Coming to you live from my dad’s place in Daytona Beach during bike week, off all times! The last 3 weeks have been a little nutty with traveling to Mexico and now Florida, and we are LOVING the sun! I’ve been feeling SUPER inspired to bring you today’s episode: All about my playbook for using metrics to plan business decisions.
Before our business hit a tipping point, I was struggling to find freedom. I Had a typical corporate job where I hit numbers and my pay would increase incrementally, buta the end of the day… the hours I put in weren’t reflected incrementally in my paycheck. Nowadays, being able to pick up and go to Mexico for 2 weeks and now Florida for a week without a return ticket (and unsure of when we’ll go back…) this freedom was something I craved. Not to HAVE to go to work or an office, or be told “NO, you can’t take time off at the beginning/end of the month!” (It was my nightmare.) That’s why this episode is all about what metrics you really need to know, so you can get your business off the ground and build whatever it’ll take to create freedom for yourself.
It took about 7 months from when I first had the idea (or dream) for my business to when I jumped full on into it. It took 4 years to hit 7 figures and this wasn’t my accident: a couple of things played into it. By that point, my husband Bill and I were over a decade into virtual selling and we’d learned a LOT that set the framework for making 7 figures possible. No “flip of a switch” brought us a 7 figure business…. Every experience you have is adding to your “savings account” of education that you’ll use later.
It was all about truly understanding my ideal customers’ problems, and having a great solution that would provide a real transformation.
Something that would *actually* be life-changing for them. In the current online world, you have to know your ideal customer intimately. Once you have a clear picture of who they are and how your solution is different (and it hits the right pain point), you’re set up for a great endeavor and life of success.
One thing that trips people up is being involved in the MLM world, and not knowing the importance of that. It makes it hard to separate yourself in a sea of sameness. This comes up a lot for my team and I: Though we started out working with Beachbody coaches, the one transformation for our customers at the root of what we do is helping any kind of health or fitness coach with social media. Invites, follow ups, etc. The SECOND transformation is for coaches in the MLM world who reach their own ceiling and they NEED something that will take them to the next level. This is where they can build something of their OWN, where they sign their own paychecks and they’re in control of the product they create. In my opinion, every person involved in an MLM should get to that point. They can keep doing the MLM thing, but they HAVE to create another stream that’s gonna get them to the next level. When I think of some of the best coaches I know, they still have their Beachbody businesses, but they have additional streams of income. Financially, it just makes sense! They have a brand and often sell multiple things.
So that second transformation we provide is helping coaches craft a marketing machine, where they have a conveyor belt of new customers always coming in. They can choose to keep selling other people’s workouts or supplements, but they can also create their own thing and they’ll never run out of new customers.
The caveat to everything and your metrics is knowing your ideal customers and the transformation you can provide.
I used to make decisions based on gut feelings. My personality is the type to go with what feels right. But one thing I’ve learned from a coach of mine around exponential growth is you HAVE to know your numbers, and keep doing more of what’s working. Looking at the numbers in my business with that coach is how we went from 10k/month to 83k/month on average. Essentially we 10x’d the business and it came down to knowing which numbers were working, and doing more of that! If you were to ask me “What did you do to grow your business so quickly,” that’s my answer. It’s literally what I did.
We also utilized Facebook ads to get in front of more of the right people. So when it comes to metrics and planning business decisions, think about it like this: you have a value journey you’re driving people through. There are different stages of it, and different numbers fall into each stage that you’ll collect into a “Scorecard.” You don’t want a bunch of people in the front end of your stages that aren’t moving into the next! You’ll be wasting a bunch of money. If you know the numbers of each category and important benchmarks, it’ll be easy to determine where you need to focus.
Stages of Value Journey
Stage #1
Awareness:
this might sound a bit advanced, but advertising is great for growing awareness. A harder way is organic social media. Getting on the explore page, etc. (Personally, I’d rather pay for ads once my funnel is set up! It’s how you scale faster.)
Stage #2
Engage:
You’re looking at comments, shares, likes, story views, things that tell you people are engaging! Personally, we’ll track these numbers for a few months and then set some benchmarks for what we want to see on our scorecard. The numbers get filled in each week, then it’s easy to see what’s on track and what isn’t.
Stage #3
Subscribe:
Your goal is to get them here, from engaging. (It’s your email list!) This number is super important; you want to see it continuing to grow.
Stage #4
Convert:
This means either a time commitment, or a monetary investment of $7 - $27. (Time might be a masterclass, workshop, etc). A lot of MLM-ers get tripped up here, because they’re at the mercy of a bigger company dictating what they sell and what they don’t. If you’re looking into scaling and growing this into your own thing where your income is limitless, you might want to look into having something of your own as well. (A meal planning guide, a masterclass on it, do a call, etc). It’s important to have a stage where you move people from being spectators on your email list to investing time or money with you.
Stage #5
Excite:
Get them jazzed. Surprise and delight them, create an “ah ha” moment before you make your core offer of whatever your product is. (Typically you’ll have an email series here that “ascends” them and points them in the right direction, but your goal is really to convert them straight from your Masterclass, Workshop, etc.)
An example of metrics you’d be looking at right here would be, “What percentage of people convert when they’re hitting my opt-in page?” With masterclasses, you can view the show up rate, conversions, and those sales-specific numbers. Then you can have additional numbers after your core offer, ascending them up. How many people actually take the offer?
Stage #6
Ascend:
Ascend them into other upsells and offers
Stage #7
Advocate:
Satisfied customer gives a review / testimonials or feedback.
Stage #8
Promote:
Promote and refer people back to you.
That’s the value journey and all the metrics I think about along the way.
So you’re probably in 1 or 2 camps…
Camp #1
"This tech stuff scares the crap out of me. I have no idea how to start tracking some of this stuff.”
I get it… tech was never my forte. I’m VERY lucky my husband is techy and he's built our website, runs our ads, and he’s very integrated in that world and understands what needs to fire where and how to properly track ads. When it comes to ads, you need to make sure that data is being tracked.
Camp #2
You might have a basic understanding of having a website, Facebook pixels, etc.
The one thing Bill and I have been talking about a lot is a need for “Done For You” tech. To roll up to someone in the health and fitness industry and build out the tech side for them. I don’t know what I would have done in this business without Bill! He’s able to handle that side of things and it frees me up to be the face of the business.
If tech is not your thing and this might be something that could help you,
send me a DM on Instagram at @theashleyshaw!
The feedback would help!
I want to know: what metrics are you watching in your business? What helps you make your big decisions?
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
WHERE WE CAN CONNECT:
Don’t forget….. If you loved this episode, screenshot it and share it to your IG stories and tag me @theashleyshaw. I would love to connect with you!
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