The Lure Of Vanity Metrics

Revenue Metrics That Matter

The Growth Myth

Audience Building vs Demand Building

Make Offers Visible And Clear

What Actually Drives Sales

The Emotions Behind Selling

The Mindset Shift To Demand

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome back to Plan Like a Boss. I'm your host, Tanya Lawson, creative entrepreneur, planning fanatic, and someone who has spent over 20 years building businesses in the creative space. And today, we're talking about something that almost every creative entrepreneur gets wrong at some point. Attraction does not equal revenue. Followers don't pay you, buyers do. And if that statement makes you feel a little uncomfortable, well, good. Because this is one of those mindset shifts that can completely change how you run your business. One of the problems that I run into with my clients all the time is that they're optimizing for attraction. Creatives are naturally drawn to visibility. It's part of our art. We love sharing our ideas. We love connecting with people and we love building audiences. And those platforms we're on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, they reward us for that behavior. You post something interesting and people like it. You get that instant gratification of that little heart button. You post something entertaining and people share it. It makes you feel good because, hey, you're building visibility. You go viral and suddenly you have a thousand new followers. And well, that feels like momentum. But the problem is, attraction is not the same thing as demand. You can attract a lot of attention without attracting people who are ready to buy from you. And because creatives are often taught that growth equals success, we start optimizing for the wrong thing. We go after that reach. I'm reaching more people. I'm getting more engagement. My follower account is growing. And those are metrics that we can see instantly that make us feel good. But we rarely stop and ask the most important question. And that is, is this actually creating revenue? Because if it's not creating revenue, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. And while creating art for art's sake is wonderful, art doesn't pay the bills. Clients do. Those thousands of followers you have, they're just vanity metrics. And you know what? They make you feel good. So let's talk about vanity metrics for a second. These are the numbers that make you feel really successful, but they don't necessarily grow your business. So these are things like how many followers you have, how many views your last YouTube video got, how many downloads your podcast got, how many likes that Instagram carousel pulled in, how many shares that new reel got, or the comments on your most recent blog post. Now, don't get me wrong, those things aren't useless. Those are valuable metrics, and they can indicate your visibility level. They can signal that people are paying attention to you, but they are not the numbers that keep your business alive. It doesn't matter how many followers you have if they're not buying from you. Now, revenue metrics are different. Revenue metrics look at things like how many subscribers are on your email list. Your email list is one of the fastest ways to start driving sales. We're talking about sales conversations in your DMs. Are you actively selling in your DMs? Conversion rates. How many people are downloading your lead gen, your freebie, versus how many are actually buying your product? Offer purchases. How many offers are you selling? Are you selling any offers? And then finally, repeat buyers. Your current customers are always going to be your best customers. Are they buying from you on repeat? And if they're not, something's wrong. These are the numbers that actually tell you whether or not your business is working. And here's the uncomfortable truth. You can have 10,000 followers in zero sales. But you can also have 500 engaged followers in a thriving business. Because followers don't buy, buyers buy. Now, one myth I constantly hear my clients come to me with is if I grow enough, sales are gonna follow. And this is one of the most persistent myths in the online business. And you know what? It sounds logical. More people equal more buyers, right? Not necessarily, because audience size does not automatically create demand. A lot of creators build huge audiences around entertainment, inspiration, or education, but they never build a bridge to their actual offer. They become very good at attracting attention, but they never teach their audience how to buy from them. They're not out there selling on a regular basis. And this might be because they're nervous about it or they think sales feel icky, or people in their craft have taught them that they should be creating art from art's sake. But art doesn't pay the bills. Sales do. And you can sell without it feeling icky. But when you're not doing that on a regular basis, when you finally launch something, your audience is confused. Or worse, they're indifferent. Or sometimes they're surprised there's even an offer at all because up until now, you've given all of your information away for free. This is why people with huge audiences sometimes say things like, I have 50,000 followers and nobody bought my course. The issue here wasn't visibility. The issue was demand building. Audience building and demand building are not the same thing. When you're building for an audience, you're focused on creating content that people enjoy. I can build a great audience by showing videos of my cat, Cleocatra. I can build a great audience by sharing inspirational quotes that are constantly shared. I can build a big audience just by being entertaining. Demand building, on the other hand, is about creating content that connects my expertise to a problem people are willing to pay to solve. Audience building attracts attention. Demand building, on