Sales Quotas That Drive Growth: How B2B Marketing And Sales Teams Can Align To Hit Bigger Targets

Why Sales Quotas Without Proper Alignment Don't Work

Research numbers are in, and they are very discouraging. In fact, 16% is the average alignment between B2B marketing and sales. But it's not either of the two departments' fault. Structure and alignment come from much higher, meaning CEOs and leaders in general, including CMOs and CROs. Unless you achieve marketing and sales alignment, you can't and won't meet sales quotas. And for that, you need all marketing and sales team members to work united toward the same targets and key accounts.

The issue is that both teams have their own opinions and ideas on quotas that are often based on hunches. To generate high-quality business leads, you must set ambitious but realistic quotas based on historical data. Don't get too ambitious either. It's understandable that you want to increase your revenue by as much as possible, but don't burden your teams with extremely heavy expectations. The disappointment of not achieving these goals can be overwhelming.

Let's see how you can start hitting sales targets by aligning your marketing and sales teams toward strategic sales quotas.

In This Guide, You Will Find...

• 5 Types Of Sales Quotas That Drive Growth
• 3 Ways To Set Quotas
• Steps To Align B2B Marketing And Sales Around Quotas
• Communication Frameworks That Keep Teams Aligned
• Common Alignment Mistakes That Kill Quota Attainment
• What High-Performing Teams Do Differently
• How eLearning Industry Supports Alignment And Lead Generation

5 Types Of Sales Quotas That Drive Growth

1. Profit Quota

Profit quotas focus on calculating revenue after subtracting all relevant expenses. These expenses can be marketing costs, like advertising and other nurturing efforts, discounts, and delivery, if applicable. For example, a company may have set a monthly profit quota of $50,000 for each sales rep. You struck deals totaling $80,000. However, when you subtract all the marketing expenses, you are left with around $60,000 in revenue, meaning you exceeded the profit quota.

2. Activity Quota

This type of sales quota focuses more on creating a sales pipeline management plan than on closing deals. They track all the successful actions sales reps complete to nurture leads, including phone calls, email exchanges, meetings, and demos. This tactic is usually chosen when a B2B company wants to build a prospect list because they are either new to a market or launching a brand-new product. For example, a rep may need to hit a specific number of booked meetings or demos per month to meet the quota.

3. Volume Quota

Often, companies are so preoccupied with hitting sales targets that they only care about the volume of sold units. In the B2B world, volume quotas may be new user sign-ups or newsletter registrants. However, with volume quotas, sales reps and marketing pros often disregard quality in their effort to meet their target. For example, a marketing team member trying to generate 1000 new email subscribers with email marketing and social media lead magnets might target unqualified leads. As a result, the high number won't translate into sales.

4. Forecast Quota

Sales forecasting is possible when companies have delivered stable results over the past few months and years, and sales teams can gather reliable historical data. This data, alongside stable market conditions, can help your lead gen campaigns meet or even exceed expectations. However, when the market is unstable and changes occur frequently, this type of sales quota can crumble. In this case, be ready to make swift changes and adapt.

5. Combination Quota

These sales quotas, like their name indicates, combine different types. For example, a company may ask its sales reps to increase their activities while boosting their sales. If, for instance, they see that customers are unhappy with the level of communication, the company may require sales reps to make 10 calls per week and close $20,000 in deals. While this model appears fairer, it needs perfect organizing, as it can sometimes pull pros in opposite directions.

3 Ways To Set Quotas

1. Top-Down

Sales leaders, CEOs, and investors set financial goals for a company based on their revenue expectations. Then, SaaS sales teams set personal quotas for each rep. However, there is one major issue with this model. Investors, CEOs, and other company executives are often disconnected from the reality sales reps are facing. They are focused only on the money they want the company to make, without asking whether a financial goal is attainable. Setting unrealistic goals makes it hard for reps to generate targeted leads and convert them.

2. Bottom-Up

This is the exact opposite way to set sales quotas. Instead of having executives set goals, sales managers and reps decide on realistic and attainable targets and pass them to their executives. The latter review the quotas and propose adjustments. After this back-and-forth is over, everyone has agreed on goals that are both realistic and can deliver growth. The drawback of this model is that quotas are often very conservative and fail to drive significant growth.

3. Hybrid

Quarterly quota targets can be set using a hybrid model if you want to combine all team members' opinions and viewpoints. For example, corporate leadership may set revenue goals, and sales teams adjust based on historical data, including last quarter's sales and market changes. Experienced reps may have more expectations to acquire high-intent leads, while newer members may be burdened with fewer revenue goals. This way, sales quota planning is fair, realistic, and ambitious.

Steps To Align B2B Marketing And Sales Around Quotas

• Start With A Shared Revenue Model

Aligning marketing and sales around sales quotas is essential for high-performing B2B teams. The process begins by creating a shared revenue model that connects both departments to the same measurable outcomes. Establishing joint KPIs, such as pipeline value, SQL quality, CAC, and ROI, ensures consistent measurement of success. Equally important is aligning definitions of MQLs, SQLs, and opportunities so everyone evaluates leads using the same criteria.

