Salespeople, What Is Your Number / Quota?

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Brian Rhodes
Feb 01, 2013
IPVMU Certified

How much business do you need to pull in? $100,000 a month? $1 Million, $2 Million, more per year?

Feel free to use the stealth commenting feature and give a rough sense of segment or vertical (i.e., integrator, manufacturer, etc.)

JH
John Honovich
Feb 01, 2013
IPVM

Good question. Let's say the average salesperson makes $100,000 (obviously it varies widely but it's a round number to start with). For an integrator, it would seemingly have to be $1 Million + given the inherent low margins in the business.

In any event, feel free to share even if it's general rules of thumbs you know from your peers.

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Brian Rhodes
Feb 02, 2013
IPVMU Certified

I was surprised to see a job posting for a large national integrator that expected bookings between $1.5M - $2.0M USD per year for a sales person with 3 years of experience.

In many regions, this is a pretty aggressive target for a junior sales person!

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Brian Rhodes
Feb 02, 2013
IPVMU Certified

Here's that listing, from Convergint Careers

MR
Mike Ridgley
Feb 05, 2013

Been there done that. It can be done. Product diversity goes a long way – the ability to meet just about any specification out there (Fire, Access, CCTV, Intercom, Sound, Etc)…

I would be more interested in the margins in the different regions. Anyone interested or willing to share current margin averages?

JH
John Honovich
Feb 02, 2013
IPVM

I wonder what their mix between products and labor is and what their margins are. Seems likely a fairly high number but if they have have low product margins, they might need this to justify the position. Anyone with any ideas or thoughts on this?

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david tonsberg
Feb 04, 2013
Security Reps

Human effort is the variable in this equation of profit margin vs sales volume. The problem is as much a company's as it is a new employee's expectation to achieve this level of sales volume at a reasonable profit margin.

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Christopher Freeman
Feb 04, 2013

I got hired as a salesmen for a large company after I sold my 1st company. I needed something to do . so i got a job. I reallized they had what you would call fuzzy math . the equations did not line up .

Thier formula what 25% of the profit .But unless you really were in control of the company assets and project s you could not control the loss's. It really was a minimum wage job with bonus's. It used my resources to finance company expenses's buying them 30-90 days of time. Watch out for the flim flam sales people of life , promising the world when reality is a lot different .

When I Control the personnel , I control the loss's and the expense's. 30,30,30 , 10 rule ( 10% to the sales process )

I have watched many companys with 30+ % lossy rates as they have no control over thier operations and constant overages due to lack of strict control & standards .

Good People , Good Talent , High Expectations , Progressive Standards , Strict enforcement , Great Benefits & Rewards for success. I have sense set my own standards of No Compromise (NMWTC) And Good Records of ( The Black List ) No Compromise , No Exception s Taken , High Standards for Great Success. Passion , Performance , Pride

JH
John Honovich
Feb 05, 2013
IPVM

Michael, I believe $1.5 - 2m can be done. I just think that's a big number for an average or new rep, especially as you imply/ask, the margins are half decent.

You could bid a 12% margin on 20 different multi-million dollar RFPs and hope to win one but I am presuming the deals are more lucrative than this.

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Ethan Ace
Feb 05, 2013

I know both manufacturer and integrator sales reps with $1-2M goals. Generally, on the integrator side, they work the bid market, though, where dollar amounts are usually much higher, and margins lower. For "direct", non-bid sales reps, the guys I know a multiple integrators are under a million. If I had to guess, I'd say $300-600k.

JH
John Honovich
Feb 05, 2013
IPVM

$500k sounds reasonable for direct, negotiated work. What I wonder is how much project management responsibility they take on? If they purely do sales and need separate PMs, engineers, etc., that's a big percentage of money going to the salesperson. On the other hand, maybe a $500k quota rep is getting paid in the $50k to $70k offsetting the lower sales number.

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Ethan Ace
Feb 05, 2013

That lower number sounds about right to me. I generally think negotiated sales reps get a higher base and lower commission than reps taking on larger bid/RFP numbers, but that could just be me.

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Christopher Freeman
Feb 05, 2013

These numbers are achievable only if you have flexibility and support from the company. Everything in place and good structure .

Stay away from little projects which take a lot of energy & time. Invest Time in well Qualified leads & clients , Do the time and work the process .

Companies offer great exciting offers to entice new talent , Lots of applicants to sift thru, Big Egos & Large enticing # s to attract as many replies as possible .

