The Importance of "Sales Rep Math"
Sanity checking your quota design
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I Once Set a Rep’s Quota That Required Closing 3 Deals Per Day
Guess how it went?
But on paper, it made perfect sense.
(Kenny, if you’re out there, I’m sorry).
From Zero to $1.5M — and a Wall of Reality
We were launching a new product line and had a big, beautiful target: take it from $0 to $1.5M ARR in one year. The market was there — we were selling software to car dealerships, and the TAM was juicy.
The quota math looked perfect on paper.
But I forgot to do the most important kind of math: rep math.
One rep.
No BDR support.
Quota so aggressive it needed three new deals per day to stay on track.
Even if this person was selling the hottest thing since sliced bread, it was a herculean task. Pipeline-building and closing at that pace? Not happening.
As my good friend Brian Duffy, VP of Sales Ops at Snyk, would say:
“That dog don’t hunt.”
Enter: Rep Math
Unlike the shiny, CFO-ready forecasting models you build in Excel, Rep Math lives on the back of a napkin. And it might be the single biggest sanity check you can run before you set a sales target.
It’s simple multiplication.
Marc Benioff used to do this out loud at Salesforce in the early days. And, according to Brett Queener, his first head of sales ops, he was frustratingly always right.
Here’s a dead-simple framework from Samarth Mital (Senior Director of Global Sales Strategy at Rubrik) that will help you reverse-engineer quotas from actual rep capacity — ensuring targets are ambitious but not delusional.
Step 1: Work Backwards from Quota to Pipeline
Quota isn’t just a number — it’s an operational constraint.
Let’s start with the basics:
Quota: $800K per year
Average Deal Size: $40K
Win Rate: 33%
To close $800K in revenue, you’ll need:
20 deals per year ($800K ÷ $40K)
Which requires 60 qualified opps (20 ÷ 33%)
Which in turn means you need 3× pipeline coverage → $2.4M pipeline
Now pause.
Do reps actually have enough territory or lead flow to build $2.4M in pipe?
Has the company ever historically generated this level of opportunity per rep?
Can a human being actually run the number of meetings needed to get there?
That last one is where most spreadsheets go to die.
Step 2: Time is the Real Bottleneck
Reps don’t have unlimited hours. Between internal meetings, CRM upkeep, and replying to emails, most reps are lucky if they can dedicate 4–5 hours/day to real selling.
If we assume a rep needs:
60 opps/year, and
3 first meetings per opp, that’s 180 first meetings/year
That’s about 4 first meetings/week, every single week.
Now ask yourself:
Can the rep book 4 first meetings per week?
Does SDR or marketing help with that?
Have top performers sustained this volume before?
If the answer is no — the model is broken. Period.
Step 3: Meetings ≠ Money
Let’s not forget: the first meeting is just the start.
In enterprise sales especially, you’re not closing on the first call. You’re probably going to need to dance through a few more rooms:
The buyer
The buyer’s boss
Procurement
Legal
Maybe even Security
Let’s run the full motion:
60 opps × 3 first meetings = 180
60 opps × ~3 follow-ups = 180 more
Total meetings/year = 360
That’s 7–8 meetings/week, every single week — just to hit quota. And this is with an aggressive assumption that the rep will be in seat, making calls, nearly 250 business days per year (not much time for golf if you’re working 50 out of 52 weeks, right?)
This doesn’t even include:
Internal syncs
Pipeline reviews
Admin work
Catching up with “can you send that one-pager again?”
Final Takeaway: Rep Math is a Non-Negotiable
Quota setting isn’t just a financial exercise—it’s an operational reality.
The best CFOs and sales leaders know that:
A rep can only call so many people in a day.
They can only run so many meetings in a week.
They can only work so many deals at once.
If the math doesn’t fit within the constraints of a rep’s time, it won’t happen. Period.
Father time and physics are both undefeated.
Don’t fool yourself with spreadsheet math if it doesn’t clear rep level math.
What’s the worst quota you’ve ever been handed?
Reply and let me know—I’ll feature the best (worst) ones in an upcoming newsletter.
Run the Numbers
Listen on: Apple | Spotify | YouTube
I spoke to Ambereen Toubassy, the CFO of Airtable, on the podcast. We discussed:
Navigating investor feedback and how to take criticism without getting defensive.
How to build the right advisory network
The importance of scaffolding your weaknesses with external expertise.
The value of specificity in the role of a finance leader.
Insights from her extensive career, including her time at Quibi
Quote I’ve Been Pondering
“I have a theory: if you put in 80%, you get 80% back. But if you put in 100%, you get 1,000% back. The last 20% is where the magic happens. Because almost nobody is mad enough to go all in.”
-Unknown
Rep math is genius. Too many executives think adding more reps = more money.
Couldn't be further from truth.
Working on this now.
Shareholder value bless you @cj gustafson