column and move it across to become an investment. Test and Measure So, this is the answer. The only way to become a marketing genius is to simply test and measure. Ask every customer who walks through the door, every caller, every prospect you ever deal with, this one simple question: By the way, how did you find out about us? And simply keep a tally. Remember, you cannot manage what you cannot measure. This way you'll very quickly find out what marketing works, what pays for itself, and what is just an expense. Of course, you'll either change the ads that are an expense, or stop running them all together. Then, for exponential growth all you have to do is refocus every dollar you spent on what didn't work, to those that do, and then every dollar you spend on marketing will make you dollar after dollar. Yet despite this logic, it's amazing how many business owners still blindly spend their marketing budget without measuring the results. What's the use of placing a $250 ad in the local paper, if you're lucky to get $150 worth of business from it? Of course there isn't any. Problem is, many people think the ad is bringing in much more business than it really is because they don't properly test and measure. Compare it to sports. When was the last time you watched a football game or tennis match and nobody kept score? It's the same for business. You've got to keep score of everything you do. After all, if you don't know you've got a problem, how can you fix it? Another challenge here is that your accountant will teach you to measure the wrong things. As an accountant, I can firmly tell you that measuring turnover, costs, and profit is a waste of time. In Part 3, we'll look at the things you need to measure. 19