Let's say you're on the phone with a potential customer. She likes the product and wants to make a purchase. However, you need to fax over an agreement to get a signature. Also, you need to set up a method for payment.

Unfortunately, this takes a few days – and during this time, the lead goes dark. You lost a customer . . .

In today's tough economic times, it's absolutely critical to close customers quickly. But how?

Well, there are some helpful – and affordable technologies to help out.

Marketing is always difficult. Often, you need to experiment with a variety of approaches. And, of course, you need to measure things.

Obvious, huh?

Yet, when it comes to using social media like Twitter, Facebook and so on, it seems that many small businesses forgot to measure things.

Then again, if you read much of the how-to's on the topic, it does seem that social media is an elixir; that is, there is some type of magic that will create more business.

But, when I talk to business owners about the success of their social media, things get a bit fuzzy. Often, there are few tangible examples.