"Now We're Visible, Why No Business?"

 I hear so many times from customers or "would be, on the fence", etc... customers that they are having Godaddy or another web guy or their internal web guy look into it. Unfortunately - these are the guys that put them in this spot anyway. Not that Godaddy is a scam - but you get what you pay for and most people will not pay Godaddy's custom rates, so you get the next best thing... sort of....
  

I've done quite a few FREE SEO reports on sites and I've found that everyone knows they have a problem even before I "prove" it to them. Even if they fight it, even if they deny it, even if they think they have the best site in the world. Because all of them are muttering the same thing - why can't I get more calls off my website. Yet they are unwilling to embrace change.

If you're not a big fan of Kitchen Nightmares - you should see one episode called Oceana. This is really a classic look into the fact that the owners stop their own business from growing. Gordon did everything in his power to make the restaurant successful, even calling in exterminators and having the staff completely scrub down the kitchen for the first time in its existence. 

Even after a total makeover, new menu, rave reviews from customers and money being made finally, one of the owners still felt picked on and was confrontational to Gordon. The other owner, his brother saw the light from the beginning, even pointing out that Gordon was being lied to... but in the end Gordon just had to walk away....
  
I have so many times (still do actually) dealt with unnecessarily confrontational owners who get in their own way and refuse to change. However it is not our mission to change these people, but simply do the job we were hired for, prove our point and at times even walk away when necessary.

Bottom Line

There are so many things that need to happen to get to the top 10 rankings and then another set of things to do to keep them there - it's a constant moving target. However making sure your ads sell, your functionality sells, your graphics and site layout sell and even your text sells are just the necessary things you need to do AFTER a custom decides to click on your link. To get them there is code, keywords, META tags, backlinks, page ranks, etc.... on top of that is other external factors such as competition, market demand, economy and more... so when an owner gets in the way, or you hear "we're having our web guy check this out" sometimes, it's better to just cross the street and try the next shop.

Why Should Sales Representatives Monitor Their Figures Religiously?

Figuring out How Effective I am at Closing (Original article - Website Design Sales Reps)

Web design and other sales representatives rarely, if ever look at charting their abilities to introduce a product and close a sale or consider how long a sales cycle may be by monitoring their progress and motivating themselves to try and shorten it over time. Most sales people in fact, just look at closing ratios for the month and are satisfied (or not) to not look any deeper. However keeping track or and reviewing your statistic is how you can determine why sales increase, decrease or stay the same and having that information can make you very successful.

Web design sales representatives that consider statistics as part of their arsenal in their marketing are the ones that move on to higher levels of income and success as well as finding longevity in their careers. But all too often, these sales representatives fall away and don’t keep at it to find the key that unlocks their success. They figure they will just take a stab at it and see if it’s right for them. Unfortunately, many “would be” web design sales representatives end up giving up because they don’t know how to fix what’s wrong.

A good list of statistics to consider is:
 * Start to finish time it takes to close a sale per sale and averages overall
 * What products are hot, what products are not (for you)
 * What has brought in the most commission based on product, demographics, price
 * What areas gave the most yes, no, and maybes in your lead list
 * Reasons overall for yes, no
 * Closed sales on callbacks for maybe and no responses
 * Monthly and annual look at interviews, proposals and closes in chart form
 * Monthly and annual look at commissions in chart form
 * Monthly and annual look at customers, current, new, cancelled in chart form

Although this article is primarily focused on web design sales, it also applies to anyone in the sales line of work.

Are these reports helpful? Can you think of any others to add to this list?