The past year has been a busy one for us here at QuotaPath. We have grown our team to 17 and put in a lot of work to reach our official launch on August 1, 2019.

Our Head of Design, Ralph, just celebrated his one-year anniversary with us. He’s helped build QuotaPath from the ground up, define processes and has been key to our success so far. And he’s an integral part of our culture as our lead (and only) product designer, a collaborator, a fantasy football player, and a room-escaper. He’s also active in the Philadelphia design community and returns to his alma mater, La Salle University, every semester to inspire the next generation of creatives.

Tell me about your journey that led you to becoming Head of Design at QuotaPath.

Well, the first project I ever designed was fan art for one of my favorite bands, Boys Night Out. I used Microsoft Paint to crop out each band member’s photo, change it to black and white, position it. I kind of liked what I put together, sent it to them as fan art, and a couple of weeks later it ended up on the band’s site as their splash page (back when that was a thing). I loved the fact that the work I did could be appreciated by not only the band but also their fans. It was the first time I saw the path to becoming a designer. I started thinking, I could have done that better, or maybe I should’ve tried different arrangements—it led to more iterations, improvements, and I loved the process.

I went to La Salle University to study Computer Science and quickly realized Digital Arts was more aligned with what I wanted to do. I added a minor in Marketing so I could get a sense of what and who I’d be designing for. My advisor Conrad Gleber, former Director of Digital Arts & Multimedia Design at La Salle, emphasized the importance of not only understanding the big picture of a project but also pushed me to add value and go beyond what was being asked of me. That advice has had a major influence on my perspective of the industry and has forced me to constantly challenge myself through design.

I’ve had the opportunity to work for various sized companies, big and small, and contribute to both design and front-end development. I’ve never been one to sit back and pass up an opportunity, so when I heard about the opportunity at QuotaPath everything seemed to align and I was eager to take the next step in my career.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Music inspires me and gets me in a flow. From the first project I ever did for Boys Night Out, to designing show flyers and promotions for the Draft Horse Pub while I worked security, music seems to be a constant that flows through my experiences as a designer.

I listen to all kinds of music. Everything from RnB, rap, alternative rock, pop-punk, post-hardcore, emo, screamo all the way to today’s hits. If I ever feel like I’ve hit a roadblock with what I’m working on, I’ll switch genres to something completely different until I’m grooving again.

[Aside, Ralph is constantly breaking into song in the office so this was not a surprise.]

What’s the best thing about being a designer?

That moment when you take a thought, idea, or random back-of-the-napkin concept, and present it visually to someone is exciting. Seeing that reaction is fun and it’s always unique.

Solving problems for people is a great feeling. I love being the facilitator of ideas—I can barely organize my closet—so being able to help someone visualize an idea is really rewarding.

What excites you most about the work QuotaPath is doing?

What’s interesting to me is solving a problem and shaping a shared language between companies and sales communities through our product.

It’s interesting to learn about a new industry and a group of people and see repeatable patterns that I’m able to solve for by drawing from my past experiences. There are also new layers that push me, like the team here at QuotaPath, to improve my craft and continue to challenge me. I never want to feel stagnant or like I’m not improving, so new challenges are very important to me.

If you could give advice to anyone who is looking to grow their career, what would it be?

Don’t try to be like someone else. Growing up I spent a lot of time looking at sites and portfolios thinking that’s cool, how do I replicate it. But I know now that everyone’s work and portfolio is very unique to them, it’s their craft and specialty. Focus on where your talents lie, carve out your niche, and travel your own path.

Rapid-fire quick facts:

What’s your favorite tool? Spotify
Your most-used keyboard shortcut? CMD+Z
Number of coffees you consume per day? 2.5
And, describe your design style in 3 words. Clean, Simple, Scalable

In a previous post, I wrote about my experience setting Sales Development Rep (SDR) quotas while I was running an SDR organization. But not all sales quotas are created equal. Unlike Sales Development Rep quotas, SaaS Sales quotas tend to be fairly straightforward… at least in an ideal world, they are. In actuality, there seems to be a combination of detailed financial breakdown and finger-in-the-wind guess and check methodology when building a sales compensation plan.

Instead of going into deep detail about Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), there are a few simple rules to think about when setting a quota.

Rule 1: Sales reps have to pay for themselves

This one seems very simple, but given that most salespeople in SaaS have a base salary (plus benefits, overhead, etc.) a rep should be responsible for generating revenue equal to some multiple of their On-Target Earnings (OTE). Depending on who you ask, the industry-standard ranges from 3x OTE to 8x OTE for an annualized quota. And of course, OTE depends on the industry, experience level, location, etc. Let’s assume that your reps are mid-level SaaS salespeople making $120k OTE. If we use a fairly standard 5x OTE, that would mean that their annualized quota would be $600k. Now is your quota monthly, quarterly, or annual?

