For the record, there is nothing normal about your averages.

If that sounds contradictory to you, let’s explore one of the most watched performances in the world: the stock market.

Even with all of the crazy ups and downs in the stock market over the past 80 years, do you know what the returns have overall panned out as?  Almost a perfect 10% return. 

Now while some of you out there may have known that, I want to ask you all a more specific question: how many years over the past 80 has the market returned anywhere from 10% below to 10% above that average of 10% (or to be technical, let’s say 9% – 11%)?

The answer: 4.  Yes, you heard right – F.O.U.R. – in 1921, 1948, 1993, and most recently in 2004.

Four times in 80 years.  Meaning it was not 50% of the time that the ”average” was seen.   Nor was it 25% of the time that saw the “average.”  Nope, it was only 5% of the time that the average actually happened over a four score period.   Therefore it can be said that the stock market “average,” although solid, is FAR from “normal.”

In fact, the most “normal” return of the stock market was a 20% – 29% return, which occurred 23 times over the 80 years.   That takes into account of course the converse years such as 1931 at -42%, 1937 at -32%, and the one we’ll never forget in 2008 at -37.2%.  Still, the most “normal” return of the stock market appeared almost 30% of the complete duration whereas the most “average” return of the stock market appeared only 5% of that period. 

So what the heck does this have to do with growing your business?  As a reminder, eQ is not a bunch of stock advisors – if we were, we would have told you to buy Maryland’s own Medifast 11 years ago (it’s now up about 10,000%!).  What we do is help companies grow in their own markets.

Over the past two years, eQ has been fortunate enough to work with a great client in the veterinary space which itself has thousands of clients all across the country.  This company retained us to help them not only lead their sales effort but also redefine their sales process and help develop and deploy a scalable sales structure all for the purpose of creating their unique “sales experience.” 

It was in analyzing this company’s top one thousand clients that we quickly learned their “average” was FAR from their “normal.”

Since our client provides a service that veterinary clinics use on an as-needed basis, we learned that the “average” clinic in the top thousand used their service about 15 times per month.  But upon further digging, we soon realized that this “average” was not what we were seeing in actuality.  What we found in this scenario was that clinics were either using our client 5 times a day, 2 times a day, or 1 time per week.  Basically they had clinics ranging from soliciting their service 250+ times per month to those that only entered transactions a few times per month. 

When you really drilled into the data, we actually had very few “average” clinics.  Once we were privy to this information, it only made sense that instead of designing a process for the “average” clinics, we would design a process for the “normal” clinics – specifically one for each of the three types of normal clinics being the 5 times a day user, the 2 times a day user, and 1 time per week user.  The result?  Not only did this allow our client to focus the right resources in the right areas, it helped them to make their “average” much more “normal.”

It goes to say that no company out there, including yours, should ever settle for average by any means.  It’s too far from normal.

Jeremy Steinberg is an Outsourced VP of Sales at entreQuest who has led companies across the country to increases in revenue by driving the performance of their sales teams to unprecedented levels of achievement.

(Information Sources:

“Online Data Robert Shiller.”  www.yale.edu.  Accessed on Monday 16 May 2011.  http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm.

“Compound Annual Growth Rate (Annualized Return).”  www.moneychimp.com.  Accessed on Monday 16 May 2011.  http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm.

“What Is the Average Return on US Stock Markets?” by Randolph Saint-Leger.  www.eHow.com.  Published on Friday 21 January 2011.  http://www.ehow.com/info_7830454_average-return-stock-investments.html.)

eQ believes that cultivating relationships by keeping in contact requires sound knowledge and tested tools. But when all is said and done, the person communicating is on their own. Should he or she decide to really make it their own then they have the opportunity to own a success.

When eQ trains on the tactics of effective communication in business, our modules include every aspect from the meaning in the message to the tone of voice to how to cater towards different personalities.  We discuss when it’s appropriate to pick up the phone.  We talk about how to approach emailing.  We practice interactions in a one-on-one meeting setting.

Sound familiar? You’ve probably heard it before because eQ’s communication principles all come down to a few basics.  The hard part comes in with implementation at every level of an organization. As my teammates and I have learned from experience in our consulting engagements, the best place to start is with the leaders.  After all, how c-level executives communicate with their employees determines how their employees will communicate with their clients.  eQ’s purpose is to ensure that this chain is remarkable from top to bottom, in and out, over and beyond.

And often what’s truly remarkable is the unexpected communication that arises within a company.  eQ, or any corporate growth team of experts for that matter, can coach up to a point but as we all know, personal communication comes down to an individual’s own unique way with words.  Our language is our unique expression. eQ works with professionals to enhance their style and maximize their message BUT we would never script the verbiage.  Their communication is their contribution to their community. As expected, those professionals who put forth effort and invoke their own creativity are the ones who can cut through the noise and capture an audience.

