VP of Sales Carles Reina sets a sales quota of 20 times a rep's base salary (e.g., $2M quota for $100k base), far above the 6-10x industry standard. Reps who don't hit their quota are let go, creating a high-performance culture where over 80% succeed.
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Counterintuitively, Peets argues that very low sales team attrition (e.g., 2%) is a red flag indicating a lack of accountability. For a scaling company, he models 25% annual attrition, comprising performance-based terminations (~10%), promotions, and voluntary departures, as a sign of a healthy, high-performance environment.
Peets uses a simple rule to assess sales team health: the new ACV per rep must be at least three times their On-Target Earnings (OTE). If a team isn't meeting this benchmark in an established business, the unit economics are broken, and the company likely has too many salespeople.
At ElevenLabs, top-performing account executives refuse salary increases, preferring equity instead. A higher base salary would increase their 20x quota, making it harder to reach the lucrative 1.5x and 2x commission accelerators for overperformance. This is a powerful, non-obvious incentive alignment.
Bali structures its AE compensation with a 4:1 ratio of new ARR to on-target earnings. AEs with a quota of about $1M in new ARR can earn $250k ($75-100k base + $150k commission). This model ensures the sales function is a profitable growth engine for the bootstrapped company.
To maintain momentum and ensure rapid onboarding, ElevenLabs sets the expectation for new sales hires to sign their first contract—regardless of size—within their first two weeks. This forces them to learn the product quickly, get on calls immediately, and demonstrate a bias for action from day one.
Contradicting the "praise in public, criticize in private" mantra, ElevenLabs' VP of Sales publicly calls out underperforming reps during group pipeline reviews. He believes this direct feedback creates pressure, drives improvement, and allows the entire team to learn from individual mistakes.
Sales reps often feel overwhelmed by their large annual number. The key is to break it down, subtract predictable existing business, and focus solely on the smaller, incremental revenue needed. This makes the goal feel achievable and maintains motivation.
The cost of setting quotas too high is catastrophic: you demoralize and lose your A-player sales team. The cost of setting them too low is manageable: you overspend on commissions but exceed targets and retain a motivated team. The latter can be adjusted; the former is an unrecoverable error.
Don't fire reps based only on a missed ramp quota. Instead, observe if they make consistent, incremental improvements in skill and knowledge during calls and role-plays. If progress is visible, they're worth keeping, even if it takes over a year to close their first deal.
Carles Reina instructs his team to forecast deals at the lowest possible value (e.g., forecast a potential $500k deal at $24k). This forces reps to build a much larger pipeline to meet their quotas and prevents inflated expectations with investors, creating a culture of under-promising and over-delivering.