438. Metrics Trending Down? Don’t Panic! Here’s Exactly What to Do with Amy Traugh
- Amy Traugh
- Oct 8
- 12 min read
🎧 The Metrics Maven: Data Driven Business Growth Strategy for Solopreneurs is streaming on all platforms. Listen here. Also streaming on YouTube.
What to Do When Your Metrics Dip: Pause, Get Curious, and Fix the Right Problem
Seeing a dip in your numbers is scary. Use this simple 3-step method—pause, investigate, zoom out—to respond calmly and make strategic fixes that actually work.
You sit down, open your dashboard, and your stomach drops. Sound familiar? Sales down. Email list smaller. Engagement tanked. Before you know it, your brain is screaming: What did I do wrong? Change everything now!
That instinct is totally normal. It’s biology. But acting on panic usually makes things worse. Numbers aren’t out to get you. They’re neutral signals. Here’s how to move from emotional reaction to strategic action in three practical steps so you stop fixing the wrong things and start making progress.
Why panic hits first (and why it’s misleading)
Your brain is wired to spot threats. When metrics dip, your amygdala lights up and floods your body with stress hormones. Your logical brain loses airtime, and you jump to worst-case scenarios. That’s survival mode, not strategy. The good news: the panic response is temporary and manageable. Name it, calm your body, and you can choose a smarter path.
Step 1 — Practice the pause (do this first, always)
When you feel that surge of panic, do these quick moves before you touch anything:
Name the feeling out loud. “I feel panicked right now.” Naming reduces the intensity.
Breathe. Try box breathing: inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4. Do this for 60 seconds.
Do not make major decisions for at least 24 hours. No price changes, no rebrand, no new offers. Put a non-negotiable hold on big moves.
Move your body. Walk, stretch, or pace for five minutes to clear adrenaline.
This isn’t fluff. It stops reactive changes that could create real problems and gives your logical brain time to return.
Step 2 — Get curious (be a metric detective)
Once you’re calm, swap panic for curiosity. Ask questions and collect facts:
Which metric dropped? By how much? When did it start?
What changed in your actions or systems around that time? Posting schedule? Campaign launch? Website edits?
Could it be a tech issue? Broken links, tracking errors, or email bounces are surprisingly common.
Form a hypothesis. Example: “If I clarify the call to action, discovery call bookings might increase in two weeks.” Test it.
Treat your business like an experiment. Small, trackable tests beat wild overhauls every time.
Step 3 — Zoom out and look for patterns
Now look at longer timelines. Pull 3–6 month views and search for trends, not single blips.
Is this a one-week wobble or a recurring pattern?
Could seasonality explain it? Holidays, summer slowdowns, and industry cycles matter.
Are multiple metrics moving together (reach, open rates, and conversions), or is it isolated to one area?
Context changes everything. A Thanksgiving week dip is not a crisis. But repeating patterns are signals that deserve strategic fixes.
Quick checklist: common causes and fast actions
Broken links or tracking errors → fix tech, re-test.
Posting changes or timing shifts → restore previous cadence and test new timing.
Messaging changes → A/B test headlines or CTAs.
Seasonal slowdown → plan nurture and retention campaigns.
Low conversions with steady traffic → review sales page clarity and CTAs.
Document everything. Notes become pattern-recognition gold.
Final thought
A metrics dip doesn’t define you or your business. It’s a nudge to look, learn, and adapt—not to panic. Pause. Get curious. Zoom out. That three-step sequence turns fear into fuel for smarter decisions.
If this episode helped, you can put the steps into practice today: breathe, investigate, and then design a tiny test. Your metrics are signals, not sentences. When you treat them that way, you stop guessing and grow your business with clarity and calm.
If you're ready to finally ditch the data drama and create a simple, repeatable process for growth, this is exactly what we do inside Metrics Mastery.
Get started for free at amytraugh.com and let’s build a business that’s backed by strategy, not stress.
Until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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Transcript for Episode 438. Metrics Trending Down? Don’t Panic! Here’s Exactly What to Do
- Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
You know that moment when you finally sit down to check your metrics and your stomach just drops? The numbers load on the screen and you feel your heart skip a beat.
You might see that your sales dipped, engagement tanked, maybe your expenses crept up higher than your income, or maybe your email list actually shrank instead of grew.
Before you can even take a breath, your brain goes into overdrive. What did I do wrong? Should I change my offer?
Did I post the wrong thing or the one that hits the hardest? Is my business falling apart? If this sounds familiar, you're not alone.
I see this all the... time with business owners who are doing all of the right things, but when the numbers don't trend the direction that they had hoped, they still go into panic mode.
Metrics aren't the enemy. The data itself isn't the issue. It's how you're interpreting it. And today I'm breaking down exactly what to do when your metrics aren't trending the direction that you had hoped.
