Half of salespeople miss quota

Asad's firm has placed go-to-market talent at more than 1,500 companies. His read is that most quota misses are designed in long before anyone is hired.

Hosted by Alex McNaughten

Asad Zaman · CEO, Sales Talent Agency

Asad Zaman is the CEO of Sales Talent Agency, which builds go-to-market teams for companies from CRO down to BDR. Roughly 80% of the work is in tech, with the rest across automotive, finance, supply chain and manufacturing.

The firm started fifteen years ago placing salespeople in Canada alone and now covers the whole go-to-market function across North America, with newer operations in Europe and Asia Pacific. It has worked with over 1,500 companies and facilitated half a billion dollars in salaries. Asad's view is that recruitment is a science rather than an art, and that the volume of repetitions is what earns you a point of view.

Quote of the show

“They think onboarding is orientation.”

Asad Zaman, CEO, Sales Talent Agency

Key takeaways

Under half hit quota, and that number tells the whole story. Averaged across cohorts it comes out around 49%. More sellers miss than make it, which makes it a design question rather than a talent question.
A strong seller who missed target usually had the wrong target. The same person setting records at one company misses at another. Quota design and comp design account for more of that than the individual does.
Onboarding is not orientation. Three or four weeks of tool access and HR videos is orientation. Companies deliver that, call it onboarding, and then wonder why ramp takes so long.
Compensation inflated about 20% and quotas absorbed it. Almost no company moved product pricing to cover a higher cost of sale. Most raised quotas instead, which is the one reason that guarantees the number is not hit.
Raise the quota multiple on efficiency, never on cost. Better leads, a higher close rate and larger deals justify moving from four times OTE to seven. Paying the rep more does not.
Two thirty-minute interviews is not a hiring process. Frothy markets lower the bar without anyone deciding to, and the turnover that follows arrives as a surprise.
Macro matters more than the last decade suggested. Ten years of cheap capital taught people they could ignore it. Choosing not to look at it is still a choice, and it is a bad one.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode is coming soon.