Quick Summary
Every quarter, we review and share our sales and marketing performance—from how leads found us to what channels drove the most conversions. In Q1, we launched a new DIY program, signed referral partners, improved our email cadence, and saw solid traffic from Google and our newsletter. This post gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what worked (and what didn’t), and how we’re planning ahead. If you want to improve your sales and marketing clarity, this is a great place to start.
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What’s measured gets managed.
Every quarter, I share our financial, sales, and marketing performance with the team. We talk about what went well, what didn’t, and set new goals for the next quarter.
While our clients usually have a good handle on their finances, they’re often so caught up with day-to-day operations that they don’t have the tools and systems to track their sales and marketing efforts.
Actions like asking leads, “How did you find us?” and tracking responses aren’t habits yet. That’s why a big part of our onboarding is helping clients set up these foundational processes.
Measuring your sales and marketing helps you improve. The data shows you things like:
- Which channels are working or not.
- Whether it’s time to diversify.
- If your sales process needs improvement, like better filtering or more conversions.
- Potential gaps in your marketing or sales strategy.
I want to encourage you to track your sales and marketing performance. So I figured I’d lead by example and show you how I track ours:
Sales Performance
- We received 24 inquiries this quarter.
- 24 soft inquiries (asked about our services)
- 16 hard inquiries (booked an introduction call)
- 10 paid consultations (paid for a proposal)
- Where did the new inquiries come from?
- 54% from Canada
- 38% from the USA
- 8% from Europe
- Who were they?
- 42% were designers and architects
- 8% were builders and contractors
- 4% were furniture makers and procurement
- 17% were building products and suppliers
- 29% from other industries
- How did they find us?
- 42% from referrals
- 33% from Google
- 13% from this email newsletter (compared to 7% from last year)
- 4% from podcasts
- 4% from social media
- 4% from cold outreach
- We closed 38% of our hard inquiries, and 31% are open (in progress).
- Our average sales cycle is between 4 to 7 weeks.
Marketing Performance
- Our website received 4,800 visits this quarter, with 69% of traffic coming from Google.
- We sent out 11 email newsletters:
- The average open rate remained steady at 45%.
- We gained 32 new subscribers.
- We were active on two social media platforms:
- LinkedIn: 2,900 total subscribers (267 new), 30+ posts, and 40,549 impressions (a 25% increase).
- Substack: We launched in January and have maintained a 72% average open rate.
- We were featured in 4 press outlets:
Reflection
Here are some of the sales and marketing activities we worked on this quarter:
- 30-Day Program. In January, we launched a new service: a DIY alternative to our 12-Month Program. By February, I closed a few sales and tested the program with real clients.
- Next quarter: Continue testing and refining the offering.
- Email Newsletter: In Q1, we transitioned from a monthly to a weekly newsletter. We streamlined our processes to maintain the new cadence.
- Next quarter: Grow our subscriber count through social media.
- Referral Program: We launched a referral program and signed 5 partners, mostly agencies like web designers, PR, and social media firms. They’ve agreed to refer us in exchange for a commission on any new business.
- Next quarter: Nurture the relationships with our partners.
- Cold Outreach: With 5 inbound sales channels in place, I dabbled with cold email outreach to diversify. I even considered hiring an agency, but decided to keep it in-house for now.
- Next quarter: Experiment with pitching to 45 companies–but not with email. I’ll continue making in-person visits.
- Documentation: We just started documenting our sales process, outlining steps in a flow chart (see a preview here) and identifying ways to shorten the cycle.
- Next quarter: Create detailed documentation with scripts, recordings, and templates, and find more ways to improve efficiency and conversions.
Tracking our inquiries throughout the year makes it pretty easy for us to create this summary at the end of every quarter.
If you’re ready to get more clarity in your sales and marketing—and start getting measurable results—hit reply or book a call with me. I’d love to help you get there.
See you here next week,
Daniela
P.S. Prefer a more DIY approach? Here’s the exact spreadsheet template we use with our clients. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.