Because when things don't look great on a screen, on paper, however you're looking at them, often panic is the first thing that happens.
And it's not that you're overreacting or doing anything wrong. In fact, it's actually a completely normal reaction because of biology.
Our brains are wired for survival and for social approval. Thousands of years ago, that same feeling helped keep humans alive.
When there was danger, the brain would sound the alarm, releasing a rush of stress hormones. It's that whole fight or flight mechanism that told the body to do something now.
And that system still kicks in today. Even though this danger, this threat isn't a wild animal, it could just be a dip in your sails, a dip in your engagement.
But your brain doesn't know the difference. It just registers threat. Your body reacts before your logical brain even has a chance to weigh in.
Your heart starts racing, your chest tightens, you feel that pain in your stomach, and then you get that spiral of thoughts.
What did I do wrong? What do I need to change? Do I need to go back and find a nine-to-five job?
It's the fight-or-flight response taking over. It's your brain literally trying to protect you, to keep you safe from failure, rejection, or uncertainty.
All these things that feel dangerous when you care so deeply about your work. It can push you into frantic action because you feel threatened.
So you start changing your messaging, adjusting your prices, reworking your offer, all in an effort to fix this imaginary threat.
Or maybe you go in the other direction. You completely freeze. So you avoid your metrics because it just feels like it's too much.
It feels personal and it feels like it's confirming your worst fears. But the problem is that neither reaction, frantic fixing of everything, or completely avoiding it, neither one acts.
And this is why I always remind my clients, panic does not mean that you're failing. It just means that your brain is doing its job a little bit too enthusiastically.
Because remember, numbers themselves aren't dangerous. They're neutral. They're not judging you. They're simply giving you information about what's happening right now.
And that information is knowledge and knowledge is power because now you know what's going on. So now you have information in order to move forward strategically.
But I completely understand why it feels personal. Because as a solopreneur, your business is personal. You've poured your heart, your soul, your energy into your business.
So when something dips, it doesn't feel like just, okay, well, the numbers changed. No, it feels like you did something wrong.
So what do you do when you notice this panic hit? Grab your notebook because I am sharing the step-by-step process that I teach my clients when we're working together how to reset their mindset and respond strategically.
Are you ready? Step one, practice the pause. So we talked about this a little bit a minute ago, but here's what happens.
When panic hits, when you see that drop in numbers, immediately your amygdala, it's your brain's alarm center. It lights up like a Christmas tree, right?
And it floods your body with those stress hormones. But what this actually does is it makes your logical brain, the prefrontal cortex, it almost shuts that down.
And as soon as you feel triggered, as soon as you notice that, I want you to Practice the pause.
Start by naming it out loud. Say to yourself, okay, I feel panicked right now. I feel like crap right now.
Because as silly as this seems, naming an emotion reduces its intensity and helps move your brain from reactivity to reflection.
So once you've taken the time to pause and name it, it's amazing, right? Because now that we're aware, we can take steps to change it.
So do a 60-second reset. I want you to take three deep belly breaths. Try box breathing where it's where you breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, breathe out for a count of four, hold for four.
Don't change anything in the moment. Just breathe. I know it sounds silly. I know it seems overly simplistic. But this helps calm your nervous system.
It allows your logical brain time to catch up. It gets your body out of that high threshold state that it's in of panic.
And lets it down-regulate so that your logical brain can catch up. So we've named it. We've breathed. Now I want you to make sure you give yourself a non-negotiable hold.
What do I mean by this? Do not change your offers, your prices, your messaging. Don't make decisions. No major decisions for at least 24 hours.
Why? Because when we're in... In that heightened state, again, our logical brain's not thinking straight. And it keeps us from making emotional reactions and decisions that could end up causing more problems.
So give yourself that space. You've acknowledged it. You've calmed down your nervous system. And just really hold to that boundary.
Just know this is just a reaction. This is just your brain keeping you safe. Anchor yourself back to the present moment.
And once you've done that, get up and move. When you get news like that, when you see that things aren't trending the direction that you want, stand up, stretch, walk around the block if you can.
Movement helps. guys. Let's go. Clear out that immediate physiological rush. These simple steps get the cortisol and adrenaline back down to baseline.
So you can actually look at the data instead of being hijacked by fear. So step one, practice the pause.
Step two, get curious. Panic asks, what did I do wrong? But curiosity asks, what's actually happening here? Curiosity creates clarity.
It shifts you from emotional reaction to strategic action by helping you find answers instead of spiraling into self-blame and self-sabotage.
So how do we do this? right back. music. Once we've down-regulated our nervous system, we've practiced the pause, what we want to do is get the facts.
