Recognizing the Red Flags - How to Use Your Sales Statistics to See Problems Before They Happen
Sales Statistics are an essential part of taking care of your business.
Statistics ensure that you can see the warning signs of trouble before they sneak up on you.
Statistics encourage you with the small successes before you accomplish the major ones.
More importantly statistics keep you from becoming one of these statistics.
80% of businesses fail within the first 5 years, another 80% fail between 5 and 10 years.
What sales statistics are important? The only two tasks you need to focus as a business owner on are how to keep a customer, and how to create a customer.
Any other sales statistic should be deemed as interesting but not essential.
Your first task is to determine all the ways that people receive your message.
What marketing tools do you use? Do some of those tools lead to them using other tools? For example, does someone see your ad in the newspaper, and then look you up in the phonebook, or on the internet? Keep track of all of the contacts you receive through each of these mediums.
You can then see and continually test your message and advertising.
Which messages cause your target markets to react? What is your return on investment for each advertisement? Remember, your advertising is "productive revenue".
Make sure it is working for you.
The next step is to determine conversion rate.
How many calls are converting into the sales process? Is the next step a sales presentation, an appointment, a trial program? This will tell you how effective your staff is at the initial contact.
If you have a large number of calls, but few first steps, you know that your message in the ad is wrong, or that your staff is under trained.
My goal was to have 80% of my telephone calls turn into sales presentations.
If your next step is a purchase, you have to determine what is an acceptable rate.
On the internet a good conversion rate is 1%.
Follow this same procedure for each additional step in the sales process.
Determine what an acceptable rate is and ensure that you are giving your staff the appropriate training and opportunity to reach those goals.
WARNING: Don't make this process overcomplicated or you won't follow it.
This should be a simple system that you can follow on a daily, even hourly basis.
Some of the most effective systems that I have experienced tracked 4-5 different numbers on an hourly basis (with other factors worked in on a daily basis).
Professionals keep score.
Every professional athlete knows that they must have a great performance and that the only way to judge their individual performance is through their statistics.
Make sure that you are tracking your key statistics.
Statistics ensure that you can see the warning signs of trouble before they sneak up on you.
Statistics encourage you with the small successes before you accomplish the major ones.
More importantly statistics keep you from becoming one of these statistics.
80% of businesses fail within the first 5 years, another 80% fail between 5 and 10 years.
What sales statistics are important? The only two tasks you need to focus as a business owner on are how to keep a customer, and how to create a customer.
Any other sales statistic should be deemed as interesting but not essential.
Your first task is to determine all the ways that people receive your message.
What marketing tools do you use? Do some of those tools lead to them using other tools? For example, does someone see your ad in the newspaper, and then look you up in the phonebook, or on the internet? Keep track of all of the contacts you receive through each of these mediums.
You can then see and continually test your message and advertising.
Which messages cause your target markets to react? What is your return on investment for each advertisement? Remember, your advertising is "productive revenue".
Make sure it is working for you.
The next step is to determine conversion rate.
How many calls are converting into the sales process? Is the next step a sales presentation, an appointment, a trial program? This will tell you how effective your staff is at the initial contact.
If you have a large number of calls, but few first steps, you know that your message in the ad is wrong, or that your staff is under trained.
My goal was to have 80% of my telephone calls turn into sales presentations.
If your next step is a purchase, you have to determine what is an acceptable rate.
On the internet a good conversion rate is 1%.
Follow this same procedure for each additional step in the sales process.
Determine what an acceptable rate is and ensure that you are giving your staff the appropriate training and opportunity to reach those goals.
WARNING: Don't make this process overcomplicated or you won't follow it.
This should be a simple system that you can follow on a daily, even hourly basis.
Some of the most effective systems that I have experienced tracked 4-5 different numbers on an hourly basis (with other factors worked in on a daily basis).
Professionals keep score.
Every professional athlete knows that they must have a great performance and that the only way to judge their individual performance is through their statistics.
Make sure that you are tracking your key statistics.
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