73: Instagram Followers Don't Pay Your Bills: What I Should've Been Watching Instead

🌟 The Number That Was Running My Business (And It Wasn't Revenue)

Have you ever refreshed a post seventeen times in the first hour after publishing?

You poured real energy into it. You thought it was good. And then the likes trickled in at a speed that made your stomach hurt.

If you've ever used that number — the likes, the follower count, the email subscriber total — as your daily report card on whether you're doing it right, I need you to keep reading.

Because I have 125,000 followers on Instagram. And I had a full breakdown over getting under 50 likes on a post.

Not once. Regularly.

And here's the part that wrecked me when I finally said it out loud: while I was obsessing over those vanity numbers, I hadn't looked at my actual revenue in months.

This episode (and this post) is for every solopreneur who is white-knuckling the wrong numbers. The ones that are easiest to see, not the ones that actually tell you whether your business is healthy.

💡 How I Ended Up in a Spiral I Didn't See Coming

A few weeks ago, something happened in the online space that sent me into a full comparison tailspin.

A big creator had a massive, viral launch. Over a million dollars in two weeks. The whole thing exploded across my feed.

I went to my stories and said what I was actually feeling: "I'm more lost than I've been since I started my business five and a half years ago."

My community showed up immediately with the kindest words. But in my head? I kept looping. Am I too old? Am I behind? Why isn't my content working the way it used to?

I had 124,000 followers for ten months before I cracked 125K. My email list was trading one subscriber for another every month — not actually growing. And when I'd post something, I was getting 50 likes on content that should be reaching a much larger slice of my audience.

So I got on a call with my coach and therapist, Ash McDonald. She's this rare combination of actual therapist and entrepreneur who understands business strategy. I found her through her podcast, binged everything she'd ever made, and hired her before she even had a chance to pitch me. That's what consistent, trust-building content does. (A lesson worth sitting with if you're questioning whether your content is doing anything.)

I filled out her intake form before the call and basically sent her a list of everything I thought was going wrong. My engagement. My follower stall. My feelings of fraud. The comparison. All of it.

She read through it. And then she asked me one question.

"How's your revenue? How are sales?"

I sat there on that call and said, "I don't know."

She was quiet for a second. Then she said, with so much care in her voice: "Em, this is really bad."

🎯 What Ash Said That Changed How I Run My Business

The wake-up call wasn't just that I didn't know my numbers. It was why I didn't know them.

My husband Rob handles the financial side of our business. About two years ago, I went through a really dark stretch mentally. I was burning out, tying my entire self-worth to engagement rates, and crying more than I'd cried in years. It scared both of us. And without either of us consciously deciding it, we stopped having our monthly revenue check-ins.

He stopped bringing the numbers to me because he didn't want to see me like that. I stopped asking because not knowing felt safer than knowing.

If he wasn't coming to me with bad news, I told myself everything must be fine.

Ash called it what it was: avoidance. A coping mechanism that had quietly been running in the background of my business for six months.

And then she said something that I haven't stopped thinking about.

💡 Revenue Problems Show Up 90 to 120 Days After the Real Cause

When someone's revenue starts dropping, the actual cause happened three to four months before they notice. If you're not paying consistent attention, you're always behind. You're always reacting instead of responding.

That was the part that stopped me cold. Not knowing wasn't neutral. Not knowing was expensive.

💡 You Have Data on Everything Except What Actually Matters

Ash pointed out that I had incredibly detailed data on my Instagram analytics, my email open rates, my subscriber counts, my content performance. I could tell you exactly how many new followers I got in March.

But the one number that would tell me if my business was genuinely healthy? I'd been letting that one collect dust.

Every time I got a new follower, I didn't make money.
Every time someone joined my email list, I didn't make money.

Those numbers can go up and down for a hundred reasons that have nothing to do with whether your business is working. But I'd made them my proof. My scoreboard. My daily verdict on whether I was good at this.

💡 The Comparison Wasn't About the Money

When I really sat with the spiral the big viral launch triggered in me, I realized it had nothing to do with wanting $1.2 million.

I don't want a launch that size. My nervous system would revolt. I'd rather slow, steady, consistent growth that lets me keep my 4-day workweek and be at the bus stop for my kids.

What I wanted was the validation. She put together an offer, priced it, and people bought it in droves. That was proof she was good at what she does. And I was refusing to look at my own proof.

I have made over $1.2 million across five and a half years of business. But I wasn't looking at it. So I had nothing solid to hold onto, and every dip in likes became the thing I reached for instead.

💡 Leadership Isn't About Having It All Together

This is the part Ash said that shifted something in me.

I was telling her how impossible it felt to show up in my stories and in The Coven as a leader while feeling like such a mess internally. In my mind, leadership meant having the answers. Knowing what to do. Not showing the spiral.

She said: "Em, leadership isn't about knowing everything. It's about relatability."

The comparison, the 45 likes on 125K followers, the "am I too old for this" spiral at 2am — my people are experiencing that too. That's not a weakness to hide. That's the content.

Not a polished version of me who has it figured out. The real version who is in it with you.

🎯 The Questions I Want You to Ask Yourself

If this is hitting somewhere familiar, I want to leave you with what I took away from my call with Ash.

Ask yourself: what number are you white-knuckling?

The one you check obsessively. The one that spikes your anxiety. The one you've been using as proof of whether you're doing it right.

Now ask: is that actually the number that matters? Or is it just the one that's easiest to see?

For me, the number that mattered — revenue, recurring member income, where my sales were actually coming from — I'd been avoiding it for six months. And the number I couldn't stop staring at told me literally nothing about whether my business was healthy.

Ask yourself: do you know your number?

Not your follower count. Not your open rate. What do you actually need to make every month for your life to feel okay? For savings to grow? For vacations to happen?

When I sat down with Rob two years ago and heard the actual number out loud, my nervous system relaxed. It was more doable than the invisible number I'd been chasing.

You can't fix what you're not willing to see. And you can't feel good about something you're refusing to look at.

🌟 What I'm Doing Differently Now

Right after my call with Ash, I went to Rob and said we're restarting our monthly check-ins. No more "no news is good news." No more avoidance dressed up as peace of mind.

I don't know exactly what the numbers will show me yet. But not knowing is costing me more than knowing ever could.

If you're someone who has been avoiding your own numbers, whether that's revenue, or the real cost of your time, or what you actually need to make your business sustainable, I want you to think of this as your nudge to start looking.

Because the stuff that's running quietly in the background of your business? It doesn't go away just because you're not watching it.

And you can't build something you're proud of on a foundation you're afraid to inspect.

💪 The Number That Actually Matters

I have 125,000 followers. I spiral over 45 likes. And I've made over a million dollars across five and a half years of building this business.

All three of those things are true at the same time.

The first one sounds impressive and means almost nothing about my business health. The second one feels terrible and also means almost nothing. The third one is the actual story.

What's the actual story your numbers are telling? Not the vanity metrics. The real ones.

If you want space to work through this stuff alongside the content strategy — the mindset spirals, the comparison, the "why am I like this" moments — this is exactly what we talk about inside The Content Coven. Not just templates and trainings, though there are plenty of those. A room full of women who know exactly what you're talking about because they're in it too.

🛠️ Resources Mentioned

• Ash McDonald, therapist and business strategist (therpist/biz coach referenced throughout the episode that I love & have worked with a number of times).

• Ash McDonald's podcast (how Em originally found her and built trust before hiring her).

• EP 13: Em's episode with her husband Rob (referenced as one of her most-listened episodes).

Have you ever caught yourself using vanity metrics as your proof that you're failing (or succeeding)? Drop it in the comments. You are so not alone in this one.