Pot Watching

My new business has a website. To maintain any hope of anonymity I'm not going to post the URL here. You're just going to have to believe me. But part of the princely $6.95 a month fee to have a website goes for traffic statistics, which are updated every 24 hours. I don't understand about eighty percent of the information, but there are some statistics I can relay. Before real advertising -- you know the kind that you actually pay for -- I had 102 unique viewers. Now that could be 102 different people, or it could be my mother roaming Iowa and logging on to the website from 102 different computers. I don't know and I don't care. I'm happy with that number. Additionally, approximately 30.1% of those viewers have bookmarked the website. Personally, I'm thrilled with those statistics.

This week I sent out my mailings including discount cards, and my listing in a professional association went up and an ad I bought in an e-newsletter went out. Statistically, by the end of next week approximately 3,000 more people should be aware of my business than there were a week ago. Statistically, one percent of those should be expected to contact me, so that would be 30. Assuming I'm able to close half of those contacts, I should make 15 sales. My break-even point is 3.

So, this morning I got up to check my statistics. 1 person went to the website, and nobody has been to the blog. (Yes, dear reader, I must admit that for business purposes I have a business-related blog. It means nothing. I'm just doing it to put myself through college. I don't even use my real name...)

Now, I understand that the type of promotion I invested in is long-term, brand-building investing. As such, returns will be slower than I would like. But ONE. Now, I also think that the newsletter was sent after the update for the website. But the blog stats update at midnight, and nothing. Most of my discount cards are probably still sitting on a desk, unopened. It's quite likely they won't be opened for weeks, and when finally opened quite possibly will be thrown away. That's all fine. Anticipated. Part of the master plan. But ONE!

I've identified 20 direct competitors, and of those I'd say 5 or 6 are any real competition from a price/quality perspective. I've analyzed their products and I can humbly say that I think I rank fifth. And I've been at it a month. The others have been in the business between five and twenty years.

Now I have to wait another twenty-four hours to see if there's been any traffic on the website or the blog, (I'm sorry. It's part of my life, not in the same way that you are, but it is.) I need another project to get me away from the computer, more specifically the Internet. Luckily I have just such a project. In addition to the writing sample for the PhD programs, the completion of my collection of short stories, my fledgling movie-reviewing career, the outline for my novels, (yes, plural!) I have bought a book that will revolutionize my resume and my approach to the medical-benefit-providing workaday world. I've set myself the goal of having the resume completed by the end of the weekend.

But all I really want to do is sit and watch the stats on my website and wait for the orders to come in.