Rule 2: Consider your sales cycle length and your company stage

In deciding whether your reps should be on a monthly, quarterly, or annual quota you first need to think of your company stage. If you’re an older, well-established company, then it’s more likely you can afford to have a longer quota period. There are some organizations that have semi-annual or even annual sales quotas but quarterly seems to be a good option. If you’re a startup, having shorter quota periods will drive a sense of urgency in your reps. Monthly is likely the way to go. Assuming the $600k quota from before, this means $50k monthly or $150k quarterly quotas.

Rule 3: Reps have to be able to achieve their sales quota

No matter how much analysis and planning are put into a quota, if sales reps can’t hit their quota they may feel defeated and give up rather quickly. This isn’t to say that every rep should be able to hit their quota every month, but if the sales quota feels out of reach or no one has ever hit it, that’s a bad quota. A good standard is that 80% of reps should be hitting their quota every month. That way, your top-performers will pick up the slack for the bottom performers and the organization as a whole will hit their quota. Taking the $50k monthly quota from before, if your sales reps average $25k per month in sales, then you’d either need to lower your quota, lower the OTE, or increase your per-rep sales. If your sales reps average $75k per month in sales, then it’s time to either increase quota or pay them more!

Non-revenue sales quotas

Most sales compensation plans are based around revenue quotas, but some have non-revenue components to them. Here are the most common of those ‘non-revenue’ quotas:

1. Number of deals/users: Not all sales organizations are built around revenue, some are built around the number of users on an app or the pure number of deals a rep closes.
2. Activity: If a sales organization is looking to drive high activity (dials, demos, emails, in-person meetings, etc.) they might impose an activity quota. While these activities don’t guarantee results, they can drive the right behaviors. It’s not recommended to maintain an activity quota permanently, as it will end up with either demotivated reps or reps doing activity for the sake of hitting their quota instead of focusing on revenue.
3. Retention: In cases where an organization has a high turnover rate of new customers, some sales reps have a retention quota. This could mean either a certain number of their customers renew their contracts or a certain percentage of their customers renew their contracts.

Over time, setting your sales quotas becomes less guess and check, and more formulaic based on the appropriate On Target Earnings, your company stage, and how achievable the sales quota is. Whether you’re setting sales compensation plans for Sales Development Reps or SaaS sales, remember that simpler is better. And as always, I’m available by email at graham@quotapath.com if you ever wanted to run a sales comp plan by me.

Are you just beginning your career in sales and struggling to understand your sales compensation plan? Or, maybe you manage a team and are looking for sales compensation plan examples. Between salary, commissions, bonuses, spiffs, and incentives—there are a lot of variables—and understanding your sales compensation plan may feel overwhelming now, but we’re here to break it down for you.

What is a sales compensation plan?

For individual sales reps, a sales compensation plan (or commonly ‘comp plan’) summarizes how much money you can and will make and might consist of base salary, commission, incentives, and benefits.

A sales compensation plan drives the sales team’s performance and motivates them to achieve organizational goals and increase revenue. Companies will structure their sales compensation plans based on budget, business and team structure, competitive landscape, and employee needs. The right kind of sales compensation plan will reward desired behaviors and foster more consistent performance on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis.

What components make up a sales compensation plan?

Salary

A base salary is a set amount of money that sales reps earn no matter how well (or poorly) they perform at their job. Base salaries are designed to help sales reps to manage their cash flow and cover basic living expenses. Companies in very competitive markets will typically have a lower base salary or no base salary at all in their sales compensation plans. For example, most auto salespeople, realtors, and door-to-door sellers don’t have a base salary, whereas a company with fewer competitors may balance a base salary and commissions more equally. Typically software sales, medical sales, and hardware sales will receive a base salary.

Commission and Incentives

It’s no secret that sales reps often thrive off of competition, and there are a number of incentives that can be used to motivate them to achieve company goals, and benefit them individually by rewarding their hard work.

A sales compensation plan with commission or bonus components allows flexibility in how much they earn and can enable some reps to earn very high incomes.

Commissions
Commissions are earnings received based on performance and are most commonly a percentage of the deal sold.

• Flat Rate Commissions: Rates remain the same for all items that meet the criteria, i.e. 10% of any deal sold
• Rate Commissions: Rates change based on achievements and filter criteria, i..e. you earn 10% of new business deals and 15% of retention deals
• Fixed Amount per Deal Commissions Plan: Pays a specific rate for every deal sold, i.e. $50 for every deal sold

Bonuses
Bonuses are used as an incentive for when sales reps meet or exceed a pre-defined goal. They might be expressed as a percentage of cumulative revenue, or as a dollar amount. Bonuses can be structured and awarded in different ways, here are a few examples:

• Year-to-Date Bonus Plan: Bonus awarded for achieving quotas set for each quarter, month, or milestone during the year, i.e. if you hit your monthly quota, you earn a $500 bonus
• Ranking Bonus: Bonus awarded for final ranking within a group of users, i.e. if you’re the top seller for a month, you earn a $500 bonus
• Bonus on Multiple Quotas: Bonus awarded for achieving a combination of quotas, ie. if you hit your new business quota and your retention quota, you earn a $500 bonus

Accelerators
Accelerators are used to reward reps for exceeding the set targets and goals.

