Forecasting and Planning

  • Increasing Your PROFIT MARGINS with Conversion Rate Optimization

    I’m Lanie Lamarre and my go-to perfume is Tom Ford’s Black Orchid and I’m also the weirdo who likes smelling her own shirts – I’m like that last scene in Brokeback Mountain, except I’m loving on my own dang self – and that makes me very happy.

    Another thing that makes me happy – and because I know you, I know this makes you happy, too – but what puts a bigger smile on our faces than healthy profit margins, amirite? Let’s talk about how we can forecast those in this week’s episode.

    Aight, so you’re a boss with great offers and people find you and they sign up to your email list and the buy the holy-heck out of the voodoo that you do. Awesome sauce! Well done! End of episode – baiieeeee!

    Just kidding. Because it’s great you’re selling the holy heck out of your offer, but that doesn’t actually MEAN anything. At least, not in a way that we can improve so let’s define a few things so we can elevate your profit margins as high as we can get them and leverage the holy heck out of our results.

    (Clearly, we have a LOT to holy heck about here.)

    CONVERSION RATES 101

    If we’re going to talk about improving your profit margins, we’re going to have to talk about conversion rates, and I’ll say it right now: this is one of those topics that gets me all worked up and loved ones will be, like, “ohmigod, take a Valium, you’re gonna stroke out.”

    So you’ve been warned.

    But there’s this weird and hella-wrong insinuation that goes down when people talk about their conversion rates.

    • “My webinar converted at 7%”; or
    • “My sales page converts at 10%”; or
    • “My email list converts at 4%”.

    That’s the percent of WHAT, boss?

    Conversion rates tell the story about how you’re performing and like any story, you need a beginning and an end.

    To say something as goofy as “my webinar converted at 7%” is misleading at best and manipulative at worst.

    Because what exactly converted to 7%? Was it the cold audience you attracted through Facebook ads or was it a segment of your email list who you had tagged as being interested in the subject you were presenting on? Because these two very different audiences are your starting point and you can expect to see wildly different results from each.

    And by the way: the end point isn’t all that clear here either. Your webinar converted WHAT to 7%? Are we talking about the people who attended your webinar live or are we talking about sales? Again, this is all-kinds-of-important to identify and be clear about.

    Anyone who isn’t being clear about WHAT they’re measuring – especially if they’re trying to sell you on their secret system that will help you achieve the results they’re bragging about – should be approached with caution.

    You most certainly want to have baseline numbers as to what your conversion rates are – after all, this is the tool and yard stick against which you will measure your progress and profitability – but for as many ways as you are marketing to and segmenting your audience, you WILL have a different conversion rate for each.

    For instance, you can expect different rates from your referral traffic than your paid and you shouldn’t be disappointed if the conversion rates to sales from your paid traffic is half that of the people who were referred to you – that’s normal, natural and frankly, human.

    Your conversion rates are as much a study of natural, human behavior as they are about marketing and profitability.

    The reason you want to have them is to have a better understanding of how specific segments of your audience behave and interact with you. By understanding that, you’re positioning yourself to improve how you’re showing up for the people who are loving on you.

    HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR CONVERSION RATES

    OK, so now that I’ve made my public service announcement about conversion rates – and yes, I DO feel better, thank you! – let’s talk about HOW you can calculate your conversion rates.

    Basically, you’re taking the end point and dividing it by your starting point, and finally multiplying by 100 to get your percentage.

    For as many audiences and touchpoints as you have, you can expect to be able to create as many conversion rates.

    What’s more is that by improving just one single area, you can improve your overall performance.

    Let’s use an example because you know I love those:

    One of the main conversion rates you want to know is your sales page to your sales made. You want a baseline, general number informing how your overall sales page performs in terms of making those sales.

    Now, realize that you don’t have to LIKE where you are… but you do have to know where you’re starting from.

    Because knowing that single piece of information will help guide you towards identifying where the opportunities for improvement are.

    INSERT ROI UPGRADE

    MARKETING STRATEGICALLY

    Your overall conversion from sales page visits to sales made will represent everyone who comes to your page, including everyone from cold audiences who may never have heard you to the people who have visited and read through your sales page a number of times but have yet hit the “buy now” button.

