Have you got Hope or a Business?
I get so fed up and tired of talking to agencies and business owners who say to me: “Oh yeah, we’ve had a great week, we generated X leads”. When I ask what they did differently, I usually get blank faces, scratching of heads, radio silence.
Worst still, some proudly claim they had nine new Google Ad leads, and one new Facebook lead, so they’ve pumped more money into more Google Ads without having any data or hard facts to base that decision on.
The only thing leads have at the end of them is dogs.
It’s MORE business, MORE sales you want, but most get caught up in generating more and more leads. The ONE thing I want you to take away from this week is to stop measuring the vanity (number of leads) and start asking where that sale came from because it got you the right result.
I’ve got an entire 90 Day Program on this, but to help you get started, here’s three key areas to start thinking about and implementing.
#1 Get A Data-Driven Culture Embedded Into Your Business.
You need the entire team to start focusing on gathering data and evidence across all activity. Back in my CEO days I spent hours upon hours with my head in data to get clues on what was really going on in the business. Whether you’re running a multi-million-pound business, or a hundred-thousand-pound business, you need data to make decisions.
#2 Never Be Afraid Of Guessing.
As you start this process of measuring, guessing is good. You need to set a target to aim for, then test, then improve. I encourage you to start guessing as a team: “What do you think our conversion should be for this…?”. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong (in fact you’ll be wrong for the first 4-8 weeks!), this is all about drawing a line in the sand that you can work towards, see if you’re on track and refine.
#3 Set Up Actionable Alerts & Alarms.
As Tom Peters said: “What gets measured gets done” so setting up a dashboard of alerts will keep you focussed and on track. Keep it simple, for example, your Sales & Marketing Team is now tasked to make 150 calls per day, resulting in twelve meetings, resulting in five new orders. The Alarm: you know that if only 130 calls are made that you will not get your five orders and will miss your turnover target.
My number one passion is to help business owners succeed, and now is a good time, more than ever, to start looking at what’s getting you the right results to enable you to make informed business decisions moving forward.
Martin Norbury
Investor | Business Mentor at Advocate | Author of I don’t work Fridays
