Manual Traffic Count Sheet

     Traffic (Please Count Family As One)                                (Mail Man Factor) Non-Customer Counts

Grand Total Non Traffic Count For Day       ______

 Grand Total Traffic Count For Day              ______

 Number of Invoices Written                         ______

 Total Dollar Volume (No Tax)                     $______

Total Dollar Volume Divided By Traffic Count Equals Your Revenue Per Up “RPU” $ _______

Manual Traffic Count Instructions

1.       Provide the person doing the counting a timer with an alarm that lets them know when each hour ends.

2.       Count a minimum of three days, most importantly the entire weekend?  If possible a full week is ideal.

3.       Count a family as one buying opportunity and put them in the left list during that hour.

4.       Count all non-customer counts and put them on the right list during that hour.

5.       You may want to track what type of non-customer activity you receive throughout the day by using abbreviations instead of hash marks.  IE: SP for Salesperson, MM for Mail Man, O for Office Personnel, W for Warehouse Employee, Fed Ex, UPS etc.

6.       Make sure your salespeople do not interact too much with the person counting and that each opportunity is counted accurately. 

Measure Customer Traffic and Closing Ratios

You must learn how many customers are visiting your company every day and how many customers each salesperson is talking with or you cannot be an effective manager and are missing a critical ingredient to running your operation.  Without knowing your accurate closing ratio you are missing a tremendous opportunity.  Bill Gates says in his book, Business at the Speed of Thought.  “The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from the competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with information.  How you gather, manage and use information will determine whether you win or lose.”  Strong words and recommended reading.

The clear meaning here is measuring everything you do, especially the information on the sales you don't make...Southwest Airlines is by far the most profitable airline in that industry today.  There is one simple reason.  They benchmark and measure everything.  They know for example exactly how many customers it takes to pay for the fuel to fly from one destination to another.  They know how many customers it takes to pay for their crew how many more customers it takes to pay for the gate.  They can tell you their exact cost per air mile per seat.  By knowing this single number on every flight, they are able to identify poor performance immediately and learn if they are improving or falling behind each day.

This type of measurement is what it takes to be successful today and the only way to get it is to measure your customer traffic manually and tracking consistently over time or by installing a traffic counter.

RPG (Revenue Per Guest)…This acronym really says it all regarding the investment retailers put into every new customer who walks into their store.  RPG automatically analyzes how well each store does regarding closing ratios compared to overall opportunities.  Long ago I owned and eight store chain with 50 salespeople and would gauge my success by dollar volume alone as most of us do.  The problem with this short sighted measurement is that you don’t learn the big picture which provides the true potential your company has every day.  The Revenue Per Guest is simply the total dollar volume divided by the number of sales opportunities.  There are only two ways to improve this number.  #1. Increase the average sale amount.  #2.  Improve the closing ratio. 

If you don't know your RPG accurately, you don't know if you are really improving or getting worse.  John F. Lawhon says in his best selling book, The Selling Bible,  "If you can measure something, you can improve it".  "If you don't accurately measure it, it will not improve".

What is your biggest challenge as a retailer?  Have you ever been on the sales floor for a couple hours during a busy traffic day, and then had to go somewhere else?  You assumed the day would be great or at least good, because traffic was good and the sales seemed like they were rolling in.  Later you were told that traffic died immediately after you left.  You then naturally ask yourself what would the day have been like if you had stayed.  The real question is; did traffic really drop off after you left or did the level of attention to the details drop when you walked out the door?

How many times have you asked...Why are sales so far off, and the reply from your salespeople is that traffic is down; they also tell you they are closing almost every possible opportunity walking in the door.  The problem is that currently you have to believe them because you are not measuring traffic. 

What is really going on with the sales floor?  You say to yourself...we are advertising, the merchandise looks great, our prices are competitive, I spend lots of time and money on sales training.  So what is the real problem?  If a salesperson could stand in your shoes for five minutes, they would understand how you feel about their activity and work habits and how frustrated you are regarding below average sales productivity.

We believe that the most important thing you could ever learn to improve your business, is your traffic count and number of opportunities per salesperson.  If you don't know this simple incredible number, you don't know your companies true potential.  This number is the key ingredient to long term and perpetual improvement of profits, the heart of motivation and creating sustained enthusiasm on the floor.  It will immediately open your eyes, so just do it.

Did you make the call yet?  Don’t delay, start counting right now.

Then Call Daniel at 713.532.1106 or email Daniel@TRAXsales.com

www.TRAXsales.com

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