726: If You Want Bigger Results, You HAVE To Do This

0:01Okay, I have been on this ruthless pursuit to purge any clothes that I'm not actually wearing. Like if I haven't reached for it in months, it's got to go. I am trying to be really intentional about what I bring into my closet right now, which means I am only buying pieces that I know I will actually wear and use. Revolve just gets it though. I'm literally wearing my brown Autry sneakers from there right now and my new suede purse. It fits my laptop in it. So it's basically a fancy shoulder bag that works for everything. I love finding pieces like that. Things that look good, but also work hard for my actual life.

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1:15So happy shopping. While measurement and the impact that it makes in terms of your actions might be a little bit tedious. If you think about it, if you can even increase the conversion rate of one of your pages by 1%, that could have a massive impact on your bottom line and your goals. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher and I am obsessed with all things business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven figure online business.

1:52I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here. Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. If you want to get better results in your business, then I believe there's one thing you need to be doing. Now, let me back up a little bit because I haven't always been doing this. In relatively new to my business.

2:27We're going to be talking about data and measurement. And before you think that this is going to be a boring topic, if you want to maximize your results, save yourself time, eliminate confusion, and get more clarity, then this episode is for you. Now, here's a little backstory about how I got started with measurement. So one of my best friends in the world, Amy Porterfield, you know her, you love her. Her and I talk every single day. Like we literally don't go a day without talking. And one thing that I love about her and admire about her is that on any given day, I could literally ask her, what are your goals for today?

3:02And she wouldn't just tell me, you know, I'm going to email five people. I'm going to record a podcast episode. This woman has like numbers and goals. Like she is shark tank ready on the daily. And I have always admired that about her. And anytime she could tell me like, Hey, we're five sales down for the day, and this is what we're going to do about it, I get a little jealous because honestly, I feel like I've been shooting in the dark for almost a decade. And so through our conversations, I was really inspired to figure out how do I get to a place where I have that same amount of clarity and measurement is the way that we've done that.

3:40So let's dive on in and talk all things data today. And let's get a little nerdy on the gold digger podcast. Are you ready? you know what time it is sweater weather football season q4 it's the home stretch gold diggers and it's time to close out another year of growth and prep for the next year of revenue to bring in more business this q4 and beyond you need sales software that helps you score and the top tools are all inside the new hubspot sales hub with a customizable prospecting workspace smart deal management suite and AI-powered apps, you can take total control of your sales operation and manage your people and pipeline with ease.

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4:58Make the switch to HubSpot Sales Hub at hubspot.com slash sales. So as we dive into today's topic and get really nerdy, I have to first give a little embarrassing confession, I was a mathlete. I love numbers. Math team was my jam in high school. And as an entrepreneur, I've always loved numbers. For me, entrepreneurship is so emotional. Like I love my business. I love what I do. I'm passionate about who I serve. And so there's a lot of emotion tied into entrepreneurship. And numbers for me give me that clarity, confidence, and certainty that I often crave. Like I can always tell when I'm getting stressed out or overwhelmed that is when I'm looking at numbers.

5:41The numbers don't lie. They speak to me. They indicate which direction we're headed. And so I've always loved numbers, but I've never taken numbers to a new level, a level that I think is required at this stage of business, but also a level that I wish I would have hit much sooner. So if you've been listening to the podcast for years, you might recall this episode years and years and years ago with one of my peers and mentors, Dean Graziosi. Dean did a coaching call with me on the podcast, and I will never forget one of the things he was talking about were KPIs. Now at the time, I literally was Googling, what is a KPI?

6:18As he was saying that, but a KPI is a key performance indicator. It's basically a way to measure what's working, what's going on, what are you actually looking at and working towards in your business. Now on that episode, he was encouraging me to set up something called a scorecard. having some sort of way that we were measuring what is going on in the business. How are we doing? Are we in the red? Are we in the green? What's working? What's not working? And like any good mentee, after that coaching call, I did just that. We created a scorecard and we've been using it for the last few years. Now the scorecard has been good, but like, I'll be honest, as the CEO, I haven't really done a great job at how we are using the scorecard and what that responsibility looks like for each team member in regards to their metrics and how we are influencing the metrics based on what data we're getting.

