I’ve spent most of my career working for large organizations so developing and managing budgets is second nature to me. In fact, I *like* budgets — they provide both a planning guideline and a framework against which decisions can be made. In my case, those decisions have generally been related to marketing expenditures. Given a certain organization goal, and considering past activities and their costs, how much do I think I will need during the subsequent year to meet or exceed those goals. I like looking at and considering data this way and I like having a benchmark against which I can measure effectiveness of my marketing expenditures.
But, to my surprise (more…)