I want you to go into detective mode. And I want you to collect the information. Look back. What changed?
What metric? By how much? When did it start? Start looking for the connection between actions and outcomes. This is cause and effect.
So if you notice your reach is dipping, check how you're posting frequency, message, or call to action changed. Maybe you were posting at a different time of day.
Maybe you weren't showing up. It's typically the smallest little shifts that cause the biggest ripple. Look at the time frame.
Look at the timeline. Were you posting less often? Were you launching something new? Did you stop doing ads? Did you update your website?
Ask. Ask. Ask. Ask. Ask those questions. What is the story behind this data that I'm seeing? Is this part of a bigger problem?
Or could this even be just a technical issue? I cannot tell you how many times I have worked with people and it wasn't that their launch was failing.
It's that they had broken links. And simple tech errors can really throw you off. So take the time to dig in and investigate and then really get curious.
Form a hypothesis. Okay, so knowing this, if I do this, then this will happen. So for example, if I clarify my call to action, my discovery call bookings may increase in two weeks.
Test it out. That's all your business. It's an experiment. And when you can embrace that curiosity, it is so powerful.
So step two was get curious. And finally, step three, zoom out and look for patterns. Because now that you've grounded yourself, gotten curious, it's time to step back and look at the big picture.
I want you to start looking at data over the past three to six months to look at the overall picture.
And I'll tell you what, you already have it. Even if you haven't been tracking it, go into any platform and it's all right there for you.
And I want you to start looking at the big picture. If you notice that this dip is just a one-time thing, it's probably nothing to really actually stress about.
But if you start seeing the same pattern repeating... That's where you really want to dig in so that you can actually make meaningful changes, strategic changes, not just these emotional rash decisions.
Because a dip doesn't always equal a downturn. Maybe it's a seasonal slowdown. Maybe it's the natural lag between marketing and conversions.
Maybe your audience is just in a different buying cycle right now. But when you look at the big picture, you'll often realize it's not a crisis.
It's just a phase in that business rhythm. And one slow week, one slow month doesn't necessarily mean that anything's wrong.
It doesn't mean that your audience doesn't care. What matters most is that big picture. It's the trend over time.
So the key here is you want to zoom out before you zoom in. And you really want to get, again, like we talked about in our last point, get curious.
Some really common causes are things that happen all the time. Let me hear. hear. Oh, wait. Seasonality. Holidays. For some of my clients, their sales slow down significantly during the summer because they've got their kids home.
Have you started a campaign? End a campaign? Have you changed how often you post? Have you changed your messaging?
Have you changed your pricing? Are there those technical failures? Do you just need to clean out your email list?
Remove the people that have not opened an email from you in the past six months or run a re-engagement campaign.
And while you're going through this, it's important that you just document. You document everything because what this allows you to do is it allows you to see that pattern over time.
Zooming out really helps you from, prevents you from solving the wrong problem because a lot of times you're trying to work.
I know. And solve problems that aren't actually problems in the first place. I recently worked with a coach who was in full on panic mode because her discovery calls had dropped off from 10 a week to 4 a week.
She was ready to like burn it all down. And we've all been there, right? She was going to do the rebrand, rewrite her content, change her messaging, overhaul her offer.
But we walked through this. We paused. We downregulated. We got really, really curious. And when we looked at her metrics, we realized that her audience engagement hadn't dropped at all.
Her open rates were the same. Her leads were the same. What was the difference? It was the week of Thanksgiving.
Her ideal clients were with their families, not scheduling calls. But within two weeks, she was back up at 10 calls again.
No major changes. She wasn't fixing anything. It was just context. And if she would have reacted... Out of panic, she would have wasted weeks, maybe months, fixing something that wasn't even broken.
Context changes everything. Simple is sustainable, and sometimes the simplest explanation is that nothing is wrong at all. You'll often find that dips make sense when you zoom out.
Because every single business, no matter what stage of business you're at, it has a rhythm. It has highs. It has lows.
It has everything in between. Progress happens in waves. And just like working out, you don't expect that you have this new milestone accomplishment every single week.
No. It's a rhythmic flow. There's that ebb and the flow. But at the end of the day, your metrics reflect the season that you're in, not your worth as a business owner.
And when you understand your business, Those dips stop feeling scary and start feeling predictable because context is everything. A single week of slow numbers does not define your business.
So the next time your numbers aren't trending the way you want, I encourage you to pause, take a deep breath, get curious, and then zoom out to look at the big picture.
Ask yourself, what is the data actually telling me? What's the story that my brain's trying to tell me that might not be true?
Because your numbers aren't here to judge you. They're here to guide you, to empower you, to help you. And when you start to embrace your metrics and view them with curiosity instead of panic, you make better decisions, create sustainable business growth, and stop.
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