7:11So the scorecard has existed. It just really hasn't been fully executed. And that's totally on me. So earlier this year, when we were looking at some of the goals that we had within the business, I wanted to gain a lot of clarity. I had a lot of questions around my business. What was actually moving the needle? What efforts were worth it? What things could we maybe let go of? Where should we focus our time, energy, money? And a lot of those questions couldn't just be answered utilizing our scorecard. Our scorecard was great, but it wasn't really informing future decisions. Now, why is data important and why is it the topic of today's conversation?

7:52The truth is, is that we as entrepreneurs need to know what is working for us, for our business, for our audience. If we don't know with certainty and clarity, we are likely wasting our time, our money, and our energy. There is so much nuance out there right now, especially with the economy and in this business world, that if you're someone who is not totally sure how you can tie your efforts to real results, or you're tired of questioning, am I paying people to do things that aren't actually moving the needle? Then this is for you. Like, think about it. If you've already got some semblance of success in your life or in your business right now without tracking numbers, without having this data, imagine what could be possible when you start paying attention and start knowing these numbers.

8:43Like, imagine with me what it would feel like if you and I both were on the stage at Shark Tank and Mark Cuban asked us these questions about what is our average cost per lead? And what is the lifetime value of a customer? and where's your traffic coming from and what percentage of your traffic is driven by these efforts. And we could just confidently bat answers off. It would totally change your demeanor as a CEO, but it would also likely change the way that you are leading your team or running your business. So one thing that was amazing is I am a part of a mastermind this year. And one of the trainings that we did was with the amazing women who founded a company called Dateable.

9:20And it was so cool because it's not the company that I have hired and worked with, but I loved how this conversation of data was really prominent, especially among CEOs and moms. And one of the things that they were talking about in the power of data is data helps you understand what you need to do more of, what you need to dial in and what you can ditch. And the thing that I loved about this is that they're talking to these high performing CEOs and moms. And most of us just want to simplify, right? We want to make sure that if we're taking time away from our children, that time is tied to real results.

9:59And so I love that data will help you know what to do more of what you need to dial in and what you can ditch. And I think we can get behind all of that. This is so important. So here's exactly what we're doing. So this year, when I started to get serious about measurement and started to really understand, like I have questions and I need answers, but I want to have clarity around those answers. We ended up hiring a team that is helping us get all of our data systems in place and allowing us to track basically everything. I'm talking sales, conversions, leads, traffics. I wanted a full blown dashboard that looked pretty, where I could find every single number that I needed for my business.

10:38So we hired this company. We've been working with them for almost a year. If you want more information on this topic, slide into my DMs and let me know. And maybe I can have the founder come on and we can talk more about this. But we've been working with them for a year and we've been setting up different dashboards so that we can track things from live launches to our evergreen content, to email subscribers, to the success of our emails, and just looking at everything. And I really wanted to outsource this and I'll walk through different options that you can have if this is something you want to dive into.

11:08But I really wanted to outsource this because I wanted to have somebody who is like obsessed with data and who understands how to read it and interpret it. Because I feared that I was going to look at a spreadsheet with a ton of numbers and have no idea what they meant or what I should do about them. So we have always been tracking things in my company. You know, we have QuickBooks and we use Google Analytics and I'm always looking at our numbers. But basically, I was having to log into every single separate software, look at the numbers, try to remember, okay, is this trending right? Is this growth?

11:41Is this hitting the goals? And never really having like one central space where I could see very quickly with like 10 seconds of a visual to understand like, here's where we're at today. And so while we've been loosely doing the tracking, and we've had and utilized Google Analytics, we never really got into the nitty gritty, right? We were just kind of looking at the baseline numbers. And honestly, I think that's what most entrepreneurs are doing. And if that's you first, I just want to commend you because diving into numbers can sometimes be intimidating, but it's a great place to start. Like I want for you to know your numbers, but I also want to like simplify the process around it, which is exactly why we started hiring a company to do this.

12:23So they started creating all different reports for me. And I loved it because not only were they really visual, but they were like beautiful, like color coded reports that like I could very quickly log in. And my goal here is, is to like always have a tab open with our reports where I can refresh them and get the info and the data and the snapshot that I need to direct my day to understand what's coming up for the week, the month, and like kind of like where we're sitting at as a company for the year. So we started doing a lot of different digging. And one of the things that was really interesting is that we kind of came up with three main things that we wanted to focus on when it came to data.

