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Imagine this…

You’ve been on LinkedIn for 14 months—and have 242 followers to show for it.

That wouldn’t be so gut-wrenching, except you’re doing everything “right.”

→ You have a “content bank” of ideas you think will resonate with your audience.

→ You post daily.

→ You comment on other people’s posts.

But while other account grow bigger and bigger… you struggle to get an average of two new followers a week.

Worse than that? Even that Axe-wearing jerk from high school has over 150,000 followers and a beach house in Malibu.

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Meanwhile, you’re lucky to sell your $27 product once a month.

You’re sick of trying so hard for so few results, so you find a service that will give you 10,000 new followers instantly—for a fee.

You view it as the key to finally jumpstarting your follower count—and bank account—so you type in your credit card info and snag your new followers.

But after a few weeks, you’re devastated to see your engagement rates and sales haven’t grown at all.

Why did inflating your follower count *not* lead to more sales?

In today’s edition of Why We Buy 🧠 we’ll explore Goodhart’s Law—why we can sabotage our goals by focusing on the wrong metrics.

Let’s get into it.
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🧠 The Psychology of Goodhart’s Law

Economist Charles Goodhart introduced Goodhart’s Law with this statement: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

This is seen in academia, where “publish or perish” has shifted the focus from producing meaningful research to publishing as many papers as possible.

Researchers explored this phenomenon, analyzing more than 120,000,000 academic papers spanning the last century.

Here’s what they found:

• In 1980, fewer than 1,000,000 papers were published, compared to over 7,000,000 in 2014
• Average paper length dropped from 14.4 pages in 1950 to 8.4 pages in 2014
• Self-citations surged to inflate metrics
• Author lists grew to boost publication counts
• Low-impact papers increased dramatically

These trends reveal that measures of academic success—like publication counts and citations—have morphed into targets.

The result is an emphasis on quantity over quality.

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In marketing, this is why overemphasizing vanity metrics like followers, likes, and even short-term sales can derail long-term success.

It might even lead to the Ostrich Effect when you see your bank statement.
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🤑 How To Apply This

Alright, so how can you apply this right now to sell more?

Personal development​
​Set goals that rely on your efforts—not other people’s

When writing his book, Jason Feifer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine, *didn’t* aim to land on the New York Times’ Best Seller list.

Why? Because that goal relies on the actions of other people—not on something he could control.

So he redefined what success looked like.

Many would feel deflated after pouring so much time and energy into a book only to have it *not* end up on the coveted best-seller list.

But Jason nailed his goals, so he walked away feeling proud of his work.​

Launches​
​Create a tiered-goal system

When Amy Porterfield does a launch, she sets three goals: good, better, and best.

Each goal includes a revenue number, but it also has a deeper, defined purpose—whether to move you in the right direction or challenge yourself.

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So instead of feeling like a failure if you don’t hit the “best” goal, you’ll still walk away from the launch feeling accomplished—as you should.

​Social media marketing​
​Focus on building an audience with the right people

Hot take 🔥: Having a gazillion followers doesn’t mean anything if those followers don’t intend to buy from you.

When Eric Partaker enrolled in the first cohort of the UNIGNORABLE challenge, he wanted to build an audience of future buyers.

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And it worked. Eric built an audience of over 880,000 on LinkedIn. But more importantly, he also 3X’d his coaching fee and launched new, highly scalable group coaching programs. Well done, Eric 👏
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​Psst…Wanna build an audience of future buyers—not lurkers? Time’s running out to join the very last (and best) cohort of UNIGNORABLE.
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💥 The Short of It

When you make a measure a target, you risk distorting what it’s actually supposed to measure.

That’s why you should focus on creating quality and lasting impact over chasing arbitrary numbers.

Your audience, reputation, and bank account will thank you.

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Until next time, happy selling!