• Accelerated Rate Tiers by Attainment: Rates change based on quota attainment or amount sold, i.e. 10% of any deal sold until the quota is achieved, at which point you earn 20% of any deal sold
• Accelerators with Multipliers: Rates change based on achievements and are multiplied by additional criteria i.e. you earn 10% on 1-year deals, 15% on 2-year deals, and 20% on 3-year deals

Examples of sales compensation plans

So how might all of these variables work? Here are some examples of sales compensation plans comprised of some, or all of these elements:

Commission-only sales compensation plan
A commission-only plan means reps earn entirely based on their performance. With a plan like this, the risk for the company is relatively low, but it’s challenging for both the company and the reps to forecast any expenses and budget. These plans are common in real estate, auto sales, and door-to-door sales. Sales reps take caution with these plans as it may be an indicator that the company isn’t truly investing in developing talent.

Reps typically get paid anywhere between 5% to 45% commission. The percentage is influenced by how much effort goes into a sale, and how complex the sales cycle is.

Base salary plus commission sales compensation plan
This is the most common sales compensation plan. It provides the rep with a fixed base salary as well as earned commissions, giving them reliable income and an incentive to sell. Companies with this plan structure have greater clarity into expenses, plus the benefit of being able to tap into the competitive nature of salespeople.

Base salary plus bonus sales compensation plan
A base salary plus bonus sales compensation plan is effective when reps tend to consistently surpass pre-set targets. It might be structured with a traditional bonus based on hitting multiple quotas, or with an accelerator. A plan like this allows a company to maintain predictability while still motivating reps to close deals.

There are some really terrible compensation plans out there. A successful sales compensation plan will be specific to the role, aligned to company culture and goals, and designed to drive the right behaviors.

The potential combinations of salary, commissions, bonuses, and incentives are endless, leading to complex spreadsheets and formulas to calculate your earnings. But, it takes less than 5 minutes to add your plan to QuotaPath. Start automating your earnings calculations and spend that time-saved closing deals.

As Director of Sales Development, I ran a team of 40 Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) for about three years at a Software as a Service (SaaS) company in Austin, Texas. Previously, as a sales manager, I learned that it’s tough to set a sales quota… and just as hard to set quotas for SDRs. During my tenure, the sales quota shifted a few times depending on company needs — and with it, the SDR quota shifted.

For managers trying to do sales quota management and those who are creating a compensation plan for SDRs for the first time or wondering how to re-design your company’s sales development compensation plan, here are a few ways to think about setting quotas that set your reps up for success.

While sales quotas are generally just based on how much revenue the rep generates, there are several different ways that SaaS companies set SDR quotas. These typically fall into three buckets:

1. Activity
2. Opportunities
3. Revenue

Oftentimes Sales Development Rep quotas are based on more than one of these buckets.

Activity

What it is: For the sake of this post, “activity” means anything that the SDR has complete control over and can vary depending on their level of effort.

Examples: Number of cold calls made, number of emails sent, number of new companies prospected

When to use it: As with any sales quota, you will get the results that you compensate for. So managers should use activity as a quota when your SDRs have low activity and you need it to increase. If, for example, your SDRs are ‘whale hunting’ (only going after theoretically high-value accounts or contacts), adding in an activity quota can improve your quantity of opportunities.

When not to use it: Because there is no intrinsic value to cold calls and cold emails, I would never recommend using activity as your sole quota metric.

Opportunities

What it is: Opportunities can mean any number of different things, but this is the placeholder between activity and revenue. This can be as early in the pipeline as a set demo or as late as a sales qualified opportunity. How far along in the sales process you judge your SDRs depends on how involved they are with the sale. If they set the meeting and pass it off to a sales rep without any qualifying, then a Demo Set quota might be ideal. If the SDR does a discovery call or even a demo, then compensating on the number of pipeline opportunities would be better.

Examples: Demos Set, Demos Held, SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads), Sales Accepted Opportunities, Pipeline Opportunities

When to use it: If you need a proxy for Closed/Won revenue, I would recommend using opportunities as your quota. It’s a good mid-point between activity and revenue because SDRs feel they have control over their performance and there is a value-add to the organization.

When not to use it: If your sales reps close nearly every opportunity handed to them, you’d be better off using revenue as your metric. The same applies if your sales cycle is transactional or very short (<5 days); revenue or number of Closed/Won opportunities is a better metric for you.

Revenue

What it is: Pretty straightforward, revenue is the value of Closed/Won deals created by your SDRs.

Examples: ARR, MRR, Revenue, Number of Closed/Won deals

When to use it: Using revenue as a quota is most effective when you can directly attribute your SDR’s efforts to a deal closing. Ideal for short sales cycles (<30 days) and smaller deal sizes (<$25,000 average contract value). Also when you’re looking to move your SDRs into a closing role, tying them to revenue can help familiarize them with what a good opportunity/account looks like.