    There are a lot of things you could try to improve your sales page: the design, the copy, the colors, the price. But keep in mind:

    Change doesn’t necessarily equal improvement.

    Which is why if you ARE making these types of structural changes, I recommend you only change one thing at a time and see what impact that is having on your results.

    The other thing you could try to improve are you traffic sources. Identify which sales page visitors lead to the most sales and try to understand what’s happening there.

    Are your email subscribers the ones who convert the highest? Try to get more people on your email list to see your offer.

    Are the people coming from YouTube the ones most likely to buy? Figure out how you can either get those videos in front of more of your audience, or get more new people to see those videos.

    If you can figure out what is working well and try to not only capitalize on that but also replicate it in other areas, that’s the low-lying fruit to improving your overall conversion rates and increasing your profit margins, without having it be a huge expense to get there.

    Because as much as the quick fixes like buying traffic through ads SOUNDS great, it doesn’t help you fix whatever is keeping your warm audiences from buying.

    So here are your ACTION ITEMS for improving your conversion rates so you can see an increase in your profitability:

    1) You want to start by optimizing the experience for the people who are already there with you and you want to focus on this before you invest a bunch of time and money trying to make your milkshake bring more boys to the yard.

    “More traffic” is sometimes the answer to being more profitable but it’s rarely the answer to improving your conversion rates. If the people who follow you aren’t picking up what you’re throwing down, don’t waste your resources on ads to attract MORE people who won’t pick up what you’re throwing down.

    You’ll be better off investing your resources into identifying where the gaps are in your conversion rates.

    2) Even when you are ready to invest in ads, make sure you’re clear about where you want and need your conversion rates to be to meet your expectations and profit margins.

    You may have an excellent conversion rate but the cost per lead versus the cost of your product doesn’t provide you with the profit margins you need to meet your goals. That’s totally possible and it’s good to know what those baseline expectations are FOR your profitability before you make the investment.

    I know it can be intimidating to figure these types of things out and that’s what THE ROI CALCULATORS are for; it’s plug-and-play the numbers to lickety-split see how much you can afford to spend and how much you can afford to make, based on what YOU see happening in your business (and not what someone else is bragging to you about in your social feeds).

    Being data-driven isn’t about being analyst or loving spreadsheets so if you needed a permission slip on that front, consider it granted.

    But what being data-driven IS about is knowing what you’re working with and making that better, over and over and over again.

    If this podcast is helping you be better, 5-star reviews are the thank you card for podcasters and I would all-kinds-of-appreciate you if you did that for me. I look forward to sharing more OMGrowth moments with next week so be sure you’re subscribed and we will talk to you soon!

    CONTINUE READING

  • It’s Not “Just You”: Here’s Why Q1 IS HARD

    This is a transcript of episode 49 of the OMGrowth podcast.

    Before we get started with today’s episode, I want to let you know that if you’re listening to this in real time and it is sometime between March 7 and 11th, I am a proud participant of the Back to Business Bundle where you can get your life with all that is being made available to you. These are resources you would usually have to pay for but for this limited amount of time, you can get them for everyone’s favorite price: free-ninety-nine, boss! That’s until March 11th and I’ll include a link in the shownotes and yes, I can hear your thanks and you are very welcome – let’s get back to business with this bundle and back to the podcast with this episode.

    I’m Lanie Lamarre and I hate wearing shoes and have been known to take shoes off at very inappropriate times, like when I’m walking through city streets. (I know, I know. It’ll either be the death of me or turn me into a superhero – who can tell?)

    I also hate when I don’t meet the goals I set out for myself and in my experience, it’s especially frustrating to not meet the goals you set for the first quarter of the year. It’s like “we’re just getting started” energy combined with a little “you’re already failing” vibes.

    There are reasons why Q1 can feel hard because it’s not “just you” that feels this way and we’re going to wax about those on today’s episode.

    EXPECTATIONS vs REALITY

    I’m convinced that the secret ingredient in egg nog is “hope” because I have yet to come up with a reason as to why most of us spend December being so eager for the business results we’re going to build in the upcoming year.

