The 3 Most Important Numbers

Today I have been sad.

Not sad, like “all my childhood friends just died in a car accident sad,” (DARK!) but sad like “one person showed up in my inbox this morning telling me why they unsubscribed from Meat & Hair—because the paragraphs were too long, and that my Middle Finger Project paragraphs are, quite frankly, too long, too—and it put me in a funk that’s gone on until, well…now.”

Isn’t that messed up? Not their comment, but that something that was so…benign…can entirely derail your mood. Surely it’s not the worst thing someone has ever said to me, but yet, it’s so hard as a founder to let criticism just roll off your shoulders. Some days I am good at it. Other days I am not. Today is a day that I am not—and probably because I am working myself to the bone, right now, to pull all of this off. (You subscribed to this because you wanted the real behind the scenes, right? Not the shiny Instagram fluff?)

There have been weeks of many nights working until midnight and waking up again at 3 o’clock in the morning to get all of the content created, read all of the books to source all of the samples, organize it all, comment on it all, load it into email marketing software, and then, of course, create the Premium creative writing lessons & Pro freelance writing lessons that are actually really fun to write…it’s just a lot of writing. And those pieces, the Premium & Pro versions, are what make all of this work—without those, you don’t have a business, just a hobby. I'm going to talk more about this in a minute.

In the meantime, however, there are delightful, glorious, life-saving systems that have been carrying me through. I learned a long time ago that you cannot run a business without systems in place, but most of us are such stubborn, proud assholes that we hardly ever defer to them. BUT YOU SHOULD. You need to. Especially during a launch. Especially when you don’t yet have the kinks worked out and you’re trying to assess a workload and figure it all out.

Batching is my life right now. Batching is LIFE. I didn’t used to like to batch, because there was an element of having it all done in advance that somehow, absurdly, felt disingenuous. Like tweets. And Instagram posts. And emails. Like if I wasn’t writing it right then, right in the moment, right before I pushed send, it was somehow not as honest. As if my real-time thoughts were the genuine, true ones worthy of my audience, and past thoughts, even if only 3 days old, were already stale. Recycled. No longer high-value—even if I was the only one judging.

I lived my life this way for years. Creating on the spot, because that is the only way it felt sincere, and that’s the only way I felt good about it. And god, what a stupid attitude that was. You cannot grow this way. You cannot stabilize this way. You cannot run a smart business this way. It cannot be reliant on you and your whims—you’re setting your business up to be only as successful as your ego. You HAVE to think of yourself as the caretaker of this business, and figure out what the business needs to survive—food, water, light—and how you can provide it on a regular schedule. This is very different from operating as if you are the business and the business is you. What you need is very different from what it does.

So, batching. I am the batch queen these days. It’s the only way you can run and manage so many different projects. And the way I do it is by assigning each day its own role:

1. Mondays are my admin day. Anything like bookkeeping, taxes, bills, contractors, systems, invoicing, appointments, setting things up, etc. Anything for the overall corporation and the operational side of the business.
2. Tuesdays are my Middle Finger Project day. Anything to do with The Middle Finger Project, I’m booking it for that day: writing the weekly newsletter, performing website updates, re-designing an all-new Instagram feed (that’s happening now), doing interviews, curating content, ideas, tips, etc.
3. Wednesdays are my Meat & Hair day. Researching examples for the daily newsletter and my lessons, scheduling the daily newsletter, writing the lessons.
4. Thursdays are my product development & design day. That’s the day I work with our designer, exclusively, on designing everything that needs to be designed! From the smokin’ cool Meat & Hair branding, to the Instagram feed, to the products in our shop (forthcoming), to the PDFs and books and anything else that needs to be designed, not only with Meat & Hair, but with the variety of projects I have running online.
5. Fridays are my wildcard day—I might work on a passion project, With Love From Costa Rica, or take care of any overflow from the week that I didn’t get to.

The absolute KEY to this system working is, 10,000%, Asana. I literally do not know how anyone survives without this. I do not know! That’s not an affiliate link or anything—it is just seriously the key to my entire business operation. Asana lets me assign myself tasks, many of which are assigned as recurring tasks (like when I balance our budget), but the real key that’s a game changer here?? Is knowing which tasks get assigned to which day. Otherwise you just randomly assign yourself a bunch of tasks on random days and then there’s never any rhyme or reason and you get backed up and can’t get caught up and it’s always overwhelming and overflowing.

However.

