PP 207: Vanity Numbers

Despite meshing really well with the host, I was recently turned down for a virtual summit because of the size of my email list. Listen as I explain why I believe numbers like this are vanity numbers.

Episode Transcription – Vanity Numbers

Welcome back to another episode of positive productivity. I am so happy that you’re here. Today I am going to have a conversation with you about vanity numbers. Here’s a little backstory about where this episode came from. A couple weeks ago, I had a chat with somebody who’s having a virtual summit in a couple months, as part of a coaching program that she’s going through to build her business. We had a wonderful conversation, and she said that I would be a perfect person to be on her summit. However, then she said to me, Well, I have to ask how many people are on your list? By list she meant, how many subscribers Do I have on my email list? And I was a little bit surprised. Well, I understand that this is a common practice, especially by some virtual summit organizers. I would never dream of excluding a person from my event just because of the number of people that they have subscribed to their mailing list. Why? Because to me, the number of subscribers is purely a vanity number.

Vanity Numbers

Just like The number of followers you have on your Facebook page or Twitter account, Instagram account or any other social media platform, email subscribers can be bought. What we need to be concerned about while growing our business is the number of active and engaged people in our community, whether that be email subscribers, or Facebook fans, Twitter fans, or Instagram fans or wherever you’re hanging out how many people that are following you are actually engaging to the posts that you put out. Now, I won’t deny that my engagement is not as high as I would like it to be. But part of that is because I have not been spending as much time on social media. As I have been focusing on the podcast and my blog articles and all the other content that I have going out elsewhere. I did make a point of bringing up my social media following in the podcast to the woman with the virtual summit. However, her response to me was, well, this is what my coaches do. Want me to do and I’m going to have to check in with them. To me, that was the first and last sign that I needed that this was not the event for me. While you’re growing your business, you have to do what feels right in your heart. If you’re about to host a virtual summit, and somebody has told you that the people that you bring on need to have a minimum number of people on their mailing list, I want you to really think about that. I know that I would personally have somebody who resonates greatly with my brand, and I know will greatly impact my audience on my event, rather than invite somebody who doesn’t mesh well with my personality, and has a huge list. A huge list does not mean anything if the audience is not going to resonate with me. And chances are, if the person doesn’t resonate with me, then neither will their audience. All the numbers that we see across social media, with the exception of income, are purely vanity numbers in sometimes income really is a vanity number as well. I know you may be wondering why I say that income is a vanity number. And it’s because well, somebody can say that they made $20,000 in a month. often they’re not disclosing how much of that money actually had to go to expenses that $20,000 month may have cost them 15,000 or more to actually accomplish. We don’t know the story is behind all the numbers that we’re seeing. But before you’re judging somebody based upon the number of followers they have, or the amount of income that they proclaimed as they make on a given month. think first about the impact that they’re making with their community, and whether or not they resonate with your brand. Now, with all this said, Go forth and make it a positive and productive day.