    And we get lofty! Every strategy we’ve been interested in implementing somehow gets thrown in the mix as to how “this year’s going to be different”… but is it, though?

    The truth is that if you’re counting on seeing results you aren’t already getting, you’re going to need to account for the lead-time it’s going to take to implement whatever new way you’re intending to see those results.

    Anything feels possible when you’re planning your Q1 – and it is! – but that doesn’t mean “everything” is possible and you still need resources for any single thing to happen.

    Wanna start making sales with an evergreen funnel that will promote your paid offers on auto-pilot to new subscribers? Cool beans! But before a single sale is made, you need to realize that there’s a learning curve to this and there are a lot of moving parts that need to be implemented and tested first.

    Furthermore, your work isn’t done once you have your evergreen funnel in place. No matter what someone’s sales page promises you, there’s no “set it and forget it” strategy to be had here.

    Successful marketing is a never-ending cycle of tweaking, tracking, improving and repeating.

    We tend to start the new year with a heavy focus on the “new” parts instead of looking at what we’re already working with and finding ways to get better results from those areas we’re already experiencing some level of results from.

    And I totally get that! Maintaining is never as sexy and exciting as “the new thing” is, but it does tend to be a more reliable way of establishing your expectations and building on your results.

    You know how they say the blues tend to kick in after the holidays when the credit card bills start rolling in? The same sort of thing happens with all the shiny new things you hang your hopes on, thinking they’re what’s going to make “this year different” because there’s a reality that has to be dealt with and accounted for.

    Does this mean you can’t or shouldn’t implement new sales and marketing strategies? Of course not!

    NEW YEAR, OLD YOU

    But it is a good idea to not start with the results you’re looking to achieve but getting your finger on the pulse of all the things you already have in place and working for you WHILE you bring these new strategies into account.

    So how do you do that? This is what Your CEO Day is for: once a quarter, you want to create space with the boss – that’s YOU! – and check in with your operations and performance as a whole before you start setting the results and expectations you’re hoping for.

    I have the Your CEO Day workbook available to help you do this but here are some of the areas you’re going to want to account for as you’re planning out your next quarter:

    • Look at your SELF as the leader of your brand, and take into consideration your identity, your values, your boundaries and what you are looking to have, do and be, both personally and professionally – after all, if your business begins and ends with you, all of these elements are THE most important to consider when you’re setting your business goals and yet, they’re also the easiest to forget or overlook;
    • You’ll also want to consider your unique PRIORITIES that are driving where you want to go, what you want to target but also what you’re currently committed to, as well to make sure there actually is more room available at your table before you bring more seats to it;
    • It’s also a good idea to spend some time reflecting on the STRATEGIES you’re currently rolling out with, including your systems, your resources, your sales processes, your marketing processes and the overall way you operate to assess what is serving you, what you would like to see better serve you and what you can ditch entirely;
    • Of course, you knew it was coming but you want to know your NUMBERS – and no, this doesn’t have to be a whole thing, you can and I encourage you to start small and build a habit of building on “knowing your numbers” with every quarterly review – but establish some baseline numbers as to what you’re working with and what you’re looking to improve on as it relates to your free offers, your paid offers, your content marketing and your investments; and of course,
    • You want to see how your PLANS map out, and assess what your plans are saying about your expectations, your focus and your upcoming schedule.

    NOW WHAT?

    Another key element to your quarterly planning cycle that often gets overlooked is – hello! – deep-diving into your RESULTS and establishing some “lessons learned” around those.

    Maybe your launch didn’t bring in the revenue you had hoped but as you really look at what happened, you realize the conversion rate for your sales page to sales was very good. What does this mean? It means the problem isn’t your offer or messaging, but rather, you weren’t able to get it in front of as many people as you had hoped.

    You only gain these types of actionable insights as to what your next best move is by REFLECTING on what you actually DID accomplish.

    If your Q1 didn’t pan out the way you hoped, figure out why that is before you start planning out your next quarter.

    Whether or not you use the Your CEO Day workbook, you can use my link that will auto-magically schedule those quarterly reviews for you in your Google Calendar so you have no excuses not to prioritize setting some time aside to be honest about who you are, what kind of business you are and want to be running, and how you’re going to show up for the results you’re looking to achieve.

