Why your sales reps miss quota

Four causes, there is no fifth

1. Too few enquiries. The pipeline does not supply the volume. That is a marketing and budget question.
2. Low conversion. Enough enquiries, few payments. That is a sales team question.
3. Small average deal. Enough payments, not enough money. That is a product mix and upsell question.
4. Money stuck. Deals exist, payments never landed. That is a receivables question.

How to find yours in half an hour

1. Take average monthly enquiries over the last three months.
2. Take conversion from enquiry to payment over the same period.
3. Take average deal size by payments received, not by invoices issued.
4. Multiply the three. That is what your team delivers with nothing changed.
5. Compare it with quota, and with the cash that actually arrived.

How to read the result

• Product below quota. The quota is unreachable on current inputs. That is not the reps' fault, and pushing them will not move it.
• Product equals quota, actuals are lower. You are losing deals mid-month: response time, stalled threads, price never quoted.
• Product above quota, cash missing. Look at the gap between booked deals and money received. That is receivables.
• It adds up, but not every month. Look at seasonality and at how quota is split across weeks.

Why not to ask the reps

Asked directly why quota is missed, a sales team almost always answers «we are expensive» and «competitors». It is the only answer that blames nobody inside the room. Test it: pull twenty deals closed as lost-on-price and read the threads. If price never came up in half of them, price is not your problem.

What to do with the answer

• too few enquiries: work out cost per enquiry and budget, the sales team is not the issue
• low conversion: measure response speed, share of threads where price was quoted, and follow-ups on stalled deals
• small average deal: work on product mix and a list of accounts to upsell
• receivables: set a payment schedule and name one person who collects