I ask, "Well how many people do you convert that have come to the store?" The response: "Oh, we convert about half of them. We dont track all the numbers. Weve been doing this thing for a long time and weve been successful for a long time."

Its true. Many of my clients have been in business for a long time. Its also true that they arent doing some very basic tasks that could make them even more profitable.

I add that years of experience does not equate to marketing expertise. In fact, in many cases, many years of experience can actually be a detriment to your success.

Its the same as saying that a person who has played golf for 20 years doesnt need a golf lesson. The fact is that they have probably been playing with bad golf habits for many years, and the habits are now such an ingrained part of their game that they cant even see what they need to improve.

Every small business has vital signs that tell you if the business is doing well or not. Your marketing efforts have vital signs as well that will tell you whether you are doing well in your marketing efforts. I will give you three basic measurements that you should be tracking on a constant basis.

When I walk into a business I ask three questions. First, how many calls do you get per day? Second, how many of those calls do you convert to visitors? Third, how many of those visitors do you convert to buyers? Sometimes Ill ask if they know their closing rate per person. How can you start to improve if you dont know where you stand today?

Incoming Calls and Walk-in Traffic

Any effort to get the phone to ring is called marketing. You spend a lot of money getting your phone to ring. One of the biggest mistakes I see is underestimating the importance of a phone call. Sometimes I feel like taping a $100 bill onto the phone so that employees will understand the value of every phone call from a prospect.

The important question about measuring the number of incoming phone calls is not how many you should be getting. The question is, what is the trend? Are you getting more calls than last month? Are you getting more calls than this time last year? Is your trend going up or is it coming down? Or is it at a plateau? What is the relative movement of the amount of phone calls?

If you arent tracking this number, start doing so today! Start a phone log with names and phone numbers. The critical information that you need from every call is how did you hear about us, what is your name, home address, phone number, and email address.

If you have set up a 24-hour information line (I hope you have) you can track the amount you get from this line as well. Remember, the 24-hour information line is a recorded message line that offers free information to prospects and can take names and addresses that allow you to send them follow-up information. You should see a dramatic increase in your call volume when you install your 24-hour information line.