    And look, for most online business owners, the first quarter is usually the one where they went “the most extra” about their planning – I mean, there’s a reason why egg nog is only sold once a year because this isn’t sustainable for the whole year – but note that Q1 also typically has the lowest sales of the whole year so there’s plenty of time for you to align yourself and there’s no time like the present to prioritize that.

    So your action item is simply this: schedule a CEO Day for yourself.

    Need help putting it in your calendar? Here’s a link that will set your Google Calendar up to make it abundantly clear when the first Friday and the last Friday of the quarter are so you have one less thing to think about scheduling, one less hurdle to prioritizing your quarterly review.

    Need help with how to do your quarterly review? If you’re at a loss and need some hand-holding through this process, I designed the Your CEO Day workbook for you to more easily account for your self, your priorities, your strategy, your numbers, your plans and of course, your results as you plan your next quarter.

    Regardless of how you do this moving forward, I do want to encourage you to MOVE FORWARD: just because your Q1 – or any period, for that matter – didn’t pan out the way you had hoped doesn’t mean it can’t pan out in the long term. And you ARE here for the long term so no one quarter will make or break you but rather, it’s the culmination of all those quarters put together that will be what determines your overall accomplishments.

    As always, love notes in the form of 5-star reviews are also encouraged around here and your biz besties whose Q1s aren’t quite panning out as THEY had hoped may benefit from you sharing this episode so I encourage that as well. I’m all about the encouragement so get that quarterly review in your calendar and I encourage you to set your Q2 up to kick some butt – I believe in you and I’m proud of you!

    Talk soon, baiiiieee!

    CONTINUE READING

  • Putting Your KPIs and MILESTONES on a Schedule with Timelines and Gantt Charts

    This is a transcript of episode 46 of the OMGrowth podcast.

    I’m Lanie Lamarre and fun fact: I know I sound perky and light-hearted, and yet I enjoy very aggressive music.

    I also enjoy planning in a way that aligns me to actually achieving my goals and in my experience, you need two things for this to happen: 1) you need targets – something like a key performance indicators or maybe milestones – however you label it, you need to point at something; and 2) you need a schedule because what’s a goal with a deadline: just a dream!

    So now that I’ve hit my quota for cute quotables in a podcast intro, let’s get into the actual episode, shall we?

    You’ve heard of procrasti-planning, right? It’s the concept of planning for the sake of “doing” something without ever really moving ahead or making progress. How do you avoid becoming a procrasti-planner? Make sure that your planning process always includes milestones and KPIs (or what the cool kids call key performance indicators).

    DEFINING YOUR KPIs AND MILESTONE

    I’m going to come in hot with this one because the reason you want to set milestones and KPIs is simple: it sets expectations.

    Goals are great. Setting the expectations you have of those goals is even better!

    And just as you typically have just a few goals you’re focused on, you’re going to select just a few milestones or KPIs in order to represent your focus, your progress and yes, your expectations.

    I love examples so let’s use one: let’s say your goal is to sell 10% more of your signature product than you did last quarter. This is an excellent goal because it’s taking what you already have in terms of products and results, and you’re seeking to improve on those.

    So what has to happen for you to sell 10% more? You pick any number of things, such as:

    • Increasing your traffic from social media through ads;
    • Increasing your reach with joint venture webinars that upsell to your course;
    • Implementing an evergreen email sequence that promotes your offer on auto-pilot to new or targeted email subscribers.

    You’ll choose whatever strategy you want to implement and then ask yourself, “what needs to happen for this to be deemed successful?”. This is how you’ll determine your KPIs and milestones.

    Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all, and what you use as your KPIs and milestones will not only depend on the strategy you pick but also what you value. For instance, if you go the paid ads route, you’ll likely want to target a specific number of sign-ups that will get you to that +10% mark, but you’ll also have to determine the cost per lead you’re targeting and the return-on-investment you’re expecting.

    If you need help figuring these types of things out, that what The ROI Calculators I have available are designed to take the guesswork out of doing, but you will need to have those baseline numbers figured out BEFORE you start investing in your ads to determine whether or not your efforts were successful and your goal was achieved.