When not to use it: You want to empower your SDRs to control of their destiny (and paychecks). You also want the work they do to have a tangible impact on the Closed/Won deals. Therefore if your sales cycle is longer than 90 days, it’s hard to attribute your SDR’s efforts to those deals. You can go an entire quarter and not know if you need to change your SDR’s behaviors, target accounts, etc. Additionally, if your organization is closing 6 figure enterprise deals at a rate of one to two per quarter, I would urge you away from using revenue as a quota for SDRs for similar reasons.

How to set a quota

Unless you subscribe to the ‘guess and check’ methodology of quota setting or you’re a brand new sales organization, there’s going to be some math involved in setting quotas.

Here’s the formula that I follow:
Activity x conversion rate = Opportunities x close rate = # of Closed/Won deals x average contract value = Revenue

Or working backward:
Revenue / average contract value = # Closed/Won deals / close rate = Opportunities / conversion rate = Activity

Conversion rate is the % of activities (calls, emails, chats, tradeshow leads, etc.) that turn into what you’ve determined to be an opportunity.

Close rate is the % of those opportunities that turn into Closed/Won deals.

With this math, you can formulate what success looks like for each of the different quota types.

A lot of information goes into how much revenue each sales development rep should generate: customer acquisition cost, lifetime value of a customer, SDR salary, growth model, etc. but if you’re looking for the simplest guide, you can go with 5-8x the SDR’s on-target earnings (OTE). That means that for an average SDR making $72,000 on target, you’d be looking for them to generate $360,000 to $576,000 per year or $30,000 to $48,000 per month. Let’s say for this example our goal is 6x OTE, so $36,000 per month, average contract value is $18,000, the close rate is 10%, and our conversion rate is 2.5%.

$36,000 revenue / $18,000 average contract value = 2 Closed/Won opportunities / 10% close rate = 20 opportunities / 2.5% conversion rate = 800 activities (40 per day)

So there you have it, with a little understanding of various quota metrics and with this helpful formula, you can go set your quotas with confidence! If you have any questions about your current SDR quota, I’m always here to help. Feel free to email me at graham@quotapath.com.

Imagine, after weeks of trying to get in touch with the right person, that you’re finally talking to a potential customer that could make a big purchase. You’ve done a ton of research about their company, their industry, and their pain points. You feel totally prepared to knock it out of the park… until they ask you a question about your own product that you don’t know how to answer.

Suddenly, you’re left scrambling through your company’s resources trying to get them an answer quickly and save the conversation, but you’re floundering. Your confidence takes a hit, and what could have been an amazing opportunity to make a sale turns into a frustrating mess. You try to smooth things over and say you’ll get back to them with some answers in the next few days, but you know you haven’t made the best impression.

If imagining yourself in that scenario makes you break into a cold sweat, you’re not alone.

A lot of sales training programs and books focus on the skills involved in selling, such as how to make successful cold calls or nail follow-up emails. These skills are certainly crucial to help you connect with your prospects effectively and get your message across. There’s one big gap that this kind of sales training leaves out, though: what the message actually is.

Once you’ve gotten a decision maker’s attention, what message do you want to share with them about your company? How can you help them? What features make your company’s product a better fit than your competitor’s? If you’re unable to answer these questions for yourself before you start a conversation with a prospect, it may be time to brush up on your product knowledge.

Why product knowledge is so important

Most modern buyers come into any sales conversation having done their research. Your prospects have likely scoped out all the information about your product that’s available on your company’s website. They may have even looked at what other people have to say about your product— both glowing reviews and any major complaints.

That means you’ll need far more than a basic understanding and some general talking points about your company’s product to keep the conversation moving toward a sale. You have to become a well-versed and fluent expert who can create a compelling case for your prospects to make a purchase.

Here are some of the key benefits product knowledge fluency can offer you as a sales rep:
It helps you overcome objections. Knowing your product inside and out will help you to answer any tough questions and assure your prospect that they’re in good hands.

It builds your confidence and enthusiasm

When you know you’re prepared for any question or objection that may come your way, you’re far more likely to enter a sales conversation with pep in your step. A salesperson’s excitement can help create a more positive response from prospects.

It helps you adapt your pitch

Fluent product knowledge can help you understand how your product can be useful to a wide variety of prospects so that you can highlight the specific features that may be more useful in each unique situation.

It makes you a reputable expert

In any sales conversation, you represent your company. When you’re knowledgeable, helpful, and confident, it makes your company’s product look more trustworthy as a result. This can make all the difference for prospects who are on the fence about the sale.

How to get the product knowledge you need

At the beginning of your time in any sales organization, odds are good you were given some basic product knowledge to help you navigate sales conversations. But the smartest sales reps don’t let the training end there; they keep increasing their product knowledge, looking at all aspects of what they’re selling and learning how to talk about it fluently and confidently.

That means you shouldn’t just know your value proposition and how your product works; you should feel very comfortable talking about:

• What concerns are most pressing to your prospects
• How your company’s product solves these problems
• Any relevant changes or regulations in your industry
• What your competitors offer, and how your product is different (and ideally, better)
• Any negative reviews or common complaints and how your company has responded

Other than regularly looking over your company’s internal resources, what can you do to increase your product knowledge fluency? Here are some ideas to try:

Read customer reviews

If your prospects are reading what your existing customers have to say, you should do the same. Don’t just look at the reviews for your own company, either; take a look at what customers have to say about all of your competitors. This will allow you to see what features are most popular, and which ones cause the most frustration. It’ll also allow you to learn some of the jargon that your prospects use, so you can speak their language a little more easily.