the other hand, attracts buyers. These are people who already know they have a problem and they're ready to spend money to fix that problem. Demand building includes things like talking about specific problems that you solve. I was on an intensive with a client the other day and she was talking about all the people she helps. And as she's talking about all the things she does, I realized that wasn't on her website. So I asked her, I was like, I didn't know you did this. She's like, oh yeah, I do that. Like, I've never seen that in your content. I've never seen it on your website because it wasn't there. So we created a strategy to incorporate that into her website, to include it into her content so that her audience knows that she solves that specific problem. Now, this can also involve showing your process. I'm doing this right now on a Telegram channel. I am building a brand new program from the ground up. I'm doing it in public so that people can see my process along the way. I hope that's really helpful for them because starting something new is hard. And I wish I had that eagle eye view when I was first starting out. I will link that in the show notes, by the way, if you want to hop onto my Telegram channel. I would love to see you over there. It could mean demonstrating expertise, sharing results, whether they be your results or client wins. That same client I was working with the other day, she is already having people find her on Chat GPT because she implemented some of the things that we worked on earlier. It's about explaining how your offer works. How do they enroll? What do they get out of it? What is your client's outcome? So, in other words, you're not just entertaining people, you're helping them see why they need what you sell. And that is the shift that most creatives need to make. So, what actually drives sales? We know we need to shift our content to where we're talking about our offers because that way we can turn our followers into buyers. But there's still that missing piece. What actually drives sales? And three things tend to matter most when it comes to driving sales. First, clarity. You need to be crystal clear as to what it is you're offering and what payoff your client is going to get out of it. Remember, they're not out here for you. They're thinking, what's in it for me? So you need to be crystal clear on that. The second thing is trust. They need to trust you. You're not going to hand over your hard money, especially in today's economy, to someone that you don't trust. You don't know that they are qualified to help you. You have to build that trust with your audience. And then finally, relevance. Don't target followers that don't match your ideal client because once again, they're just vanity metrics. If they're not interested in what you have to offer, they're never going to buy. So instead, target new followers that are aligned with exactly what it is you offer. They are your exact ideal client. And maybe that means having fewer followers. But fewer followers with more sales is good for business. This kind of clarity, it means people understand exactly what you do and who it's for. The trust means they believe that you can actually help them. And the relevance means your offer solves a problem that they care about right now. Now, I want you to notice what is missing from that list. It's followers. You do not need a massive audience to sell something. You need the right people hearing the right message at the right moment. Now, let's talk about the part that most people are afraid to say out loud. Selling is emotionally uncomfortable for a lot of creatives. Because when you ask for the sale, you risk rejection. People might say no. What if they don't like you? What if they don't want what you have to offer? You take it very personally because as creatives, we tend to tie ourselves in with our work. And that is rarely effective. You cannot get emotional about your offers. If they say no, fine. It's not a personal stab against you. It might be that it's not the right time for them. It might be that they don't have the money right now. Or it might be that your offer is not solving the problem that you think it is. So, one no, don't worry about it. Five no's in a row, it might be time to reevaluate your offer. If someone doesn't like your social media content, it's super easy to brush that off. But if someone doesn't buy your offer, it can feel really personal. So a lot of times, creatives, they just unconsciously avoid selling. They stay in that attraction mode because it's safe, it's comfortable. They stay in that content mode. They stay in that audience building mode. It's safer. But avoiding the sale also means avoiding the revenue that comes along with it. And if you're building a business, not just a hobby, you eventually are going to need to cross that bridge into revenue. So here is the mindset shift I want you to walk away with today. It's actually easier to go viral than it is to sell. Going viral just requires attention. Selling requires trust. And trust, it takes time, it takes clarity, it takes consistency. But the good news is this: you don't need millions of people paying attention to you. You just need the right people understanding how you can help them. So if you've been chasing followers this whole time, I want you to take a breath. I want you to step back. And I want you to start asking yourself a different question. Not how do I grow my audience, but how do I build demand for what I actually sell? Because attraction might grow your platform, but demand grows your business. Thanks for hanging out with me today. And if this episode resonated with you, I want you to share it with another creative entrepreneur who might need to hear it. And if you're interested in having a one on one intensive with me, I will link how to do that in the show notes. And until next time, keep planning like a boss.