Youre Probably Asking the Wrong Questions and Its Costing You

The other morning, I was working on thumbnails for one of my YouTube reaction videos. Nothing particularly groundbreaking. Just trying to figure out which of two designs would work better before publishing. So, naturally, I decided to ask my audience.

I put together a quick poll with both thumbnails and typed:

"Which one looks better?"

Simple enough, right? But right before posting it, I caught myself. Wait a minute. Why am I asking people which one looks better? I'm not creating these thumbnails to win a graphic design competition. I'm creating them to get people to click on my videos.

So I deleted the question and replaced it with:

"Which one would you click on?"

One small change. But those two questions are collecting two very different types of information. And it got me thinking about how often we do this exact same thing in business. We ask questions. We collect feedback. We track numbers.

But how often are we actually measuring what matters?

Let's look at those two questions again.

"Which one looks better?"

This asks someone to evaluate the visual appeal of a design. They might choose the thumbnail with the cleaner typography, better color combinations, or more aesthetically pleasing layout. That's useful information. But it's not necessarily the information I need.

Now consider:

"Which one would you click on?"

Suddenly, we're asking something different. We're asking someone to imagine themselves scrolling through YouTube and deciding which thumbnail would capture their attention enough to stop and watch. We're moving from aesthetic preference toward behavioral intent. And that distinction matters.

Because the prettiest thumbnail isn't always the one that gets clicked. The most entertaining social media post isn't always the one that generates customers. And the website that wins design awards isn't necessarily the one that converts the most visitors into buyers.

Something can look good without doing its job.

Now, don't misunderstand me. Design matters. Presentation matters. Brand perception matters. But the purpose of those things is to support an outcome. And if you're evaluating them without considering that outcome, you're potentially optimizing for the wrong thing.

Changing my question doesn't automatically mean I'm collecting perfect data. There's another distinction worth understanding:

What people say they'll do and what they actually do aren't always the same thing.

Someone might vote for thumbnail A because they genuinely believe they'd click it. But when they're scrolling YouTube after work, distracted by a hundred other videos, they might click thumbnail B instead. Or neither.

That's the difference between stated intent and observed behavior.

A poll can give me directional feedback. Actual YouTube performance data can tell me what happened when people encountered the thumbnail in a real environment. And even then, I need context.

A higher click-through rate doesn't necessarily mean a better-performing video if people click and immediately leave. Now we're talking about retention, watch time, audience satisfaction, and whether the content delivered on the promise of the thumbnail.

See how quickly this becomes more nuanced? The point isn't to collect every possible metric. It's to understand what question each metric can actually answer. And this is where a lot of businesses get themselves into trouble.

Think about how often businesses celebrate numbers without understanding what those numbers mean. A business owner posts a Reel. It gets 50,000 views. They're excited. The content is working!

But working toward what? Did those views generate profile visits? Did those visitors become leads? Did any of those leads turn into customers? Was the audience even made up of people who might realistically buy?

Those 50,000 views could represent a meaningful opportunity. Or they could represent 50,000 people who have absolutely no interest in purchasing anything the business sells.

The view count alone can't tell you which. And the same problem shows up everywhere. Businesses ask customers:

"Do you like our website?"

When what they might really need to know is:

"Can you understand what we offer, why it matters, and how to take the next step?"

They ask:

"Did you enjoy our content?"

When the more useful question might be:

"Did this help you understand how we could solve your problem?"

They ask:

"How can we get more leads?"

Without first asking:

"What happened to the leads we already generated?"

That last one is especially important. Because I've seen businesses invest time and money into generating more leads while existing prospects sit untouched in their CRM. They're celebrating getting more views on their Reels but aren't talking to the leads they already have sitting in their pipeline.

Then they wonder why their revenue isn't growing.

They're focused on creating more opportunities without understanding why the opportunities they already have aren't converting.

That's not always a traffic problem. Sometimes it's a follow-up problem. Sometimes it's an offer problem. Sometimes it's a customer experience problem. And sometimes it's a measurement problem that's preventing them from identifying any of the above.

Here's something I wish more business owners understood:

You can make perfectly reasonable decisions based on completely misleading information.

Imagine you're running a service-based business. Your website gets 2,000 visitors a month. You generate 100 leads. But only three become paying customers. You look at your revenue and decide:

"We need more traffic."

So you increase your advertising budget. Maybe you hire a social media manager. Maybe you start posting twice as often. And maybe it works. Your website traffic doubles. Now you're getting 4,000 visitors and 200 leads.

But your conversion rate hasn't improved. You're still turning only a small percentage of those opportunities into customers. You've doubled your lead

volume without addressing the problem that was already costing you money.

And depending on your acquisition costs, you might actually be making your business less profitable.

Now imagine you had asked a different question.

Instead of:

"How do we get more leads?"

You asked:

"Why aren't more of our existing leads becoming customers?"

Suddenly, you're investigating something entirely different.

You might discover that:

• Leads aren't receiving timely responses.

• Your contact forms aren't properly connected to your CRM.

