The Numbers That Really Matter For Your Online Business
This will be a longer than normal post.
In 2012 I really started to figure out all this online business stuff and made real money. My two self-published books had sold over 40,000 copies by mid 2012 at a profit of $3.78 a book. I wish we could have saved the money but every 
dollar was used to pay off debt.
After our debts were paid we were back to square one and I had to figure out how to generate income outside of the self-published books. I hit the Internet hard again trying to figure out the “missing piece” of the puzzle.
The Internet can be a blessing and a curse because there’s plenty of information but it’s hard to know what is relevant. When I researched I saw a ton of different things I should do to make money and the numbers I should focus on.
I was told to focus on your social media following because that’s where people are at. I was told to focus on your analytics because they will tell you what people want. I was told to focus on a lot of numbers but at the end of the day there were only two numbers that really mattered and helped me build a business that now supports our family of five.
The reach of social media
Facebook is now a publicly traded company and because of that they have to generate income where they can. Facebook made the announcement that your organic reach is decreasing even more and if you want to reach more people you’re going to have to pay.
The average life of a Tweet is 10 seconds. Yes, you can schedule multiple tweets throughout the day using something like the Buffer App. A twitter stream goes fast and if someone is following a lot of people your tweet will likely get lost in the mix.
The truth is people don’t buy directly from social media. Especially when you’re not well-known or have a smaller following. The truth is you don’t need a huge social media following if you want to reach people on social media. You just have to pay for it or engage people enough to share your content.
I have 275 likes on my Facebook fan page but this year running Facebook ads and people sharing the page has helped me reach over 100,000 people. Think about that, I don’t have that many likes but that many people have seen my content.
The engagement and ads have helped me generate $10,000 in income. Even though I’ve seen these numbers people didn’t buy from that page. All social media did was lead people back to my website and that’s where the sale happened.
Could you argue that I needed social media to generate that income? Sure but social media shouldn’t have been my focus as I was building. These results are AFTER I already have something established. My number goal is to help you figure out where to spend the limited time you have as you build.
More and more each social media platform will head to a pay for reach model which means your organic reach will be less and less. If that’s where your entire focus is you’ll be scratching your head later figuring out what to do.
There was a great interview on the Smart Passive Income podcast with a couple that had a Facebook fan page of 1.4 million people. They depended on that page for income and reach. When Facebook changed their algorithm it affected their bottom line.
Remember all the people who focused on Google AdWords and “lost it all” when Google changed its algorithm? You don’t want to be in that boat, especially where your income is considered. P.S. Michael Hyatt released a post that backs up what I’m saying. He calls social media numbers, comments on your blog, and analytics “vanity metrics.”
The numbers that helped bring in real money
At the end of the day and after three years of building these are the two numbers that mattered the most as I built my online business:
1. Email subscribers. These days it’s irritating to get a lot of email so when someone can look past that and sign up for your email list they’re really interested in what you have to say. They’re giving you permission to speak to them about what you have going on. Seth Godin calls it permission marketing and has written an incredible book on the topic. Derek Halpern has also written an excellent post about this topic.
No matter what friends or followers you lose on social media or how much reach you have you can still communicate with your email list and send them your content. When you start selling something the people on your email list are the ones most likely to buy it.
Think about it logically: one of your Facebook friends that you know well or just loosely seeing your new course or book and decides to click on the link you share and buy? Or that person that’s been reading your blog for a year and loves your free content, they see you’re offering something that goes more in-depth and since you’ve given them value they buy. Which scenario seems more likely?
The people on your email list will outsell any other platform two to one (my own tested numbers). You can send your email list deals and exclusive offers and they will most likely be repeat customers. I can vouch for this from personal experience. The coaching clients I have right now all started as people who read my blog, bought my book, took the free coaching consultation call and then ended up buying the highest thing I sell on my website.
When you’re building, and if your goal is to build something online that supports you, focus the limited amount of time and resources you have on your email list. Building it and nurturing it.
If you have 20 people on your email list you should know all 20 of those people by name. You should be there and help them on a one on one basis. When you give them that level of attention they tell the whole world about you because no one else online approaches building that way. That’s how you will stand out from the 250 million other blogs out there.
2. Income. Look, you’re trying to build something that supports your family and you’re trying to replace your current income with this thing. How will it ever do that if you don’t focus on generating income?
I’m not telling you that money should be your sole focus because it shouldn’t be but too often we lean too far to the other direction and don’t think about it at all. When I say focus on income I mean how well can you convert with what you already have and what can you create that would help your target audience?
Instead of spending a bunch of time on building social media which might help you at some point, focus on how to generate income now.
The right focus makes this thing support you
Look, it all works hand in hand. Yes you need to build your social media presence. Yes you should do all the other things it takes to build your online business. However, when you’re starting out or when you don’t have a huge online presence, you need to have the right focus. Especially when you have a limited amount of time as you build on the side.
When you focus on the email list which leads to the income, real money starts coming in. As I always say, test out my theory and see if it’s a right fit for what you’re building. At the end of the day you have to decide what’s right for you.
There’s a ton of advice out there but most of it is only relevant if you have a large following. My goal is always to help those that are building and give you what has worked for me.
Right now as we speak I have 275 Facebook likes, 1,328 Twitter followers, 258 Linkedin friends, 218 followers on Google Plus and 4,568 email subscribers. Compared to the A-listers these numbers are really small.
With an online presence this size I have an online business that generates $7,000 a month consistently. Look at the numbers again, look where my focus is and look at what that focus does for our family’s bottom line. Social media is great but nothing beats the email list!
Practical application
I want to give you something practical that you can use. For the next week look at the amount of time you’ll be using to build your dream on the side. When you think about that time, plan on using 60% of that time on things to build and nurture your email list. The rest of that time can be spent on everything else. Log the results and play around with the percentages, see what it does for your bottom line. I think the results will surprise you!
Where do you spend your time and what results have you gotten?
