Episode 110 - Why Your List Isn’t Growing (Leading vs Lagging Indicators Explained)

So we're gonna talk about one of the most important shifts you can make in your business if you want consistent visibility, steady email list growth, and actual leads coming in, and who doesn't want that? We're diving into leading versus lagging indicators.

Sounds like a snooze fest, I know, but essentially it's a what we can control and should be measuring versus what we can't control.

And once you see this, you can't unsee it because it explains why so many smart, experienced entrepreneurs feel like they're doing everything right but not getting the results they expected.

So I wanna make this super simple.

Lagging indicators is a super fancy name for your results.

Those are things we cannot control, like sales, new email subscribers, booked calls, revenue.

They tell you what already happened in your business.

Now, the leading indicators, another fancy word for saying what you can control, those are your actions.

Things like posting content, inviting people to your email list, starting conversations in your DMs or your inbox, being visible in groups and communities and networking, inviting people to your free Facebook group or to listen to your podcast or subscribe to your YouTube channel, join your program wait list.

The fun ways we get our subscribers to reply back so we can have deeper conversations with them.

These are the things that actually create your results.

But here's where most people get stuck.

They're focused almost entirely on lagging indicators.

I see this all the time with my Business Visibility Made Easy students.

You guys know that's my eight-week group coaching accelerator, and they are l-- totally focused on those lagging indicators.

They wake up and check, "Did I get a new subscriber? Did I make a sale?" And when the answer is no, they assume something is broken, so they come to our live strategy call, and they want to try to fix it, and they wanna try to change everything.

But here's the truth: you cannot control, I cannot control my lagging indicators.

You cannot control your lagging indicators because the market decides those.

Your subscribers, your audience, your market.

You can only control your leading indicators, the things that you are in charge of, your actions.

So let's talk about this through the lens of list growth because this is where I see it all the time.

Lagging indicators sound like my list isn't growing, I'm not getting leads, I'm not making sales.

But when we look at the leading indicators, we can start asking better questions.

I'm asking my students, how often are you inviting people to your email list? Are you promoting your lead magnets? Are you promoting your free Facebook group? And you know I teach that that should grow your list.

How visible are you every week? I mean, are you really visible? And are you actually starting conversations in the inbox and in the DMs, or are you waiting for people to come to you? Are you giving people a clear next step? Because here's the thing, our content will only do so much work for us.