How many leads do you need to make the amount of money you want to have in a year? As simple as this question might be, I’ve found very few people actually have this number in the top of their minds.

There are two factors to take into consideration.  The first is your costs.  You should make sure to have an accounting program advanced enough to help you analyze your costs and how they relate to your profitability.

The second factor is your ability to convert leads to sales (conversion rate).  The better you can convert your leads, the more profitability you are capable of achieving.

Let’s take a look at the process more closely:

1. First, determine your monthly sales goal. For our example, let’s say you want to make $100,000 in sales a month.

2. Calculate your current conversion rates. While this process can be used for any type of prospecting, for this example, let’s keep it simple and assume the only way you get leads and sales is through your website.

Now, let’s say that for every 1000 visitors, you “convert” 2.5 into to sales leads. That’s a .25% conversion rate.

3. Use this formula to figure out how many visitors you would need to your website to acquire enough leads to get the sales you want.  To keep this example simple, we will assume every “conversion” described above will ultimately purchase from you.

(Desired Sales / Sale Price / Conversion Rate) X 100

So, if you want $100,000 in sales and your average sale price is $20, with a conversion rate of .25%, the formula would look like this:

($100,000 / $20 / .25) X 100 = 2,000,000 visitors needed per month to achieve your sales goal.

Ouch!  That’s a lot of visitors!  Now, there are a few things you can do to change things.  You can change your price. You can change your visitation, or you can change your conversion rate.

For most people, the best place to start is conversion rate. If you test a bit, it’s actually quite easy to bring a .25% conversion rate into the 1.5% or even 2% range.

Let’s look at the difference that would make using the formula:

($100,000 / $20 / 2) X 100 = 250,000 visitors per month to achieve your sales goal.

What a difference!

You can improve things even more by raising your average sale to $47:

($100,000 / $47 / 2) X 100 = 106,383 visitors per month to achieve your sales goal.

Today, it’s all about working smarter, not harder.  Hopefully these examples drive home the importance of planning the leads you will need to reach your sales goals, and testing the factors you can change to become more efficient.

The Internet has become indispensible and practically no business, author or speaker can succeed without using the Internet as part of their marketing strategy.  But the fact of the matter is, most people may use the Internet to find the products and services they need, but have no idea how to use it for their own profitability.

If you are like most people, you have been overwhelmed with Internet marketing strategies, and have no idea where to start.  Believe it or not, the process is the same regardless of what business you are in, and it might surprise you to find that it doesn’t start with your website at all.

The process for Internet marketing success is almost exactly the same for every business, author or speaker, and hasn’t changed in almost 15 years!  The problem is that most educational resources on Internet marketing tell you a piece of the process without identifying where on the timeline it falls or how it fits into the rest of the process.

Don’t get hung up on the bits and pieces before you have established your P.T.A., the foundational steps needed to be successful in Internet Marketing:

P:  Plug-In

Identify where you are in the Internet Marketing process and “plug-in” to the process.  Are you a complete beginner?  Or do you have some knowledge, but can’t seem to tie it all together?  Have you had some success in some areas, and feel woefully inadequate in others?  Identify where you are, then plug-in to the tools and resources available to you to meet your particular needs.

T: Team-Up

The next and most important step for any small business owner, author or speaker is to team up with those that can help implement the process.  Unless you are making a living as a full blown Internet marketer, your principal business belongs out in the field doing your thing, not in front of the computer trying to figure it all out.  And most people’s strategy of hiring a random website designer from Craigslist or oversees just because they don’t cost much rarely works.

Your goal is to find outsourced help that is multi-dimensional in their knowledge and understanding of the Internet, as well as sensitive to your unique needs and concerns.  You need to start now to form a devoted team that will be at your side for years to come to help you with technical challenges and smart, calculated Internet marketing planning for your business or service.

A:  Accelerate

If you get a website for your business or service without fully understanding the entire Internet marketing process, you will never be able to fully implement the last step, and accelerate your Internet marketing plans to success.  Knowing a little of this or a little of that is useless unless you know the process and where you are in it, and have a team of resources available to help you implement it.  Once you have done that, your business success from the Internet will start to fly.