Test drive the product yourself

Whether you’re selling a physical good or a software tool, a little hands-on experience with your product can help you put yourself in your customers’ shoes and will help you know how to talk about your product more knowledgeably.

Check in with your team

Grab lunch with some of your colleagues and/or sales manager, or take a few minutes at team meetings to ask any common questions you’re hearing from prospects. Your colleagues are likely hearing the same objections and feedback, and they may have some particularly good answers you can use in your own sales conversations. They may also be able to direct you to any resources they refer to regularly.

Take control of the conversation

Being able to speak fluently about your product means you’re far less likely to find yourself in a deer-in-headlights position in a sales conversation. Instead, you’ll be able to make a thoughtful and well-researched pitch that resonates with potential customers and makes them feel confident about their decision to purchase from your company.

Looking for another way to step up your game? With QuotaPath’s sales performance management app, you’ll get a clearer picture of your progress toward your goals so you can keep your eyes on the prize. Get started here.

I hear the question “what’s your favorite sales book?” so often you’d think I would be tired of it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I can’t pick just one book. Different books handle different parts of sales better, so I’ll give a recommendation based on a few different aspects of sales.

Note: There are so many good sales books out there, and they often contradict each other. While that can be intimidating to many sales reps (Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Why do they disagree?), I think there’s no such thing as a perfect sales methodology, so there can’t be a perfect sales book. Take parts from each book and combine it into something that works for you.

Life:

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
I realize it’s unorthodox for me to start out with a book that’s not specifically about sales, this book taught me more about how to be a better employee, salesperson, manager, and person than any other book I’ve read. It should be the next book you read.

Sales Process:

The Challenger Sale by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon
This book does the best job of encompassing all the different components of sales that I’ve found. It uses a lot of statistics to back up the methodologies it presents. This book definitely benefits sellers from beginner to VP.

Sales Leadership:

Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge
This book won’t teach you how to deal with conflicting rep personalities or how best to motivate an underperforming rep. However, the sections on how to hire successful reps, train them to be rock stars, and provide them with great opportunities through demand gen are invaluable to a modern sales leader.

Sales Attitude:

How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger
While this book has lost a lot of its luster over the years (there’s a whole section about how to organize your Rolodex), the first section, the one about Enthusiasm, still rings true today. If you don’t feel like learning how to sell insurance in the 1940s, there are large swaths that can be skipped — but don’t skip the enthusiasm part.

There you have it. Not a complete list of books I recommend, but these are the 4 most common books I tell people to read. If you have any that I missed, please email them to me: graham@quotapath.com. I’m always on the hunt for the next great sales book.

Bonus, non-sales book:

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Behind Extreme Ownership, this is my favorite all-around book. As someone who studied economics in college, I assumed that people act in a rational manner. You increase price and demand will increase. I can judge how much something I own is worth just as if I didn’t own it. Dan Ariely turns these assumptions on their head and does it with storytelling grace. I could probably find a way to make this book about sales, but it’s better if you just enjoy it for what it is.

QuotaPath’s CEO and Co-founder, AJ Bruno, is the definition of a mover and shaker. On any given day he’s coaching local entrepreneurs on pitch decks, having walking 1 on 1’s with his team, thinking about QuotaPath’s next round of funding, strategizing on pricing and packaging, and that’s just the beginning.

After his diverse experiences leading and co-founding his first company TrendKite, a PR analytics software based in Austin, Texas, and now onto his second company, QuotaPath, he makes the perfect candidate for podcast 1 to 10. Hosted by Eric Sharp, CEO and Founder of ProtoFuse, 1 to 10 focuses on sharing stories of companies that are scaling from 1 to 10 million in revenue.

Eric sat down with AJ, not to chat about sales strategies, tactics, or principals, which are common topics on the podcast and AJ’s area of expertise, but about another one of AJ’s passions – growth, hiring, and cultivating your employees into leaders.

Here are a few highlights from the podcast that are helpful for founders, top performers, entrepreneurs, and those who are wondering what first hires should really look like.

Interviewing is a two-way street

Your first hires are just as much interviewing you as you’re interviewing them. Startups and new businesses don’t have much credibility. There isn’t much press people can read about or others to converse with on their experiences. So, make part of the conversation about yourself. AJ talks about sharing your background and offering sources they can do reference checks on. This establishes trust and transparency from the get-go.

Hire people who resonate with the mission, vision, and values

The most passionate hires are those who get behind the idea. You want people who understand what you are building, and how it impacts those you are building it for. AJ explains how critical mission, vision, and values are to a business and how they should come out of the interviews you’re having in the early days and beyond. Skillset can be taught but your people make up your culture, so find the ones who are passionate.