When you use my system of “each day gets its own role,” then it’s abundantly clear which tasks get assigned where. For example, if I need to update something on The Middle Finger Project, I will assign that task specifically to Tuesday, my TMF day. And if something needs to get done for Meat & Hair, that task will get assigned to Wednesday. And if I get an email from my accountant needing me to sign X, Y, or Z, I will put that task to Monday, my admin day. This way, tasks get distributed in a way that makes sense, doesn’t overwhelm me, and also prevents me from getting distracted with urgent things that are not necessarily important. For example, a signature to the accountant that can wait a few days—instead of interrupting my work flow now, which will totally fuck you up and keep you behind always, I assign myself the task for the appropriate day. And the system works like a d-r-e-e-e-e-a-m. At least, for me! A person who is typically creative and who hates “rules” but actually really, really needs them.

Furthermore, another “rule” that helps me a lot is how I prioritize within each day. I’ve got a system for that, too, because apparently I am way more organized than I pretend to me???

If I’ve got 10 tasks to complete in a day, here’s their order of prioritization:

1. High Priority: Proactive (Creating - Paid)
2. Medium Priority: Proactive (Creating - Unpaid)
3. Low Priority: Reactive (Responding - Unpaid)

Let’s first tackle the difference between “proactive” and “reactive.” That’s my very first filter, and it’s really important.

“Proactive” is me, creating something from my brain for other people.

“Reactive,” on the other hand, is me responding to other people.

So things like my daily newsletter, my creative writing lessons, my book, etc. all get filed under “proactive.” These things come first, because we all only have so much energy in the day and these need to be prioritized as #1. (Otherwise you won’t have a business.)

However, things like responding to email requests, interacting on social media, commenting on forums, etc. get filed under “reactive,” because these are tasks that originated with someone else’s content or needs and is usually their priority but probably not yours (or your customers’).

That might sound like common sense but how often do you wake up and check your email first thing? Or scroll your social? It’s SUPER COMMON—but for me, this really, really prevents me from being able to proactively create at the level that I need to. I get sucked into a vortex and then, at 2pm, wonder why I haven’t gotten anywhere yet.

That’s because you have to prioritize your priorities over everyone else’s first. THEN you will have the bandwidth to give to the rest of the world…after you’ve made sure your own world isn’t falling.

Now, after sorting by “proactive” versus “reactive,” I then sort by subcategory. In particular, the proactive category get sorted by: “things I need to write for paying customers” and “things I need to write for non-paying customers.”

Paying customers come first—which means that anything like this weekly insider’s report, or my creative writing lessons, get prioritized first. Then, anything that I write for free, like my weekly newsletter at The Middle Finger Project, or my other email marketing content for other projects, all get put behind paid projects. This only makes sense.

So! Then I’ll go through my Asana list for the day and organize my tasks according to this priority level. I’ve recently also started giving myself actual hourly deadlines for each task, because otherwise I loveeee to just take up ALL the allotted time and use every last minute right until the end. This is not a good practice, but I’m a perfectionist and therefore need deadlines to help me get over myself. 😂

But truly, this system has helped me in so many ways. I resisted systems for the longest time because I’m a traveler and I’m on the road a lot and I like my freedom, but what I’ve found in the end is that not having systems restricts your freedom far more, because you are always constantly indebted to your to-do list instead of getting it done efficiently and intelligently, which ultimately frees up way more time to then go be whoever you want to be, wherever you wanna be it.

Shifting gears a little bit, let’s get out of “plan it” land and switch into “sales strategy” land.

Gary Vee said this on Linked In today:

A common trap that people fall into when building a personal brand is that they put in all the time and effort to make amazing content. They come up with a posting strategy and share their content consistently across platforms. They diligently respond to all comments and questions…and then they give up when they don’t see the number of likes, comments, and followers they expected. Even if you do everything “right,” the numbers won’t necessarily reflect your effort. The good news is that this kind of vanity metrics don’t really matter. Building a brand isn’t about having a perfect aesthetic or an Instagram feed that looks like an art gallery. It’s about building a community who shows up because of the value you bring. Community building takes real time — and the only way to do it successfully is to keep going.

And I completely agree—but I thought this post was going in a different way. Because if I were writing it, what I would have said is:

Is that they put in all the time and effort to make amazing content. They come up with a posting strategy and share their content consistently across platforms. They diligently respond to all comments and questions…but they don’t actually have a sales strategy in place so it’s all for naught.

That is what I thought he was going to say! But maybe only because that’s the advice that I would give. Because oh, the level of importance we place on social media! And free content! And engagement!

Without ever having a freaking plan in place for how all of that is supposed to ever convert into an actual and real business model.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with all of those things—social media, engagement!—but doing that alone isn’t going to pay your bills. There has to be some kind of strategy behind all the tactics. To what end are you commenting on Kitty McGee’s Instagram posts? To what end are you beating your brain in trying to come up with something “witty” for your reels? If there isn’t something for someone to buy, it’s all in vain.