Recently this occurred when I read a weekly team update written by a longtime friend of eQ – Mr. Ted Root, CEO of VetCentric.  Normally, his daily blog ranges on the typical topics that would concern an 80-plus person, high growth company, i.e., the financials, company news, industry updates, etc. However last Friday, Ted broke free of his routine and shared his personal passion of finding the best eats around the office with his team.  Titled “Ted’s Guide to Off-Beat Restaurants Near Our VetCentric Office,” he went around the world in ethnic cuisines and listed out his favorite restaurants with a very brief explanation of its savory superiority.  It was surprising, it was useful, and it was funny. As I happened to be on-site that day, I was able to hear scores of his team members talk about the daily blog and thus, it was by definition “remarkable.”   For an executive in an industry revolving around pets, this email managed to show his more human side.

To effectively communicate to your company and to your clients, the proper principles must be integrated into the message.

But to effectively move your company and your clients forward, the leader must be integrated into the meaning.

Jeremy Steinberg is an Outsourced VP of Sales at entreQuest who has led companies across the country to increases in revenue by driving the performance of their sales teams to unprecedented levels of achievement.

While we’d like to call him one of our resident experts here at entreQuest, the Outsourced VP of Sales Mark Slatin is hardly ever home at the office.  He’s always out working in-the-field managing our partners’ sales teams be they around the corner, down the Interstate, or up the coast.

We’re not sure where he found the time to write but his wisdom did somehow make its way into words for OnPoint Magazine – “a publication dedicated to the independent office product dealer.”

In his upcoming article titled “Why Sales Training Is Overrated,” Mark explains why most motivational programs and skill sharpening seminars do not produce more profitable salespeople.  He makes his [on] point with the help of Mark Twain and Martin Luther King, Jr. too but we won’t give any more details away at this time.

We can discuss some wisdom from another great American though - Albert Einstein – who once defined insanity as: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

With that in mind, Mark and the rest of us here at eQ can’t help but be curious as to just how many typical training programs and seminars a salesperson has to undergo before he or she realizes that the results will always be the same.  How many before you realize that your results will always be the same?  How long before that moment of clarity restores your sales sanity and you acknowledge that improvement will require deploying your desire for better results on a deeper level?  Before you realize why sales training is overrated?

Mark will take care of answering that question in the next issue of OnPoint Magazine.   But why not try to come up with the answer on  your own before his article hits cyberspace?

Take five minutes and think about every motivational/educational seminar, course, program, speech, etc. that filled you with immediate inspiration to take over the world but all too soon soon subsided into that feeling of that world being back on your shoulders.  What were the similarities between the suggestions of the experts who led these events?  What in their messages matched?

Now take it deeper.  What were the similarities in you before, during, and after each of these events?  What marred the messages from making a sustainable difference in your sales performance?

See if your answer to why sales training is overrated comes close to Mark’s reasoning in the second quarter issue of OnPoint Magazine.  In the meantime, feel free to contact eQ if you need a hint.

Jeremy Steinberg is an Outsourced VP of Sales at entreQuest who has led companies across the country to increases in revenue by driving the performance of their sales teams to unprecedented levels of achievement.

It’s sometimes NOT about the data!

So I was talking with a client the other day whose $40 million dollar company has more data/servers/ERP systems/ etc then pretty much anything this side of Amazon or Zappos (funny that they’re the same thing now) and we got into a solid discussion of how we can cut our data up in so many different ways to help our sales team be more effective, efficient and drive more revenue.

After hours of slicing and dicing the data we had some interesting results that we planned to dig into BUT that’s when the real conversation began. And it started with,”Sometimes it’s NOT about the data!”
• Ford
• Proctor and Gamble
• Goldman Sachs
• Even IBM
All started without one thing in common, computers! So how did they grow and become the leaders in their sectors? Simple, by getting out and talking to their clients.   (This may seem like a common theme to our Client Experience topic… and it is!)

I know it seems easier for a lot of us to sit back and look at our CRM systems and our weekly /monthly sales reports (you do have reports don’t you) but when was the last time you spent time with your biggest client? Your newest client? Your oldest Client?

The real question then becomes, what did you do with what your clients said? That’s the data you need to worry about and trust me no computer solution will deliver that to you.

Be Your Best,

Jeremy

• SERVE: No matter what we do, we can’t get away from our roots of being a company that wants to make a difference in the community. Not to flaunt but to inspire other companies to consider.  Before getting to your “real” business, get to the business of serving others.  It’s great for the soul and puts in perspective what really matters.  For our retreat last Friday, we decided to give back at Our Daily Bread in Baltimore.  See here:

• CELEBRATE: This is also a great time to look back and celebrate your accomplishments as a company.  For us this was an extra special occasional. As you can see below here, Misti celebrated her 5-year anniversary with entreQuest. Since  Misti has been here, she has worked with more than 200 companies and helped placed more than 300 sales professionals.  Not bad for 5 years.  Beyond this, Misti is the glue that holds our company together.  A big congratulations to her… and us!