Teachability is a key factor in finding the right hire

A pillar of staying at a company is learning and growing. This is one of AJ’s beliefs that we can attest to at QuotaPath. One attribute that is monumental in turning hires into top lieutenants is being humble, open and willing to learn. During the interview process, test for teachability as AJ did. He would give his interviewees a framework for a presentation, have them present, give feedback on what went well and what could be improved, and ask them to re-present a portion. This gives you on-the-spot feedback on how they view and handle feedback.

There’s plenty more goodness in this episode, so listen on for more insights from AJ on how to construct effective 1 on 1’s, ENPS surveys to gauge employee engagement, and how to invest in your first hires so they become managers, leaders and ultimately champions and top lieutenants.

If you’re familiar with the QuotaPath platform, you know that we provide an automated way to calculate and track earnings and quota attainment. How am I trending towards my quota this month? How much will I bring home this paycheck? What will my earnings be if I close this deal? Hundreds of sales reps and sales managers rely on QuotaPath to provide these answers and more.

We’ve recently released a new feature called Teams that surfaces earnings and attainment data on a team level. This is great for measuring and tracking team performance, increasing team motivation, and getting everyone on the same page when it comes to earnings and attainment.

Set, align, and hit team goals

Even with Salesforce or other BI tools, it’s challenging to track team attainment data. QuotaPath has always surfaced this data on a personal level but now with the new Teams functionality, sales orgs can view information as it relates to quota attainment teamwide (with the appropriate permissions from everyone, of course). It’s likely that sales managers have monthly or quarterly quota goals to trend towards, but what about reaching for the stars?

Our Head of Growth, Graham Collins, previously managed a sales team at his former company. There, he had a team quota (the sum of everyone’s quotas) but also had what they called a ‘steak dinner’ goal. If his team hit 150% of their quota, they went out for a fancy steak dinner, compliments of him. Whether you want to track your team quota or a ‘steak dinner’ type goal, you can set goals in QuotaPath and see how everyone on the team is working to achieve that goal.

Much like org-wide sales goals, sales reps also like to know how they stack up compared to the rest of their teammates. Are you the top dog or somewhere in the middle of the pack? Now you can know for sure with Team Attainment. It’s easy to join a team with others, share your attainment data, and see how you stack up in leaderboard fashion. Keep that eye on the prize.

Goodbye to payroll headaches and hello to team potential

Part of being a good sales manager is being able to unlock your team’s superpowers; sales reps want to know that their manager has their back… and this rings true when it comes to getting paid. How many times have salespeople gotten a paycheck only to realize they were shorted on their earnings? Correctly paid reps are happy reps and happy reps close more business. Raise your hand if you agree with us. Team Earnings gets everyone–reps, managers, accounting, HR–on the same page before payroll runs, preventing the headache of incorrect payments.

And with everyone’s earnings data in a centralized place, managers can see who is excelling where. Who on your team is making the most in upsell and retention bonuses? Find out whose skills are flourishing and where so you can make informed data-driven team decisions. If Adrian is a top performer and crushing it at upsells, you could have them lead a training and share their knowledge with the team at large. Hack your sales plan and unlock your team’s potential with Teams.

Teams not only gives a complete understanding of team earnings and attainment, but it also provides full visibility at a birds-eye view. Everyone is on the same page, focusing efforts towards a common goal. Sign up and see how Teams adds excitement, drive, and motivation to your team.

It was 11:45 p.m. on July 31st and I was furiously jumping between slack channels as we worked through the final details in preparation for our launch the very next day. More than half the team was awake and glued to their laptops – we had been planning this day for over a year. We were all heavily invested in a successful outcome.

Well, some amazing (and laughable) things happened, others that were frustrating, and a few that taught me lessons that ultimately led to an experience unlike any other I’ve had in my career.

Here are five things that made this my most unique working experience as a co-founder:

We had 3 months of planning

• We picked a date and stuck to that date
• We scoped out our “musts,” “shoulds” and “coulds” for both product and marketing
• We had weekly (sometimes daily) team alignment communication across all launch projects
• Every marketing channel was discussed and we decided on six that we would put our efforts towards
• We didn’t have strong expectations on what was or was not going to be successful in terms of metrics. We even had fun with the total number of new users and we each had a guess. The winning answer was both the median and the mode of our guesses!

We’ve grown an amazing community in both Philadelphia and Austin

• Our coworking space in Philly, 1776, sang us “Happy Launch Day” and got us a “Launck Day” cake. Yep, “Launck” Day. Someone at Whole Foods jotted down the note, took a look at it, and said to themselves “Yep, looks about right.”
• August 1st is now “Launck Day” in our calendars and will forever be celebrated by our team
• I sent an email out to 2,000 of my contacts. 51% open rate, 18% click-through rate, and only 36 (2%) unsubscribes. I know exactly who those 36 unsubscribes are though 😉
• We had friends that sent us cookies, donuts, and candy on the big day!

Piqued competitor interest

We had four competitors log into our app! Not just competitors but a founder, a CEO, a CTO, and a product manager from these companies checked us out! Great that we are on the radar.

