Running on Gut Feel Is a Stage. The Best Leaders Grow Out of It.

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A business owner I work with has been paying an outside vendor several thousand dollars a month to handle a key marketing channel.

Every month, reports come in with activity metrics and engagement numbers.

But it doesn’t tell him if it's actually producing revenue.
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He suspects the messaging is off. He thinks the return should be better.

But it's all "probably."

And month after month, multiple $K's are getting spent.

(Not including the opportunity cost.)

He doesn't have the right data that would tell him if it’s working or not. Without that, he can’t make informed decisions.

He's just going with his gut.

Here's how this usually happens:

In the earlier stages of building a business, you know what's working because you're the one doing the work. Then you start handing things off, which is exactly what you're supposed to do.

But somewhere in that handoff, you set up the work without defining what you needed to see back from it.

So activity gets reported. Maybe milestones get checked off. And it all looks fine on the surface.

The client showed up. Or the deliverable went out. Or the campaign ran.

But none of that tells you whether the work is producing a result.

This plagues businesses. And it happens everywhere.

In marketing. In service delivery. Team management.

Anything you've handed off without defining what "good" looks like is a function you're not really leading.

Your job as a leader is to make good decisions. And you can't make good decisions on gut feel alone.

Think about your bank account.

I don't go to the bank and watch them count the money. I don't need to see the vault. I just need a portal where I can check my balance.

I trust them to do the math. And I can verify the output without going in there and watching over their shoulder.

Nobody thinks that's a strange thing to expect.

The same principle applies to every part of your business. What do you need to know to verify the work is being done, and being done well?

That's your snapshot.

In my client’s case, once he realized that, things got simple fast.

- Did the lead come from the vendor's work?

- What revenue did it produce?

Either the numbers prove there’s an ROI, or something changes.

That's what a real decision looks like. Not guessing or speculating.

Take your gut into consideration - but don’t let that be the only input that informs your decisions.

You’ll make better calls. You’ll move faster. And you’ll be running your business instead of just funding it.

If you're making decisions on incomplete information and you know it, book a call. We can figure out exactly what you need to be tracking and how to get visibility without getting back in the weeds.

This week on The Business Owner's Journey:

Debbie Oster is a messaging and marketing strategist for growth-stage B2B founders, a former business partner of mine, and someone I still work closely with and rely on.

We got into why smart business owners keep diagnosing marketing problems as execution issues when the real constraint is a lack of clear decision-making at the top.
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(The owner I mentioned above? I connected him with Debbie. This is exactly the kind of problem she helps business owners solve.)

If marketing feels harder than it should right now, give this one a listen.

Listen to or watch this episode on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Youtube, or your favorite platform!

Build the business you envision,

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