Podcast Summary: "The One Metric I Obsess Over"

Podcast: Grow Your Local Business
Host: Leslie Presnall
Date: February 17, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnall dives deep into the single metric she believes every business owner should obsess over: sales. Leslie unpacks why tracking sales is more important than any other number, discusses common pitfalls in small business marketing, and offers practical advice for troubleshooting when sales are stagnant. Her passionate, personable tone keeps the episode motivating and actionable for entrepreneurs ready to refocus their efforts on true business growth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Endless List of Trackable Metrics — and Why Sales Tops Them All

• Leslie lays out the array of metrics business owners are often encouraged to track: social views, engagement, followers, email list metrics, inquiries, referrals, web traffic, and more.

  • Quote:

    “There are a lot of metrics you can track in your business ... But all of these things lead to one thing. Sales.” (03:41)

• Main message:

  • All activity should ultimately convert into sales. “All roads lead to sales.” (03:53)
  • If metrics like followers or website visits are growing but sales are not, something crucial is missing.

2. The Pitfall: Focusing Only on Front-End Metrics

• Common mistake:
  Many entrepreneurs put all their effort into building an audience (marketing), neglecting the skills and activities that generate actual sales.
• Quote:

  “You could have 10 followers on Instagram and get 10 sales. Or you could have one email subscriber and get one new client. Like, I will take that math all day long.” (05:28)

• Insight:
  Quantity of audience doesn’t automatically translate to clients — conversion matters more.

3. The Emotional Block: Avoiding Sales

• Observation:
  Fear of appearing "salesy, sleazy, pushy" leads many business owners to avoid direct selling, focusing instead on easier or more comfortable marketing tasks.
• Quote:

  “A lot of people avoid this altogether because they don’t want to feel a negative emotion. They don’t want to feel salesy, sleazy, pushy.” (06:52)

• Advice:
  You can’t skip the necessary, sometimes uncomfortable, work of selling if you want real results.

4. Practical Shift: Equal Weight on Marketing and Selling

• Balanced approach:
  Leslie insists business owners must “put just as much focus into the selling part as you do the marketing part.” (07:20)

• Memorable mantra:

  “It is not a secret that you are a business, that you are selling something. That’s literally why your people are there. Get that tattooed on your arm if you need to.” (07:35)

• Two essential steps:

  1. Grow your audience (marketing).
  2. Directly invite people to work with you — make offers and give clear next steps (selling).

5. Advanced Skill: Becoming a “Business Scientist”

• Next level for seasoned listeners:

  • Once you’re doing both marketing and selling, the next key skill is troubleshooting: objectively assessing your process and results, hypothesizing reasons for lack of conversion, and iteratively tweaking your approach.
  • Quote:

    “One of the most valuable skill sets you can develop as a business owner... is developing the skill set of looking at everything you’re doing and being able to figure out why it isn’t working the way you want yet. Like posing a hypothesis and then going and testing it a million times if it takes.” (09:27)

  • Leslie likens business to being a scientist constantly testing and improving until you see consistent conversions.

• Self-question:

  “Is everything you’re doing, is it working or is it not? And what can I change, what can I adapt, what can I tweak to now make it convert even better?” (10:40)

Memorable Quotes

• Leslie Presnall (03:41):
  “There are a lot of metrics you can track in your business ... But all of these things lead to one thing. Sales.”

• Leslie Presnall (05:28):
  “You could have 10 followers on Instagram and get 10 sales. Or you could have one email subscriber and get one new client. Like, I will take that math all day long.”

• Leslie Presnall (07:35):
  “It is not a secret that you are a business, that you are selling something. That’s literally why your people are there. Get that tattooed on your arm if you need to.”

• Leslie Presnall (09:27):
  “One of the most valuable skill sets you can develop as a business owner... is developing the skill set of looking at everything you’re doing and being able to figure out why it isn’t working the way you want yet. Like posing a hypothesis and then going and testing it a million times if it takes.”

Key Timestamps

• 01:31 — Leslie introduces the focus on sales as the top metric.
• 03:41 — Emphasizing that every business metric should lead to sales.
• 05:28 — Illustrating that small audiences can result in conversions.
• 07:20 — The critical need to balance marketing with direct selling activity.
• 09:27 — The importance of troubleshooting and iterating like a scientist.
• 10:40 — Reflecting on what to change to improve conversions.

Recap & Actionable Takeaways

• Track all metrics, but obsess over sales — that’s the true measure of business growth.
• Don’t get stuck in audience building at the expense of direct selling. They must go hand in hand.
• Embrace selling as a positive, necessary part of business; your audience expects it.
• If sales are stagnant, analyze and iterate like a business scientist — tweak and test everything until you see results.
• For step-by-step help, Leslie recommends her Localpreneur Academy, focused on mastering marketing, selling, and troubleshooting for sustained local business growth.