Quota

The revenue or volume a salesperson or territory is expected to deliver in a period. Set from the territory's potential, not from the person.

DefinitionThe revenue or volume a salesperson or territory is expected to deliver in a period. Set from the territory's potential, not from the person.

From potential

Quota follows the territory because potential is a property of the accounts. A rep who moves takes their skill, not their number. Set quota per territory with one rule from potential, then assign people, then adjust by hand only at the end and visibly.

Attainment

Revenue ÷ quota, per person, per period. Rolled up by summing revenue and quota, never by averaging attainment.

In scenarios

Two territory plans can only be compared if quota was computed the same way in both. A plan whose quotas were typed in cannot be compared with one whose quotas were computed.

How it is computed

Set from territory potential: the company target divided by total potential gives one share, and each territory carries that share of its own potential. Quotas must sum to the target.

Example

Target $52 million on potential of $80 million is 65 percent. Territories with potential of $6 million and $9 million carry $3.9 million and $5.85 million.

Where it goes wrong

Last year plus ten percent. It punishes whoever sold well and protects whoever under-worked a rich territory.

Articles that use this term

Coverage and territory · Sales teams

A new rep's first ninety days, from the data: the list that replaces shadowing

What a newly hired rep should be given on day one from the book they inherit: the accounts ranked by revenue with days since last touch, the returning lines that were bought and dropped, the dormant accounts with their cadence and run rate, the open deals with slip counts, and the tier cadence that says who to call first. A ninety-day plan in three lists, the measures that say whether the ramp is on track, and why it beats a week of shadowing.

16 Sept 20263 min read Territory, capacity and quota planning

Activity and outcome measures: which belong in compensation, and which do not

Why paying reps on activity measures produces activity and paying them only on outcomes produces sandbagging, the three tests a measure passes before it goes into a plan, the rep controls it, it cannot be gamed by logging, and it reconciles to a ledger, which coverage and outcome measures pass, which fail, the coverage-at-cadence exception that passes all three, and the identity that every credited dollar in a plan is a ledger dollar once.

16 Sept 20263 min read How-to guides

Answer-first writing for commercial measures: the template behind every page on this site

The seven-part template every measure page on this site follows, and why: the answer in one paragraph, the formula in a line, the rows needed with identifiers only, one worked table, the roll-up and its identity, the four mistakes, and the three questions answered in full. What each part is for, the order and why it is fixed, the length each part gets, and how a company can use the same template for its own definitions document.

16 Sept 20264 min read Territory, capacity and quota planning

Five checks before you sign off a new territory map

Five checks a sales leader runs on a proposed territory design before it goes live, all from the ledger, the customer master and the universe file: potential balance across territories, load balance in weighted accounts, account continuity with the current owners, travel or cluster sanity where it applies, and the quota identity that the new map's quotas sum to the company's. Each with the test, the tolerance and the failure it catches.

16 Sept 20263 min read AI and self-service analytics

How AI search reads a sales analytics page, and what that means for how you write one

What an answer engine extracts from a page about a commercial measure: the one-paragraph direct answer, the formula in a form it can quote, the worked table, the definitions it can cite, and the questions it can answer verbatim. Why a page written for a person who has to compute the measure is also the page an assistant cites, the structure that serves both, and the four habits that make a page unquotable.

16 Sept 20263 min read Territory, capacity and quota planning

How to measure sales effectiveness: five ratios from the ledger and the CRM

Five ratios that together describe whether a sales team is effective, each computed from exports the company holds: coverage at cadence, meeting-to-opportunity conversion, win rate by segment, revenue per touch, and share of wallet against the norm. Why activity counts and quota attainment are not among them, how the five are read together per rep, and the one-page view that replaces the activity dashboard.

16 Sept 20263 min read