John Wanamaker famously said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

That might have been fair a century ago—but today, it’s inexcusable.

We’re swimming in data. We have the ability to track every click, every conversion, and every dollar spent. Yet many business owners still have no idea what’s actually driving results.

They’re running campaigns, testing tactics, and pouring money into marketing without a clear understanding of what’s working—or why.

It’s not because the information isn’t available. It’s because they’re not asking the right questions. And they’re not measuring ROI the way they should.

The Real Cost of Not Knowing

When you don’t know what’s working, you waste more than money. You waste opportunity. You waste time. And most dangerously, you waste momentum.

I’ve had countless conversations with business owners who say, “We haven’t seen the ROI yet.” And almost every time, when we dig in, the results are sitting right there under their nose.

Take one of our clients, for example. 

They used a simple framework we teach to turn a $200K deal into a $400K deal—without generating a single new lead. They didn’t double their ad spend. They didn’t overhaul their funnel. They just took a step back, spotted the leverage, and pulled the right lever.

That’s the game.

ROI isn’t always loud. It doesn’t always show up as a spike in revenue or a flood of new customers. Sometimes, it’s subtle. It hides in the form of better deals, longer client retention, or small pricing tweaks that quietly move your margins.

And if you’re not looking for it, you’ll miss it completely.

ROI Isn't Just About More—It's About Better

Most people chase ROI by trying to do more. More leads. More traffic. More ads.

But smart marketers know that growth isn’t always about addition—it’s often about optimization. It’s not about doing more; it’s about doing better with what you already have.

That might mean upselling existing clients, instead of finding new ones. In fact, upselling is one of the fastest, most efficient ways to grow revenue without growing your workload. 

It might also mean raising your prices—confidently and without apology. Not based on guesswork or fear, but on clear value, strong positioning, and an audience willing to pay more for a better result. We break this down step-by-step in How To Charge High Prices For Your Products And Services.

None of this is revolutionary. But it is effective.

We overcomplicate ROI because we think it needs to look dramatic. What we forget is that compounding works on small wins too. And those small wins—executed consistently—build something far more powerful than a temporary spike ever could.

Leverage Is the New Growth Engine

There’s a better question than “Did we get more sales this month?”

Ask yourself: “Where did we create leverage?”

That leverage could be:

• A deal that came in bigger than expected.
  
  
• A client who stayed on an extra six months.
  
  
• A segment of your audience that responded unusually well to an offer.

It’s these inflection points—these subtle performance spikes—that reveal the true ROI of your efforts. But you can’t leverage what you don’t recognize.

Which is why you need to look for it. Routinely. Deliberately. Systematically.

A Simple Exercise to Uncover Hidden ROI

If you want to start maximizing what’s already working, here’s a simple exercise I give to clients:

1. Review your most recent marketing and sales activity—not just the obvious outcomes, but the secondary ones too. Where did you see a deal close faster than usual? Where did a customer upgrade unexpectedly? Where did a campaign outperform your assumptions?
   
   
2. Spot the points of leverage. Don’t just celebrate the win—understand why it happened. Was it your messaging? A new onboarding process? A timing factor?
   
   
3. Double down. Replicate. Improve. Build systems around it. Because once you’ve found leverage, your job isn’t to admire it—it’s to amplify it.

Maximizing ROI isn’t about chasing new channels or experimenting with the latest marketing trend. It’s about doing a better job of measuring, recognizing, and repeating what already works.

It’s about moving from reactive marketing to deliberate growth.

You already have more leverage than you think. Most of the time, your next breakthrough doesn’t require a brand-new campaign—it requires better visibility into the one you’ve already run.

So before you look outward for your next move, look inward. Measure with precision. Analyze with intent. And if you need a refresher on which metrics actually drive growth, revisit our guide on The Only Marketing Metrics That Really Matter.

You don’t need more noise. You need more clarity. And clarity starts with tracking what matters—and scaling what’s already working.