"Begin with the end in mind" is one of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in the famous Stephen Covey's bestseller. In its simple form, it refers to always having the image of the end of something (in his case, your life) as your frame of reference to evaluate everything else. It’s about starting things with a clear idea of your destination so that the steps you take are always in the right direction. When beginning an engagement any client, this simple yet powerful concept is used as our North Star.

We like to say we engineer customer acquisition machines, and by definition, a machine uses power (for us, that power is the execution of sales & marketing tactics) to perform an intended action & outcome (acquire more customers).

Part of our North Star, and what helps us to define successful engagements with clients is ensuring that we've checked off three boxes:

1. We've developed something that's Repeatable: Can what is currently being executed, be executed again, and again, and again?
2. We've developed something that's Scalable: Can we pick up this machine and drop it into a new territory or vertical? If it works locally, will it work regionally? Nationally? Globally? 
3. We've developed something that's Profitable: If we put $1 into the machine, can we expect to receive $2, $3, $20 back? 

While this may sound simple, we've seen from experience that these three boxes are often left unchecked from both a sales and marketing POV. Next time you're evaluating your current customer acquisition strategy, ask yourself if everything you're doing is repeatable, scalable, and profitable.