Archive for March, 2010

12 Marketing Mistakes: Not knowing your numbers
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Mistake No.10

Not knowing your numbers

Many small business owners see marketing as an expense rather than an investment. Ask them if a campaign has been successful and more often than not the answer will be a general “yes I think so, we haven’t done too badly”.

Responses like that are complete nonsense. What does haven’t done too badly mean?
You need to know precisely how much you’ve spent and how many leads you have generated from that spend.

You then need to qualify how good each lead is and monitor your conversion ratios. Only then will you be able to see how effective your marketing is.

Advertisement in Woman’s World Magazine Results
No of advertisements 6
Number of leads generated 65
Number of appointments made. 30
Number of sales 15
Total value of sales $ $14200
Total Cost of promotion $ $5000
Profit $ $9200

- Keith Banfield

When They Zig You Zag – Do your most important job first each day
Sunday, March 21st, 2010

This is part of a Siimon Reynolds series – When They Zig You Zag

Do your most important job first each day

It seems so simple but hardly anyone does it! But doing this one thing will make you so much more effective.

There’s an interesting story about this. In the 1930s the steel magnate Charles Schwabb had a meeting with a young entrepreneur. This young man offered to teach Schwabb a way to increase his entire company’s productivity. All he asked in return was that Schwabb pay him what he thought it was worth.

The idea? Just write down the six most important things you should do each day and do number one first, before going on to number two. After trying this incredibly basic technique for a few weeks Schwab sent the young man a cheque for $25,000.