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From Motivated CEO to Metrics Maven: A Journey of Growth, Mistakes, and Transformationn with Amy Traugh
Reflecting on My Journey
How often do I pause to reflect on my journey? If you’re anything like me, the answer is probably not often enough. Yet, it’s important to recognize that every moment—good, bad, and messy—has led me to exactly where I am today. Recently, I took a moment to celebrate the milestone of reaching 400 podcast episodes—a journey I never imagined when I first began. This reflection allowed me to dive deep into the evolution of my podcast and the invaluable lessons I’ve learned along the way.
From Humble Beginnings to Growth Pursuits
When I launched my podcast back in 2022, it was my bold step to extend the reach of my second business, Moms on a Mission. Although my community was well established and thriving, the download numbers in those first six months were surprisingly low—well under 400. I learned that growth is born from taking action and being willing to start as a beginner. It’s an antidote to feeling discouraged by constant comparisons with others.
By the end of 2022, I had produced 26 episodes, proving the value of consistent effort. However, my grand plan of releasing five episodes a week in 2023 didn’t pan out as expected. I had assumed guests would drive significant downloads by promoting their episodes, but that wasn’t the case. This experience taught me the pitfalls of assumptions and the importance of focusing on my personal voice in content creation.
Turning Defaults into Intentional Strategies
The challenges and mistakes of 2023 were crucial eye-openers that drove me to reevaluate my approach. I noticed that the content seemed inconsistent, and the added pressure of releasing multiple episodes diluted my voice as a host. By aligning the show with my CEO Method framework and my upcoming book, I started afresh with a clear purpose. In 2024, I experimented with several strategies—strategic promotions, guest promo swaps, YouTube, and retention tools. By focusing on data insights rather than assumptions, I transformed the podcast from a business expense into a powerful lead-gen asset.
The Power of Words and Rebranding to Metrics Maven
As I discovered, the word "motivated" no longer resonated with my vision. Feeling stuck, a client’s comment describing me as a "metrics maven" sparked a lightbulb moment. It encapsulated my commitment to leveraging data to eliminate guessing and boost growth. Every strategy I implemented relied on the principle: when you stop guessing, you start growing. The key to overcoming sales plateaus lies in utilizing metrics as the roadmap for action.
With newfound clarity, I rebranded the podcast as the Metrics Maven Podcast. The content is now fully aligned with my mission to empower solopreneurs through practical, data-driven strategies that shatter sales plateaus. I’ve reduced posting frequency to focus on quality over quantity, providing actionable insights to fuel tangible business growth.
Embracing the Beginner’s Spirit
Reaching the milestone of 400 episodes wasn’t by chance; it happened because I embraced the spirit of being a beginner. Willingness to start, make mistakes, and consistently show up is what differentiates those who succeed. The choice is yours and mine: "Will today be your day one of growth, or will it be just another 'one day'?" This powerful question is a reminder of the importance of action and momentum over waiting for the perfect moment.
To conclude, whether you’ve been a listener from the start or just joined, my gratitude is immense. Here’s to the new era of the Metrics Maven Podcast—cheers to prioritizing data over doubts and growth over guessing. As I often say: stop guessing and start growing
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Transcript for Episode 400. Mistakes Were Made… But You Don’t Have to Make Them Too
Amy [00:01:15]:
This is episode 400 and the beginning of a new era for this podcast. Back when I started this show less than three years ago in. In June of 2022, I had no idea the impact it would have on my business. But in full disclosure, the road here was not always smooth. And looking back, I made some massive mistakes along the way. So today I'm pulling back the curtain to share with you what worked, what didn't, and what I completely screwed up so that you can avoid such of these mistakes that I made and fast track your own success. So buckle up because today I am getting real raw and sharing some behind the scenes details I've never talked about before. So let's rewind back to 2022.
Amy [00:02:11]:
At the time, I was growing my second business, the Moms on a Mission. It was a community for mom owned businesses. And the community was growing, it was thriving. But I really needed a way to expand my reach. And it seemed like every industry leader out had a podcast. So I figured, okay, a podcast is probably the next obvious step to grow my business. So I did what any scrappy entrepreneur would do. I bought a cheap mic off of Amazon, watched a few YouTube tutorials, googled the how tos hit record, and launched the Motivated Mompreneur podcast.
Amy [00:02:42]:
And let me tell you, it was bad. The audio was terrible, the graphics were terrible, my interview skills as a host were terrible. And it's one of those that you never realize how awkward you sound until you listen back. And those episodes are still on the feed if you want to see for yourself. But I started, I got out of my head and I took messy action. But even though I had a solid community already established, my total downloads in that first six months of the podcast were well under 400. You know, we. We have so often forget that with anything new that we do we have to start at ground zero.
