Qvidian has some new research out finding that only 63% of salespeople are making their quotas. As a result, improving overall quota attainment is one of the top goals of executive managers.

The report, based on data from CSO Insights, is visualized with some graphs created by eMarketer (even Qvidian itself links to eMarketer for the report). As you can see from this one, the goal falls under only increasing win rates.

According to the report, the most likely reason quotas aren’t being reached is that opportunities end up as “no decisions”. Other reasons include salespeople being burdened with tasks with less time to spend selling, being unable to effectively communicate value, selling content and resources that aren’t aligned to the buyer, inability to find the necessary content or resources for selling, and selling content not tailored to the specific selling situation.

Areas cited by respondents as needing improvement include (from most to least): conducting thorough needs analysis, identifying and gaining access to all decision-makers, clearly understanding customer’s buying process, generating winning proposals and personalized selling, differentiating from competition, providing content specific to selling situation and buyer, and effectively presenting value.

SurePayroll president Michael Alter wrote an article for Inc.com a few years ago discussing ways to overcome unmet sales quotas. He suggested considering each sales rep’s experience and performance when developing individual quotas, getting more by asking for less, comparing results to past performance, and compensating successful reps adequately.

Joseph DiMisa, who has written multiple books on salesforce effectiveness, shares some insight into designing effective sales quotas in a more recent article.

Image via eMarketer