating achievable goals and benchmarks.
This approach helps reveal weaknesses in your sales pipeline while highlighting your successful sales reps so that you can replicate their sales techniques and strategies.
Also read:
- 13 Strategies To Motivate Your Sales Team To Reach MORE Targets
- 8 Types Of Sales Pitches Every Salesperson Should Know & Use
- 10 Essential Sales Negotiation Skills Every Salesperson Needs to Master
Sales Quotas vs Sales Goals: What’s the difference?
Sales quotas and sales goals may look the same on the offset, but they’re not.
That’s because sales quotas are a series of actions set to help salespeople achieve a specific revenue goal. In comparison, sales goals are long-term strategic plans to expand the company’s revenue.
Sales Quotas vs Sales Targets: What’s the difference?
Another sales metric that’s often mistaken for sales quotas is that sales targets are used to define targets for teams rather than individual salespeople.
The sales target will usually state how many sales your team needs to make of a particular product or service to reach its revenue goals in a specific period. As a result, sales targets help sellers break down and condense their sales goals and quotas into attainable bite-sized sections.
6 Types of Sales Quotas That Help Sales Teams Win MORE Deals
Are you seeking a sales quota structure that helps your team win more deals? You’re in the right place. Here are the six most common types of sales quotas:
1. Revenue Sales Quota
As you’ve probably guessed, revenue sales quotas are based on a revenue goal for a month, quarter or year. A revenue-based quota incentivizes reps to sell a certain dollar amount for that period.
Smaller companies often set this type of sales quota for the month or quarter, whereas larger companies with longer sales cycles will set annual revenue sales quotas.
On the offset, while this is a simple type of sales quota, you can customize it to suit your company’s and sales team’s needs.
However, if your company’s products have a range of different profit margins, you might use profit quotas instead of focusing on revenue quotas.
That’s because profit quotas incentivize reps to spend time selling items that yield a higher profit.
| Description | Practical Example |
|---|---|
| Based on a revenue goal for a month, quarter, or year. Incentivizes reps to sell a specific dollar amount. | A SaaS company might set a quarterly revenue quota of $500,000 for each rep. A local software provider could use a monthly goal. Larger companies with longer sales cycles could aim for $5M annually, using past performance and market projections to set the goal. |
2. Volume Quota
A volume sales quota rewards sales reps for the number of deals or qualified leads they generate, regardless of deal size.
Volume sales quotas are often set for sales teams to achieve over a year.
Depending on the nature of the business, managers may decide to break the volume quota down into regions, products, or sometimes by the sales professional.
This type of sales quota helps incentivize reps to achieve a specific goal while holding the entire sales team accountable for good attainment.
| Description | Practical Example |
|---|---|
| Rewards reps for the number of deals or qualified leads, regardless of the deal size. Often broken down by regions, products, or individual reps. | A telecom company could set a volume quota of 50 new customers per quarter. A regional sales team might focus on generating 100 new leads each month, or a consumer electronics company could aim to sell 200 units of a particular product during peak sales periods. |
3. Profit-Based Quota
A profit-based sales quota is based on the gross profit margin of the products or services sold.
This type of sales quota incentivizes reps to sell higher profit items and reduce discounts.
As a result, this type of sales quota works well for companies with several target markets and price points to consider.
| Description | Practical Example |
|---|---|
| Based on the gross profit margin of products or services sold. Encourages reps to sell higher-margin products or limit discounts. | A luxury car dealership might set a quota tied to selling higher-margin models, or a B2B software company could incentivize reps to reduce discounts on large deals, focusing instead on upselling additional services to maintain profitability. |
4. Combination Quota
Exactly as it sounds, combination quotas are just that – a combination of different sales quotas.
That’s because some sales professionals may have more than one quota.
For example, a typical combination quota may include an activity, profit, and volume quota.
