This is a transcript of episode 100 of the Let’s Get Data-Driven podcast.
I’m Lanie Lamarre and I’m terrible at multi-tasking… and you are, too, so we’ll talk about how we can do ourselves both a solid and minimize the ish that is getting in the way of what we’re actually trying to accomplish.
I’m a huge advocate for focusing on one to three specific outcomes at a time. This is why you’ll frequently hear me remind you – on this podcast, in my membership, on my social media – that to maximize your results, you want to ensure that you and everyone on your team has 1-3 key performance indicators – or what the cool kids call KPIs – to account for at one time. That doesn’t mean these can’t or won’t change – of course they will, based on what your work focus in on – but anything more than that and your efforts are too scattered to see any real results and anything less than that, you’re not building in the accountability required to produce reliable, consistent growth towards your goals.
I believe and promote that by minimizing the number of things getting your attention, you are then in a position to maximize the results you get from what you actually are investing your attention into.
For the last six months, my primary KPI has been on my membership retention rates.
What is a retention rate? A retention rate is the percentage of people in your membership who continued to subscribe or renew their membership over a period of time.
And why does this matter? Having a high retention rate means that members are getting enough value from your offer that they choose to continue being a member. It means your offer is meeting the needs and expectations of its members, and I wanted to make darned-tooting that this was the case before I invested time or effort into anything else.
As such, once I launched the Membership To Get Data-Driven last fall, I kind of put blinders on to all the other numbers in my business. I worked on finding the sweet spot of the right amount of contact, access, new resources, the whole nine yards, and I finally feel like I’m in a good flow with my membership.
image c/o The Membership To Get Data-Driven
My results support my feel-good flow vibes, too, because my average retention period for members to date is 5.2 months over a period of 7 months, and all-in-all, I have a 73% retention rate with over 100 members. The foundations for the Membership To Get Data-Driven feels solid to me, my numbers and the feedback I’m receiving have validated that this offer and its value are on the right track. It’s now time to kick promoting this mother into high gear!
However, I’m kicking it Company Of One style over here, and while I do have someone who rocks socks to help me with my scheduling, the whole she-bang really falls on me. Retention Rate has been front-and-center while my other KPIs have revolved around this podcast: I really wanted to establish a system that would ensure my podcast episodes were delivered consistently – check! – and that I created a system that would make it translate to video with better YouTube production as well as the ability to chop that up into short form videos (SFVs). I do feel that I accomplished this as well, but between maintaining great Retention Rates, Consistent Broadcasting, and Increased Video Output, this hasn’t left a lot of room for anything else.
I have not been connecting with my email list; I have not been collaborating the way I’ve wanted to by reaching out to other podcast hosts; I have not been building affiliate relationships – in short, I haven’t been marketing!
Which sounds bananas when you look at other numbers that are promising. For instance, the sales page for my membership converts at 11.78% and I have done nothing to improve, optimize or even analyze it since I first launched the Membership To Get Data-Driven. Likewise, the social media posts that perform best for me aren’t the SFVs that are excerpts from my trainings and podcasts that take a whole lot of time to produce; it’s the quick-and-dirty ones I make on the fly sharing news stories that get my attention and think are worth sharing. There’s plenty of low-lying fruit there that I know I can improve on.
But guess what? That’s OK – in fact, it’s good! – because I’m terrible at multi-tasking and you are too, which is why we can only truly hold ourselves accountable to 1-3 things if we expect to do those things well. (And I have and I’m proud of myself!)
However! I’m now ready to do some other things well. Which means… something has to give, right? I have no intention of taking my eye off of the Retention Rate prize – it’s a priority, it’s THE priority – and so this means that if I want to put marketing KPIs front-and-center, the podcast is going to have to take a backseat while I do that and so, I’ll be taking the summer off from the Let’s Get Data-Driven podcast.
If you’re worried you’ll miss me, I’m happy to report that there’s a private podcast feed in the Membership To Get Data-Driven and I’d love for you to join. One of the things I’ve gotten the most glowing feedback for was my onboarding process for the membership so if you want to see that in action, I really feel that this alone is worth the $19 to join because I believe that a low-priced offer can also be a human-centered offer and I’m out to prove that to each and every one of my members, which I hope will include you.
Also, please consider this your permission slip to give some things up. Nothing is permanent – especially in the online world – and you can put something down and come back to it later; it will still be there. If you’re listening to this, I doubt that hearing me say I’m going to take a few months off of the podcast means you’re going to decide to unsubscribe from new episodes when they do drop, right? The same applies to you. Consistency has value, yes, but know that focusing on the select few right things is far more valuable, and I encourage you to do that. If you need help figuring that out, we’re coming up to the halfway point of the year and we’re talking about it in the featured workshops that drop every month and I answer your questions Love Line style on the private podcast so again, you don’t have to figure things out in a bubble.
With that, I am making like Alice Cooper and acting like School’s Out For Summer. You know the Membership To Get Data-Driven in there in the meantime and you can always see my face sharing news stories I find notable over on Instagram @omgrowth – and we will talk soon, although maybe not as soon as we usually do, but still, soon!