How to know, in numbers, whether what you're spending on marketing is actually working — before you spend another dollar on it. 13 short lessons, a few minutes each.
By Lucas Jansen and Gabriely · JansenLucas.com
Ask most business owners how they know their marketing is working, and you get a feeling, not a number. "Leads seem up." "We've been busy." "I think the reviews help." None of that is proof. It's a guess dressed up as confidence, and it's the reason so many businesses keep spending on the same channels out of habit instead of results.
That's the actual wound here. Not a lack of customers — most of the businesses reading this have customers. The wound is not being able to say, in a straight number, which dollar you spent last month made you money and which one didn't.
This course fixes that with thirteen short lessons on the three things that turn a guess into proof: showing the evidence you already have instead of hiding it, keeping the customers you already earned instead of leaking them out the back door, and measuring the ratio that tells you the truth about your spend. No theory. Every lesson is a rule, one real example, and why it matters, in a few minutes.
Free, live, and we audit real websites on screen — the same numbers-first thinking behind this course, applied to your business in real time.
You already have the proof. You're just not showing enough of it.
Strangers won't believe your claims about yourself — you're a biased source, and they know it. So stop making claims and start showing volume. Collect every 5-star review you've ever earned, across every platform, and put them where people can't miss them, in bulk, before you say a single word about how good you are.
A plumber prints every 5-star review from Google, Yelp, and Facebook and covers one wall of the shop, floor to ceiling. A dentist does the same down the reception hallway. Nobody reads all forty. They don't have to — the volume does the convincing before a single word of pitch happens.
A wall of forty reviews beats three hand-picked quotes on a homepage, because volume removes the "of course you'd say that" doubt that follows every claim you make about yourself.
One incentive gets them in the door. A second, timed right, keeps them past the point they'd normally quit.
Give customers two separate incentives, not one: an incentive to sign up, and a completely different incentive to stay. Place the "stay" incentive right before the point where most customers normally quit, and start reminding them it's coming one to two months ahead of time.
A gym's average membership lasts six months. Instead of only offering a joining discount, it adds a loyalty upgrade at month four or five, with reminders starting at month three. Pushing the average member from six months to eight is a real revenue jump on every single member — with no new leads required.
One incentive does nothing to keep someone past the point they were always going to quit. A second one, timed to the actual churn point instead of a random date, is what does.
Most leads don't buy after one or two follow-ups. Give them thirty days of value instead of pressure.
Most businesses lose half their sales because they follow up once or twice and quit. Run a structured sequence instead — every touch has to stand on its own as valuable, even if the lead never buys.
One touch a day, pure value: your best case study, a real transformation, your sharpest insight about the job.
One touch every other day, each one killing a single, specific objection — price, timing, trust.
Two touches a week, alternating a success story with an insight. No more "just checking in."
Buyers need more information, not more pressure. A sequence that earns attention with standalone value earns the right to keep asking, instead of burning the relationship with repeated asks.
Four things that rarely happen by accident. Design each one on purpose.
Most businesses get maybe one of these four for free. Plan something deliberate for each, timed to the moment it actually works — not to a random date on your calendar.
Map days 1, 30, and 90 so the customer can see where they're headed, not just what they paid for.
Ask 72 hours after their first real win — not right after they pay, before any win has happened.
Ask at the specific moment they're most likely to say yes: right after their first success, not randomly, ever.
Pitch the next thing when they actually feel the problem it solves — a landscaper offers cleanup when leaves start falling, not on January 1st.
Planning something deliberate for each of the four measurably raises the odds it happens, instead of hoping goodwill produces it on its own.
Customers help people, not companies. Make the review ask about a person.
Don't have the owner ask for a review directly. Have an employee surprise the customer with something extra first — an upgrade, a freebie, a bit of extra time. Then the owner follows up and asks for the review on that employee's behalf, tied to something concrete the employee gets out of it.
An electrician's technician throws in a free smoke detector battery swap while he's already there. The owner texts that evening: "Hey, Mike mentioned how much he enjoyed helping you today — he gets a $50 bonus if you leave him a 5-star review. Would you mind giving him two minutes?"
Customers feel connected to the person who helped them, not the business. Asking after a surprise, and framing the ask as helping a named person, makes it land as personal instead of transactional.
Resolve it in five minutes and customers are 67% more likely to stick around.
A Harvard study found customers whose problems get resolved inside five minutes are 67% more likely to stick around. Sort every issue into three buckets before it ever comes in, and have a fast, templated response ready for each one.
Instant fix, sent the moment it comes in. No waiting for the "perfect" reply.
A templated clarifying question, sent within minutes, not days.
"I'm getting this approved by [name], you'll hear back by [time]" — sent now, even if the real answer takes longer.
Speed beats perfection for how satisfied someone feels. Like a flight delay update, people tolerate a problem far better when they're being kept informed than when they're left in silence waiting for the "real" answer.
A cheap gift, three platforms, and proof required. That's a review-generation system, not a hope.
Give away an exclusive item — something decent, not sold anywhere — but only to customers who leave an honest review on all three platforms that matter to you. Show them exactly how, require proof before you hand it over, and give it to them immediately once they do.
