The majority of small business owners work their tail
off. They spend thousands of dollars attending workshops and seminars
convinced that the latest one will solve their problems or they’ll meet
*the* client they’ve dreamed of; they spend hours upon hours working in
their business wondering why the phone’s not ringing and they’ve
produced information products and now wonder why they’re not "waking up
to find they’ve made money".
Do any, or all, of the above describe you?
If
so, you are working hard, but not smart. You don’t have a consistent
system in place to determine which of your activities are worthwhile
and productive as opposed simply keeping you busy and wasting your
money.
The following is just a few of the business statistics you MUST track in order to succeed:
1. Your sales — both number and amount.
How much money did you bring in this month, this week, today and what did they purchase?
How many items IN TOTAL were purchased?
For
example, I offer coaching services and also sell information products
for home study. It’s important to know what percentage of sales comes
from the different products or services you offer.
2. Your UNIQUE website visitors.
How many unique visitors came to your website this week or month?
Note
that this is not the number of "hits" which is a much greater figure.
You want to know specifically how many UNIQUE people came and visited
your site and any website tracker can tell you this.
3. Your new ezine/email newsletter subscribers.
How many people signed up for your ezine or email newsletter this week?
4. Your conversion rates.
Here’s where we bring a little math into the picture:
* Sales Conversion Rate: Divide your total sales number by the number of unique website visitors.
For example: if you had 100 unique people visit your website and
you sold 70 items, your sales conversion rate is 70% (70 sales/100
unique visitors).
* Ezine Conversion Rate: Divide your total new ezine subscribers by the number of unique website visitors.
This will tell you how effective your website or opt-in box is with respect to getting new subscribers.
* Value Per Visitor: Divide the total money you made in a given week (or month) by the number of unique website visitors for that same period.
You now know how much each unique visitor is worth you.
5. Your expenses.
Not only do you need to track how much money is coming in, but how much is going out.
What
percentage of your gross income goes out in fixed overhead expenses
each month? Is there anything you can do to reduce this number without
sacrificing service?
The above are just a few of the key metrics
you must know in order to gauge what is/is not working in your
business. Without tracking, you can’t improve your methods AND your
income!
Your Coaching Challenge
I challenge
you to know, at a minimum, your website statistics and, if you don’t
currently know how to get this information, to contact your webmaster.
Once
you know HOW to get these numbers, it’s time to put a system in place
(whether you or a virtual assistant) to track these numbers on a
regular basis so you can continuously improve everything you’re doing.
For the past 5 years, Sandra Martini has been showing
self-employed business owners how to get more clients consistently by
implementing processes and systems to put their marketing on autopilot.
Visit Sandra at www.SandraMartini.com
for details, compelling client testimonials and her free audio series “5 Simple
and Easy Steps to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot”.