 So how do you know if you're doing the right things in your business like you're maybe you're creating content or you're you know reaching out to people for collaborations or whatever you're doing. How do you know if your business is on the path to success. Or if you are working with a coach or a consultant or a virtual assistant or a team. How do you know that they're doing good work for you. What is your measure is your measure just more clients. If your only measure is well I work with this person or I doing some work and I didn't get clients. Then that's, that's going to be a really hard way to measure success because there are so many other things that can point you in the right direction. If you keep doing those things, you will get clients you will have more profit, you will have more, you know, resources to build your building grow your business. Don't just measure that one thing called clients because you need to do a lot of different things before you get to have clients. So how what what what are the what are the 10 measurements. So that's what I'm going to explain to you briefly in this video and there is a blog post that you want that you may want to read to, you know, learn more about about each of these 10 things. So, the first thing to know if you're on the path to success is, are you creating content consistently. No, really. If you are already doing that, then you are already doing something right. And why is it so important I talk, I made a worth 1000 videos, and many of them talk about the importance of creating content but let me just briefly briefly explain it again. You, the consistency of your content is the consistency of the growth of your knowledge. If you're not creating content consistently you are being stagnant in the growth of your knowledge in your field. And if you're being stagnant in your knowledge growth guess what your competitors your niche mates guaranteed some of your competitors are growing in their knowledge consistently and you're not. Well, your, your potential clients are going to going to continually go to other people who are on the leading edge of their field. And you can be on the leading edge of a field as long as you are creating content consistently because then you are sharing what you're learning. You're also exploring your own experiences and your own skills and potential clients see that. Oh, okay, so you're serious about your continued development and not just your serious but they're also getting value from you continuously. And you're the one that they keep remembering that they keep seeing. Okay, are you going to be the one to keep seeing or is it going to be somebody else. It's going to be one or the other. And of course there's room for everybody, but so many reasons why to create content consistently, not just for marketing purposes but really, I always talk about it's really for your own growth. That's why you should be creating consistently for the, for the growth of your own knowledge and the strengthening of your own authentic voice, which makes you even more attractive the client so lots of reasons. Please, please be creating content consistently. How consistent, it's up to you, but you can start at a rate that's consistent for you, and then you can go increase it if you are able to okay so that's that's the first metric. The second metric to know if you're going in the right direction is, is your content reaching more people. I can't, I can't tell you like I meet so many people where some people have been creating content consistently, but they haven't been watching their numbers in terms of okay I'm creating consistently and publish. But am I actually reaching more people because if you're not reaching more people, the content is not making an impact. So you have got to watch those numbers to see if over time, you need to watch for the trend is your content reaching more people. Okay, so the third metric is engagement is your engagement increasing over time. So what trends that you need to notice engagement is are you getting more likes, more comments more shares over time you don't, you don't look at it like well I posted this one thing or I'm brand one ad was a successful that people always ask me that it's like George. Tell me, this was my Facebook ad successful. I can tell you if your Facebook ad was successful, nobody, they have to look at your trends that nobody can tell you one ad is successful that there doesn't make any sense. You can only tell something successful. If your ad is successful by looking at the trends over time, you could say, Okay, this ad got this much engagement. Oh, that's interesting. How do you compare is that successful or not successful you look at the numbers. Well, how did your previous ads do, or how was your previous content. You have to look at the trends know if something is going in the right direction or not. That's what success means is it's going in the right direction whether, rather than, well this one got 100 likes or what does that mean. I guess one get 200 likes well then then you're less successful. You see, so it's about trends not about a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell you anything because are you in business for this one moment. Well, yes, but you're in hopefully you're in business for a long time. So you have to look at the trends to be able to say whether your engagement or your reaches is successful it's really trajectory of success or failure. Okay, so the fourth metric to look at the trends is is your audience research giving you more market insights over time. And I've talked about this in the in my blog post called the seven disciplines of authentic business and one of the disciplines is to is to do audience research and audience research is done in a couple of ways. And one is you look at the people who are engaging with your content, and you look at their profiles and you say, are these the kinds of people that I want to be reaching more and more of. And if you, if you've taken my Facebook ads course you know that it give you a way to track this. Okay, you will give you a way to track the trends of the people who are liking your posts are more and more of them your potential clients. And this is an important thing to track, because if more and more are are then you are going in the right direction, but a few are fewer than are then you're going in the wrong direction and you need to make changes to what audience you are