Understanding Your Quota - Part 2 of 2

Understanding Your Quota - Part 2 of 2Understanding Your Quota - Part 2 of 2In part one of this series, we discussed how most sales quotas are formulated, how management views assigned quotas and briefly discussed how sales professionals feel about their quotas. But just knowing how your quota was determined does leid make hitting your quota each month any easier. To make your assigned quota serve you instead of being an ever-present reminder of your responsibilities, you need to learn how the most successful sales professional view their quotas and how to use your quota as a guide to your sales activities. Own Your Quota Having a positive attitude arguably provides benefits in practically every area of your life. And many (including the author of this article) believe that sales professionals who adopt a positive attitude regarding their assigned revenue quotas are often the most successful. In most cases, when you accept a sales position, you accept the sales revenue quota at t he same time. By accepting the position, you are also accepting the quota. If you complain later about your assigned quota, you are essentially stating that you made a mistake and should have never accepted the position in the first place. Owning your quota means that you are fully aware that you have are expected to deliver a predefined quota and that you understand that your hitting your quota is part of your job. It means that you agree to your quota and to your responsibility as an employee who happens to be assigned a quota. Owning your quota means that if you dislike having a quota and hate being expected to deliver on your quota, that you shouldnt be in sales. See Hitting Your Quota as the Second Most Important Part of Your Job Without question, every sales professionals first job is to take care of their customers. A close second is to achieve or over-achieve your assigned quota. The fortunate thing about sales is that focusing on taking care of your first priority often ensures that your second priority is also satisfied. A wonderful and empowering s motto to live by is that your main job duty is to profitably serve your customers. Keeping this motto in mind gives you both a focus on taking care of your customers and to earning your position with your employer. The most successful sales professionals make taking care of their customers their number 1 priority and seldom have an issue with hitting their quotas. They always think win-win and fully believe that their products or services are the best products or services for their clients. Know How Many Sales You Need to Hit Your Quota Sales is a numbers game and understanding the numbers behind your position is very important. You need to take full responsibility for your assigned quota and know exactly what you need to do to hit your quota. If you have a monthly assigned quota, you should determine how many sales you need to close on a monthly grund to hit your quota. To do this, simply calcula te your average selling price (asp) per deal and divide your quota by your asp. The result will be how many sales you need to close each month to hit your quota. Simple math to give guidance for a very difficult industry. Lastly, if you are uncomfortable with having a quota, realize that every profession comes equipped with expectations. The very reason jobs are createdis to solve a problem and to deliver a specific result. In the wonderful world of sales, that specific result is called your sales quota.