• Prospects don't understand the next step after submitting an inquiry.

• Your follow-up sequence stops after one email.

• Your sales process doesn't address the objections people have before buying.

Those are problems you can actually diagnose and improve. And solving them could create more revenue without immediately spending another dollar on traffic. That's the difference between chasing activity and improving performance.

We have access to more information about our businesses than ever before.

Website analytics. Social media insights. Email open rates. CRM dashboards.

Ad performance reports. Conversion tracking. AI-powered analytics. The list goes on.

But having access to information and knowing what to do with it are two different things. A dashboard full of numbers isn't a strategy. A report full of charts isn't automatically an insight. And an insight isn't particularly valuable if it never influences a decision.

That's why I like to think about measurement through four connected stages.

1. Question: What are we actually trying to learn?

Start with the business problem or decision. Not the metric. For my thumbnail example, the question wasn't whether people appreciated my design skills. It was which thumbnail might be more effective at attracting viewers.

2. Signal: What information could help us understand the situation?

This is where surveys, polls, analytics, customer feedback, and other indicators come in. My poll provides a signal about which thumbnail people believe they'd be more likely to click. Useful? Yes. Conclusive? No.

3. Behavior: What are people actually doing?

This is where we compare assumptions against reality. Are people clicking? Are visitors completing forms? Are leads responding to follow-ups? Are prospects booking appointments? Behavioral data helps us understand whether our expectations match what happens in practice.

4. Outcome: Did that behavior produce the result we wanted?

This is the part that often gets overlooked. A thumbnail might generate clicks but fail to attract engaged viewers. A lead magnet might generate hundreds of downloads but no qualified prospects. An ad campaign might produce cheap leads that never become customers. The outcome gives the earlier metrics their meaning.

And when the outcome isn't what we expected, we work backward to understand why. The four stages aren't a substitute for proper testing or analytics. They're a way to make sure we're asking useful questions before getting buried in data.

One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is treating every part of their marketing like an isolated activity.

They optimize their Instagram content. Then their website. Then their ads. Then their email marketing. But they don't always look at how those pieces connect.

And that connection is where a lot of revenue opportunities get lost.

Because the customer journey doesn't end when someone clicks your ad. Or visits your website. Or downloads your free guide. Those are steps in a larger process.

Someone has to move from discovering your business to understanding your offer, trusting your solution, and eventually deciding to buy. And every transition creates an opportunity for friction.

That's why I spend so much time talking about revenue infrastructure. Not because every business needs another complicated automation or expensive piece of software. But because businesses need systems that help them understand what's happening between attention and revenue.

You don't just need to know how many people entered your pipeline. You need to know where they're getting stuck.

Otherwise, you're constantly trying to pour more people into a process you haven't fully examined.

Here's something you can do this week.

Pick one metric you've been paying attention to lately. Maybe it's your Instagram reach. Your website traffic. Your email subscriber count. Your number of leads.

Your booked appointments.

Whatever it is, ask yourself four questions:

What am I actually trying to accomplish?

Be specific. "Grow my business" isn't specific enough.

Why am I tracking this particular metric?

What does it tell me about my progress toward that outcome?

What doesn't this metric tell me?

This might be the most important question of the four.

What would I need to measure or investigate to make a better decision?

Maybe you need to track the percentage of leads receiving follow-up.

Maybe you need to understand why prospects aren't booking.

Maybe you need to look at customer retention instead of constantly measuring acquisition.

Or maybe you discover that the metric you're already tracking is exactly the right one.

That's fine, too. The goal isn't to replace every metric. It's to make sure your measurements serve a purpose.

All of this started because I changed one sentence on a YouTube poll.

From:

"Which one looks better?"

To:

"Which one would you click on?"

That small adjustment didn't guarantee better results. But it forced me to think about the actual outcome I was trying to achieve. And that's a habit worth developing. Not just as a content creator. As a business owner. As a marketer.

As anyone responsible for making decisions that affect growth. Because the problem isn't always that we don't have enough information. Sometimes we're simply asking the wrong questions.

And when you ask the wrong questions, you can end up spending a lot of time, energy, and money improving things that weren't actually holding you back.

Better questions lead to more relevant data.

More relevant data helps you make better decisions.

And better decisions give you a stronger chance of producing the outcomes that actually matter.

Before you invest in more content, more ads, more leads, or another marketing tool, make sure you understand what's already happening inside your business. You might discover that your next growth opportunity isn't something you need to create. It's something you've been overlooking.

If your business doubled the number of leads it generated tomorrow, would you have the systems, processes, and visibility to turn those opportunities into customers? Or would you just have twice as many people entering the same broken process?

That's the kind of question worth answering.

If you're a creator, coach, or service-based business owner trying to figure out where potential revenue is slipping through the cracks, that's exactly what I help businesses uncover through Direct Your Revenue.

I also break down these concepts in my free Content-to-Customer System training, where we explore how to connect the attention you're generating to a clearer path toward actual customers.

Join the free training

Because getting attention is one thing. Building a business that knows what to do with that attention is another.