reaching, or the kind of content you are making these tracking these metrics are all insights to help you to figure out whether you should make changes in what you're doing or not if you if you're not going in the right direction you should make changes. I feel that you are going in more of the direction of your dreams and of your vision. Okay, so audience testing audience research, as well as fan interviews will give you insights on their buying patterns, extremely helpful. Are you doing that is it being done in your business if it's being done, and you're getting more insights and better insights than you are going in the right direction, if you're not doing audience research, then you, your, your business is not going to do well over time because you're going to become farther and farther removed from really understanding the buying patterns of your clients, and whether or not you're reaching the right people to know if you are growing your audience correctly. Okay, so the fifth metric to be tracking is the responses to your calls to action or your CTA CTA stands for calls to action. Your calls to action could be like hey do you want to subscribe to my newsletter list. Hey, do you want to get on a call with me. Hey, do you want to buy my course, or do you want to sign up for my services these are all calls to action or CTA. And you need to measure over time, whether there are more and more responses to your calls to action, or whether there are fewer and fewer. You need to change direction. Okay, if there are more and more than some things are working and you need to see to watch what's working and do more of what's working. So again you could be tracking these things or you could be working with a coach or consultant to track these things over time but this is very important for you to be tracking the trends to notice the trends and see if you're going in the right direction or not. Now the sixth metric is, are your collaborations growing. Are you doing collaborations first of all. Okay, if you're not doing collaborations, then you are working on your own and you're going to have a hard time growing your business. Yes, you can spend money on ads, but collaborations will make your money spent on ads so much more efficient and effective collaborations to help you to reach audiences you could not reach just by your ads, and just by your yourself. So are you doing collaborations over time and are your collaborations becoming more quality and becoming more profitable. So that's something for you to notice and track. The seventh metric is, are you growing more sales. Are you getting more sales or you're getting more clients. This is obvious and hopefully you are noticing the trends over time. Look at the trends. That's the main point of this video. Too many of you are not looking at the trends you just so, oh I got a new client great. Oh I didn't get a new client. And you're only looking so myopically at just one thing in time one thing in time, but you're not looking at the trends is like, over time am I getting fewer clients there's a problem here. What am I doing less of that I used to be doing. Okay, or what am I doing more less skillfully than I used to be doing you should be watching these trends. That's what you should be working with a coach on your coach should help you to be tracking these trends or a virtual assistant or a consultant. Are you doing this. Okay, so number eight is is your profit, growing or stabilizing it's a one thing to get more clients or more sales, more revenue is great. But if you're spending even more money over time, and you're not watching that, then you're just, you're just eating more and more into your savings, you have to be watching your profit growth over time. You should be watching more clients but are you is the great of your business expenses. Is that growing or slowing down. Don't just be keeping on hiring more and more people over time. You should learn how to automate more and more over time use things like zappier.com to automate more rather than hiring more, you're hiring more spending more money on trainings and things. Then you're just, you're just losing money more and more money to profit growth or stabilizing is the eighth metric. The ninth metric is, are you getting more and better client case studies, because you can be getting more clients you can getting more profit. But if you're not making a real impact on your clients and you're, and you're not. How do you know you're making an impact on your clients. Oh, I felt good that session felt good. Felt good to you. But are you getting the feedback from your clients testimonials is a very basic way of a case study. Over time, I hope you are, you are using your own efforts or using the efforts of a consultant. Okay, or coach or VA to be contacting your clients to say, What was it like before working with you. And what was it like after working with you. What is the difference, can you track the difference of what you're making your clients lives. So, so be creating more client case studies and better client case studies over time. This is helpful to observe whether your business is actually fulfilling its mission. And also it's helpful for your marketing. And finally, the 10th metric is, is more of a qualitative one. Do you feel like the time you are spending in your business activities feels purposeful to you. You should look at your calendar. Over time, you should look at your calendar and say, Yeah, I'm feeling even better about my calendar. This year, then I do about my calendar last year. You should look at how much what you're spending your time on and ask that question. And over time, I'm grateful to say that yes, I feel like I am spending my time more wisely more purposefully in my business over the years and I'm very grateful and proud of that. So these are the 10 metrics to look at your trends. Again, it's not a snapshot it's not how you're doing now, but how you're doing now compared to how were you doing last year, or last quarter, etc. Please, please look at this, read the post, start to track these 10 things. You don't have to start right away with all 10. But that at least now you understand them of hopefully a little bit more and start to track each one maybe maybe this month you'll you'll track one and the next month you'll track another one and next month you'll track a third one. So gradually add these metrics into your tracking of your business over time so