Listen to Episode 9 - Stop Talking About $10K Months and Start Talking About Growth Rates
I want to talk about something today that I think messes with our heads without us even realizing it - How we measure success.
More specifically, I’m going to talk about why the number some random person is bragging about online tells you almost nothing useful, and why the number that's sitting in your own reports probably means more than you're giving it credit for.
I'll tell you exactly why you need to stop comparing dollar amounts, and instead, start focusing on growth figures.
Here’s the situation…
Someone posts about their 10K month, maybe it's on LinkedIn, maybe it's on Instagram, maybe it's on Threads, maybe it’s on TikTok, or maybe it's a podcast or blog, just like this one. If your business's month looked nothing like that, one of three things probably happened:
You scrolled past it and felt a little defeated, like you'll never get there.
You started spiraling over what you'd have to change in order to reach that figure, or
You figured they were probably full of it (and honestly, there's a decent chance you'd be right because people love to lie on the internet).
But let's assume it was true - They really did have a $10,000 month in their business.
Here's what I want you to understand: That number tells you almost nothing. Literally.
It doesn't tell you their industry, it doesn't tell you how many hours went into it, it doesn't tell you their overhead or their expenses, and most importantly, it doesn't tell you whether that was a good month or a bad month for them.
That last bit, whether it was a good month or a bad month, is the thing that no one thinks about, nor addresses. They just want you to be impressed with the 10k figure. But also, who decided that a $10,000 month should be the goal in the first place? Please, can we all collectively just move past this figure? It's garbage and it doesn't mean anything.
Example time…
Let me provide an example of what I'm talking about here.
Person A had a $10,000 month.
Person B had a $3,000 month.
On paper, person A is crushing it, right? Maybe, but maybe not.
What if person A, the $10,000 month person, operates in a major market with a high cost of living, works with enterprise level clients, and typically brings in $20,000 a month?
That $10,000 a month isn't something to brag about.
That is a 50% decline. Something's off and they need to pay attention to what's going on.
Now, what if person B, the $3,000 month person, works in a smaller, less expensive market, only works on their business part-time, and typically brings in around $1,000 a month?
That $3,000 a month is a 200% increase over their norm. That $3,000 is not a mediocre month. That's a massive improvement and something to be insanely proud of.
That $3,000 month is the brag-worthy month.
So, this is what I'm saying: A dollar amount without any additional context is nearly meaningless. And it only means something when it's your dollar amount compared to your own baseline, not someone else's.
What should you be paying attention to then, if the dollar amount isn’t it?
If you want a real picture of how you and/or your business are performing, stop obsessing over the dollar amounts and start asking these questions instead:
First, what does my month-over-month growth look like?
Compared to last month, are your numbers moving up or down?
Second, what does my year-over-year growth look like? '
This one becomes more important the longer you're in business or in a sales role. Coming from over 10 years in sales myself, I can tell you, year-over-year numbers are talked about constantly. These numbers tell a longer-term story about the state of your business and they provide a more accurate assessment, especially if you operate in a seasonal business, like something holiday or gardening-related.
Year-over-year numbers will tell you if you're growing and by how much.
They also can give you some good insight into what is driving your trend.
Third, what are my percentages telling me?
A $3,000 month after a $1,000 month is 200% growth. A $10,000 month after a $20,000 month is a 50% decline.
Percentages and rates give you the details that dollar amounts just don't provide on their own.
Fourth, what is my revenue per hour?
If someone's making $10,000 a month working 60 hours/week, and you're making $3,000 a month working 10 hours/week, whose hourly revenue is actually higher?
It's you, with your $3,000 month, by a long shot.
That matters enormously if your goal involves any kind of time flexibility, not just raw volume.
Now let's talk about why these things matter.
Going back to that $10,000/month social media post I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I want to be clear: I'm not knocking anyone who shares a win like that.
Celebrate it, please. You should be your own biggest cheerleader.
That is not what I'm talking about here.
What I'm talking about is what happens with the person reading that post, and what the post actually means (or doesn't mean).
When someone says they had a $10,000 month in their business, that statement has zero context on its own.
You don't know if it's an up or down month for them.
You don't know if it covers their expenses or barely puts a dent in them.
You don't know if it took them 2 weeks to hit $10,000, or if it took the full month.
You don't know if they've had ten $10,000 months in a row, which would actually signal that their business has stagnated and isn't growing, or if it's their first one ever, which would be a fantastic growth story.
