We wrap up this week's series on Marketing In The Moment with some thoughts about multiplying our marketing. One obvious way to do that is with money, but writing checks isn't my point today. If you can write bigger checks and effectively drive business growth, then by all means...write the checks. Most of us don't have unlimited funds though. Most of us have a lot more fear than funds.

The reason Wednesday's podcast focused on measuring marketing was because we need to know if we're getting a return. Whether we call it CAC (client acquisition cost) or something else, it's urgent that we understand what kind of investment is required - in time, money, effort, talent, etc. - to acquire a client. When you're starting out that's super hard --- and it may even be impossible.

Let's suppose I knew I could invest $1,000 to get a client. And let's suppose a typical client resulted in $5,000 worth of business. Well, the math is easy, provided we know the profit margin exceeds 20% ($1,000 is 20% of $5,000 --- which would enable me to at least earn back the money I spent to acquire the client). But wait a minute. That's just break-even at getting the client. What about the time, effort and expense to deliver any value to the client? The margin has to be vastly better than 20% in order to make that $1,000 CAC worthwhile.

If the margins are 80% then a $5,000 client can produce $4,000 of profit. Question: Would you trade $1,000 for $5,000 gross? For $4,000 profit? Duh! Of course, as fast as possible. So you COULD write that $1,000 check all day long if you knew it would result in one typical client. It's one way to multiply marketing.

Of course, things often look easier and more attractive on paper than in the wild. Client or customer acquisition is hard. Else all we'd need would be enough money to get started. Say, that's first $1,000 check. We'd profit $4,000, then we could theoretically write four $1,000 checks and end up with $16,000 profit, then write sixteen $1,000 checks and end up $64,000 and sky is the limit.

It doesn't work that way in real life though. We write the $1,000 check, we hustle, we talk to anybody and everybody we can talk to and all we hear are crickets chirping. There are NO guarantees.

Multiplying marketing is about improving odds. Not much more.

I know you'd like promises, guarantees and solid solutions that work every single time. They just don't exist. Sorry.

What does exist is a lot of hard work, a lot of fear, even more, rejection and somewhere out there - in the future - a point where you figure something out and it works. But know this. It won't keep working so you have to keep moving, like a shark constantly prowling for something to eat.

The big idea that leaps to my mind when we talk about multiplying your marketing is attention. We used to call it visibility back in the pre-Internet age, but it really is attention. Whether it was advertising on radio, TV or the newspaper. Whether it was a PR campaign that was traditional or perhaps guerilla marketing where we were willing to be a bit off-the-wall. It all boiled down to our need to be seen or heard. We needed people to notice. Visibility has long been the key to success. At most everything business-related.

I know some "influencers and thought leaders" who quite frankly aren't any sharper (or as sharp) as some people nobody knows. In fact, I know far more business people who are vastly superior to "influencers and thought leaders" but because of their lack of visibility nobody gives them credit. Out of sight, out of mind.

The majority of influencers and thought leaders I know have one skill over those anonymous brilliant people. They self-promote. Well. They've figured out how to get people's attention. The really good ones aren't just good at it, they LOVE it. Introverts like me hate it,