To hit quota, first focus on what can control.
As an account executive, you are the vanguard for your company. Your job is to conquer new lands and plant your company flag (close new accounts). You are responsible for delivering one thing → revenue $$$.
You have plenty of tools at your disposal, from the air support of Marketing to the leadership from your VP of Sales. However, the one thing you do not have is the ability to “scale” your time. Therefore in order to hit your quota, you need to be vigilant around the time you have. Build habits and iterate on a process of streamlining your time so you can be as effective as possible.
Management may grade you on various metrics, e.g. average dollar value per call, but understand that they need these metrics for forward projections. They have bosses too. Instead of fretting over all the vanity metrics, realize that they are a function of a couple variables. And lucky for you, these variables you can control:
Number of Meetings * Close Rate = Revenue Generated
You should be building a process to maximize these two variables:
- Number of Meetings: Whether or not your marketing team assigns you leads or if you have a sales development rep teeing it up for you, it is still fully within your ability to prospect yourself. Experiment with new customer hypotheses, block out time to outbound, or reach out to mutual friends on LinkedIn. You are the captain of your own calendar.
- Close Rate: There are deals that you close using luck and those you close using skill. The majority will be skill-based closes. Beyond relying on your VP of Sales or other peers for coaching, there are great sales development blogs and books as well. There are other account execs on the same journey, you are not alone.
- Quality of Meetings: Lastly, although not readily apparent, you can say “no” to a meeting. It’ll be fine. Your VP of sales won’t yell at you and your sales development rep won’t be offended. If you don’t think a meeting is qualified, push back. What good are a lot of meetings if they’re not any good?
Be protective of your time. You should only be focusing on what you can control. Cut out what you cannot.
Now go make that hotline bling. Make it ring money I mean, you sales machine.
