The three most important statistics to track for increasing your store’s sales and profits are: traffic count, average sale, and closing ratio. A drop in any can result in decreased sales, just as a boost in any will increase sales. Once you know these numbers, you can react and plan accordingly.

If traffic count is down, increase time and effort spent on marketing to bring more people into the store. Ask every customer what brought him or her to your store so you can evaluate your advertising and plan special events or promotions to help build traffic.

If your average sale has dropped, determine whether it’s due to the wrong merchandise, the sales staff not selling up or adding on as much, or local economic conditions.

If the drop in average sale is because the merchandise isn’t right, ask your customers what they’d like.

If it’s because the sales staff isn’t selling up or adding on, work on both in sales-training sessions.

If economic conditions mean your customers are spending less, boost marketing to build traffic and offset lower per-ticket sales.

If your closing ratio (how many people are sold versus how many come into the store) has dropped, this is also a signal to improve your sales training, especially closing.

Individual salespeople should track these numbers for themselves as well. Once they know where a weakness is, they can work to improve.