A dollar amount with no context can sound impressive, but that doesn't mean that it is impressive.
So the next time you see a revenue post and feel like a twinge of comparison creeping in, stop and ask yourself, compared to what?
Until you know the answer, you're comparing your full picture to someone else's very carefully chosen highlight, and that's not ever going to be a fair comparison. The metric that matters isn't what they made, it's whether you grew.
Let’s learn the formula…
I always want my listeners/readers/clients to come away from an episode or post having learned something they didn't know before, and we've established that context is everything, right? So, whether you're tracking business revenue, sales performance, your own career progress, whatever, here's a simple formula for tracking your growth and keeping you focused on the right things and the right data points:
First, determine what your normal looks like.
What is your baseline? Average it out over the last three to six months if you have the data. That's going to be your baseline to measure against.
Next, track your trends, not your totals.
Meaning month-over-month and year-over-year stats. Are things trending up? Cool. Keep doing what you're doing. Are they trending down? Well, that's information worth paying attention to, and maybe dig a little deeper to see what's going on there.
Third, calculate your percentages.
This is something that I think a lot of people skip because they think it's difficult, but I promise you that it's not. Here is the super simple formula to get you this info:
Take the difference between your current period and your previous period (month, quarter, whatever). So, current period minus previous period.
Divide that difference by the previous period, then multiply it by 100.
That number is your growth rate.
Growth Rate Formula:
(Current Period – Previous Period) ÷ Previous Period × 100 = Growth Rate %
Example: A $3,000 month after a $1,000 baseline month: ($3,000 – $1,000) ÷ $1,000 × 100 = 200% (growth).
Example: A $10,000 month after a $20,000 baseline month: ($10,000 – $20,000) ÷ $20,000 × 100 = –50% (a decline).
Keep track of it and calculate it often, like every month often.
If numbers aren't your thing, I get it. That's completely okay. That's what people like me are here for. There is always someone who can help you.
Next, I want to take a little detour…
Let’s review another reason why the ability to calculate these numbers can be a benefit to you, and it's because it applies to anyone who's ever struggled to talk about their performance in a job interview, or on a resume.
Most people write their accomplishments in dollar amounts or what I'll call “raw numbers.”
They'll say something like, I managed a $2 million portfolio, or I generated $500,000 in sales.
And those numbers might sound impressive, or they might not, depending on who's reading them and what the context is.
What actually makes an accomplishment mean something are the growth stats behind it.
So, instead of talking in dollar amounts, you should talk in percentages.
Say “I grew revenue by 40% year-over-year” or “I increased client retention from 60% to 85% over two years” or “I reduced processing time by 30%, resulting in…whatever that resulted in.” The point is that like those statements tell a story. Those statements tell someone what you accomplished regardless of the size of the market or the organization you were working in at the time.
If you have a list of accomplishments, or your resume sports raw numbers and you're not sure how to reframe them in a way that tells your story, that's something I can help you work through. My career coaching and resume services specifically work with things like this.
And to the women, specifically…
I want to add something else because this reframing of data matters for us.
There is well-established research showing that women face social and professional penalties for self-promotion. Men don't have the same experience. It's a catch-22. Self-promotion is necessary to get ahead, but women who do it are often perceived as less likable or less appropriate for it, purely for violating the expectation that women should stay modest. It's crap. The research calls this the “backlash avoidance model”, and it helps explain why a lot of women hesitate to claim credit for something, even when they've earned it and they deserve it.
When you reframe data to show as rates instead of dollar amounts, the data actually reads more like a fact as opposed to bragging, even though you weren't bragging to begin with. I don't know why it matters so much, but it does. Reframing data in this way doesn't entirely get rid of the self-promotion bias, but it does help, and it's a fairly low-effort way to let your results speak for themselves.
After all this, here's the bottom line (pun intended):
Growth is relative, and the only baseline that matters for measuring your success is your own baseline. Someone else's $10,000 month is not your measuring stick. Your last month is your measuring stick. Your last year is your measuring stick.
The question isn't whether you matched what someone else posted online. The question is whether you're moving in the right direction for your goals, in your market, and on your timeline.
I hope you found this content useful. I'm Lauren. This is Glass Ceiling Smashed. Go grab your hammer and let's break something together.
You can find the sources used to write this episode/article in the show notes for this episode linked at the beginning of this post.
