To Grow Your Revenue, Remember To Stay Focused On What Matters
Everything else is a distraction
In the online business world, subscribers are important. The bigger your audience, the more opportunity you have to make sales.
This is an unfortunate reality.
But today, I want to remind you to look at the end goal. What do you want subscribers for? Are all subscribers created equal?
Let’s find out.
My Email List Is Shrinking
Ever since I committed to sending a daily long form email, I’ve been losing subscribers.
This is also because I haven’t been recording and publishing YouTube videos, which is where a lot of my subscribers come from. Once Tim Stodz Media officially kicks off on September 1st, I expect to see more growth.
None the less, my list is shrinking.
See for yourself.
When I looked at this decline this morning, I immediately thought…
“Whoa, what’s this about? My audience clearly doesn’t like what I’m doing. I should change my strategy.”
I started second guessing my daily posts.
“Maybe people don’t want to hear from me every day. Maybe if I switched to weekly, I wouldn’t lose so many subscribers. At this rate, I’ll never hit my ultimate outcome of 100,000 subscribers.”
These thoughts are natural, as we all want to see positive results from the work we do.
But Then I Remembered To Focus On What Matters
In the online marketing world, what matters?
I think the answer depends on who you ask. If you ask a social media influencer, they will tell you that likes and reach matter. If you ask a podcaster, they will probably tell you downloads matter.
I suppose those answers are correct, but if you ask me, there are only two metrics that ever matter.
Engagement
Revenue
I remembered to take a step back and look at the business through those two lenses.
Engagement
Funny enough, my subscribers are going down, but my monthly reach is increasing. The conclusion I come to is that I am building a loyal following of fans who look forward to reading my emails every morning.
I feel good about this. It’s crazy to me that my daily newsletter gets 183,700 opens every month. That’s two football stadiums of people reading what I have to say every month.
It’s very cool.
Revenue
My revenue for The Machine Method is growing. I’m up 20 percent month over month.
Considering I only started this project a few months ago, I feel pretty good about it.
I am nowhere near my goal, but when I zoom out I feel good about the progress. The data reinforces my thinking, because the people who unsubscribed are the people who would never buy from me anyway.
The people who stick around are opening my emails at a high frequency and eventually turning into customers.
The Conclusion
The sky is not falling.
The data is important, because it shows me that the content I am writing, and the way I am writing it, is turning into sales. In fact, the conversion rate is very high considering I only have 15,000 subscribers.
But I also see areas of opportunity. The trajectory I am on will not get me to $1M a year. I will need to keep growing my email list and I need to increase the volume of subscribers if I want to hit my goal of 100,000 subscribers.
I hope this is a good reminder for you.
When you are building a newsletter, remember to focus on what matters. You are writing for one person. You are serving an avatar.
If people unsubscribe, that means it’s not for them.
Sometimes it’s appropriate to pivot or make adjustments for improvement. But most of the time, the problem is simply that you haven’t been doing it long enough.
Press on.
Tim
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