A good friend of mine, who I have known since high school works in a car dealership. We talk quite often about the trials and tribulations, pros and cons, even the risks and rewards of our chosen career paths. I always enjoy his perspective on how they measure their sales efficiencies.

I was fascinated to learn that they actually try to determine the number of qualified car shoppers that visit their lot each month. No surprise that they also monitor the number car sales each month, and that they try to maintain an acceptable ratio of shoppers to sales.  To be clear, my fascination was not simply that this was occurring - but that they tried to only quantify the ‘qualified’ car shoppers. They do their best to not factor in the kids, ‘tire kickers’ and other unqualified people who visit the lot with no intention of purchasing a new car in their manual performance reports. Fascinating.

Like most who don’t live and breathe eCommerce/analytics/optimization, my friend was not aware of the many tools widely available today to online businesses.  Methods to essentially provide the same sort of physical performance reporting that they do by hand.

All this business intelligence talk exposed some critical differences as well.

Now the manual subjective nature of qualifying people has huge room for error, but the intent is genuine. Some kids may just want to sit in the new Challenger - Great. But they don’t represent a lost sale.

Even with more sophisticated automated reporting tools, I don’t talk to many people who dissect their online business in the same manor.

The parallels are obvious - If you don’t ship outside of North America, why not generate a North American conversion report (for example)?

My take: Online stakeholders need to start to think about business analysis differently. This is not about better dashboards, reports, and ones and zero’s collected by your website. Real people are interacting with your brand, your store, and your products. Get to know them.

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Track me down in Vegas next week ……..Vegas, baby. Vegas.

D.

Before I get started with a regular by-weekly post …..a quick introductory/positioning statement.

As a Senior Account Executive here at Sitebrand for over 2 years, I have had the pleasure of meeting thousands of interesting people in all sorts of interesting roles. The common thread, the internet is a fundamental piece of their business strategy. From fellow vendors, to thought leaders, VP’s, C level exec’s, business owners and more - there are no shortage of interesting conversations in this space to be had, if you make it a priority to get out there and have them.

Fundamentally my role here is to meet people, and learn. As a vendor/solution provider, it is impossible for me to provide an option, if I am unaware of the ailment. Imagine going to a doctor, and getting a new miracle drug prescription at the reception desk with out ever speaking to the doctor? Analysis is imperative.

I find it fascinating that there are some universal themes, or undercurrents in many of my conversations that seem to impact everyone.

To get the conversation started, one of these predominant topics: Change.

Regardless of your business (Or thoughts on Web/eCommerce 2.0) doing business online implies change. Businesses are no longer wondering if online is viable, they focus on increasing conversion. The internet is not going away, this thing works.

A lot like how electrification was the catalyst for the (North American) Second Industrial Revolution. The parallels today to what electricity did for business back then, and to what the internet has done over the past 20 years - are hard to overlook. It is easy to pick out the players who embrace change, and those on the outside looking for answers.

Today, companies winning online seem to be better able to adapt and react to change. Be it planned (i.e. a platform migration), or otherwise (i.e. Google tweaking their algorithms). Change is also about thinking ahead, taking calculated risks, and sticking your neck out from time to time. The reward for status quo, is status quo.

I have had much more meaningful conversations with those who are effective at managing change.

I look forward to your feedback. Better yet, I look forward to many more meaningful conversations.

Cheers.

D.