13:01So as we started to dive in, I wanted to be able to answer specific questions. So one of the biggest questions that I had and why the measurement stuff was so exciting to me is that I really wanted to know what is moving the needle. Now we have been a profitable company since day one and things just kind of work, but I have never really been able to pinpoint exactly what works or why. Like I've always just been like, we're really profitable and everything is working, but I don't necessarily know where the majority of things are coming from. And I often reference this on the podcast, but I often think about Pareto's principle where it says that 80 % of the results usually come from 20 % of the efforts.

13:44And I believe this to be true. I've seen this to be true in so many realms of my life. And so as a business owner, I wanted to start digging in like what was the 20 % of the efforts that was likely yielding the 80 % of the results. And I wanted to get clarity on that. You know, when I think about how my business has been run, you know, I've studied so many different entrepreneurs. I've taken so many online courses. I've joined different masterminds. And my business today is like a compilation of all the parts that resonate with me that have resulted in amazing, amazing revenue. But I have never really gotten crystal clear on like, what is exactly worth it for me?

14:23And so I wanted to not just have these blanket systems and processes. I wanted to be really clear on what was working and what we could maybe let go of because nothing is broken, but I just want to make it better. And I also want to make it simpler. So I had all of these different questions, like our blog posts actually converting into email subscribers? Do dynamic podcast ads move the needle? Is going on to other people's podcasts a good way to promote a launch? Without data, it's really hard to get answers to those questions, right? We can just kind of see like the blanket numbers, but we weren't really sure.

15:00So one of the things that we started doing right away was creating UTMs. It's called the Urchin Tracking Module, which is a really weird term. But basically, a UTM is a little code that goes into a URL that allows you to track the metrics and performance of a single piece of your campaign. So it's basically a unique URL or link that will tie back to the channel that it was shared on. So we can use UTMs in things like our email signatures, our Instagram bios, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, Instagram stories, podcasts, and it allows us to actually see which channels are sending people to where we want them to go.

15:46And I love this because it gives us that very clear insight. Like recently I did a launch and I went on to three other people's podcasts and I wanted to track, is this actually going to move the needle for me? Like, is this the best use of three hours of my time or would my time be better spent creating content or doing an Instagram live? So we were able to see exactly how much each podcast sent to my launch and how many of those people actually converted in to customers. So it was like so cool to dial down and be like, oh, this is a really good use of my time or, oh, I should probably take this time and put it somewhere else.

16:24So one of the things that was interesting about UTMs is that we as a team had to buy into it because we're using links all over the place on all the platforms. And so I really had to explain the importance to my team and say, we need to make sure that we dial this in so that anytime we're sharing a link, it is linked to the specific post or campaign or platform that we're using. So that at the end of the day, we have that clarity of like, okay, this is what moved the needle. And I kind of wanted to make it like a contest of like, you want to track your results for your area so that at the end of this launch, you can say my area did this much in sales or results or leads or subscribers or whatever that was.

17:01So we kind of gamified it a little bit of like you want to make sure you're getting credit for the work you're doing. And we had to create a system so that we knew how to create and get the right UTM links. But this is something that you could easily be doing. And it's something that I would highly recommend if you're someone who's wondering like what channel is actually moving the needle and how do I get clarity around that? If you love the Gold Digger podcast, you've probably heard me talk about my best friend, Amy Porterfield. Did you know that she has her own marketing podcast too? It's actually the first podcast I ever listened to.

17:32Online Marketing Made Easy is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Every episode focuses on giving you the best strategies for online business owners, including starting a digital course, growing your email list, social media content creation, and hosting webinars. Amy is the best at breaking down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. And her show is designed to get you more results with a whole lot less stress. Tune in to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. When we were young, we dreamed of castles and fairy tales.

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19:17Look, I've become kind of a systems nerd and anything that gives me more space in my day, I'm all in. And a reliable connection is a huge part of that because when the internet lags or cuts out, everything pauses and suddenly the simplest tasks take forever. I learned really early on that dependable internet, it's not a luxury, it is a must. Whether you're a content creator like me, a restaurant owner, or running a busy dry cleaning business, you need that steady connection to support your team and your clients. That's why I'm excited to share a solution for my fellow business owners. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all types connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services, all with connectivity solutions built for your budget.

