10 ways to boost your sales quota

Your sales team most likely consists of both seasoned sales reps and new salespeople who are just learning the ropes. However, they share the same goal of meeting and exceeding the sales quota.

A sales quota is the benchmark that shows how successful you are at your job. If you can consistently beat your weekly or monthly goals, that’s the best proof of your talent and capabilities.

Yet only 53% of salespeople achieved or exceeded their sales quotas in 2021.

Looking for a strategy to enhance your team’s confidence and boost their sales performance? Take a look at our top 10 ways to boost your sales quota.

What is a sales quota?

Sales quotas are predetermined sales targets set for reps to achieve within a specific timeframe. These typically span a month or a quarter.

There are various types of sales quotas:

• Volume quota – based on the number of products or services sold.
• Revenue sales quota – focuses on the total sales value or revenue generated.
• Profit quota – concentrates on the profit margin or the net profit earned from sales.
• Activity quota – measures specific sales activities, like the number of calls made or presentations delivered.
• Combination quota – a mix of two or more of the above quotas to produce a comprehensive sales target.

Whichever method you might be using, the purpose of the sales target stays the same: to let sales managers gauge the performance and efficiency of their employees’ work.

If employees can consistently meet or surpass their designated quotas, that shows they are skilled and efficient at their work. If, on the other hand, they struggle with meeting their sales goals, this might mean there’s something hindering their work (for example, insufficient training).

Why sales quotas are so important for salespeople

Sales quotas are far more than just numbers that sales reps are expected to meet. Setting sales quotas provide clear goals for reps to reach, helping sales teams decide what is the best strategy to achieve this and how they should plan their work.

If they didn’t have these goals, the sales reps might not know how they (and their coworkers) are doing in their jobs. Are they gaining more customers and closing higher value deals, or rather lagging behind their team? Sales quotas can answer sales manager questions at a glance.

There are a lot of other benefits to having clear sales targets to achieve. Let’s explore them in detail.

Instant motivation boost

A clearly defined sales quota shows sales rep what they need to do in order to be successful at work. For example, hit a specified number of sales. When a rep knows their goal and how to reach it, they will be more determined to meet it.

Achieving or surpassing sales targets can also be a fantastic confidence boost for employees since doing so shows what they’re capable of and that they have the skills needed to succeed at the job.

Better performance measurement

Setting quotas is also a handy way for sales leaders to gauge a salesperson’s effectiveness and contribution to the company. Comparing the number of actual sales to set quotas and the performance of other employees in the team can help managers identify the main strengths and weaknesses of their salespeople.

Based on this information, managers can then tailor training programs or sales strategies to help employees improve their weaker traits and use existing skills to their full potential.

Predictable revenue made easier

Another way in which managers commonly use sales quotas is for financial planning. If they have data showing that their sales team consistently meets and surpasses their quotas, that tells the manager how much they can expect to earn in the next month or quarter.

Armed with this data, managers can then create more accurate sales forecasts and, for example, decide where the company should make investments based on this data.

Healthy competition

A sales quota can also provide some friendly competition among sales reps. When team members are aiming to outperform one another, they may think of new creative strategies and techniques to boost their performance.

It’s very important to make sure that the rivalry doesn’t impact their teamwork or work atmosphere. If employees are feeling stressed about getting behind their team members, they might very quickly start suffering from burnout or workplace stress.

10 ways to improve sales quotas

As you can see, sales quotas are indispensable for sales teams. They give a clear "roadmap" on how reps should plan their work, and seeing that they have managed to successfully meet or surpass their targets is a fantastic confidence booster.

To make achieving those sales targets easier, we have prepared 10 tips and tricks that your team can use to elevate their quotas.

1. Focus on target identification

Conducting proper research on prospects and pinpointing your ideal customer profile (ICP), takes you two steps closer to hitting your sales targets. Since you know exactly who you should reach out to, you can better tailor your sales approach and, in turn, increase your chances of closing deals.

For instance, if you’re selling eco-friendly kitchenware, targeting "green"-thinking households or environmentally responsible restaurants would be a smart move because they are the most likely to be interested in your offer.

2. Prioritize leads

Are you using lead scoring and prioritization in your work? If not, you should consider it, as doing so can enhance your performance and make reaching out to potential customers a bit less stressful. With lead scoring, you can identify which leads are most likely to convert and who you shouldn’t waste your time on.

If you focus on contacting the "warm" leads first, then you make it easier for yourself to close deals with less effort. For example, a lead who frequently visits your product page and engages with content might be more valuable than one who merely opens a promotional email.

