Why is quota attainment so low for such a good product in MM AE roles?

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Accepted Answer

SFDC is only as good as its implementation. Implementations are expensive to do well, and companies are highly mindful of their spend.

Also…it’s a license based product. Read the room here. All the layoffs in the last two years crushed demand for licenses based products. Hitting quota is harder.

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Territories are very small and you're basically calling the same accounts that have been called on for the last 7+ years.  Quota Attainment at SF is largely a reflection of Territory, Timing, and Talent....Talent being last.

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In my opinion. the attainment is designed to be low.  You will notice that the team will consistently talk about hitting the overall goal even though most of the reps did not.  For the team to hit it's number they only need the team to average about 70% attainment overall.  They bake in what is called a buffer into the quotas for the reps.  To do this they set the rep quotas about 30% higher than where they really need them to be.  This ensures that even when the reps miss quota, the managers and company still hits theirs.

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They overhired in the last 5 years. I personally know of a team that only 2/7 people hit their quota in 2021. So in 2022 they raised their targets and cut the territories in half and somehow they were expected to perform? I would ask the hiring manager what % of the team is hitting quota.

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They hire too many AEs and the territory is over saturated.

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Inbound/Outbound lead flow for a complex product.

The nature of the product is such that without inbound demand in a territory, it's hard to generate revenue through outbound outreach. If you're a good rep and you get a solid lead at Salesforce, you should be able to close it. The product is the best in the market. DMs understand they have job security by buying Salesforce.

However, if no one in your territory is looking for a transformative change to their business. A high 5 figures or low 6 figure price tag then you are very unlikely to convince them via outbound to do so. If you do find an interested customer, the lack of a compelling event and difficulty building a mutual plan leads Salesforce forecasting to allocate only limited resources to passively looking customers.  MM reps struggle with outbound at scale.

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Variety of reasons -

1. Far too many AEs means that patches are small.

2. Salesforces core offering isn't new. All MM companies and up have CRM tools in place already.

3. Newer offerings like Mule, Tableau are either slow to get strong market penetration or don't retire much quota.

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Too many reps assigned to too small, saturated, territories.

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Saturation and overall cost factor

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Cos territories are super thinly sliced.

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Depends on the market. I’m my country, MM companies are reluctant to enter big transformative projects. Also percentage of AEs hitting quota could hint at unrealistic quotas.

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Timing and territory are critical to success across SFDC.  The biggest challenges facing the company are the over hiring across all BU's and the non-stop marketing to prospects from corporate layered on the the prospecting efforts by reps.  Add the significant costs of implementation to license acquisition and the ROI timeline is dramatically impacted.

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As someone who worked there. The quotas are high, customers are shrinking, territories and patches are small, also not a lot of marketing to get leads in the pipeline.  Most of the people I saw hit quota were those who had accounts that had no business being in the segment, such as an Enterprise account being in Mid Market or SMB. Also those who had accounts that were using some partner software, so they got 25% billing’s hit their number automatically. The highest 2 performers on my team had Enterprise accounts in SMB, accounts that did 5 billion in revenue as businesses, so they would get opportunities to sell 1000s of licences.

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Anonymous Q&A

Why is quota attainment so low for such a good product in MM AE roles?