Last-minute (yet phenomenal) press opportunities

Having worked in the PR industry for the last 12 years, you’d think that I’d understand the importance of earned media. It was a week until we launched, and we still hadn’t secured any coverage. And then I missed my scheduled call with a prominent Austin journalist the day before. Thankfully I caught a break, we had the call, and had a story that broke on the launch! We also got picked up in a couple of other publications here and our press release here.

It is all about the journey and not the destination

Regardless of the outcome, the company was buzzing all the way throughout. Those who know my past are familiar with “closing day” and this definitely felt like a true-to-spirit closing day. A lot of running around and continuously updating our “deals” with new users on the whiteboard.

While all of the above were great anecdotes from the day, the true story came from the team. They killed it. The only reason we had anything to celebrate was because of the hard work that everyone put into the weeks leading up to GA.

Over the past few months, QuotaPath’s been working to build a partnership with Venture For America, an organization that pairs young entrepreneurs with high-growth startups for a two-year fellowship. From the get-go, we were drawn to VFA’s mission to create economic opportunity in emerging tech ecosystems and we’re excited to sit down with our first ever VFA hire, Venu Kunche, to chat about his experience.

Tell us about yourself and your background.

I did my undergrad at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as a Computer Science major. Growing up, I watched my father run various small businesses that had a real impact in the communities that he served and quickly discovered the allure of entrepreneurship and solving problems through this lens.

In college, I started a couple of businesses in various industries such as education and nutrition. I saw a market opportunity in the nutrition industry for a bioavailable nutrition bar and decided to pursue it through my startup Kore. I won the UAB Blazer Innovation Challenge Pitch Competition and took Kore through the UAB Commercialization Accelerator. Although I was making good progress, I came to the realization that there was a lot I still had to learn about how to grow and scale a company. So after graduating, I decided to do VFA and I am thrilled that I now get the opportunity to work at QuotaPath.

How did you get involved with VFA?

As graduation loomed, I was running out of time to figure out where to take my career. My goal is to start a company one day but what path do I take to get there? When I found out about VFA, I immediately knew it was a perfect fit for me. Not only would VFA give me the opportunity to meet 200 other individuals as passionate about entrepreneurship as me, but it would also help me find a job at a startup where I could develop my skillset. Not only do I resonate with VFA’s mission, but I also have access to the resources and network to pursue my own startup ideas if I need it. It was a no brainer for me. Now the only thing I had to do was to make sure I found the perfect startup to work for… Enter QuotaPath! (Apply to Venture for America.https://ventureforamerica.org/apply/)

Why did you choose QuotaPath?

Going into the VFA Startup Match process was challenging as fellows have to wade through hundreds of startups to find the right fit. My strategy was to focus on four main factors: product, team, culture, and role. I wanted to work on a product that understood the user’s perspective to alleviate their pain points. When talking to QuotaPath, they emphasized the importance of providing genuine value to salespeople. I especially loved the fact that their base product was free. When looking at the team, I wanted to work for an experienced team that knew the industry well. QuotaPath checked that box for me since many team members have worked in the sales industry for years. Fitting in with the culture of the company was an extremely important factor for me. Luckily, I knew that wouldn’t be a problem with QuotaPath as soon as I learned how genuine and fun the team is. Finally, I knew that I wanted a multifaceted role that would work with many parts of the company. As Operations Analyst, I’ll be able to gain experience with many different parts of the company. Knowing that QuotaPath fit all of these criteria for me, it was an obvious choice to apply.

Prior to starting here, you attended a month-long training camp. What were some key takeaways from that?

The purpose of VFA Training Camp is to teach skills that might be useful to the startups we’ll be working at. Representatives from companies such as Y-Combinator, IDEO, Yelp, and BCG came to teach us valuable skills. We also learned about the stories of various founders from The Knot, Duo, Krypton, and many others. Through all of these lessons, the main thing that I learned is the importance of forming relationships. Every founder would stress the importance of building a relationship with the customer base and making sure to know them very well. In terms of relationships and connections formed at training camp, I was able to meet 200 highly passionate VFA fellows who had similar interests and goals as I do. Our lunch conversations consisted of thinking through random business ideas and determine the best way to approach finding product-market fit… pretty typical lunch conversations for an average fellow.

What are you most excited about?

QuotaPath is a company founded out of the challenges that our founders faced while leading the sales teams at their previous startup. They took this problem and created the solution with QuotaPath. I love that problems are seen as opportunities waiting to be worked on. This type of mindset is the thing that excites me most about QuotaPath. I also love how fast-paced and goal-oriented the workplace is. They genuinely put in a massive effort to try and provide as much value for their customers as they can. I know that there is so much I have to learn from this incredibly talented team of entrepreneurs and innovators.

It was the night before QuotaPath’s launch and the team was scrambling to make sure everything was in place for the biggest day in the company’s history. To lighten the mood, Cole started a game in Slack that spread to the rest of the team. What came from it? Let’s call it productive procrastination… and a cute poem that will live forever on.

