The fix
What "fixed" looks like when the origins finally have names.
Not an analytics platform bought and abandoned — a capture system: the question asked every time, the answer kept, the paths tracked, and one monthly page that says where the money came from.
The capture system, described honestly
- Asked every time, kept every time — "how did you hear about us?" becomes a required step on every new contact, and the answer lands in a record tied to that patient's revenue, not in the air over the front desk.
- Tracked paths where they pay — tracked phone numbers per channel, form submissions stamped with their source, campaign links that survive into the booking. The trail stops needing testimony because it leaves footprints.
- One monthly page, humanly readable — revenue by origin, this month against last. Not a dashboard with forty widgets; a page an owner reads in four minutes before any renewal call.
- Renewals moved to evidence — every recurring spend gets a standing question: what did your channel produce, in OUR records, this quarter? Channels that can't answer shrink.
What's deliberately absent: attribution theater. No probabilistic modeling dressed as certainty, no "AI-powered attribution" promises, no pretending the sign on the building and the word of mouth can be fully pixeled. Some origin will always stay soft — the fix shrinks the unknown share honestly and says what remains unknowable.
What engagements look like
Builds start at $2,500, quoted in writing after the discovery, scoped to your drop-point map. The trace reruns after the build — before/after unknown-origin share, in writing. The goal isn't a perfect number; it's renewal decisions you can defend to yourself.
Score first. The evidence decides the rest.
Three minutes now beats another renewal cycle on faith.
Score your attribution blindness