Welcome to Health Check Tuesday
Conversion rates
Do you track your conversions? Do you know what they are? And do they tell the whole story?
Let me give you an example. My first business was making and selling beautiful 100% cotton “P’leisure wear” items. My main selling strategy at the beginning was to have a stall at “the markets”.
I’m sure a few of you are doing this right now and it is a great way to start. I was fortunate that I had a “great spot” and the night before I would pack the car and have everything ready. I took great pride in making my “stand” as pretty and appealing as the items on offer. All day people, mostly women, would stop by and admire, touch, feel and give me great feedback. And every now and again, someone would actually buy one, or ask for a special order.
I tracked the results of every market I went to. I counted the number of “unique visits”. I counted the number of people who stopped to look vs the number of people who entered the “stall space” and the number of people who actually touched the items. I tracked the numbers of sales and I tracked the sales of the “extras” (I sold slippers and eye masks and a few other sleepy type items)
Why did I do this when it was “only a market stand”? My plan was not to always be a market stand …. And I wanted to know what my conversion rate was.
I knew that if 30 people stopped to look and 18 people (a bit more than half) came in to look closer and 8 people (a bit less than half) actually touched the nighties, then I knew there was likely to be a sale because I knew my conversion rates. One of the key things I learned was that when people touched the items and/or tried them, there was a higher likelihood of a conversion to a sale.
Conversion rates are usually expressed as a percentage and it is critical that you find a way to track your conversion rates.
If you make 20 sales calls and one person asks for a quote then that is 5% conversion. So then you know that if you want to generate 10 quotes you need to make 200 sales calls.
If your quote to orders conversion is 25% then you know that you generate one order for every 4 quotes you prepare. If this becomes 35% you might look at “what’s different?” is your pricing better? Is the quote easier to understand? Did you get it to the customer more quickly?
No matter how simple your businesses, right from the beginning find a way to track conversion.
First you ned to map out your system so that you know what the steps are and then track the numbers at each step.
We get excited about Numbers because they help tell the Healthy Numbers Story of our Business.
We are here to help you get excited about the Healthy Numbers Story in Your Business!