@Cole Evetts
’Twas the night before GA, when all through the street,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Pete;

@Graham Collins
The assets queued by the growth team with care,
In hopes that many users soon would be there;

@Darby Dupre
The navigators were hustled, focused at their desks;
While visions of sleep and old fashions danced in their heads;
And AJ with his pep talks and I in my head,
Had just settled on messaging that gives QuotaPath street cred.

@AJ Bruno
When out in the hotdesk space arose such a clatter,
We sprang from our desks to see what was the matter.
Out the garage doors, we ran full of stress,
To hear the IT guy say we need a new IP Address.

@Ralph Pierre-Louis
The neon sign, shining brightly with its light,
Bringing joy to all visitors who catch its sight.
When, what do my listening ears should hear,
A conference audio ringing loudly, still forever unclear.

@Marguerite Hamilton
With a silence from others that was so absolute,
I knew in a moment that I must be on mute.
More rapid than eagles I clicked to my Slack,
And typed, “Give me one moment, I’ll call you right back!”

@Zoe Wolfe
Soon for the whole world to enjoy with its sales terms and jargon:
A polished product that for free must be seen as a bargain.
But wait, upon testing we just must change the copy!
Now we’ve stayed up too late and subsist off of coffee.

@Brandon Smith
With a Co-Founder/CEO, for lungs he has uno,
I knew in a moment it must be AJ Bruno.
More rapid than eagles, his navigators they came,
And he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

“Now MC! Now Eric!
Now, Cole and Pete!
On, Darby! On, Brandon!
On, Graham and Marguerite!
To the top of the Rocky Steps!
To the top of the ProductHunt chart! Now click away! Click away!
Let’s see what we start!”

From the beginning, we’ve built QuotaPath with the idea that our product empowers revenue teams to achieve their goals, crush more quotas, and become high performers. We believe in a world where sales reps are so aware of their earnings and attainment data that increased productivity, efficiency, and performance are inevitable outcomes.

So what is QuotaPath?

A few ways we like to define ourselves:

• An automated way for sales reps to calculate their commissions and track their quota attainment
• A free tool that helps across multiple industries and roles: SDRs, Account Executives, SVPs, CROs, Realtors, Auto Salespeople, Medical Device Sales, Recruiters, and more
• A product-led team that’s committed to building a platform that salespeople love to use

A couple of things that we are not:

• A finance tool that sales teams might log into once a month
• An accounting system that salespeople don’t understand
• Another useless software clogging up your day-to-day activity

Unlike traditional solutions that are built without the needs of salespeople in mind, we believe that the power of QuotaPath starts at the rep level and works its way up an organization. We surface such impactful data that reps are finally able to see their superpower, understanding metrics that have eluded them for years.

Introducing the launch of QuotaPath

For the past 10 months, we’ve been in ‘early access’, gating entry so that we could build meaningful relationships with early adopters and use their feedback to build, iterate, and improve. We wanted to make sure that the app worked as designed and that the value of QuotaPath was validated. The feedback has been phenomenal!

Today officially marks the day we’re opening up QuotaPath to anyone looking for a free way to track their commissions and see their quota attainment.

We’ve tested over 500 comp plans from organizations large and small and have calculated that QuotaPath can support 90% of the plans we’ve encountered – from simple flat-rate commissions to complex plans with multiple variable paths.

Here are a few ways we’re helping empower sales folks.

Simplified tracking and measurement

Sales reps and managers are becoming increasingly empowered to understand their sales performance and take action into their own hands. In most sales organizations, earnings data is scattered across multiple spreadsheets. This can make it difficult to track how much commission checks will be, see quota attainment over time, track team accomplishments, and more. These challenges are a core reason for QuotaPath. We offer a beautiful, easy way to visualize, understand, and automate those metrics.

Understanding the past, present, and future

It’s important to know where you came from so you can know where to go. Great sales reps and managers understand this and use data to track a whole stack of important metrics that help optimize performance. QuotaPath is a centralized place to house all of your earnings and attainment data. With all your historical sales data at hand, you can analyze and compare your growth and productivity throughout your entire sales career. Sales reps will no longer have a limited view of their commission data and they’ll be able to forecast their earnings in real-time.

Team alignment through actionable data

The notion that salespeople are competitive by nature is nothing new. Isn’t life more fun when you’re winning? QuotaPath not only serves as a powerful commission calculator, but we’re also gamifying sales teams with shareable leaderboards and team goals. We surface important metrics like team attainment, revenue performance, and ranking of team members. Sales managers can see attainment and commission earnings on a rep by rep level and share comp plans out with new employees to increase onboarding efficiency. QuotaPath provides teamwide visibility and awareness which aligns the entire organization toward the same goal: crushing quotas, making money, and winning.

Start using QuotaPath today

If you’re already using QuotaPath to track your commissions and earnings, then keep on! If you haven’t, sign up for free. You can read about new features and enhancements on our blog and we’ve got some exciting things in store like CRM integrations and a personalized productivity dashboard we call MyPath. Today’s launch is the first step of many. Much like a career in sales, there are a lot of milestones and accomplishments, but there’s no finish line. We look forward to sharing this journey with you!