We’ve been having a few jokes around the office whether I would win the Gary Vee lookalike competition, and to be straight up I think Gary Vee looks like me, I don’t look like him—but the guys asked me to channel my inner Gary Vee to talk about this T-shirt I’m wearing, which basically talks about “in sales, average absolutely sucks“. Let me explain what that means with a few numbers.

47% of salespeople will not make quota this year

That means nearly one in two salespeople walks to work every single day for nearly the entire year, knowing they’re off budget, knowing they’re going to go to a meeting with some boss who’s just going to want to talk numbers, walking into meetings with customers and prospects desperate to get across that line. All because they don’t have the skills, they don’t have the behaviours, and they don’t have the beliefs that they need to get out of that average space. So first number 47%—really scary, and really scary that only 53% of salespeople are going to make the budget, when that number was 64% 10 years ago.

Getting 10x more objections

Next number, 10X. Unfortunately, we’re not talking about 10X sales. We’re not going to do a “Grant Cardone” on you. We’re talking about the number of extra objections, one person in a team of 20 people in a sales room is going to get, just because of the way they sell. Think about this: you’re in sales. You haven’t been coached by your boss. You haven’t been trained in how to build a compelling story, how to target the right people, how to engage effectively, how to propose persuasively—you haven’t been taught the fundamentals. And because of that, you’re getting more than 10 times more objections, not because of the product you sell, not because the price you sell it at, not because the branding, not because the lack of a brochure—just because you haven’t been taught how to sell it effectively. So, 10X—another horrible number if you’re in that average bucket.

13% of salespeople are taking home 91% of the commissions

Thirteen—a terrible number, or exciting number for some. 13% of salespeople are taking home 91% of the commissions paid into the market. What that means is 87% of salespeople are squabbling and fighting and scrounging around for 9% of the rewards above salary. That’s horrific. It’s not even 80/20. The bottom line is the gap between those 87% fighting it out for 9% of rewards, and the 13% that are taking home all the money, having all the fun, having the best relationships, relaxing, enjoying their life. The gap’s not that big, but organizations, business owners, sales managers, sales coaches, just aren’t doing enough to help their people close that gap.

57% of salespeople feel that Monday morning sales meetings are demotivating

The last number I’ll leave you with in terms of average sucks is 57% of salespeople are telling us their Monday morning sales meeting is actually demotivating them. Just think about that. You’ve got a 6 in 10 chance that you’re demotivating your salespeople every Monday morning. Congratulations—how is that working out for you? How’s that working out for them? What’s really scary about that research—which was done over 1,500 salespeople, so it was a pretty robust study—is that 69% of the sales managers delivering those meetings were convinced they were actually motivating their people on a Monday morning. Pretty scary.

Four really scary numbers that drive home the fact that if you’re average in sales, your life sucks. If you want to get out of average— average in terms of how you feel emotionally, average in terms of how you feel mentally, average in terms of where you’re at physically, average in terms of the relationships that you have inside and outside the office, average in terms of the way that you use your time, constantly doing things for other people that are telling you what to do rather than doing the stuff that you know is valuable that you want to do, and then average financially, which is miserable. You want to get out of average, you got to go chase the better sales life, and that’s what we’re all about. Please check out deanmannix.com—Check out what we can do for you, and no matter what, whether it’s with me or somebody else, just commit to getting out of average because average sucks.