I found to make the qualified leads a success you have to become a part of their life and culture and pretty much live daily around their schedule s .

There is a price to pay , nothing is free , ( Family , Relationships , Friendships ) everyone pays for the time.

U
Undisclosed #1
May 12, 2015

I have worked as an integrator for over 18 years and have held numerous sales positions within several organizations. I was in a larger market and based on my relationships and sales opportunities, I typically would close over $5Million per year and earn well over $200K annually. I was compensated a percentage which would fluctuate based on the profit margins estimated and adjusted for what the actual project would close at. Sometimes this meant extra money, but more typically, it meant a reduction in my commissions. I have worked on the manufacturing side and the consulting side as well as business development and I can honestly say that the money is best when you work for a quality integrator and you exceed your numbers. By the way, my base was typically between 75K and 100K, with the remaining earnings based on commissions and bonuses.

JH
John Honovich
May 12, 2015
IPVM

A, thanks for sharing, very informative.

I think you will agree your performance is pretty exceptional. One person closing over $5 million per year at an integrator is not typical industry-wide. Your number is bigger than ~90% of integrator's annual company revenue, right? :)

(1)
U
Undisclosed #1
May 13, 2015

Yes, I was fortunate to have some very good years. I was consistently in the top 10 of every company I have worked for. I would say that for a rep under 5 years, they should look to have a base of between $65-75K and with commissions earn an additional $25-40K. Plus they will probably have a company car or a car expense plus benefits. It really is a good industry. Be warned, it seems to be one that once you are in, you will find it is difficult to leave. :)

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #2
May 12, 2015

$50m yearly, but it's an overlay position which allows me to leverage a very large group of people to retire my quota.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
May 14, 2015

600-800k quota. 35 percent average margin. 50 k base. 50 k average yearly commisions, company car with health benefits.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #4
May 17, 2015

My targets have been over my career based on turnover per annum of between 1 m- 5 m with a 20-30 % margin .However with the influx of lower cost products the targets have evolved into being Gross profit based ,this is due to the erosion of margins specifically on larger deals dropping down to in some cases 8% markup to,almost buy the business to try secure SLA what we are also finding is. A project is being split into supply install and SLA separate so one would quote separately on all the components .This is to drive the price down by the consulting engineers and customers

JH
John Honovich
May 17, 2015
IPVM

"due to the erosion of margins specifically on larger deals dropping down to in some cases 8% markup to almost buy the business to try secure SLA"

D, very helpful feedback.

Do you increase margins or hours on the labor side to make up for the declines on product markup? Or is the focus on getting the future service business?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #4
May 17, 2015

The focus is to try focus on future service business where a larger margin can be made on spares and labour

AK
Alan Kruglak
May 17, 2015
Quota expectations depend on the product mix and market. A quota of 1 1/2 to $2 million is not unreasonable. To increase margins, you have to put box around your target market.
JH
John Honovich
May 17, 2015
IPVM

"To increase margins, you have to put box around your target market."

Alan, what do you mean by 'box'? Do you mean limit the segments or type of customers you go after?

AK
Alan Kruglak
May 17, 2015
Precisely. If you live in an open bid market,t then there will be nothing to differentiate you and your competitors except price. We focus is on clients where you can develop a relationship and properly convey the value that you provide
UD
Undisclosed Distributor #5
May 18, 2015

Is there a database or a website which has job posts for security companies, or must one constantly refer to career opportunity pages on various security company websites?

JH
John Honovich
May 19, 2015
IPVM

There is no single database or site. Indeed, it is highly fragmented, with no site even posting 10% of jobs available. Compounding this, a lot of the best jobs are not even disclosed anywhere online and are just handled through recruiters.

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Sean Nelson
May 19, 2015
Nelly's Security

You ever thought about a job classifieds feature to IPVM? As an employer, it would be nice to advertise to a list of candidates that are already familiar with this somewhat specialized field. My biggest obstacle is finding people who know anything about video surveillance. I have pretty much given up on trying to find people who already know about this stuff, and just focused on training people. However, it would be a gold mine to have a plethera of people to advertise to that already have experience.

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JH
John Honovich
May 19, 2015
IPVM

Sean, we have. See: Should IPVM Do A Job Board? If So, How Should It Work?

It's a fair amount of work and I am not sure how valuable it would be relative to other things we are working on so it's in queue for now.

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