A sales coach explains why new reps need to know their numbers: call quotas, booking rates, and how they connect. If you book at higher rates, you might negotiate fewer calls. But first, clarify if your quota is fixed or flexible, and whether your manager will actually lower it.
I think the bigger lesson in all of this is, what are your sales math numbers? What do they look like? What do those numbers look like? Everyone's numbers really should be different. So if you're brand new to the job and the boss says 80, there's probably a reason for that. After I book and hold a bunch of business, I might only need 20, 30, or 40. So you may want to ask for some clarification as to, is this a number for everybody? Is it for me? If I book more meetings, is it less outbound calls? Or you might just be working for somebody that's very rigid. In that particular case, embrace the rigidity— is that a word? Embrace the rigid nature, make the 80 calls, and do it successfully for 2 or 3 weeks. Prove to the supervisor that perhaps you don't need to make as many because you're booking more than what they expected. But more than likely, they're going to say— they're going to say, if you're booking 2 in 10, do all 80 because let's get 8, 10, 15 calls on the books. So don't just throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Ask yourself this question: could there be some magic in those 80 outbound calls? Now I do know though the general kind of reluctance, like I want to make quality calls.