19:59And they have a truly incredible offer. Business owners can get free business internet advantage forever when you add four or more mobile lines. It's simple with no contracts and no added fees. Visit spectrum.com forward slash free for life to learn how you can get business internet free forever. Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. The next thing that I really wanted to understand with measurement was how are our pages converting? So when someone lands on one of our web pages, what percent of that traffic is going to take the next step, whether it's to buy a product or sign it for the email list or click to the next post.

20:39Conversion is basically just a measure of what percentage of the total visitors take the next intended action. And so I wanted to understand what is our conversion looking like? And one thing that's interesting about us is that there are different platforms that you can use that will give you a lot of that data and insight, but we go custom on everything, which is both a benefit and a problem. And so we have never really had a ton of insight into how are our landing pages converting? How are our sales pages converting? And so I really wanted to start to get that clarity around, are our designs beautiful or are they optimized?

21:15Can they be both? That would be my dream world. And so one thing that I've loved about getting this data, and here's a good story is we were in a launch and we had two different freebies running. There were different freebies, but what was so interesting is they were getting around the same amount of traffic, but one was converting five times better than the other one. Seeing this side-by-side in a chart allowed me to say, wait a minute, why is this one doing so good? And why why is this one not doing great? And it allowed me to very quickly go in and tweak the page design to match the other one.

21:47Like they had totally different page designs. I'm like, I think it's the design at this page. I think we can just match it and change it. So we were able to look at things like maybe we need a clear headline. Maybe we need to make sure that the ad graphics are leading to like the right copy when they land on the page so that they know they're in the right place. Maybe we need to move the button up above the fold. Maybe we need to change the colors. And so even just seeing the side-by-side comparison of like, wow, this one's really working and this isn't working. It gave us data points and ideas of what we could try to tweak in order to optimize it.

22:18And just that day, I was able to make that move, change that design and impact the results. So it was like real time results changing, which was amazing. I've never been able to do that. And I've never had the insight to do that before. Now, what I love about this is that when you set up measurement and tracking systems, you can get early insights and then you are able to be very agile during things like a launch where you can pivot and tweak things. You can notice things like trends and dips. You can split test and adjust things while you go. And while measurement and the impact that it makes in terms of your actions might be a little bit tedious, if you think about it, if you can even increase the conversion rate of one of your pages by 1%, that could have a massive impact on your bottom line and your goals.

23:05So yes, it is nerdy, but it is totally worth it. Like it is the type of work that no one's going to see, no one's going to clap for, but your bank account is going to experience. And that to me is like the worthiest of work that we could be spending our time on. The third thing that I really wanted to understand and be able to do is to have projections and understand the trends of my businesses and my launches. So just like my friend Amy could tell me like we're five sales down and here's what we're going to do about it. I wanted to have more clarity around that. I'll be honest for most of my business life, I have just kind of set goals in this like, wow, wouldn't it be crazy if we could hit this number sort of way?

23:45I've never been super scientific. I've never been super calculated. It was really just me taking a shot in the dark often. And a lot of times we would set good, better and best goals. So like if we land here, this is really good. If we land here, this is great. And if we land here, like I'm going to run around my house naked with excitement. And I've got to be honest, I'm really good at projecting different goals. Like when I set these goals, we usually hit them and get really close to that number. But I wanted to have more science behind them. Like I wanted to have more clarity around these numbers instead of me just being like, Hey, I think this sounds good.

24:22And for so many years, like my team would ask me like, what's a goal for this launch? Or what's a goal for webinar registrants? Or what's a goal for email growth? And I just be like, ah, I think this would be cool. And so now it's like, Oh no, now we get to like really look at the projections and the trends and understand like, Hey, this month is usually a little bit slower. So we don't need to panic or this month we really want to go big because this is a really big month for us. And we have that energy for it. And so now that we've had the measurement team for nearly a year, and they've been with us for each of our quarterly launches, we're actually able to extrapolate that data and the trends and then use all of the information to set projections and pacing for our launches.

25:01So in our recent launch, we literally had a day-by-day chart of where we should be at in terms of webinar registrants. And it was so incredibly helpful to see this laid out, to understand like, okay, there's going to be a huge peak at the end. So we don't need to panic in the middle. It gave us like the clarity and the ease in it, but it also gave us goals to hit every day. So like every day we were pacing one day ahead and it was so exciting. And so having that was really peace giving, like it, like it brought in a new level of ease, but it also brought in a new level of ambition because we could kind of see here's where we're at.