You know that small businesses are the backbone of the American economy – but increasingly the Fortune 1000 are pulling ahead in strategy and technology, leaving a gap that will be hard to close.

The practical powers of automation, business intelligence, analytics, and machine learning continually become more prominent – simultaneously as an increasing quality in hiring metrics and internal training systems come available. Small businesses must immediately take advantage of these opportunities and advances, or quickly suffer a loss in competitive positioning in the decade to come.

Unfortunately, due to resources of time, energy and money, small and mid-sized businesses are lagging on their adoption and use of these important tools. Take a quick moment and answer the questions on this checklist to find out how you stack up to make sure you don’t wake up one morning to discover that the world has passed you by![divider style=’centered’]

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1. My business has a content marketing campaign that touches our contacts at least one or two times per month, using clickthroughs to informational blogs, articles, videos, podcasts, and infographics.

 
 

2. My business has an automated lead scoring system to identify best opportunities based on the interactions with our content marketing campaign and external market intelligence sources.

 
 

3. My business has analytics tools and processes to predict when customers or clients are ready to renew, purchase additional services or products, or become at risk of leaving.

 
 

4. My business has automated systems to trigger interactions, communications, and touch points in order to maintain contact with our best existing and prospective customers based on their prior behaviors and scoring.

 
 

5. My business has a researched and documented understanding of the quantifiable characteristics, behaviors, and habits of our peak performing customer service and sales personnel.

 
 

6. My business has a data-driven testing system to ensure new hires are the right fit for our culture and specific job needs

 
 

7. My business has ongoing training programs for our team members to continually improve their skills in customer service and sales, in addition to technical understanding of our core products and services.