Read a great article on the Sales Training Drivers website, discussing the mystery of sales quotas.  (I encourage you to take a look using the link above.) It discusses some common myths and flaws of the traditional sales quota system, including how they are set, and the accuracy of using them to measure competency of employees.

It's hard to tell if a rep who is making their quota is a competent sales person. If a rep is a member of a company with a strong marketing team, and a great product, the phone may just be ringing off the hook, no skill needed to meet a quota.  But what happens when we reach an economy like that of today and the phones stop ringing?  You may have thought you had a strong sales team because everyone was making their numbers, but now when skills are put to the test you may find out those reps weren't as good as you had thought.

And what about the rep who is making the X amount of calls required each day, are they a good sales person because they are constantly on the phone?  Almost anyone could spend the week pounding the phones and get lucky once in a while, the more calls you make the higher the probability of making a sale.  However, a highly skilled rep could be on the phone half as much and still make the same numbers.  Working SMARTER not HARDER. Quotas can be great tools to measure the performance of sales people, but they aren't always the best of predictors when it comes to the true competency and skill of a sales person.

It's a good idea to take a close look at the desired skills of your sales team and to make quotas that speak to those skill levels, if you have a culture of coaching this is an easy process because you are already involved with your team and their individual strengths and weaknesses.

You never know it may be more beneficial to your bottom line to have reps learning more and calling less, keep this in mind as we start a new year with new goals.