    Likewise if you’re going the joint venture webinar route: you want to start by establishing exactly how many more sales you’re looking to make, and then figure out how many people you’ll need to collaborate with and what your expectations are for sales with each collaborator in order to hit that number.

    Same deal with establishing an evergreen sequence: how many sales do you need to make to meet your goal, and then how many people does that mean you need to funnel through your evergreen sequence with what conversion rate.

    For any goal you have, you want to set a baseline number you have that would meet your expectations; then, you want to figure out what the breakdown is – in numbers and percentages – that would enable you to meet that expectation you set out.

    Let’s go back to our cross-stitch worthy quote for a moment, though, and remember that a goal without a deadline is just a dream.

    ESTABLISHING “HOW” AND “WHAT”

    Unless you’re doing a launch or something major like that, your growth and results will typically be incremental. This is why you want to not only create goals and milestones, but to create a schedule for these.

    Let’s stick with the last example of putting an evergreen sales funnel in place: you’ll need to schedule time to write the emails, create the sales pages, set up the automations – these among a whole bunch of other things required by this promotional strategy you’re putting in place – and they’ll all have to be done before a single sale gets made. So is it then realistic for you to put the pressure and expectation of increasing your sales by 10% on this one strategy?

    Your expectations need to account for the learning curve and the resources you’re imposing on them.

    The simplest way to do that is to break down all of the singular tasks that need to be done to get to where you’re going, and then put them on a schedule.

    SCHEDULING YOUR EXPECTATIONS

    There are 3 ways you can schedule your expectations, and I recommend you use a project management system like Airtable to do this for you. My preference IS Airtable because I’m a very visual boss – I need to LITERALLY SEE how all of the pieces come together for me to properly process them – and in my humble, project management-driven opinion, their time-based views can’t be beat.

    CALENDAR VIEW

    You can always use a simple CALENDAR VIEW, which is always better than nothing because it’s like, “hard stop, boss: this is due” and that’s always helpful. Of course, it’s best with one-off deliverables like content planning or social media scheduling.

    But when you have more project-based plans – and when we’re talking about goals that have KPIs and milestones, we most certainly are talking about something that will require more advanced scheduling requirements – you’ll want to use either a TIMELINE VIEW or a GANTT CHART. Let’s look at when and why you would use either.

    TIMELINE VIEW

    Picture an Olympic sized pool with swim lanes and all. Everyone on your team is beginning from the starting line – always a good place to start – and we’re all working towards reaching the same goal at that finish line – also a good place to end!

    When you schedule using a timeline view, it’s almost like playing Tetris with those swim lanes; you’re allotting tasks based on the resources available to you and the time you expect to see them through.

    So let’s stick with the example of wanting to increase your sales by 10% next quarter using a shiny new evergreen sequence: your goal here isn’t the evergreen funnel but rather, making SALES from the evergreen funnel. This means your swim lanes need to be front-loaded with implementing all of those deliverables.

    And maybe your team already have things to do or recurring tasks. When you schedule things in timeline views – taking that swim lane approach – you’re able to see the big picture of how your resources are being allocated, whether you’re over-loading certain people and making the best use of your team.

    Even if you’re the only Olympian in the pool – kicking it solopreneur style – by planning in that swim lane view, you can easily identify what your expectations are imposing on your workload and whether that’s realistic when it accounts for your other requirements.

    What I swoon hard for when it comes to Timeline Views is that I can actually just brain dump everything I have to do, and then go into my Timeline View to redistribute my tasks in a way that visually makes sense for the time I have to work with. Oftentimes, I’ll see that – wow! – my expectations for Month 2 are goofy and I have very little on the roster for Month 1 so let’s shift a few things in the schedule to better balance things.

    GANTT CHARTS

    Sometimes, though, you can’t just move tasks to accommodate the gaps because you have dependencies: this is where a GANTT CHART comes into play.

    So sticking with the evergreen funnel example: you would need the sales pages in place and the emails written BEFORE you put the automations in place, right? Those items need to be produced and ready to go because the automations you’ll then put in place depend on them.