that you'll know whether you are being more successful, or not, or you're going at least in the direction of success, even if you don't have any clients that are going in the right direction, if you track the first couple of metrics. I hope this is helpful. And if you have any comments or questions, go ahead and let me know and I'm going to go ahead and go to my Facebook page as I'm doing a Facebook live right now. And I'm going to go see if there are any questions I'm just stalling so that you have a chance right now to post your, your comments or your questions below. So thank you captain for your comment below here in my Facebook live and captain says, each person's experience is going to be different. You give a general idea, how long one might reasonably expect to start seeing some of these improvements three months or six months great. So I purposely put these metrics in order so that the first metric you should be able to see an improvement of in a matter of weeks. The first metric of course is consistent content. And you could basically say, was I more consistent with my content this week versus last week. You know, was I more consistent this month versus last month so you are able to see that because you can see your content, your content publishing posts, it's like hey did I do more that was I more consistent this month versus last month. Okay, so the consistency, you can start seeing right away. But the reach you can start seeing a month over month so even within two months you can start or even within, you know, a few weeks you can start to see the, the trend going in the right direction or not. And so each of these things. So for example, engagement is more in terms of two or three months you'll start to see the, the, the reach audience research, you know has to depend on your engagement if you're getting engagement then you have people to research. Right. So that takes that takes at least three to, you know, four months probably calls to action responses probably takes four to six months. You know, if you're I'm just assuming you're building from zero like nobody knows nobody in the whole world knows who you are, you're building an audience completely from scratch, the CTA responses are probably more in the realm of three to six months to start seeing that. And collaborations you can actually start doing pretty quickly. And I might have maybe I should put that earlier on because you can actually grow collaborations pretty quickly, right in the beginning, more clients or sales now that is more of a, again, depending on how what audience you already have if you're going from zero completely at zero. And depending on how consistent you've been with content and with research with audience research. It could be within four to six months you start seeing the growth of clients or sales. But some clients some people might take six to 12 months to start seeing their first client if you're again we're growing at zero. It might take six to 12 months if you're working diligently and you're tracking these things. And some clients, I mean, some people who are very part time with their business and just barely doing anything it might take more than a year to start seeing clients roll in but if they give up within the first year. They'll never see the clients and then they'll realize after a year okay and they start to see clients, if they give up all I only have one or two clients and they give up, they won't see anything. They'll realize if they kept going after two or three years they may have a full time business. It really depends on how strategically you're doing your, your, the seven disciplines of authentic business, and whether you're noticing that the metrics grow over time. So thank you for that great question and I hope that this is helpful. And let me see if there's any other. Any other questions here or comments and Okay, and captain says calls to action I know you're not a great fan of freebies but what if you want to use that as a way of testing the audience to know that they are engaged they're interested in our message. You don't need freebies to know whether they're interested in your message. You're they're interested in your message just by the content. Testing audiences captain says finding the right people. I want to put an offer to download a PDF article of not just to build my email list but to test if they're the right audience. And do you encourage this. No, I still do not encourage people to. I see what you're mean I mean see what you're saying so maybe they are, maybe they're liking your posts maybe they're commenting and could a call to action be hey download. You know, I don't see what the difference is between downloading a PDF and reading an article and commenting on it. What is the difference. Well the difference is they are willing to download something to the computer. How is that I don't see that as being more meaningful than making a comment. Now if you were to tell me well I want people subscribe to my email list, then make a call to action to say hey, you've been enjoying my, my posts. If you don't want to miss out if you want if you want to get a once a month collection of the best post that you may have missed. I think that is a good call to action, and that is a good metric to see well, when I say that how many people are actually signing up because the people who are signing up are telling you, for sure. Hey, I value your stuff so much that I don't want to miss out on it. I want an email in my inbox on a regular basis so I think that's a better, better metric than just whether or not they clicked on download to put a file on their computer because you don't know if they read it. That's a problem right you download something you don't know if they read it. But if they comment on your videos or your posts, you know they've read, you know they've read it. So I hope this is helpful. And if anyone else has any questions or comments go and put it up below. And start to watch these things know if you're going in the right direction or not or whether you need to make changes, because it's not going in the right direction you need to make changes. And you need to look at my other posts called the seven disciplines of authentic business to know what changes that you should probably be making. All right, so I wish you well, and I look forward to hearing how this helps you to be smarter about how you how you work your business. All right, take care.