So, I’m thinking the title of this post may have brought you here out of curiosity if nothing else, but I assure you the following concept possesses immense opportunity for the creative thinking marketer.

Management consultant and author Peter Drucker famously coined the phrase, “What gets measured gets done.” While I agree with this completely I would offer an enhancement – What gets measured gets done, but what gets measured and reported gets done exponentially.

Let me ask you this. Are your clients getting the absolute greatest results possible? Sure, a lot of that depends on their actions, but what could you do to get them to take greater action?

I was visiting with some brilliant marketers this past week as they explained the power and pull of competition when it comes to helping their clients achieve results.

You’re probably somewhat familiar with the concept. A weight loss guru holds a competition to find the person who can lose the most weight and in the process hundreds of her clients achieve far greater results due to the competition and requirement of reporting their progress than they would have had they simply enrolled in a program and hoped for results.

Think about that for a bit. When clients have an incentive to report the progress they’ve made by following your program or using your product, they actually participate far more actively and experience far greater results.

How could you get your clients to compete with each other for their own benefit?

The measured and reported model presents a profound opportunity for just about any type of business. The trick is to focus on the actions you know will allow them to get better results.

Perhaps it’s making a game out completing training videos, creating a contest for getting required documents to you on time or setting up a way to measure their progress using your product against all other product users.

Think about the power of communities that currently use tools like Map My Run to measure and track fitness, but also to report progress to friends and other community members.

Here’s the starter question: Can you find a reason to bring your customers together in a way that incentivizes them to measure and report the results they are getting with your products or services?

Here’s an example: A group of business owners join your eight week coaching program and are first asked to set goals and then measured and graded on the progress they make in pursuit of their goals. At the end of the program the participant who makes the greatest progress receives a refund on the program.

One of the simplest ways to get started is to pool a number of clients and get them to compete based on results or progress. Offer a refund or some over the top prize for the greatest progress.

You can take this approach and create a referral competition based on amount of referrals as the basis for measurement.

Of course if you have the right kind business and a little creativity you can simply hold a competition as a way to stimulate product sales in the first place. Buy X product during the month and tell us what it’s done for you and we’ll pick one winner each month to win Y.

The community building aspects of this idea are intriguing as well. You could start a Facebook Group based on your competition and watch your customers start encouraging, aiding and supporting each other in pursuit of their stated and reported progress.

I think this is one of the missing ingredients in so many businesses. No matter how great your training, consulting or product is, if you can’t get people to do what’s in their best interest, you can’t help them achieve a result.

Anything you can do to help your clients get actual results will benefit your business in incredible ways. When your clients measure, report and achieve greater results they’ll talk about you and the results you helped them gain.

Sometimes in the service of a client you must do everything you can to cajole, trick or otherwise coax them into getting a result.

And few things get people to take action like the accountability of competition.