This year, I set up a reporting system for my business. Weekly and monthly: website traffic, social media performance, email engagement, conversions across every channel.
When the first report came in, some of the fields were blank. Not low. Blank. Zero activity on certain channels some weeks.
After 16+ years in business, I had blank weeks. And my first instinct was to hide it — wait until the numbers looked better before I let my team see them.
Then I caught myself doing the exact thing I tell my clients not to do.
The way you relate to your business numbers is a reflection of how you feel about yourself and your business. That's not a comfortable thing to hear. But it's important.
When you avoid looking at your website traffic, your email open rates, your revenue, your time — you're not protecting yourself from bad news. You're protecting a story. The story that says things are probably fine, you're probably doing enough, it's probably just a slow season.
Avoidance feels like rest. It is not rest. It's your energy going into not-knowing instead of growing.
And here's what I've learned from setting up that report and actually looking at it every week, even when it hurts: visibility makes things easier to deal with, not harder. When you can see what's happening, you know exactly where to focus. Without it, you try everything and fix nothing.
This year we noticed that click rates in these emails were lower than we expected. At first I thought it was a clicking problem — maybe the links weren't working, maybe people weren't interested. But when I really looked at the data, I realized we weren't giving you enough places to click. The issue was the email and I never would have known that without looking.
That's what your numbers do. They tell you where the real problem is, so you stop guessing and start fixing the right things.
But looking at your numbers is only half of it. The other half is shifting where your energy actually goes each week. Right now, if you're avoiding your data, you're also probably avoiding your growth actions — the things that directly move your business forward. Here's what those look like in practice.
Growth action #1: Dedicate time each week to direct outreach. Reach out to potential clients, previous clients, or people who showed interest in something you offer but never signed up. Social media helps, but most sales happen through real engagement and conversation — not posts. Block time for this every single week. If you're willing to track your time honestly, you may be surprised how little of it you're actually spending on sales.
Growth action #2: Find out what people are willing to buy. So many coaches assume that if something isn't selling, it's a universal failure. It's usually not. It's a breakdown somewhere — the offer isn't clear, the pricing isn't aligned, the market isn't finding it. Instead of scrapping everything, test. If you have a subscription, try a different price point or access level. If you're coaching, test a different package structure. Not five new offers — two, maximum. See what the data tells you.
Growth action #3: Let your numbers tell you what to fix. If social media isn't sending traffic to your website, change how you post — and keep changing until something works. If your emails aren't getting opens, test your subject lines. Don't try to fix everything at once. Find the specific breakdown, build your next move around that, and measure it. That's a growth plan. Everything else is just busy work.
You can spend your weeks avoiding, or you can spend them growing. Both take energy. Only one moves you forward.
YOUR ONE THING
Pick one number in your business you've been avoiding and look at it this week. Just one. Here's how to make it actionable:
1. Write down what you're afraid to see. Is it your website traffic? Your email open rate? Your revenue? How much time you actually spend on sales? Name it before you look. This matters.
2. Look at it anyway. Pull the number from wherever it lives — Google Analytics, your email platform, your bank account, your calendar. Write it down. That's your baseline.
3. Identify one growth action to match it. Low website traffic → schedule two hours this week for direct outreach or try a different type of social post. Low email opens → write three different subject lines for your next email and pick the strongest one. No new clients → make a list of five people to personally follow up with before Friday.
4. Block the time. Whatever growth action you chose, put it on your calendar before you close this email. Not "sometime this week." A specific day and time. That's how avoidance ends — not with motivation, but with a calendar event.
Which numbers do you avoid looking at most in your business?
If you're ready to build a simple reporting system and weekly rhythm around your growth actions — that's exactly the kind of work we map out in a 3-Hour Strategy Deep Dive.
🎬 HIT PLAY
Tired of reading? Go listen to a vegan entrepreneur who figured out the other side of this.
Lindsay Perez built a vegan snack brand from her kitchen to grocery stores across Florida in under a year — by paying close attention to what was working and moving fast on it. If today's issue got you thinking about your own growth, her story is worth a listen.
The numbers aren't there to judge you. They're there to guide you. Start looking.
— Stephanie
P.S. If you set up even a simple monthly report this week — website visits, email opens, one revenue number — reply and tell me. I want to know you did it.
