I will admit that I though I strongly believe in accountability and feel I am a good enough marketer that my work speaks for itself, I am not always comfortable with having bright lights shone on what I am doing. I think a lot of marketers are this way for this simple reason: While we may intuitively know what we're doing, we can't always prove its the right thing to do.

I've read nearly every book and magazine article on marketing ROI I could get my hands on this past year. Books by Lenskold, LaPointe, and a few others line my bookshelves as a testimony to my endeavors. And in the past year I've interviewed several leading gurus on marketing ROI and accountability on Marketing Matters Live. But it wasn't until this past week that it really all gelled for me.

My company got a new VP. He's a superstar, not in the celebrity sense of the word but more in the, "Hey, this guy really knows his stuff." He has been after me for more accountability in my marketing reports and I've pushed back with nearly every excuse (I like to call them logical reasons) I could think of. But to his credit, he was able to teach this old dog a few new tricks in terms of how I can look at data, report it in meaningful ways, and prove what I am trying to do is the right thing to do. It was quite a simple thing.

In fact, I learned two things from this guy recently. Not only was he able to show me a way to easily report ROI on my efforts, but he was able to get me out of a rut I had slowly put myself in. We marketers are infamous for filling our plates full of activity but not focusing on the things that get results. Today's business climates require us to be generalists in the best sense of the word, but in doing so, our focus strays from doing that which is most impactful. At the end of the day we have a long list of things we did, but really can't point to anything we accomplished with measurable results.

So, though it's well past time for new year resolutions, let's take up the call of focus and reporting once again. Let us as marketers forego activity and focus on results. Let our mantra be, "What is the one or two things I can do this week to make a signficant and positive impact in this area of critical importance to my company?" And then let's not fool ourselves into thinking that we still have to cover everything. I don't know any CEO that would rather have a nifty new photo archiving system over a 10% increase in sales leads for the month.

-- David Kinard