Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
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Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellavaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six point thirty nine. Today we're talking about
Speaker 2: choosing the right digital KPIs. Every leader I meet wants dashboards,
Speaker 2: they want charts, they want analytics. They want to say
Speaker 2: they are data driven. But here's what I see over
Speaker 2: and over again, leaders drowning in numbers and starving for clarity.
Speaker 2: You can track website visits, email open rates, social impressions, podcasts, downloads,
Speaker 2: conversion percentages, click through rates, time on page, bounce rates,
Speaker 2: follower growth and subscribers, and yet still have no idea
Speaker 2: whether your organization is actually winning. Digital KPIs are supposed
Speaker 2: to give you altitude awareness. Instead, most leaders use them
Speaker 2: like entertainment. Let me bring you back into the cockpit
Speaker 2: for a minute. When I'm flying, I do not stare
Speaker 2: at every gage equally. I scan airspeed, altitude, heading, engine instruments.
Speaker 2: Each one has context, each one has consequence. If I
Speaker 2: fixate on one dial and ignore the others, I drift
Speaker 2: off course. Your digital metrics are the same way. The
Speaker 2: first mistake leaders make is choosing KPIs that make them
Speaker 2: feel good instead of metrics that tell the truth. Vanity
Speaker 2: metrics are allowed. They look impressive in board meetings. They're
Speaker 2: easy to screenshot and post revenue per digital campaign, customer
Speaker 2: acquisition cost, retention rate lead to close ratio. These are
Speaker 2: not allowed. These are real. If your follower account doubled
Speaker 2: this year, but your profit margin shrank, your KPI selection
Speaker 2: is broken. You do not need more data, you need
Speaker 2: discipline selection. So how do you choose the right digital KPIs. First,
Speaker 2: tie every KPI to a decision. If a number goes
Speaker 2: up or down, what will you actually do about it?
Speaker 2: If the answer is nothing, stop tracking it. In ems,
Speaker 2: I do not track a piece of data unless it
Speaker 2: changes how we operate. Response times matter because they affect
Speaker 2: patient outcomes and deployment strategy. Fleet downtime matters because it
Speaker 2: affects coverage. Digital leadership is no different. If your email
Speaker 2: open rate drops, do you change subject lines, timing segmentation.
Speaker 2: If not, you're just measuring noise. Second, separate leading indicators
Speaker 2: from lagging indicators. Lagging indicators are the scoreboard, revenue, profit,
Speaker 2: market share. Leading indicators are the behaviors that create those outcomes.
Speaker 2: Website inquiries, demo requests, email engagement, repeat customer visits. You
Speaker 2: cannot control the scoreboard directly, you control behavior. This is
Speaker 2: pure seven minute leadership discipline spends seven intentional minutes each
Speaker 2: day reviewing one leading indicator and asking what small adjustment
Speaker 2: improves this? Over time, those small adjustments compound. Third, limit
Speaker 2: your KPIs. If you have fifteen core digital KPIs, you
Speaker 2: have none. I want you to pick three to five
Speaker 2: metrics that truly define success in your current season. If
Speaker 2: you are in growth mode, that might be qualified leads, generated,
Speaker 2: cost per acquisition and conversion rate. If you are in
Speaker 2: retention mode, that might be churn rate, repeat purchase frequency
Speaker 2: in lifetime value. Different seasons require different instruments. Aviation again,
Speaker 2: cruise altitude metrics are different than landing metrics. You do
Speaker 2: not fly the same way at ten thousand feet as
Speaker 2: you do on final approach. Leaders who do not adjust
Speaker 2: their KPIs by season are flying one phase of flight
Speaker 2: with the wrong checklist. Fourth, make your KPIs visible and
Speaker 2: discussted a KPI that lives in a spreadsheet no one
Speaker 2: opens is not a KPI, It's just a file. Bring
Speaker 2: it into your weekly meeting. Ask your team what moved
Speaker 2: this number? Why? What can we do next week? This
Speaker 2: is where accountability shows up. You cannot preach accountability and
Speaker 2: hide this. Square board and red key leadership shows up here.
Speaker 2: A red key moment is when a digital KPI reveals
Speaker 2: something uncomfortable. Maybe your ad spend is high, in conversion
Speaker 2: is low, Maybe engagement dropped after a leadership change. Maybe
Speaker 2: your online reviews are trending down. That is a red
Speaker 2: key moment. You either confront it and adjust, or you
Speaker 2: explain it away. Passive leaders rationalized data. Real leaders respond
Speaker 2: to it. Fifth align digital KPIs with real world impact.
Speaker 2: If your podcast downloads increase but listener retention drops after
Speaker 2: minute three, what does that say about your content? If
Speaker 2: your website traffic increases but calls to action are ignored,
Speaker 2: what does that say about clarity? Numbers tell stories. Leaders
Speaker 2: must interpret them. This is not about being a data scientist.
Speaker 2: It is about being disciplined. The danger in digital leadership
Speaker 2: today is distraction. You get pulled into tracking everything because
Speaker 2: the tools make it easy. Dashboards are seductive grafts look professional,
Speaker 2: but clarity always beats complexity. You do not need fifty metrics,
Speaker 2: you need the right five. So here's your assignment. Write
Speaker 2: down your top five digital KPIs right now, next to
Speaker 2: each one, write this sentence. If this number changes, we
Speaker 2: will and fill in the blank. And if you cannot
Speaker 2: finish that sentence, delete the KPI. Then ask yourself one
Speaker 2: final question. Are these metrics aligned with our mission or
Speaker 2: are they aligned with our ego? Because leadership is not
Speaker 2: about proving your popular online, it is about building something
Speaker 2: that lasts. So digital KPIs are instruments, not decorations. They
Speaker 2: should guide your altitude, heading in speed. Choose metrics that
Speaker 2: drive decisions, reflect accountability, and move your organization forward. Spend
Speaker 2: seven intentional minutes reviewing them, adjusting them, and acting on them.
Speaker 2: The leaders who win in the digital age are not
Speaker 2: the ones with the most data. They're the ones who
Speaker 2: choose wisely and execute relentlessly. This has been the seven
Speaker 2: minute leadership podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.