This is why I pre-launched Meat & Hair Premium & Pro: because it is far better to pre-sell and create as you go, than it is to wait (and wait and wait and wait until you’re 100% ready) to sell something that you don’t even know is going to sell.

You have to have a plan to sustain yourself. AKA you have to have something to sell! 🙂

In case you missed it, selling an email course is a great way to do this. It allows you to create week-by-week for several months, instead of spending several months creating something behind the scenes that you aren’t sure is even going to sell. And people love email courses because they promise something that big, meaty online courses can’t: ease, simplicity & pacing. Send somebody into a big, expensive online course and it’s like: good luck! But chunk it up for them and send your thoughts and lessons little-by-little, week-by-week, and you may find that your students learn better this way, too!

That said, email courses contain less perceived monetary value than a course that’s all wrapped up in videos and hosted on an expensive site, but that’s okay—start where you’re at for now! Start small. Think simple. Go with what feels easy and light. Start there. Don’t put the pressure on yourself to have all of these fancy systems in place before you do anything: start now with the smallest, most basic version of what you hope to sell, and then iterate yourself forward.

That’s what I’m doing right now: a whole lotta iterating. I’ve been changing up the email template I’m using to make the graphics a better size; been adding testimonials to sales pages for Premium; been looking at sales numbers and making decisions based on what I’m seeing.

All of this is important for me to do now, during soft launch, to optimize as much as I can before spending money to send cold traffic via ads. (AKA Instagram ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, etc.) Sure, you can spend a ton of money right out of the gate to “make a big splash,” but I prefer a soft launch first so we can get all the kinks out, and then go bigger seeking more exposure. But only one I know that, for example, our offers are converting at a reasonable number and things are WORKING.

For being a words girl, you’d be surprised at how much I rely on data. I love data for its ability to tell the truth. I also think it’s one of the most underleveraged business tools among small business owners. If sales are down, is it a marketing problem or a sales problem? Where’s the hole? Data can tell you that. Your Dream Zapper Aunt Sarah, and all of her ImPorTanT OpIniONs, can’t.

The data that I’m looking at right now:

1. How many visitors are going to the site
2. How many visitors are converting into subscribers
3. How many subscribers are converting into customers

These three things are the most basic piece of data that you need to know to make intelligent decisions. For example, if I can see that we’re getting a lot of traffic to the site, but no one’s opting in, then I know there’s a problem with the opt-in. On the other hand, if lots of people are opting in, but no one’s converting to our paid offer, then I know the problem is with our paid offer. And if there’s not a whole lot of traffic to the site to begin with? Then I know that the problem isn’t with my offer: it’s with my marketing.

Knowing your numbers will help you see where the holes are.

The first thing you need is Google Analytics. That will tell you how many people are landing on your website to begin with. (You install a piece of code on your website.)

The second thing you need is your email marketing software to see how many people, out of the visitors, have actually taken the next step and opted into your list to become a subscriber.

And the third thing you need is your eCommerce software to see how many people, out of the people who have subscribed to your list, have become customers.

These three metrics are the holy grail. If you’re worried about your sales, look at these three metrics. A lot of people erroneously think there’s a problem with their offer when, in fact, there’s just not enough people seeing it. That’s a marketing problem.

On the other hand, if a good number of people are seeing it but no one’s buying, then great! You’ve got your marketing situated, BUT you now need to focus on improving your sales copy.

Here’s where we’re at with Meat & Hair:

• From visitor to subscriber: 71.7% conversion rate
• From subscriber to customer: 5% conversion rate
• From customer to order bump: 37.5% conversion rate (order bumps are something else we'll talk about later)

My analysis of this is that our opt-in copy is KILLER. That’s converting really, really well—and a lot of that is about being ultra clear in your messaging. When you say “write more creatively in 1 minute a day,” there’s not a lot of ambiguity about what it’s about. A targeted business = targeted copy = high conversion rates from visitor to subscriber.

The subscriber to customer conversion rate is also standard—5%. Not too bad, considering that hundreds of these people are perfect strangers! 5% might seem small but this is completely normal, if not outperforming normal. Also, this is based exclusively on our opt-in thank-you offer that you get when you’re a new subscriber: and for 15 minutes only. So this is not a representation of sales overall, only the opt-in one-time-only offer. And that’s pretty great, because it means that you now know that if you convert 5% of your subscribers, you can predict how much you can afford to spend on ads without going broke. As long as that number is lower than the revenue you earn with that 5% conversion rate, you’re golden.

