5 Growth Metrics NOT Worth Your Time + Energy

Judi Holler gave me a huge reminder this week to 🛑 STOP obsessing over things that DON'T MATTER! 

Today we're breaking down 5 major growth metrics I think you should OPT-OUT of paying too much attention to. Stop looking outward to validate who you are and what you're worth. YOU AND ONLY YOU get to decide that!

Transcript

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Hey girl, hey, are you ready for some real talk? If you are a female entrepreneur who has ever felt like a total failure, or maybe even a frequent flyer of imposter syndrome, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Jesse, a millennial business owner, boy mom and creative genius helping women bring their business dreams to life. After 10 years of building numerous creative brands from the ground up, I'm ready to get real about what actually goes on behind the scenes of building your very own empire feel you're opening up brand new mindset for me. And I really want that for you too, because honestly, I am just so over society's definition of what it means to live a successful life. So together, we are going to create and navigate a version of success that works for you. Together, we can redefine fabulous Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of redefining fabulous so today, I don't know if you've been telling my voice. But today is juicy. Today a super passion filled because recently I was listening to a podcast while driving to the city. So I am in the suburbs of Chicago. And I'm driving to the city though it's 30 miles can take two hours. Sometimes it's awful. But if you guys don't know Judy holler, you need to look her up in it. She is just, she's a freaking amazing human. If I ever got to meet her in real life, I would probably literally lose my shit. But So Judy Haller has a podcast called Yes. And, and she a is just an incredible human but be her podcast is just so freakin inspiring. And also so passionate, filled. And, you know, I listened to an episode recently that really just sort of lit a fire in me, because I've been having these conversations with a lot of you guys lately. And so I wanted to kind of bring this to the podcast, and kind of put it out there, because I think that you will very much so relate to this. Okay, so today we are going to be talking about metrics that are not worth your time, or mental energy. Okay, so we've got five metrics that I want you guys to opt out of. Okay, I want you guys to stop worrying about these metrics, because they do not matter. Okay, so metric number one, your social media follower count. Okay. Now, I know that this is probably an unpopular opinion. And it usually is when I'm talking with you in in real life, like in person in coaching calls, and I get so much pushback from this, well, I just need to get to 5000 followers, I just need to get to 10,000. Now, let me backtrack and say that having a goal is great, okay, but having an obsession about a number is not, okay, if you're gonna obsess about numbers, this is not the number to obsess about, okay? You also need to be aware that people with millions of followers are not the same as you, okay, we are all very different people in very different industries. And a lot of people with large amounts of following have purchased them, okay. Now, I'm not saying everyone, I'm not throwing anybody under the bus. Like that's not what I'm here for. But I want you to just recognize that someone's follower count is not the full story, you have no idea what it took to get to that number. And here's the other kicker, when they got to that number, what changed? Really what changed? Okay, because you also have to understand that when you're looking at a follower account number, the number you should be more worried about, is the conversion rate of those followers. Are those followers clicking on your website? Are those followers turning in to clients? are you generating any revenue from those followers? You could have a million followers and they're the wrong followers, the wrong community and you're not making a dime. Now what the hell did you waste all your time worrying about your follower count? Okay, and guess what, no matter what platform you're on, whatever number you have as a goal. When you get there, it won't be enough. It will never be enough and that obsession rabbit hole is just not worth it. You guys just trust me on this. The rabbit hole is not worth it. Okay, think about where your business and your life okay could be if you had spent all of that time, but you were worrying about your follower account. What would your life be like if you had spent all that time actually focusing on revenue generating activities? Okay, I say this all the time. I know I am like a robot saying this a million times. Okay, but social Media is not a marketing plan. Social media is a great tool. It is a great tool, but it is not a marketing plan. Okay, the strategy behind social media is to connect with followers, and to guide them to your home to your website to your controlled space, doing work, that you actually feel inspired by the actually impacts the people around you will have way more impact on the growth of your business than the growth of your follower count. Now, metric number two virality Okay, everybody wants to go viral, right? Everybody, we live in this space? Where if you are posting reels that don't go viral? Who the fuck are you? Why