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Measure what matters: Establishing cause & effect relationship between Return & Effort/Investment

This is an actual conversation between me and a dentist who is considering hiring me. I am recommending a non-trivial investment in Hubspot for a dentist with multiple locations and about $2.5M in revenue. The doctor has been looking at me for the last several years, has bought and read my books, read at least a dozen blog articles and over 20 recent page views before booking an appointment. After a good initial interview he invites me to come in for a video conference with his leadership team. He requested and now has a copy of my fee estimate and engagement letter. Before signing, he asked me this question:

There are significant reasons why marketing metrics are critical.  If you don’t know what works, what doesn’t, what’s weak, what’s healthy, you’re lost.  How can you get to where you are going without markers along the way to ensure you’re going in the proper direction.  You’re missing out on pertinent information when you don’t use them.

Sometimes, there is just not enough money to do EVERYTHING you would like to do.

Recently, I had the privilege of talking to a prospect who wanted to enlist me to her team and support her event. We talked about her needs, her long-term vision, short-term goals and the project on deck.

I asked for $57,500. She said, "you are ON, but, you' ve got to make do with $20K. That's all we can invest in this project at this time. What can we do?"

Responses like this place me in an awkward position. As the process engineer, I now have to decide which battles are worth fighting, and what MUST get accomplished between this moment and March, when the event is to occur. I need to figure out a way to make-do and remove certain marketing assets so as to not compromise the event’s marketing needs. 

No one likes to lose money. Yet, we ALL lose money every day. I recently discovered there are at least 171 ways to lose a million dollars, believe it or don’t. We count money we make, we count money we spend, we count money we owe, we count money owed to us, we count money which we pay taxes on, we count money we save... but we fail to count money that we do not make.

The whole concept of "fortune not made" can be devastating to a small business that happens to be struggling to merely survive. It can most certainly slow down the growth of a thriving business as well. There is no accounting system for lost data, lost money and "fortune not made".

So the problem is real. Some call it unconverted leads or lost opportunities problem. Clinicians call it unscheduled treatment plans. At eLaunchers.com we call this problem diamonds in your database.

This problem is amplified in the life of physicians, cosmetic dentists, orthodontists, cosmetic surgeons, attorneys and any business who sells a high value product or service.

In order to grow your business, you are going to need three things. These three things can only be successful when applied together. You cannot have one on its own and expect to grow and be successful. If anything, you are losing money, time, and effort to get that one part up without the others. After you have these three things, you will acquire growth that is triggered by your efforts and managed by your diligence. You do not need anything else other than all three. Here are the three things:

Have you ever wondered which of your marketing strategies are working? You might have Facebook ads, Google, websites, and landing pages running your marketing strategies. How do you know which one is actually successfully generating you leads, and which one is just wasting your time and money? For all you know you might be getting all of your leads from Facebook ads and the rest are just taking your money or the other way around.

In his book NO B.S. Direct Response Marketing, Dan Kennedy, a most successful and influential marketer, explained all the rules in marketing. Rule number four from this book says, “There will be tracking, measurement and accountability” (page 37).