Amy [00:03:26]:
Growth comes from doing and the willingness to be a beginner. It's so easy to get stuck in the cycle of comparing ourselves to others and that leads us feeling so defeated. But what if we took this as an opportunity to reframe other success as proof of concept that what we desire is possible if we're just willing to be a beginner to show up to start. And even though those first six months were rough, I showed up consistently and had 26 episodes under my belt by the end of 2022. So at the start of 2023, I had this brilliant idea. Well, I thought it was a brilliant idea. So one episode per week was getting me roughly 15 downloads on average, which, when you look at industry standards, was actually really, really good. What would happen if I published five episodes a week? So I did it.
Amy [00:04:26]:
I went all in. I hired a production team, invested a ton of money, and published five episodes a week for nine months featuring guest interviews. Why? Because I assumed that every guest would promote their episode and their audience would find my show and my downloads would score skyrocket. I was wrong. Most guests did not share out their episodes and the assets that I was paying this team a lot of money to create on the back end. And looking back, expecting guests to promote my podcast was almost a form of entitlement energy. They didn't have to share anything. Their audiences already heard this message.
Amy [00:05:08]:
So what I found was in the process of churning out all this content, I lost my own voice. Now, in full disclosure, out of the 232 episodes that were released back in 2023, only 18 of those were solo episodes. My content was all over the place. There were too many topics, too many perspectives, and it was just complete information overload for my listeners. And then to top it off, I am a recovering people pleaser. So I said yes to guests who probably weren't the right fit and definitely aired more than one episode that shouldn't have seen the light of day. And if you listen to one of those episodes, I'm sorry and thank you for sticking with me. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad.
Amy [00:05:59]:
Downloads did increase significantly, and I built out an incredible network of referral partners. Some of my business besties came from being guests on the podcast, but I wasn't seeing the ROI on my time and money. I wasn't actually getting any conversion into clients. My podcast had really turned into a business expense versus the asset that I envisioned it being. So I decided, you know what? It's time to get strategic and learn how to leverage my podcast to grow my business. So in late 2023, I joined a podcast network and rebranded the show to the Motivated CEO Podcast, really aligning it with my CEO Method framework and my upcoming book, the CEO Method An Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Success, which ended up coming out in March of 2024. So we go into 2024, which is what I like to call one big experiment. It was a year of implementing what I was learning inside the network and then testing everything in real time.
Amy [00:07:06]:
You may have seen some of these along the way. You know, I did guest promo swaps, we added in YouTube, we did sponsored ads, we focused on retention, we integrated offers, freebies. We're really strategic with CTAs and UTM tracking. And what I did was I analyzed all the data from these experiments and I was able to turn my podcast into a huge lead generation tool. I actually scaled back the production costs and finally saw the ROI that I was searching for. So hearing this, it sounds like I had it all figured out, right? Well, spoiler alert. It wasn't. Something was still off.
Amy [00:07:51]:
And that, my friend, was the word motivated. If you have been in my world a while, you know my thoughts on motivation. It's complete bs. And yet here it was, front and center in my podcast title. I felt stuck and I didn't know what to do until back in November. I was on a strategy session with a client and she just casually dropped the phrase metrics maven. She's like, you know what? You just have this awesome perspective. You are a metrics maven.
Amy [00:08:24]:
And it clicked. That was that, like, light bulb moment where it all made sense. Every single thing that I teach, everything I stand for, comes down to one simple principle. When you stop guessing, you start growing. The secret to shattering a sales plateau isn't adding more to your business. It's already there, hidden within your metrics. You just need to know where to look. So, Moving forward, episode 400 marks the beginning of a new era.
Amy [00:09:00]:
The motivated CEO podcast is now officially the Metrics Maven Podcast. This is an era in complete alignment with my mission. I am here to help solopreneurs quickly shatter sales plateaus with practical data driven strategies so that they can ditch the data drama, stop guessing, and start growing with clarity, confidence and ease without adding even more to their already full plate. So what does this mean for you? Over the next several weeks, we're actually going to start decreasing the frequency of posting. We're going back to one solo episode, a week. Occasionally we'll sprinkle in guest experts about once a month here and there. But what you're going to get is really focused, actionable, data driven business growth strategies to teach you how to shatter your sales plateau. Why? Because I don't want you spending your time consuming.
Amy [00:10:06]:
I want you implementing what you learn here on the podcast. Action creates momentum and momentum creates results. I am sitting here at 400 episodes. Not by chance. It wasn't luck. It wasn't that. I know more than anyone else. I am no different than you.
Amy [00:10:27]:
It happened because I was willing to be a beginner, willing to really suck at first and willing to show up again and again and again. Because it really comes down to having the willingness to do what most people won't in order to get the results that most people don't. So you get to choose. Will today be day one that you stop guessing and start growing? Or will it be one day? The choice is yours. You get to choose. So in closing to you, my listeners, whether you've been here since episode one or just found the show, thank you. I appreciate you more than you know. Here's to the next 400 episodes.
Amy [00:11:16]:
I am here cheering for you. And until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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