    When your planning requires one task to be completed before the next one can be done, you’ll want to use a Gantt chart.

    But again, you can easily swim those tasks and deliverables around to accommodate what space is available to you and your resources.

    So here’s your ACTION ITEM…

    Because yes, I love Airtable and am admittedly bias when it comes to using the easy drag-and-drop features for scheduling… but you don’t have to stare at a screen to do this, either.

    You can get an erasable wall calendar – if you think and brainstorm better that way – and use highlighters to identify your tasks and resources. It’ll be harder to edit but it’s also light-years easier than trying to plan without that visual response to seeing what is due, when it’s due and whether you’re even able to stay on track with your goals.

    Your action item is to not just put goals in place like “I’m going to 10x my business” or “I’m going to have a whatever-figure month”: establish what has to happen for you to achieve that, breakdown what numbers you expect to see that will reflect that achievement, and put it on a schedule that fits your needs and availability.

    If you’re a visual boss like me and you want to explore Airtable as a system to fit your needs, I’ve just completed by annual update of my signature program on Airtable called AIRTABLE LIKE A BOSS and you have freshly pressed lessons on using Timeline Views and Gantt Charts, as well as the Interface feature which I’ll brag about next week because I’ve had a couple of 1:1 conversations that were of the “ohmigosh, this changes EVERYTHING” persuasion.

    Check out AIRTABLE LIKE A BOSS here.

    CONTINUE READING

  • How to Forecast and Improve… Even WITHOUT NUMBERS OR ANALYTICS

    AUTHOR’S POST-PUBLICATION NOTE: As of April 2022, I no longer support or recommend the use of Google Analytics and for details as to why that is, check out episode 53 “Why I Un-Installed Google Analytics (And Why You May Want To Follow My Lead”. For analytics software options I do recommend, there’s episode 54, “How To Ethically Track Your Visitors”.

    This is a transcript of episode 41 

    I’m Lanie Lamarre and when you see me in my office with a bunch of book behind me – those aren’t business books – for the most part, they’re books on the music industry because they’re my favorite to read.

    Another thing I fan-girl for is good data but there are a lot of reasons why you may not have or be able to collect good data, but I’m here to tell you that this doesn’t mean you can’t forecast your OMGrowth moments with some degree of accuracy and that’s what’s we’ll “ramble on” about in today’s episode. (Rock music pun intended)

    Let’s begin this little fireside chat with something up-lifting, shall we?

    Data is just ONE tool available to you when it comes to forecasting and improving your results.

    And if you’re relying solely on numbers to make your decisions, this is a mistake for a number of reasons and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

    GOOGLE ANALYTICS ISN’T PERFECT

    Whether you’re using the Universal Analytics and GA4 version of Google Analytics, neither version has perfect reporting. Fun fact about data analysts: they spend very little of their time and effort actually analyzing data because anywhere between 60-80% of their job consists of CLEANING data sources and data collection.

    That’s because data is flawed and here are a few ways as to how that impacts YOU as an online business owner and digital marketer:

    • Other data sources may run interference;

    I discussed this a bit back on episode 11 when we compared the reporting from Facebook Analytics to Google Analytics, and the reality is they are each telling their version of the truth from their standpoint, and this information can be conflicting. For instance, Google Analytics may say you converted a sale from an email you sent while Facebook Analytics as it’s responsible for that sale because your buyer had clicked on their add; so, who is correct? Well, they both are. Facebook did introduce that buyer to you but they didn’t buy immediately and their last touchpoint with you before buying was that email.

    So expect different data sources to tell you different stories

    • Campaigns that aren’t tagged;

    When you aren’t tracking your marketing, the platforms you’re using are going to make their best efforts to take credits for how they’re bringing traffic to your website. The problem is that all these platforms aren’t using the same or even similar naming conventions and this makes your promotional efforts complex to track, if they can be tracked at all.

    This is why you want to use UTM parameters on any links you have – so you can track your efforts, YOUR way –  and have the kind of agency and control you want to see about the campaignS you’re running.

