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Company UpdatesMay 12, 2021

CEO’s Corner – May 2021 Edition

We are at the outset of a fun period of growth, individual achievement, and team accomplishment at AMP. 

We are at the outset of a fun period of growth, individual achievement, and team accomplishment at AMP.

I’m humbled to report that we’ve grown each of the first four months of 2021, extending the streak that began in July of 2020 to nine out of ten months of same month sales growth over the prior year.  It feels good to be on a market-taking warpath.

In March, we set an all-time record for combined digital sales, and an all-time record for OPTIMA™ sales as well.  In April, we broke our previous record for a four week month on those same two metrics.

These record-setting sales months are not just the consequence of becoming a larger company with more geography and a larger team.  On the contrary, the stats show that we getting better individually at the work we do, with our sales per person rising every single month both in terms of total sales per rep and OPTIMA™ sales per rep. These are incredible ‘leading economic indicators.’

With the grip of the pandemic loosening and more typical patterns of commerce and small business patronage returning, the months ahead truly represent our time to shine.  We are uniquely prepared to prosper in this environment by helping hard working small business owners put their best foot forward to win more customers.

There’s an expansive opportunity ahead of us!  Most small business owners have an acute need for what we sell.  Our entire business has been built slowly and consistently over nearly 24 years to create practical advertising programs that are game-changing to family owned businesses in their ability to make the phone ring or the cash register sing.  We match the products that we offer with great service, provided to busy clients on a completely “do it for you” basis.  As a business, we don’t have any debt, and we own our own service platforms because we’ve spent years building and investing in our own systems.  As a consequence, we can profitably sell our programs for less than… yes, EVERYONE else in our industry.  In sum, we’ve been planting the seeds of growth for a long time!

One year ago, we were largely shut down by the pandemic and in early May we were all working remotely over the phone.  Even three months ago, we were forced to hold our Annual Meeting over a Zoom call because it wasn’t safe to bring everyone together.  Despite these challenges, the incredible people here have not just persevered – – we’ve grown the business consistently these past 10 months, and we’ve all grown personally as well.  Now it is time to dramatically grow the business as a whole, and to build our paychecks and our career elbowroom as the driving engines of that company growth.

We’re ready.  With the new ‘bundled product contracts’ that we launched this quarter, with the enhanced sales comp plans that we unveiled last week, and with a product set that continues to become more robust and more valuable to our customers, we’re faced with huge opportunities to become a company that lives up to the namesake “American Marketing & Publishing” that we imagined up back in 1997.

It feels like there’s an unending amount of critically important work to be done – whether it’s a 6:15 pm sales call, a late night email back to a customer or potential new team member, or perhaps a final line of code to write.  This is the positive pressure and truly, the privilege, that comes from facing up to uniquely big business opportunities.  This is a unique time, and we’re singularly poised to take advantage of it.  I’m filled with a huge sense of appreciation for the good, very hard working people around me, and I am excited to be heading into the Growing Season of 2021.

 

written by:
Abe Andrzejewski