A CEO pulled up their phone during a session last month, scrolling through analytics before we’d even said hello. Follower count was up. Engagement was up. Everything looked good.
Then I asked: did revenue move?
Silence.
That pause tells you everything about where most of us point our attention. We chase what the dashboard shows us because the dashboard is right there, blinking, easy to check between meetings. Nobody built a dashboard for trust. Nobody built one for “the client who almost left and stayed because we handled it well.”
I’ve watched smart, capable leaders spend real hours each week tracking post frequency and like counts on content that’s never once been linked to a closed deal. Not because they’re careless. Because the algorithm makes the wrong number feel urgent, and urgency is easy to mistake for importance.
Here’s what I’ve started asking clients instead: what’s the smallest number that, if it moved, would actually change your quarter? For most, it isn’t impressions. It’s referral rate. It’s the percentage of clients still with them after year two. It’s how many people mention their name unprompted in a room they weren’t in.
Those numbers move slower. They don’t fit neatly on a weekly report. But they’re the ones actually building the business.
What would you stop tracking this week if you were honest about what it’s actually telling you?
