While there’s no big secret to enabling your sales reps to hit their quota on a consistent basis, a quick Google search will return hundreds of theories on sales quota attainment. I have a strategy I’ve used to drive quota attainment for years that my sales reps have grown to love. The 4 P’s is a strategy I myself live and breathe by, and have successfully engrained in my sales teams. It is the secret to pushing revenue through your pipeline, rather than just hoping it closes. The level of success your reps attain is directly correlated to the level of detail in the questions they can answer in each of the 4P’s areas. The more detailed the reps’ questions; the higher chance of a sale, plain and simple.
The 4 P’s of Consistent Sales Quota Attainment
The 4 P’s stand for Purpose, People, Plan, and Payout. Each P has risk associated with it. You can know the risk (and how to potentially alleviate it) or your reps can stay in the dark. Calculating the risk requires understanding the buyer, and the only way to gain understanding is to ask questions. Each P of the 4P’s has a set of questions to learn more about the reality of the opportunity your reps are pursuing. The answers to these questions help to build confidence in a sales rep’s ability to hit quota through removing uncertainty. Uncertainty itself, can be attributed to two primary areas:
- Areas of Trust – Risk created by having to take the prospect's word for it.
- Areas of Control – Risk created by noncompliance to process and best practices.
Areas of Trust are easy enough to understand, they require us to trust what we are told, and the conclusions we’re coming to from that. I believe that rapport, discovery, and conveying a genuine dedication to solving a customer’s challenges give a rep the best chance at eliminating these types of risks. With Areas of Control, on the other hand, the sales rep is in complete control of eliminating the risk—it merely requires the rep to know and follow internal processes and best practices.
To help my teams incorporate The 4 P’s into their daily lives, I’ve created the below table, which I’m now sharing with you. Sales leaders are strongly encouraged to align the answers to these questions to fields in the CRM.
In short, becoming a great sales rep requires understanding and incorporating The 4 P’s into one’s sales DNA. If knowledge is power, having reps that can answer these questions about their deals, will make you feel in complete control of your pipeline. Not doing so increases risk and uncertainty and limits a rep’s ability to master sales quota attainment.
