In the battle for resources, health care marketers face the contradiction of meeting increased service line business goals while working with reduced budgets. To gain the resources necesssary to meet these goals, marketers have to act as strategists, financial analysts, and lobbyists. Creating a fact-based process for decision making focuses the team and identifies the greatest opportunity for marketing to create a return for the health system. Collecting and analyzing this data takes time and patience, making the first few months of the calendar year critical to the budgeting process.