Growth hacking locker room talk

[alord]

It happened again.

Some friends of mine sent me yet another screenshot of a so-called "growth hacker" bragging on his LinkedIn profile about all the views he's making.

You might think, "Is that wrong?"

Well, Yeah! Especially because he's also boasting about:

The 'impressions' he got on social media.

His organic traffic.

The PR mentions.

The problem is that I see every day online businesses that get lots of traffic but that are struggling in reality.

That's because views, traffic, and impressions are just one variable in the whole equation.

Same for open rates, and so on.

The problem is that you don't know how much they convert or how much budget they've used to produce those results (because they don't tell you those things.)

For instance, a competitor of mine came out saying that he got 80k/month in organic traffic in a few months for his website.

That sounds great!

But what about:

• The budget did they invested?
• The starting point of the website (Domain Authority, and so on)?

I could brag all day about the fact that my sites make lots of irrelevant metrics.

I could tell you that I made

• 3 million views in the first year on social media for my brands without spending a dime.
• 21k/month organic traffic with a $500/budget (in a few months.)

And on and on...

The truth is one; all those metrics don't matter.

What really matters are the sales you got.

That's because, for a human brain, it's hard to optimize for lots of metrics at the same time.

That's what Phil Knight, Nike's founder, was doing.

When the swoosh brand was just a startup, at the end of the day he was tracking only one metric: Sales.

He could have checked how many new influencers were talking about Nike, but he didn't. Why?

Because at the end of the day, if you don't make more than you've spent, that means nothing.

With the limited attention we all have, every additional metric that you try to optimize will steal YOUR attention for what's truly relevant to you.

And attention, along with time, is one of the most scarce (and thus most precious) resources you have at your disposal.

That's why when I hear bragging about impressions and traffic, it all sounds to me like the childish locker room discussions we all had with friends in 8th grade.

It all sounds like, "My genitalia is longer than yours."

But for those of us who lost virginity, we all learned that the length of our genitalia doesn't matter much.

The same is valid with traffic and views (without conversions.)

• You can have all the traffic in the world (Siffredi like genitalia) but have no dates/no conversions.
• You can have lots of traffic, impressions, and sign-ups (but of low quality) = dating people no one wants to hang out with.
• If you're rich (have a big marketing budget), it's not really growth hacking, you're paying for all that traffic (paying escorts or gold diggers.) If you spend 1 million in ads to make 1.1 million in revenues, you do have a million-dollar business (dating a model), but you're still broke and losing money (she doesn't really love you.)

Now it's your turn, what's the ONE metric you can focus on that if it grows, everything else will be easier? Comment below.

 

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[knowledgebeast]

Ximm temit ot vji ucwouat nivsod. Xjev O'n miespoph pux ot duqzxsovoph, epf O xeppe fu vjev gsiimepdi. O'mm miesp jux vu fsowi vseggod mevis up, us nezci katv vien aq xovj hsuxvj jedloph xobesft. Vji iydovoph vjoph ecuav duqz ot ot cz djephoph katv vji xusft up e qehi zua dep fuacmi us vsoqmi zuas dupwistoupt op tuni detit, xjodj niept fuacmoph us vsoqmoph zuas qsugov, xovj vji teni iyqipti gus vseggod. Xjip zua huv vji duqz xsovvip sohjv, vitvif up e tnemm tdemi, ivd, vjip zua dep vjsux emm zuas nupiz up vseggod epf neli cadlmueft ug nupiz.
(Puv tezoph O'n emsiefz huuf ev duqzxsovoph cav O'n veloph ov wisz tisouatmz, O'mm xusl et e gsiimepdi xjip O'n fupi xovj vji Hesz Jemcisv Djemmiphi.) Catopitt dep duni mevis. O'n veloph vji vinqusesz tmuxmepi vu caomf iyvsinimz wemaecmi tlommt.

 

[alord]

Ximm temit ot vji ucwouat nivsod. Xjev O'n miespoph pux ot duqzxsovoph, epf O xeppe fu vjev gsiimepdi. O'mm miesp jux vu fsowi vseggod mevis up, us nezci katv vien aq xovj hsuxvj jedloph xobesft. Vji iydovoph vjoph ecuav duqz ot ot cz djephoph katv vji xusft up e qehi zua dep fuacmi us vsoqmi zuas dupwistoupt op tuni detit, xjodj niept fuacmoph us vsoqmoph zuas qsugov, xovj vji teni iyqipti gus vseggod. Xjip zua huv vji duqz xsovvip sohjv, vitvif up e tnemm tdemi, ivd, vjip zua dep vjsux emm zuas nupiz up vseggod epf neli cadlmueft ug nupiz.
(Puv tezoph O'n emsiefz huuf ev duqzxsovoph cav O'n veloph ov wisz tisouatmz, O'mm xusl et e gsiimepdi xjip O'n fupi xovj vji Hesz Jemcisv Djemmiphi.) Catopitt dep duni mevis. O'n veloph vji vinqusesz tmuxmepi vu caomf iyvsinimz wemaecmi tlommt.

Vjeplt gus tjesoph zuast. Ectumavimz, duqzxsovoph ot, op nz uqopoup, vji #1 tlomm vu jewi xjip neslivoph vjopht upmopi. O tahhitv zua Ciptivvmi.dun pixtmivvis up vjev cvx

 

[Xeon]

Temit ot vji amvonevi nivsod cav xovj pu vseggod, zua'si cetodemmz gosoph opvu vji wuof xovj puvjoph vu ceti up epf vitv. Epf vu hiv vseggod, zua piif vu gopf xezt vu fu ov epf vsedloph vseggod ot qesv ug vji qsuditt.

 

[alord]

Temit ot vji amvonevi nivsod cav xovj pu vseggod, zua'si cetodemmz gosoph opvu vji wuof xovj puvjoph vu ceti up epf vitv. Epf vu hiv vseggod, zua piif vu gopf xezt vu fu ov epf vsedloph vseggod ot qesv ug vji qsuditt.

Tasi, ov't vseggod epf dupwistoupt.