are you even fucking here? Right? Why? Why are we so obsessed with going viral? Why is that such a thing? Why do we need social media to tell us that we're worthy that our content is worthy that we're that who we are, is worth seeing? Why are we letting a social media platform decide that for us? Okay, so algorithms are a thing. And you know, there's been a lot of meta updates, that I've got a lot of mixed feelings on that I'm not jumping into yet, because I want to know the full story first. But if you're gonna charge me to have a little blue check, and to verify me,now I'm allowing you to decide if I'm worthy. You're, I'm letting you decide how successful I am, what it looks like, who I am, you don't get to decide that for me. Nobody gets to decide that for you know, if you have content that you put out there, and it does go viral, I am not knocking you down, like, girl. Get on with your damn self with all of your viral videos. But I want you to think about why they're viral. Is there information that people need? Is there a special feeling that you are evoking with them? Okay, so for me, for reals, my best converting reels. And notice how I'm saying my best converting and not just like, my most viral, if I want to put it in viral terms, my most viral reels are the ones that serve a purpose. Okay, my most viral reels are behind the scenes. They when I'm showing what you see, at a photo shoot from your phone, like what you see, and then throwing in a bunch of the final images, those are by far my most viral reels. And guess what? They're purposeful, they're strategic. I want people to I want to evoke that feeling of like, oh my God, I need that that before and after I need that in my life. And guess what? Those reels convert, I don't give a shit. If they have 1000 views or 10,000 views or 100,000 views. I know that strategically, they are converting customers. For me, they are generating revenue. Okay. So once again, worry less about how many likes or comments or shares worry less about all of that, or less about that and more about what it is doing for your business? isn't growing, your business is growing your team? Is it growing your clientele, is it generating you revenue? Because if it's not making you money, get the fuck out of there. Don't spend all your time there. I'm gonna say no spend any time there but like, that should not be your priority. Okay, so metric number three, your team size, the size of your company. Okay. Now, this was something that was a part of Judy hollers episode and it just really hit home for me. Because I am in a current stage, or season of building a team. And, you know, in a, in my past life in my wedding empire, past life, I had a team. I had a great team, but I was not happy, like looking back back then. Oh, I thought I had it all I had thought ahead and made you know, I hit that seven figure mark and thought, Whoa, I'm successful. And then I lost it. I lost it. Like, just in a heartbeat. I lost it. Okay. And I spent two years trying to save that But looking back, I learned so freaking much from that season. And one of the things I learned in that season was that I am just not cut out to be like a I don't want to say a boss because bitch I am my boss. But I am not cut out to be the boss of other people. I'm not cut out to be like, manager micromanagement material. Like I hate it. Like, I never got to do the things that I needed to do because I was constantly worrying about what someone else was doing. Okay, so, you know, of course, a lot of us solopreneurs out there. We like to control things, right? We're probably solopreneurs for a reason, because we can control all of the narrative. But the reality is it is not sustainable, to continue to grow horizontally and vertically by yourself. Okay? So what I'm doing this time around, is I'm building a collaborative team. Okay, so what that means is, my teammates all have other jobs, or they have their own businesses, but they are all strategically chosen, because they niched down into something so specific, that I know that I can trust them with my life in that section with with my business, I can trust them to carefully handle and help me grow that section of my business. Now, what I want to say about this is, am I excited to now be able to say, you know, I have a core team of five people? Yeah, man, it feels good. It feels good to finally be in a girl space again, after spending so many years in PTSD of like, waiting for the shoe to drop, like having it all and losing it like I am. That's something I struggle with every day, but this time around. I'm not the boss of people. I'm a collaborative teammate. I am in a group of people who share a common vision moving forward who share a common passion of helping women entrepreneurs. This is a totally different space. Okay, so yes, while I am excited to say I have a team of five, I could also be like, Well, I only have five people. So like, only, like, it's just five of us. What kind of mentality is that? Okay, right. That is basically making it like, setting myself up to feel like shit. Because I'm basically saying that five people isn't really that great. Like, it's, it's, it's just five of us know what that man, I got a team of five, but we are taking over the world, we are taking the marketing, agency studio, whatever we are taking life by storm, because we are choosing to do so collaboratively. Okay. So the moral of the story here is stop