This shared understanding empowers marketing and sales teams to focus on results rather than internal friction. By integrating marketing insights with sales execution, organizations can identify and implement the best business lead generation ideas that drive revenue. When both teams operate from the same framework, sales quotas become achievable, collaboration improves, and marketing and sales act as a unified revenue engine.

• Break Down The Responsibilities

This seems like a "Duh!" moment, but it's actually a grey zone many teams don't clearly discuss. To achieve B2B buyer journey alignment, marketing and sales must know exactly which actions they are responsible for. For example, marketing is usually burdened with setting B2B lead generation strategies, lead qualification, lead nurturing, data and analytics, and automation. On the other hand, sales take on prospect follow-ups, reporting, and giving feedback to marketing.

Together, they engage leads and try to book as many meetings as possible. Also, marketing can help sales with segmenting leads and setting effective lead nurturing strategies, while sales should give info on how to separate low- and high-intent leads. At the end of the day, communication is key for pipeline acceleration and meeting revenue goals.

• Unify Goals And Engagement Strategies

B2B marketing and sales alignment requires shared goals. Shared KPIs make it easier for everyone to work toward the same target. For example, when it comes to revenue targets, both teams may track new revenue, revenue by segments, and the percentage of revenue from different segments. Or if the goal is to reduce customer acquisition cost (CAC), marketing may track the cost per SQL, and sales can track the cost per closed deal. While not every KPI is equally shared, it's important for marketing and sales to know each other's metrics.

Additionally, to reduce customer churn, you must create a unified engagement strategy. If your marketing team promotes informational content, like case studies and white papers, while your sales team makes cold calls and pushes last-minute deals, prospects don't understand what you want to achieve. So, identify your ideal customer profile, underline the buyer's journey, and unify your strategies. Whether it's account-based marketing, social media promotions, or omnichannel content marketing, keep your messaging consistent and personalize it based on your buyer personas.

• Enable Sales With The Right Content

To help your team hit sales quotas, it's essential to boost sales enablement with the right content. Marketing should focus on creating assets that actually help close deals, including case studies and in-depth research. Tailored sales enablement content converts faster than standard marketing collateral, making it a smart investment. When salespeople have these tools at their fingertips, they can move leads faster and feel more confident in every conversation.

Pairing this approach with demand generation campaigns and best practices ensures that marketing and sales are aligned, generating high-quality leads that have a real shot at closing. You can also invest in content like eBooks, webinars, and templates and checklists to add more value during the lead generation process.

• Create Clear And Regular Communication

Marketing and sales teams aren't opponents. They should create a close allyship, rooted in efficient communication and trust. To achieve this, leadership must foster an environment where feedback loops, frequent meetings, and shared apps and tools are used by both teams. This mindset starts from the top, resulting in alignment between sales and marketing. So, let's say you set up weekly or monthly meetings. Discuss your agendas, reviewing goals and metrics, discussing potential content assets, and offering feedback.

Having the entire sales and marketing teams meet weekly can be hard, so a monthly catch-up may be more realistic. However, marketing and sales leaders should be in close communication on a weekly basis.

• Monitor And Measure Together

If you want to hit sales quotas consistently, monitoring, measuring, and optimizing together is key. The best way to do this is with a unified dashboard that shows everything at a glance, including pipeline sourced by channel, conversion rates by lead source, marketing-to-sales handoff time, and other essential SaaS metrics. When marketing and sales teams can see the same data in real time, it makes reviewing outcomes way easier and keeps everyone accountable.

Setting up shared KPIs between marketing and sales ensures that both sides are working toward the same goals instead of tracking separate metrics that don't tell the full story. Make it a habit to review the dashboard monthly rather than quarterly, so you can spot trends, tweak strategies, and fix bottlenecks before they hurt performance.

Communication Frameworks That Keep Teams Aligned

• Frequent Meetings

Frequent revenue sync meetings are a simple but powerful way to keep marketing, sales, and revenue operations (RevOps) on the same page. These short (or long), focused sessions give everyone a chance to review progress, flag challenges, and celebrate wins. By checking in consistently, teams can make small course corrections before problems snowball, ensuring that everyone moves together toward revenue goals.

• Quarterly "Closed-Won Analysis" Reviews

Quarterly closed-won analysis reviews go a step deeper, allowing teams to reflect on what's actually driving success. By dissecting closed deals, identifying patterns, and learning from lost opportunities, marketing and sales can adjust strategies based on real data rather than guesswork. These reviews also highlight areas where selling skills can be strengthened, helping reps improve performance and close deals more efficiently. By focusing on these insights, teams can make smarter adjustments to ensure sales quotas are met consistently.