As a result, the type of sales quota set-up provides sales reps with small, achievable milestones alongside a sales roadmap for success, making them more likely to attain their quota.
| Description | Practical Example |
|---|---|
| A mix of different quotas (e.g., activity, profit, revenue) to provide flexibility and small, achievable milestones. | A global tech firm might combine 100 sales calls per month (activity), $300,000 in closed deals per quarter (revenue), and maintaining a 30% gross margin (profit) to ensure reps are driven across all areas of their sales process. |
5. Forecast Quota
A forecast quota is based on the number of sales that sales territories or teams must achieve in any given period.
Forecast quotas help companies decipher the influences on their revenues, where they come from, and how these affect the company.
Overall, a forecast quota is calculated based on the historical performance and the revenue goal it must reach.
| Description | Practical Example |
|---|---|
| Based on historical data and sales projections for teams or territories to achieve within a specific time period. | A company selling heavy machinery could forecast that a territory should generate $2M in sales this year based on last year’s numbers. If demand increases, the quota might rise accordingly to keep performance aligned with market conditions. |
6. Activity Quota
Activity sales quotas are based on a sales rep’s sales activity and include activities that are part of the sales process but not directly responsible for translating into sales.
For example, you could give a task to your sales reps to make a certain number of calls or book a certain number of meetings per month or quarter.
| Description | Practical Example |
|---|---|
| Focuses on sales reps’ activity (calls, meetings, proposals) rather than direct sales, ensuring reps stay active in building their pipeline. | A software company might require each rep to schedule 15 demos a month, expecting a 30% conversion rate. A consulting firm could set a quota to submit 10 proposals a quarter, knowing that a certain number will likely turn into long-term clients. This keeps reps accountable for their activity levels and future sales opportunities. |
Avoid Setting Unrealistic Quotas
One of the biggest mistakes sales managers and leaders make is setting unrealistic and unattainable sales quotas.
While you want your team to reach for the stars, setting the bar too high means you’re setting your hard-working reps up for failure, leading to a lack of motivation, drive, and increased turnover rates.
In addition, changing or adjusting quotas mid-period can demoralize sales reps and stall revenue growth. If changes need to be made, ensure they’re backed by at least three months of data to support the decision.
To avoid these pitfalls, it’s essential to consider both the top-down and bottom-up approaches to setting quotas.
The top-down approach
The top-down method involves leadership setting quotas based on company-wide goals, trickling them down to individual reps.Â
While this approach aligns sales efforts with broader business objectives, it can sometimes miss the nuances of individual sales territories or team capabilities.
The bottom-up approach
On the other hand, the bottom-up approach starts at the rep level, building quotas based on historical performance, market conditions, and sales forecasts. This method tends to be more realistic and achievable, but may not always meet the company’s overarching revenue targets.
Balancing these two methods can provide a more accurate and motivating quota system that challenges reps while remaining within reach.
Understanding these strategies helps leaders set quotas that motivate and push teams to succeed without overwhelming them—a key component of overall sales performance and team dynamics.
How to Set a Winning Sales Quota for Your Sales Team
Setting a winning sales quota for your sales team is critical for ensuring that your team stays motivated, focused, and productive. Here are some steps you can follow to set a winning sales quota for your sales team:
Step 1: Establish a Baseline
The first step in setting any sales quota is to determine your baseline.
The baseline is your organization’s minimum standard of performance. It also relays how much your sales team needs to earn to meet the basic needs of your business.
To calculate your baseline, you can either take the amount of revenue your sales team closed in the last 12 months and divide it by 12 to understand precisely how much revenue the sales team must collectively acquire per month.
Want to calculate your sales organization’s sales quota baseline? Use the helpful formula below:
Average number of closed-won deals (per month) x Average contract value = Baseline sales quota
Baseline Sales Quota Formula
Step 2: Define Sales Objectives
The next step in setting a sales quota is to define your sales objectives. This could include revenue targets, new customer acquisition targets, or product-specific sales targets.
Step 3: Consider Individual Strengths
Each salesperson on your team has different strengths and weaknesses. Take these into account when setting sales quotas.
