Actually, Quota is a Myth

Experts Tell - Storytellers Sell.

There are a few pieces of content more valuable than Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s (creators of South Park) take on storytelling.

It’s worth the 2 minute watch.

If you don’t have the 2 minutes here’s what you should take away:

Stop selling “feature… and then feature… and then data point… and then feature…”

Yawn.

Start selling “pain point… but feature… therefore solution.”

The art of sales is the art of telling a story. Invest time into improving your storytelling and start selling more effectively.

The Open: Experts tell but storytellers sell - become a better storyteller.

The Value Prop: Quota isn’t real

Adding Value: Sales roles you should consider applying to.

The Close: Like my content? Hire me about it.

The Upsell: for subscribers only!

Leading from the Front.

When I led a team of 5 salespeople at Twitter I never, not one single time, took the time out of my day to check their activity numbers or online status.

In our Monday standing pod meeting I never called anyone out for being behind and I never had to give my team the “we’re behind - we need to pick it up” pep talk

There were only two items ever on the agenda for those meetings:

1. Who is leading the team?

2. What are they doing right?

That meant whoever was leading in sales, led that Monday meeting.

It’s a fairly simple idea but the impact was palpable.

Out of 25+ sellers we consistently had 3 of us in the top 5. Even more importantly, all 6 of us were consistently in the top 10.

If there’s one thing I can attribute that to more than anything else it’s the idea that…

Quota isn’t real.

It’s amazing that, in the sales community, we constantly say:

“Rising tide lifts all boats”

but then, we don’t actually build sales orgs around that idea.

Instead, we wake up every day worried about our job if we don’t get to [insert arbitrary number concocted by a CFO to show investors]

As such, we go about our work from a losing perspective. Effectively needing to patch the holes drilled into the hulls of our metaphorical boats before we can even consider the tide.

We end up chasing the carrot instead of recognizing potential.

I’ve done my best work in my career when completely disregarding quota and asking myself “how far can I really push this thing?”

Ultimately, we are a product of the boxes we put ourselves in.

Remove yourself from that box and your potential is limitless.

Sales Roles Currently Hiring You Should Run, Not Walk, To Apply To:

Quora - SDR (Contract) - Get your foot in the door in social media advertising and work with some people I spent a great deal of time in the trenches with at Twitter.

Sprout Social - Account Executive (Remote) - Great company, insane benefits, and high base salary.

Salesloft - Commercial Account Executive - I think Salesloft has an incredible amount of upside and every AE I’ve ever talked to from their team has left me with a good feeling about the product they’re building.

Enjoying this content?

Hire me about it.

I’m on the job market and I’m looking for a place to land where I can put my head down and rip it.

Hiring salespeople? Let’s chat.