Most sales training books and courses spend a lot of time on closing the sale, but very little time is spent on discussing the leads that, well, lead to those sales.  Generating the leads is the first part of any sales process, and the more time you spend understanding this important step, the more efficient your business will become.

How many leads did you get last month? Most mentally review and can name a handful of quality leads they talked to, but a good amount of potential leads are lost every month.

What’s the big deal?  A huge amount of a company’s resources (both time and money) are spent generating leads that will hopefully result in sales, and the better you understand where and how you get those leads, the better off your business will be.  And, if you can use your newly found information to either reduce the cost of your marketing or the time that you spend, wouldn’t that be worth it?

The first step is to establish a system to track identifying information about your lead generating activities.  Here are a few areas to start analyzing:

1. What main sources did your leads come from? Before a lead becomes a lead, they are only prospects – someone who visits your website or that you meet at a networking group.  Identify your main sources for gathering prospects, such as the Internet, trade shows, networking events, or direct advertising.

2. What “specific sources” your leads come from? Organic search, PPC, a specific networking event, another website, response to a blog post on someone else’s blog, or a specific advertising campaign are all examples of specific lead source.

3. How would you rank the quality value of each of those leads from your source and specific source?  The best way I have found to pinpoint this is to assign a percent value to each lead.  For example:

.10 = suspect (not even really a lead yet)

.25 = prospect (someone who is actually interested and you’re talking more)

.50 = proposal is made (just waiting for questions to come in from proposal and next discussion)

1.00 = client

0 = dead lead

Understanding where you are getting your leads and the quality of those leads will help you to spend your marketing time and money in the right places to increase your profits.

Cold calling strikes fear in the hearts of small business owners, new and old alike.  But mastering the technique can be beneficial, even when you don’t use the strategy as part of your direct marketing strategy.  Here are a few ways you can use cold calling to your advantage:

Market Research.

While most people think of cold calling only as those annoying telemarketers that interrupt you at home, cold calling tactics can be used to find out just about anything that you need to know to make your small business more successful.

All those questions that pop into your mind can be answered simply by picking up the phone, calling local companies that would know, and asking.  You may not always get an answer, these folks are busy too, but many times you do.  And by making more calls or independent research based on those answers, you can fill in the blanks and learn more than you can imagine.

Strategic Alliances.

Today, success in business is all about form strategic alliances that benefit all parties.  Sure, networking events and meet up groups are a great way to form these alliances, but you are limited to those that attend the event and the people they will ultimately introduce you to.

Often you have a specific business or person in mind that you’d really like to meet, but so far have not had the opportunity.  You can always resort to the stalking technique, but often much more effective is to pick up the phone and reach out.  You can begin with general market research questions, and if you sense a positive reaction move into brainstorming ways your company can help theirs (and vice versa).

In today’s competitive environment, successful small business owners need to stay open to any technique that will help them understand their industry better and form the partnerships that will make a difference to their bottom line.  Cold calling can be an effective strategy to achieving these goals.

A marketing budget is a big expense to small business owners, and often one of the first to go when times get tight.  But, without marketing, sales suffer, and the cycle continues.  One way to dream big even when times are tough is to take advantage of joint venture opportunities.

A joint venture is a strategic alliance between two or more business people to contribute to a common commercial enterprise.  Put into English, this means the opportunity to pool resources so that everyone benefits.  A joint venture can be as simple as working with another business owner to cross promote your products, or as complicated as collaborating together on an elaborate weekend event.

Regardless of the complexity, joint ventures have benefits for everyone involved.  First, is the ability to create more marketing power.  When you are not footing the entire bill, you might be able to afford advertising on radio or TV where in the past you were limited to print.  And every member of the joint venture has contacts and customers that can benefit the other members, expanding everyone’s sales force.

A newer business owner can quickly establish credibility by working with strategic joint venture partners.  You really are perceived to be like those you hang around, so choosing successful partners will give you credibility as well.   And, those folks are successful for a reason – so if you take advantage of their knowledge your learning curve will be greatly reduced.