3. Give a personalized touch

Reseach has shown that using personalization properly can lead to a 5% to 25% revenue boost, depending on the industry. A superior customer experience is crucial to building customer loyalty and can increase the customer lifecycle by six to 14 times.

That means there’s a much higher chance that the prospects you are calling or mailing will be willing to listen to what you say if you tailor your sales pitches and emails accordingly. So, for instance, if during the initial call the prospect mentioned they have a tight budget, your next pitch should emphasize how much they can save by using your solution.

4. Sell a solution rather than a product

Showing how a given product or service can solve a prospect’s biggest pain points is always a much better idea than merely listing features.

You’ve probably heard the saying that "people don’t buy products, they buy a solution to their problem" several times already. But those are exactly the words you should follow while calling out your prospects. For example, rather than saying "we offer 24/7 customer support to our customers", explain how having 24/7 support can provide someone with help whenever they have a problem with the system.

5. Schedule your day/week

Creating a daily or weekly plan with all the tasks you have to do and prioritizing them is a clever way to boost your sales quota. The less time you waste on unproductive or mundane tasks, the more time you can spend talking with your prospects and thus giving your productivity a boost too.

How you schedule your day is up to you – you could say, work on proactive prospecting in the morning when you’re fresh and reserve afternoons for follow-ups to ensure that no lead goes unattended.

6. Become a pro at objection handling

A prospect that agrees to the first offer you give them is very hard to come by. It’s far more likely that they will voice their doubts or problems with the offer you make. If you can dispel those concerns and answer all of the prospect’s questions, then the probability of you closing the deal will grow significantly.

So research the most common questions that prospects might ask you and prepare answers to them. That way, you’ll know precisely what to say whenever a prospect is hesitant.

7. Run a consistent follow-up

Brevet found that, on average, 80% of sales require five follow-up calls after the first meeting, which implies that you need to have a plan for how often to call or message your prospects. This can be a bit tricky to master because how often you can send a message without being a nuisance will be different from person to person.

As such, you have to spend some time testing how often you can remind a prospect about your offer without being labeled as a "pushy" seller. On the other hand, successfully nailing follow-ups will give you a better chance of closing deals.

8. Keep your current customers satisfied and loyal

Regular follow-ups have another benefit, improving customer retention. With a timely follow-up message, you might learn that your customers are struggling with an issue that hasn't yet been reported or, conversely, are considering buying additional products/services that you haven’t offered yet.

This would be a perfect moment for you to reach out and provide a helping hand or make an exclusive offer. Of course, you shouldn’t only send post-sale follow-ups, but also share industry news and insights or product tips and tricks in order to keep prospects continually engaged.

9. Stay on top of trends

The sales industry changes tremendously quickly, and what worked one month might no longer be useful by the time the next one rolls around. So keep an eye on the latest trends and sales methods in the industry by attending workshops or events and following industry blogs.

Staying updated will give you a competitive edge since you will know what is new and popular in the industry and how to apply that to your work – something that your competitors might be lagging behind on.

10. Take advantage of CRMs

91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM system. And it’s no wonder, looking at how useful those platforms can be. CRM software isn’t just for logging and storing prospects' data, but can also streamline dozens of daily tasks.

Automatic lead scoring frees sales reps from having to manually score leads and improves consistency of lead qualification throughout the entire company. Advanced analytics tools with metrics and KPIs provide details about the entire sales process, quota attainment, trends, customer behavior, and forecast revenue. Visual pipelines, meanwhile, give managers a bird-eye view of how deals are progressing across the business.

How can Capsule aid sales teams in achieving sales quotas

Are you thinking about getting a CRM for your team or replacing the one your staff uses now? Then, how about "hiring" Capsule CRM for the task?

This platform can speed up and enhance most sales-related tasks with its included features:

• Key contact data together with all interactions with customers and prospects stored one place, so no more searching for contact data in multiple spreadsheets.
• The visual pipeline lets you manage all of your open sales opportunities from a single page
• Workflow automation can reduce manual work and time wasted by taking over all of those simple but time-consuming tasks like sending follow-up emails.
• Advanced sales analytics allow you to monitor your team’s performance in terms of key metrics in real-time. So you can forecast quota attainment rates and know immediately about any issues or bottlenecks affecting them.

Sound like exactly what your team needs to start hitting their sales targets much faster?

Try our starter CRM with basic features for up to two users and 250 contacts. Or get in touch with our sales team to help you pick the perfect paid plan for your needs.

Conclusion

Elevating your sales quota attainment to new levels is actually much simpler than you might think. It’s all about understanding your customers, reaching them with the right messages, and keeping an eye on what works and what requires a bit more tweaking.

With the right tools like Capsule CRM for handling mundane tasks, you will have more time to focus on your customers.