Are you drowning in dashboards but starving for clarity? Sara Wyman, founder and CEO of Stackpack, joins Melinda Lee to expose the dangerous gap between vanity metrics and what actually drives business performance. In this eye-opening conversation, Sara reveals why most companies are measuring the wrong things, and how that's quietly bleeding their margins dry. A must-listen for any leader who's ever felt overwhelmed by data yet uncertain about what truly matters.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
The Vanity Metric Trap
“We typically choose to measure what's really easy to count... but it doesn't tell you if it's actually working.”
Why "80% AI adoption" sounds impressive but tells you nothing about whether your business is actually winning; and how activity metrics can lull leaders into a false sense of progress while the real story hides beneath the surface.
Permission to Simplify
“We believe that more measurement equals more control, but this is often not the case.”
Escape the dashboard overload, and give yourself (and your team) the relief of focusing on what actually moves the needle.
Communication as Infrastructure
How to apply the same discipline to communication that you apply to metrics, defining the purpose of every channel, distinguishing discussion from decision, and creating institutional memory that survives stress and chaos.
Metrics That Evolve
“Quarterly resets aren't a failure; they're a necessity.”
Learn why what got you here won't get you there, and how building flexibility into your measurement system keeps your company agile and aligned.
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“If I get specific, I'll lose customers.” “If I say no to some, I'll miss out on others.”
Sound familiar?
When you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to no one. The businesses that win are the ones willing to go deep, get specific, and own a corner of the market.
Check out our blog post, “Niching Down Is the Smartest Growth Strategy,” to start defining your true ideal customer.
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About the Guest:
Sara Wyman is the CEO and Founder of Stackpack, building the financial control layer for modern companies and the AI that powers them. She spent 7 years at Affirm leading multiple business lines and strategic partnerships with Shopify and Stripe that created billions in enterprise value. Prior to that, she built Payments at Etsy from the ground up and oversaw Finance and Operations at Reformation. Now she's tackling the next frontier: helping finance teams see, govern, and forecast AI spend before it quietly impacts their margins.
Social Handles:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-wyman/
Fun Facts:
🍁 She grew up in Vermont tapping maple trees for syrup every spring.
🎤 She was once the lead singer in a cover band.
🙉 She can't whistle.
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About Melinda:
Melinda Lee is a Presentation Skills Expert, Speaking Coach, and nationally renowned Motivational Speaker. She holds an M.A. in Organizational Psychology, is an Insights Practitioner, and is a Certified Professional in Talent Development as well as Certified in Conflict Resolution. For over a decade, Melinda has researched and studied the state of “flow” and used it as a proven technique to help corporate leaders and business owners amplify their voices, access flow, and present their mission in a more powerful way to achieve results.
She has been the TEDx Berkeley Speaker Coach and has worked with hundreds of executives and teams from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Caltrans, Bay Area Rapid Transit System, and more. Currently, she lives in San Francisco, California, and is breaking the ancestral lineage of silence.
Website: https://speakinflow.com/
The Legacy Growth System™: https://www.speakinflow.com/legacy-growth-system
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/speakinflow
Instagram: https://instagram.com/speakinflow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mpowerall
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