For example, if one salesperson is particularly good at closing deals, you might set a higher quota for them than for a salesperson who excels at lead generation.
Step 4: Set Attainable Goals
Now you have a baseline. It’s time to set activity goals to provide sales reps with a sales roadmap to keep them on course to success.
Remember to include information about how many demos, calls or emails they need to use to meet their sales quota.
Step 5. Monitor Progress & Adjust as Needed
If your team consistently exceeds their quota, you may need to increase the sales quota to motivate them.
On the other hand, if the team consistently misses their quota, you may need to adjust the quota downward or provide additional support and training.
Helpful Sales Quota Calculators
Calculating sales quotas can be long, complex and time-consuming. Take back the time in your busy day, and use one of these recommended sales quota calculators for ease:
Yesware Quota Calculator
This handy sales quota calculator allows you to calculate sales quotas with either a top-down or bottom-up approach. Once you input the required data, Yesware will provide you with a sales quota number.
Calculator Soup’s Profit Goal Calculator
An excellent tool for calculating profit-based sales quotas – just input your sales team’s average monthly sales, profits, variable costs, and fixed costs to calculate your sales quota or goal amount.
Balancing Your Team’s Workload with Automated Lead Assignment
Setting up an automated lead distribution system helps your sales team focus on what they do best – selling. When your reps know exactly how many leads to expect, they can plan their days better and give each prospect the attention they deserve.
Setting Effective Distribution Rules
Start by looking at your top performers’ capacity – how many leads can they successfully work through in a day? This number becomes your baseline. From there, you can set up rules that:
- Distribute leads based on rep experience levels
- Account for different product lines or territories
- Factor in current quota progress
- Consider rep availability and time zones
User-Level Distribution Controls
Your seasoned reps might handle more leads than new team members. With user-level controls, you can:
- Set custom lead caps for each rep
- Adjust distribution during training periods
- Create backup assignment rules for overflow
- Track lead acceptance rates
Role-Based Assignment Limits
Different roles need different approaches. Your SDRs might need more leads than your account executives. Create role-specific limits that:
- Match team structure and capabilities
- Support career development paths
- Allow for specialization
- Scale with your team’s growth
Monitoring and Adjusting Distribution
Keep an eye on how your distribution rules perform. Look for:
- Lead response times
- Conversion rates by rep
- Workload balance across teams
- Signs of rep overwhelm or capacity for more
Smart lead distribution creates the right foundation for your sales team’s success. When your reps have a manageable number of leads, they spend more time building real connections with prospects and less time juggling tasks.
Start with clear rules, keep adjusting based on what you see, and watch your team’s productivity grow. Your reps will thank you for it, and your conversion rates will show it.
Common Sales Quota Mistakes
You know how to create and set sales quotas, but do you know what quotas every sales leader should avoid? Find out below.
Applying Commission Caps
Applying commission caps to your sales reps’ quotas will limit the amount of commission they earn – and in turn, can cause demoralization.
When you do this, your sales rep will hit their commission cap and understand that they are no longer financially rewarded for closing more business.
Not Aligning Quotas with Business Goals
One common mistake is setting quotas without aligning them with broader business objectives. If sales quotas aren’t connected to the company’s strategic goals, reps might focus on deals that don’t directly impact the bottom line.
This misalignment can result in wasted efforts and missed opportunities. Ensuring that quotas tie into the overall business strategy helps ensure that every deal closed pushes the company toward its long-term vision.
Strengthen Your Sales Team with Strategic Leadership & Management Training
Maintaining motivation is critical for sustained achievement. As a sales rep, you know this: motivation drives hard work, customer connections, and goal attainment.
However, staying motivated despite rejection, setbacks, and intense competition poses significant challenges.
Many sales leaders grapple with the same issue within their teams. The solution lies in Strategic Leadership and Management Training. By honing your skills, you empower your sales team to take ownership, plan strategically, and surpass expectations.
