In order to have a properly managed business, it is necessary to manage all aspects of the business. It is common for the average small businessman to have a computer to maintain records of sales, customer base information and expenditures.

We spend lots of money to count our beans and get trained on the latest methods of the best ways to so do. However, my perspective says that getting the beans in the first place is Game One. You've got to have something to count, or that expensive hardware, software, and training is not only impotent, but also, probably not able to be paid for! "Nothing happens until a sale is made!"

There have not been very many places to go to get a full view of the marketing options, and thus the importance of measuring the different choices to test and monitor. What all this is pointing to is the importance of measuring the fruits of every effort to acquire business. Even if you use only "location" or "newspaper" advertising, it is paramount for you to ask, "how did you hear about me?" Otherwise, you have no useful information to manage.

I know a cooling contractor who set up his computers so that every incoming call had to have the "how did you hear about us" response entered into the blank or the person taking the information could not advance on the screen. What a deal! He has complete information on how many referrals, repeat customers, radio, direct mail and phone book responses he gets, and when they came in. He could see that 15 call-ins around 12:00 from the radio ad (that ran at 12:00) were the direct result of that ad. What a tool! Then he would change the ad, to test possible improvements, and measure the difference.

Now that's accountable marketing! Marketing has not been the strong suit of most small businesses. People, by nature, do not like to attempt things that they don't know much about or are not very skilled at doing. However, is there any part of your business responsibilities more important than controlling your income?

"You can't effectively change something that you can't measure" is worth considering, with the priority and resources attributed to other parts of your business.