    •  Your visitors session times out;

    You’ve done this before:  you open a gazillion tabs and whether or not you’re actually ever do come back to them, you can probably guess that this all-too-common online practice will impact how that session’s data is being collected and interpreted by online business owners and digital marketers such as your fine self. The way people behave online isn’t always cut and dry, and as such, neither is the way those behaviours are reported.

    •  Visitors coming from different and / or share devices;

    Likewise when you switch between your work laptop to your mobile phone to your partner’s tablet. Unless you log into something like your Google or Facebook account that could link your sessions as being performed by the same person, the data may actually represent you as a “new user” on these 3 separate occasions.

    •  Cookies are blocked, disabled or cleared;

    Because some people don’t WANT to be tracked. What’s more, as I discussed in episode 31, most browsers are blocking your ability to track as much as we have been to comply to it in fourth privacy rights that will only become more commonplace. Furthermore, privacy-focused browsers such as Brave or DuckDuckGo are becoming increasingly relevant and these naturally impact your tracking abilities.

    • Your data collection set up.

     Remember when I started off explaining that “ data analysts” would be better described as “data janitors” for all the cleaning they have to do? This is where that happens.

     Whether it’s having duplicate pixels double counting all your results, or subdomains and cross-domains that aren’t properly set up, or any other conga line of errors you can – and probably do! – have with your set up, your data collection may not be entirely reliable

    Your data is like your online house; you’re never “done” with keeping either of them clean.

    If you want  a simple to use dashboard that will audit your Google Analytics account for you, I’ll include a link to that.

    And if you want help figuring out what data you want to get a grasp on to better inform in forecast for next marketing strategy, check this out

    TRENDS FOR THE WIN

    But data isn’t retroactive. While you can and should clean your data for better information collection moving forward, it doesn’t do much for the past trends you want to use for forecasting, right? Mmmm, kinda right.

    Patterns are patterns. Trends are trends.

    Regardless of the exactness of the numbers, the patterns still exist and the trends still emerge.

    Getting data-driven isn’t like accounting; your numbers don’t have to be precise in order to report on and capitalize on them.

    Look at the big picture of what you DO know, and see how you can apply this to your ABCs of data:

    • What patterns or trends can you identify with how you’re ATTRACTING people?;
    • What are the patterns or trends for how you’re BUILDING  your email list and return visitors?; and
    • What patterns or trends are you able to see with those who are CONVERTING to sales?

    These are simple questions that, if you really focus on answering each, can be incredibly informative to how you choose to promote yourself or where you stand to make the biggest gains…  and most of these don’t require you to have a major data strategy to get started with.

    AUDIT INCOME

    Especially when it comes to answering that last one about how you’re converting people. Why?

    Because you have access to the single greatest tracking tool available to any business:  your bank account.

    “Follow the money”,  as they say, and identify where it is coming from.

    How do you do that? Just ask, boss!

    Feedback can be the best that you have because it’s qualitative and that gives you contacts that you don’t get with quantitative data.

    Qualitative data will tell you WHAT they liked about you on Instagram, WHY they signed up to your email list or wanted that free offer, and WHY they clicked through on all your emails promoting that offer but WHAT made them finally choose to buy after reading the third one.

    Meanwhile, quantitative data will focus on the “ how many” answers you’re looking to identify trends around:  how many people came to you from Instagram, how many people subscribe to your email is, how many of your email subscribers bought your offer; both quantitative and qualitative data are valuable for you to collect and even if you don’t have or can’t rely on your numbers, you can still build a story around the context – and the language people use when they are choo-choo-choosing you – to build into your planning and forecasting.

     So this is your ACTION ITEM because even if you aren’t collecting data – or maybe you are and don’t really know how to interpret it or even how reliable it is – here is how you get that at you used to forecast and improve the results you’re already getting: whether you sell products or services,ASK your clients for feedback.

    • How did they hear about you?
    • What made the light bulb go off for them to invest in you?
    • What are they able to do now that they couldn’t do before being introduced to you?

    If I can do anything with this podcast, I want to give you a reason to believe the following:

    People are more important than data. Act accordingly.

    Without the people, there is no data without your people, you have no data. Sure, you want to have the measures in place to collect the data so you can better serve your people in the long-term, but don’t use “not having data” or “not being a numbers person”  as a reason why you’re not showing up for the people you serve.

