In business we’re told that if something doesn’t produce an immediate and measureable ROI we shouldn’t do it. Can a family be considered a business? There are financial considerations, problem solving, negotiation, sales and marketing, income and expenses, and even shareholders…all of them take a whole lot of time to manage. What do you mean there’s no investment? Tell a stay-at-home parent their time is worthless…Dare ya. If there’s no investment, is it safe to say there’s no return, either? Tell that to the proud parents of a professional athlete, a recent college graduate, or anyone, in fact, that has given every ounce of their being to another person’s success. You’d be askin’ for a whoopin’.
Let’s say a restaurant places coupons in the local newspaper. That costs a finite amount of money. Tracking the business that comes from the coupons is easy, too. At the end of each day, just calculate the difference between average sales and sales with the coupons. Divide that amount of revenue by the amount spent on the coupons and the resulting figure is the ROI. If ROI is negative, the coupons didn’t work and the owner will stop doing them. If the number is positive, he’ll do them again next week.
Now let’s throw in a curve ball: The day the coupons were taken in, the service team wa a group of back-ups with little or no experience and the manager wasn’t there. Which had a bigger impact on ROI, the coupons or the people taking care of the business? The point is this: Does any marketing strategy really have more impact on a small business than the blood, sweat and tears of the business owner and key personnel? Organizations are really good at assigning value to time: It’s called SALARY. (Otherwise known as the amount they pay to own YOU.) If you’re a full-time employee paid $20,800 a year, your time is worth $10 per hour. That’s easy. What about the owner who has poured his heart and soul into the business? Is he or she counting the hours worked during the start-up phase? Not hardly. But how does one quantify for the purposes of ROI the value of the time they spend making their vision a reality? If they listened to the pundits, small business owners would give up before they started. And I wouldn’t have a family.