worrying about how many employees you have. If it's just you, girl, get on with your damn self good for you. What if you're looking to scale and you want to only add one person good for you? Don't think of it as just one person because like, only having one employee is not that great. Celebrate the small wins. Celebrate every goddamn win. Like you just ran a goddamn marathon. Okay. Now, metric number four, the six or seven figure mark. Okay, now, like I mentioned, I hit that seven figure mark back in 2015. And, you know, leading up to that, that was everything. That was the goal. That was we were gonna be so successful. If we just hit that six or seven, figure mark. And guess what? We hit it. And then it was like, Yeah, we hit it. And then it was like, Okay, now what? Right, then it's never enough, then you're like, well, maybe we can hit 1.5. Or you know, all the things. It's never enough. Okay. But the more important thing is that nothing changed in the business. That number. If anything, there was even more loss of clarity about what we were doing. It was even less alignment, because we got there. And it didn't feel like puppies and rainbows. It didn't feel like this story, we cooked up in our heads about how amazing it would be to hit that number because it just totally changed things for business. It didn't feel like that. It became a destination. And when we got there, we realized that we didn't really like pay attention to the details along the way. We were so obsessed with hitting that number that we forgot about all of the other parts. We forgot about how we got there. Now I'm not saying not to make monetary goals, that's absolutely important. monetary goals are, you know, a big part of how you plan and scale your business. I'm not saying that money is not a goal. What I'm saying is society puts the six and seven figure mark on such a freaking pedestal, that the majority of us are back here feeling less them. Because it's really hard to get to that number. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of effort. So just be mindful that when you are using your monetary numbers as goals. They should be goals. That's it. There should be no obsession. There should be no obsession with hitting a six or seven mark number. Stop stressing about it stop obsessing over it. If you hit it girl, pop that champagne and celebrate, but stop it focusing on it because you're missing out on all of the other lessons along the way. All right, last and final metric number five, is worrying about another person's metrics. Okay? This goes with all of the ones that we just talked about, stop worrying about anybody else's follower count, stop worrying about anybody else's virality stop worrying about the size of the company of someone else and stop worrying about the fact that they hit six or seven figure mark, stop worrying about anybody else's metrics. Because the reality of that metric, or obsessing about that metric is that you know nothing about that metric. Okay? So if so and so over here, just hit the $1 million mark on her revenue, and she's celebrating the shit out of it, girl, go her. But guess what her expenses might have been? She might have had $950,000 of expenses. So she might be celebrating that she had that she just hit a $1 million revenue, which is great. Celebrate the shit out of that. But my point is that you don't know the rest of the story. You don't know what that actually looked like, after the expenses. Okay, so stop worrying about it. So you don't know that just because that they had a million views on their reel that they posted yesterday? You don't know that, that that real? Did that 1 million people. Bring them any revenue? Can they continue to grow their business than just that real going viral? Okay, their team size? Do you know if their team size is employees? Do you know if they have benefits? Do you know if they have insurance? Do you know how many hours they have to work? Do you know if they're all remote? Do you know if they're contractors or employees? You don't know? That's my point. You don't know. You just don't know. Okay. So as Judy Haller said, keep your eyes on your own goddamn paper. Stay focused on you. Okay, so focus on you and what you are doing and more importantly, the impact that you are making. Okay, if you have a million followers, will they miss you? I don't know. But I also don't care. Okay. Judy reminded me to think about this. Who will be the people with me? When I get where I'm going, Okay, who is going to be with me when I get where I'm going? Because those people are worthy of my attention. Why? Well my way more than these 1 million people I don't even freaking know. So moral of the entire frickin story. Okay, the entire episode. You and only you decide what success looks like for you. No one else. No, no social platform. No. No family member, no friend, no one but you decides what success looks like for you. So go on out today with your head held high and do the damn thing. All right, baby. I hope you really enjoyed today's conversation. I'm super curious to know what your biggest takeaway was from today. So go ahead and share this episode on social media. Make sure you tag me at this way to fabulous and let me know what you connected with. What did you learn from the episode and what action item are you going to take today? Until next time, guys, keep pushing, keep dreaming. And let's keep on redefining fabulous jetsam guys