• Shared Slack Channels

Shared Slack channels or CRM visibility eliminate bottlenecks by making information accessible to everyone who needs it. When teams can see the status of leads, upcoming campaigns, or deal blockers in real time, there's less back-and-forth chasing updates, and collaboration becomes seamless. These open channels help marketing and sales stay coordinated, accelerate quota attainment, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Common Alignment Mistakes That Kill Quota Attainment

• Fighting Over KPIs

One of the biggest alignment mistakes is the two teams fighting over KPIs instead of focusing on shared goals. When marketing and sales argue about which metrics matter most, it creates friction and slows down progress. The fix is to agree on a core set of metrics, like MQL to SQL conversion, that reflect overall business success and tie directly to revenue.

Holding regular alignment sessions to review these KPIs ensures everyone stays on the same page. Clear communication about what each metric means for each team can turn potential conflict into collaboration and drive more predictable outcomes.

• No Lead Definition

A lack of clear lead definitions can wreak havoc on performance. If marketing and sales aren't aligned on what counts as a qualified lead, prospects get lost, follow-ups slip, and opportunities are wasted, making it harder to hit sales quotas. The solution is to create a detailed lead scoring system that both teams understand and use consistently. Using lead generation templates can help standardize how leads are evaluated and passed between marketing and sales.

Documenting criteria such as engagement level, firmographics, and buying intent ensures everyone follows the same process, and regularly revisiting these definitions keeps them relevant as markets and buyer behaviors evolve. This approach streamlines lead handoffs, reduces confusion, and gives teams a clear path to achieving their quotas.

• Not Asking For Feedback

Marketing can't know if leads are truly sales-ready, and sales won't know which campaigns are performing best unless there's ongoing communication. Setting up structured feedback loops, like weekly, biweekly, or monthly check-ins, allows teams to share observations, refine strategies, and quickly adjust tactics.

Every CEO playbook should include this step to ensure that feedback becomes a repeatable part of marketing and sales collaboration. Encouraging open dialogue and making it part of the process helps build trust, ensures both sides feel heard, and prevents small issues from turning into big problems. Over time, this approach strengthens teamwork and makes strategies far more effective.

• Complex Technology

Overly complex tools and systems often create more headaches than they solve. When teams struggle to navigate CRM platforms, dashboards, or marketing automation tools, workflows slow down, and mistakes creep in, especially during sales prospecting. The fix is to simplify technology wherever possible: streamline workflows, remove redundant tools, and provide training for all users.

Choosing systems with intuitive interfaces and integrating them thoughtfully can reduce friction, improve adoption, and make collaboration between teams seamless. Regularly reviewing tool usage can also reveal gaps or redundancies that, once resolved, save time and help teams stay on track with quarterly quota targets.

What High-Performing Teams Do Differently

High-performing companies don't just chase sales quotas. They build systems that align marketing, sales, and operations around shared outcomes. These organizations create growth-focused campaigns that connect every touchpoint to measurable revenue impact. The difference between average and exceptional teams often comes down to how closely they align their goals, metrics, and communication loops.

Key Benchmarks

• 70%+ shared KPI adoption: Top-performing organizations operate from unified dashboards where marketing and sales track the same success metrics, including pipeline health, conversion rates, and customer acquisition cost, ensuring full visibility into performance.
• 20% annual growth rate when marketing and sales co-own revenue: When teams share responsibility for revenue targets, collaboration improves, lead quality rises, and quota attainment becomes more consistent.
• Faster pipeline velocity in aligned organizations: Aligned companies move deals through the funnel more efficiently by removing handoff friction and using shared data to prioritize the right opportunities.

How eLearning Industry Supports Alignment And Lead Generation

eLearning Industry helps you connect marketing, sales, and leadership around a shared vision for growth. How? Through data-driven insights and our publishing platform, we help organizations understand which strategies attract qualified prospects and convert them into long-term clients. Through our research and insights product, you can understand your audience better by releasing surveys and creating reports.

Strategic marketing for CEOs is essential if you want to grow your audience and generate new leads. On our platform, you can publish in-depth articles, promote holistic eBooks, expand your webinars' reach, invest in press releases, and boost your reach through email marketing. Not only that, but you can also run banner ads and native ads to put your message in front of the right audience.

Key Takeaway

In today's competitive B2B landscape, sales quotas alone can't drive sustainable growth. True success comes from alignment, communication, and smart execution. When marketing and sales teams work together toward unified goals, marketing-driven revenue becomes more predictable, measurable, and scalable. By integrating shared KPIs, clear processes, and data-informed decision-making, organizations can eliminate silos and create a culture of collaboration.

Leaders should also embrace innovation, using AI marketing ideas to identify high-intent leads, personalize outreach, and optimize campaigns in real time. These strategies not only enhance performance but also ensure that every activity contributes directly to revenue outcomes. Ultimately, hitting and exceeding sales quotas requires more than ambition. It demands structure, shared accountability, and continuous improvement.

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