That said, I would like to experiment with this offer and see if we can boost it even more. There are two ways to do this:

• (a) Do one test at a time and record the data, one-by-one: then review and adjust.
• (b) Run multiple tests all at the same time with a tool like Optimizely, which will show a different version of your offer page to different percentages of your subscribers. For example, 25% see Version A, 25% see Version B, 25% see Version C, and 25% see Version D. It all happen simultaneously so you just need to let the test run long enough for the results to be statistically significant. The software will then be able to tell you which offer converts the best.

Right now, I’m offering a standard 3-month subscription to Premium creative writing lessons, delivered every Saturday. You’re forced to pay for 3 months up front because this is typically what you want to do as a business: give your customers long enough to love it.

However, a few things I could try to test conversion rates against the control:

1. Keep it at the same price point BUT present it differently: showcasing the weekly or monthly cost, instead of the upfront flat fee for all 3 months, but still charge the upfront flat fee. (You’ve seen this: when someone says “just $19/month, paid annually. Presentation is everything because you’re essentially helping a consumer to make a rational decision.)
2. Actually break it up and sell it as a monthly subscription of $29/month instead of forcing the 3 month commitment—which is a much more appropriate price point for a stranger, but presents its own challenges with the subscription model (people don’t like commitment)
3. Offer an easy-yes $1 trial and then charge credit card after X amount of days/weeks. This would likely lead to more conversions but less long-term customers. However, the hope is that once they get in there, they’ll love what they see and want to stay subscribed. However, oftentimes this backfires because people only value what they pay for. So sometimes offering free and low-cost trials is a mistake: no one gets around to even seeing your content in the first place. Totally psychological.
4. Instead of a 15 minute deadline, extend to 72 hours so I can email reminders about it and continue to “sell it.”
5. Adjust the discount of the one-time new subscriber offer and make it even more generous, so it feels like a MUST buy. Anything over 50% off tends to produce this reaction. For example, when you see “63% off,” you’re immediately paying attention: it feels like such a big discount, you’re already primed to buy, whereas a 20% discount gets rationalized as “I’d save more if I thought about this carefully rather than splurged by accident right now. Plus, I can probably find 20% off later.)
6. And finally, break off the first lesson and reposition it as a quick solution: for example, “improve your writing instantly with this little-known creative writing trick.” I could easily put this into a PDF format and sell it as a one-off, just to increase conversions from subscriber to customer. But then I have a new problem: how to convert that one-time customer into a recurring subscription customer who’s subscribed to all the creative writing lessons?

So you can see, each idea has its own advantages and disadvantages. And they’re all worth testing! But that’s precisely the point of this entire discussion today: you can’t know unless you test. Unless you track. Unless you take the time now to get some of these metrics in place so you don’t always feel like you’re feeling your way around in the dark.

Isn’t that the worst way to feel!? Like it’s all just a crap shoot?

It doesn’t have to feel that way.

For example, if I were to test a couple of different versions of this offer, pretty soon one’s going to be the others in terms of conversions: and that becomes the new winner. That’s the offer you present. Then, you can test that offer against a new set of hypotheses.

So your mission for this week, if you choose to accept, is make sure you (a) Get Google Analytics set up on your site if it isn’t already; (b) Run some reports that show the number of visitors to your site over a 30-day period, the number of subscribers to your website over a 30-day period, and the number of sales you’ve had over a 30-day period, assuming you DO have some kind of intro offer for your new subscribers.

If you don’t, however, then that’s another mission! I’ve said this in the past but I will keep saying it: make sure to give your most excited customers the chance to buy from you now. Don’t make them wait until you “launch.” YES, there is a time and place for that—we’re going to talk more about that next Friday—but you also need to create a business with regular cash flow, not just twice every year, and for that you must be making offers every day. And the best way to do THAT is to give new subscribers a hot new deal for being a new subscriber, with a countdown timer, and put it on autopilot, baby.

Get data.

Test.

Find the holes.

See what’s working and what’s not.

And then it’s just a matter of tweaking what isn’t working. That’s it. That’s all that business is: a series of experiments. It doesn’t have to be this intimidating thing where only the unicorns have success: it can be something small and meaningful that you put out there now, before it’s perfect, and say: okay, now let’s observe. Let’s see what people respond to and what they don’t. Let’s see where our hypotheses are proved, and where they fail.

And let’s not worry about the one person out of thousands that says that your paragraphs are too long. Everyone’s got an opinion, but the only one that matters are the people who are paying you to be who you are, and serve them in the way that only you can, and give them this value you’ve so carefully crafted.

Long paragraphs and all.

Until next week,

Ash