An HVAC company has $6 branded t-shirts made, not sold anywhere, given only to customers who screenshot three honest reviews on Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Cost works out to roughly $2 per review, and every shirt worn afterward is a small walking ad for the business.
Making the reward exclusive and requiring proof turns a cheap item into a review system with its own built-in verification — and asking for "honest," not "5-star," removes the awkwardness that usually kills participation.
You're already recommending the tools. You're just not getting paid for it yet.
Onboarding calls already walk new customers through every tool or service they'll need. Sign up for the affiliate programs on those tools, and route customers through your own links during that same call — turning a cost center into a revenue line, without adding a single extra step.
A web design agency's onboarding call already recommends a hosting provider, an email tool, and a booking system to every new client. Adding affiliate links to those three recommendations generates a few hundred dollars per client up front, plus a smaller amount every month after — enough to cover part of the onboarder's own salary once you've run it a few dozen times.
You're already doing the work of recommending the tool stack, for free, out loud, to every new customer. The only change is capturing the commission you were leaving on the table.
"3:1 LTV to CAC" is a textbook number. Your real minimum depends on how much of your business runs on people.
The textbook "3:1 LTV to CAC" rule only holds if lead generation, conversion, and delivery are all fully automated. The less automated each stage is, the higher your ratio needs to be — and these are minimums, not targets.
| How automated you are | Minimum LTV:CAC |
|---|---|
| All 3 stages automated | 3:1 |
| 2 of 3 automated | 6:1 |
| 1 of 3 automated | 9:1 |
| None automated — people at every stage | 12:1+ |
A service business running manual outreach, one-on-one sales calls, and hands-on delivery — nothing automated — chases the generic 3:1 rule and wonders why growth keeps breaking things, when it needed closer to 12:1 from the start.
By the time you ask for a testimonial, the magic moment has already passed.
Don't ask for a testimonial after the work is done. Build documentation into the service itself, frame it as a benefit for the customer rather than a marketing ask, and get permission to use it later while they're still excited about it.
A gym takes a photo on day one and day thirty, framed to the client as "progress tracking." A contractor sends side-by-side photos of the old kitchen and the half-finished new one mid-project, captioned "look at this progress." Most clients volunteer to share it themselves once they see it laid out.
Documenting wins in real time makes the customer feel more value while it's happening, and pre-sells them on sharing later. Asking upfront to "track progress" gets a yes that a cold, after-the-fact review request almost never does.
Customers who never get started are worth a fraction of the ones who do. Pay them to cross that line.
Customers who never actually get started — never onboard, never use the thing — churn early and are worth a fraction of the ones who do. Pay a rebate, ten to twenty-five percent of that value gap, for completing the specific actions that predict they'll stick around. Frame it as money earned back, not a discount, and pay it out at the end of the term.
A service business offers "$200 back when you complete setup and book your first service within 7 days" — a tight deadline, a specific action, framed as earning money back rather than a discount on the invoice.
People hate losing money they feel they've already earned. Once someone completes the first step toward a rebate, they're far more likely to finish the rest — and a customer who actually gets started can be worth ten times one who never did.
For a purchase someone makes once every few years, you can't retain the buyer. Retain whoever sells it for you.
For expensive, once-in-a-while purchases, you can't retain the buyer — they might only buy once every few years. Instead, retain the sellers, partners, or dealers who sell your product for you, repeatedly. Track revenue per seller, not revenue per customer.
A boat dealer network doesn't chase repeat buyers who might return in five years. It recruits and keeps fifty dealers who each move two boats a month — a predictable pipeline built entirely on keeping the sellers happy, with zero reliance on any one buyer coming back.
The math changes completely once the relationship you're retaining is distribution, not the end customer — it turns a one-off-sale, marketing-dependent business into something predictable and repeatable.
Customers leave over bad service more than over price or product. Train against five gradable standards.
Customers leave due to bad service more than due to price or product, per McKinsey research. Train every customer-facing interaction against five standards, and grade each person on all five.
| Standard | What it means |
|---|---|
| Concern | Show you actually care about their situation, not just the ticket number. |
| Courtesy | Respect and professionalism, every time, no exceptions. |
| One & Done | Resolve the issue and everything connected to it the first time — no leftovers. |
| Educate & Empower | Explain why it happened, so they can handle it themselves next time. |
| Timeliness | Impress with speed, not just meet a deadline. |
A cleaning company's rep fixes the missed spot, then explains why it happened and how to flag it faster next time — resolving the complaint and preventing the next one in the same conversation.
None of them do anything until they're running in your actual business. Pick one this week, not all thirteen.
Go back through the thirteen and be honest about which one you're currently doing worst — probably showing proof, tracking your real ratio, or asking for reviews. Start there, not with the one that sounds easiest.
Whatever you pick, attach a measurable target: review count, response time, LTV:CAC ratio, months retained. If you can't measure it in thirty days, you picked something too vague to fix.
We audit real websites and real numbers on screen, live, free. Bring whichever lesson you picked and we'll show you exactly where it's leaking.
Free, live, and we audit real websites on screen — the same numbers-first thinking behind this course, applied to your business in real time.