The best part about joint ventures is that by joining forces you are able to dream big.  Nothing you want to do is out of your reach if you can find the right partners.  Even now, when times are tough, small businesses are growing and expanding every day through the use of joint venture marketing.  With the right commitment, your business can grow too.

Repeat sales are always easier than first sales.  So, small business owners are always looking to build a loyal customer base.  Regardless of what business you are in, there are a lot of things you can do to keep your customers coming back.  Here are a few ideas:

1.  Stay an Expert In Your Field.

Never stop learning about what you are selling.  It is important to always be perceived as the expert in your field.  But, with easy accessibility to information on the Internet, customers do their research and are more informed than ever.  And no customer wants to know more than the “expert”.  So read the updates and take the courses you need to always be up to date on what’s going on in your industry.  Your customers will reward you for your commitment to constant growth.

2.         Solve the Problems Fast.

Customers rarely tell you straight out if they perceive an issue, so it is important to stay intuitive.  You might want to take your customer’s pulse periodically by reaching out and asking if everything is going well, or if there are areas that need improvement in your working relationship.

Most important, when you hear of a problem never give in to the SODDI defense (some other dude did it).  It’s your business, so everything that goes wrong is your fault – take the blame with grace.  Then, take action to fix it fast.  Your customers rarely encounter that mentality.  Rather than remember the mistake, they will remember the pleasant resolution and give you their future business.  In fact, you may find that some of your biggest “problem” customers will end up being your best referral source.

3.         Remind the Customer Why They Chose You in the First Place.

This is no time to be humble, continually point out your advantages over your competitors, and praise your customer for being so perceptive and astute to choose you.  Everyone loves to receive praise and why not drive home your good qualities at the same time.

Creating loyal customers is no more than treating them so well that no one else could compare.  Give them such great service automatically, and they will demand the same for years to come.  That’s customer loyalty.

It’s no secret that times have been tough for the economy over the past year, but with the downfall of many big corporation and organizations, small businesses everywhere are seeing potential for 2010 like they’ve never had before.  It’s important for the entrepreneur to be primed for success, and a good control of business expenses, both fixed expenses and variable expenses, is a great place to start.

One expense that has increased for many small businesses is debt service, as the bank panic of 2009 caused many revolving debt facilities to be amortized.  And other expenses, such as advertising and personnel can only be cut so far without sacrificing precious leads and sales.  With these things in mind, it is critical for the small business owner to always be on the lookout for creative ways to control other expenses.

Pool Resources Where You Can

Many business owners are working with non-competitive business associates in a collaborative method in order to cut expenses.  For example, they may choose to share rental space with one another rather than be strangled by expensive lease obligations.

Another great use of this co-opt philosophy would be to joint venture with an associate in a related field that would be beneficial to your ideal customer on an advertising or marketing campaign rather than foot the entire bill yourself.

Pooling resources is an ideal way to cut otherwise fixed expenses, which can be an immediate improvement to your bottom line.  Another added bonus is that sales often increase due to referrals that you wouldn’t have otherwise received.

Replace Expensive Staff Overhead Where You Can

Many small businesses are opting away from traditional sales force and production staff and choosing to use non-traditional strategies for meeting their staffing needs.  Can you replace your permanent staff with contractors, temporary or part-time workers who only need to be paid when there is work to be done?  By shifting these costs from a fixed to a variable expense, you can often reduce your overhead substantially, a direct impact on your bottom line.

While sales staff is key to most successful businesses, there are some creative ways to keep this expense down as well.  Why not engage satisfied customers and business associates as your sales staff by offering a finder’s fee every time a lead they bring your way becomes a sale?  By using this strategy, you only have to pay your sales staff when you actually get a sale.  Nice!

Rebid Necessary Expenses

There will always be expenses you just can’t get away from, such as insurance, telephone, and credit card processing charges.  But, as the economy becomes more competitive, so do many of these businesses, and it is important to be always on the lookout for the best deal.  Re-bid these costs regularly, and you will see a decrease in your total expenses.  Even contract labor can be bid and improved, particularly as layoffs and lackluster economy provides more talented resources available.

This year can provide amazing advantages for the small business owner who is more flexible and can make changes quickly.  Analyzing expenses and making changes where you can is a great way to add to that success.