138 Understanding the Numbers better managed. Although our accountant classified these costs as expenses, they are really an investment, and, at this amount, we would have to do a lot of transactions just to recoup our investment in each customer. The key for us is to identify better-qualified customers in the first stage and then to convert a greater number of these to signed contracts. Denise had only one question: “Why did you charge the costs of the 70 customers you failed to convert to the 10 that you sold?” Dave answered, “Actually, initially we broke out the cost of the 70,.
