The channel row
Two or three channels named. Not five. Not categories like "social". Specific platforms or activities. Use the customer row to choose - landlords are not on TikTok, working professionals are not on Pinterest, homeware buyers are on Instagram and at local pop-up markets, B2B software buyers are on LinkedIn and in their inbox.
A useful test: for each named channel, write one sentence about what you'll actually do on it this quarter. "Instagram - post three times a week, including one customer-room photo." If you can't write that sentence, the channel doesn't belong on the row yet. Companion eBooks in the Low-Cost Marketing and Paid Growth categories go much deeper.
The conversion path row
The conversion path is the journey from "saw something" to "paid you", written as a short series of steps. "Saw Instagram post - clicked link - landed on six-session package page - booked discovery call - attended call - booked package." Six steps. Each one is somewhere a customer can fall away. Naming them on the page makes the leaks visible.
The milestones row
- Numbers, not adjectives - "12 new contracts" not "more contracts"
- Three or four, not ten
- A mix of leading and lagging - reviews and revenue, not only revenue
- Reachable in 90 days with the budget on the page
- Tied to the channels named in row four
If a milestone isn't a number, it isn't a milestone. "Improve the website" is a task. "Lift the homepage conversion rate from 2 percent to 3 percent" is a milestone. The whole point of the row is to make the quarter measurable without instrumenting your life.
The budget envelope row
Two numbers, both honest. Money: how much you're actually willing to spend each month, including ads, tools, photography and any freelance help. Hours: how many of your own hours each week you're actually willing to commit, after the rest of the business has had its share. Most owners overestimate hours by half. Write the honest number. A four-hour-a-week plan that gets done beats a ten-hour-a-week plan that doesn't.
The honest test of rows four to seven
Read the four rows together. Could you actually run this plan with the money and hours on row seven? If not, either cut a channel, simplify the conversion path or shrink a milestone. The page is the moment of honesty before the quarter starts. Better to feel the discomfort here than three months in.
What to do this week
Fill in rows four to seven. Read all seven rows aloud, in order, and check they belong to the same plan. The page should now be one short, coherent story about the next 90 days. The last chapter sets the review cadence so the page stays alive.
The recurring principle this chapter sits on is use low-cost channels intelligently. Two well-run channels beat five badly-run ones. The next chapter, Reviewing and Improving the Plan, makes the review row real.
