Success Metrics

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about metrics.

Sexy, I know.

More specifically, I’ve been thinking about the metrics we use to measure our success and how—when we use the wrong metrics—it might look like we’re succeeding but deep down something is definitely not right.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say I have two businesses selling similar products. One has a social media following of 500 and the other has a following of 5000. Which business is doing better? The one with 5000 followers, right?

Well, let’s start with what this metric is actually measuring. It’s measuring how good I am at capturing attention. The business with 5000 followers certainly is getting their brand in front of more people, but does that actually equate to more sales? Maybe, but also maybe not.

This is a really important question to ask. Because it’s easy to assume that if you have big audience numbers, you also have big sales. Publishers, for instance, often won’t sign a non-fiction author nowadays unless they have a certain number of followers on a specific platform (right now it’s usually TikTok). But this is actually not the most important metric to be tracking because more attention doesn’t always equal more sales. What matters is what the entire sales funnel looks like.

If I add in that each business has brought in 100 orders since its inception 3 months ago, the business with 500 followers is actually way more successful in terms of actually bringing in sales. 20% of people are buying versus 2%. This is highly oversimplified, but what we can take away from it is that a business might appear successful without actually being successful. And if we’re too fixated on the things that appear successful, they might distract us from focusing on what is actually going to lead to the results that matter.

In business, this can look like:

• Trying to grow a social media account as large as possible without thinking of the quality of the audience
• Doing your own take on social media trends that you hate because they get a lot of likes
• Joining every social media platform for fear of missing out on an opportunity to be seen even though you really only enjoy using one of those platforms or only one of those platforms is actually performing well
• Using AI for every task even when it doesn’t makes sense or produces a worse result
• Promising something during a sales pitch that doesn’t really align with the product you’re building because you think that’s what a potential client wants

And when we do these things that we’re told will make us successful and the final numbers still aren’t lining up, we have no idea how to fix the problem because we appear to be doing everything right.

But this doesn’t only apply to business. Let’s look at another scenario.

If I have a 4.5 GPA and someone else has a 3.5 GPA, who did better in school?

Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have blinked. The 4.5 GPA was obviously better because it’s immediately more impressive.

Oh how I wish I could go back in time and ask younger me some questions, like:

Which student enjoyed their classes more?

Which student knows how to apply what they learned to the real world?

Which student can still remember years later what they learned because they were so immersed in their lessons?

Which student used their classes as a way to experiment with what they really enjoyed so they could intentionally pursue a meaningful career?

Looking back, I would gladly trade many of the classes I took that sounded impressive and produced an extra high GPA for classes I would have savored. That, to me as an adult, is the mark of doing well in school.

But all too often students are told to focus on getting certain grades, taking more AP classes, performing well on standardized tests, and getting into prestigious colleges. And many of those students, like me at that age, do all these things, make themselves sick from the stress, get to the end of their high achieving academic careers, and then wonder what the hell they even want. The only thing they can do is find whatever job they can where they continue to perform because that’s all they know how to do (speaking from experience).

So many of us are living our lives for other people. How many of us:

• Choose a career path based on the money or our parent’s wishes
• Work excessive hours and hold poor boundaries to climb the ladder
• Punish our bodies in order to fit into a certain clothing size
• Buy a house because that is what we’re told success looks like
• Force ourselves on dates because being alone looks depressing

Rather than asking ourselves what we actually want and making decisions about our daily lives from that place?

Just to be clear, I’m not saying these results are a bad thing in and of themselves. If someone wants to buy a house or work long hours, then do that! But do it because it will actually be fulfilling to you and help you live the life you want, and not because someone is expecting you to do it or because everyone else is doing it.

If there’s something a decision you’re making that feels hard to follow through on or isn’t bringing you joy, take some time to dig into why. Even if it’s something small like attending a party. The more we can understand our why in our decisions, the better chance we have at being able to live a more fulfilling life regardless of what other people think. And that is the true measure of success.