    If people showed up for you, remember that you don’t need a spreadsheet or dashboard to show up for them. You need to deliver on what they come to you and love you for. (And I’d like to “mic drop”  right about now, but I like my microphone and would like to use it to record Another podcast episode like this for you so I’ll keep it intact and hey!  find news but I’m trying to be a TikTok-er – I know, right? –  and I’m thinking I’m very funny but you would know better than me and for now it’s just me laughing at my own jokes so I encourage you to come find me and laugh with me, boss.

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  • Let’s talk PRIDE, JOY and FULFILLMENT

    This is episode 40 of the OMGrowth podcast

    This is the OMGrowth holiday episode, I’m Lanie Lamarre and I want to thank you for being a part of my growth this podcast and allowing me to be a part of yours as well. It’s not something I take for granted because you have all kinds of options when it comes to who you let into your earholes and I appreciate you so much for that and more.

    I’m going to keep this episode as short and sweet as some of the cookies and cocktails I hope you’re winding down to enjoy soon but I wanted to share a little exercise I found to be very helpful when I took a step back to wind down earlier this year. I was having all the feelings and struggling a little with pinpointing exactly what I was feeling frustrated about.

    I divided my life out into categories:

    • Family;
    • Friends;
    • Home Life;
    • Health and Wellness;
    • Personal Growth;
    • Professional Life;
    • Financials; and
    • Spiritual/Self-Care.

    And then I spend a LOT of time getting clear and honest as to what my feelings and standing are for each.

    “Does this area of my life feel fun? Do I get enjoyment and fulfillment in this area?”

    “What are the things that I like or even love about this part of my life, and want more of?”

    “What are the things things that I dislike or even hate about this part of my life, and definitely want less of?”

    “What kind of boundaries do I need to put in place, and what do I need to make a lot more room for?”

    Some areas were easier than others to assess. For instance, my home life and financials were all confetti cannons and easy-peasy to do; meanwhile, my self-care and professional life required weeks of examination.

    Here’s what I realized:

    You can set the bar to feeling fulfilled as high or as low as you choose to… just keep in mind where the bar for that goal post is instead of always trying to jump over it.

    You know you. Nobody knows you better than you.

    But that doesn’t mean you can take yourself for granted.

    Check in with yourself. Ask yourself how you’re doing the way you ask everyone else.

    Have honest conversations with yourself. Another question I would ask as I worked through my areas was “what aspects of this am I proud of and which ones bring me joy?”

    I’m doubling-down on the PRIDE AND JOY vibes, too. Examining things and feelings and results through that lens has served me so well that I’m making them my Words of The Year: I want to be proud of and feel joy in the work I do, the time I spend, the way I show up.

    And this podcast is definitely one of those things I feel Pride and Joy about, and I’m super-stoked about the content we have mapped out for the new year.

    So here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it:

    1. Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so we can share more OMGrowth moments together in 2022, and please-please-please tell your biz besties because that’s the greatest gift to me;
    2. Feel free to tag me with YOUR word of the year – I’m a huge book nerd and people’s choice of words IS my Christmas morning feeling – so please follow and tag me @omgrowth on Instagram; and
    3. If you feel like you need help checking in with yourself, check out my Your CEO Day workbook because the biggest section of the workbook is dedicated to this sort of thing. YOU are the foundation on which you’ve built your business. Foundation are supposed to be strong and whether you’re on the struggle bus like I was or you’re waking up every morning belting out Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, it’s not a bad idea to check in and reinforce who you are, what you stand for and where your heart desires are from time to time.

    And look, even if all you have time for is to write out these categories of your life on the back of a cocktail napkin – you know your lady over here loves a good cocktail napkin exercise! – just jot them down and tap into how you’re feeling about them and yourself in them.

    Right about now, though, I’m feeling like the egg nog is beckoning! With that, I wish you a happy and RESTFUL holiday. I know it can be a hectic and demanding time for many, but I hope you’re able to prioritize yourself in this time as well. In case you’re wanting to hear it, I’m proud of you – you’ve come such a long way – and I hope you you’re able to make time to see that, too. Talk in the new year, baiieeee!

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