Record where each opportunity came from, promote the people who've referred you, and judge results directionally.
The idea
Every time an opportunity arrives, put one in the win column and write down who it came from. People who've already sent you a referral are far more likely to send another than people who never have, so they deserve more of your attention. Then accept the fog. You'll never cleanly connect every outcome to a specific action. John Wanamaker famously complained that half his ad spend was wasted and he couldn't tell which half. Relationships are the same. The real question is directional: is my business better with this work? Am I better? If yes, keep going.
How to do it
When an opportunity comes in, say thank you first.
Record the opportunity and its source.
Move that person into a higher-priority group and give them more attention from now on.
For what you can't attribute, combine your leading indicators, the opportunities you can reasonably connect to your actions, and a fair bit of intuition.
Example
Some of our biggest Contactually sales didn't come from pitches or cold calls. They came from a completely unprompted email intro at 5 p.m. on a Thursday. That person was instantly promoted to champion in my database. We once matched usage with a brokerage's sales data and saw users close 42% more. We were careful to say it was correlation: maybe the people already trying to grow were the ones who used us.
Watch out for
Cutting what you can't measure. Our conferences showed little immediate return, but when we pulled back, we saw a slow decline.
Track the Lead, Not the Marketing: When business arrives, ask where it really came from using three cause-and-effect checks before crediting a campaign.
Track Leading Indicators: Track the actions you take and the replies they get, since deals arrive too late to steer by. Your personal outreach should beat mass-email benchmarks.
Say Thank You: A thank-you closes the loop, shows you valued it, gives you another touchpoint and lifts you both; name exactly what their help led to.
Getting Results: You can't buy specific outcomes with specific actions, but you can ask clearly, stay in front of decisions, and track both your activity and your outcomes.