A Short Pencil is Better than a Long Memory

When I was a kid, my dad kept a little ledger in his glove compartment. Inside were meticulous notes tracking his gas mileage.

After I got my license—and started driving his car—I inherited that ledger. Every fill-up. Every mile. He’d double-check the math to be sure the mileage was right.

It was probably a great habit.

It just didn’t matter to me.

My records were… let’s call them “incomplete,” which made them useless for real measurement. I imagine he was relieved when I finally got my own car.

That story comes to mind when I think about how often we don’t measure what matters.

Do you know your marketing return on investment? Depending on the strategy, measurement can be tricky—but in most direct marketing, and even some broader efforts, results are measurable if you build the discipline.

And let’s be honest—answers like, “We’re getting some hits,” or “Yeah, the phone’s ringing,” don’t cut it.

How many hits?
How many calls?
What’s the conversion rate?
And what revenue did it actually produce?

That data equips you to make smarter decisions going forward.

Now, let’s bring it closer to home.

If you’re in sales, do you know your conversion ratios? How many prospects do you need to see to land one customer? If you don’t know that number, how do you know how much activity is required to hit your goals?

It’s not always perfectly linear—but knowing your numbers raises your sales IQ every time.

And this doesn’t stop at business.

Think about exercise. I still hear Tony Horton from P90X saying, “You gotta write it down! How can you know what to do if you don’t know what you did?”

Turns out, there’s more wisdom in that than sore muscles.

Writing things down creates clarity. Clarity creates better decisions. Better decisions create progress.

We’ve all heard that hindsight is 20/20.

Here’s the twist: foresight can be, too—if your hindsight is measurable.

So write it down. Measure what matters.

And let the numbers guide you forward.