Money In: Customers, Channels and What Each Costs
Anyone who has something to sell and no reliable way of finding the people who want it.
What you will be able to do
- Map the channels realistically available to a business with little money.
- Choose two and run them properly rather than six badly.
- Measure what a customer costs through each channel, honestly.
- Tell a slow channel apart from a dead one.
- Recommend where the next rupee of effort goes, and defend it.
How this is assessed
Two channels run for four weeks, with numbers and a recommendationSubmit a record of two acquisition channels, each run for four weeks against a real offer, with effort and spend tracked as you went rather than reconstructed afterwards. Report per channel: reach, responses, customers, and cost per customer including your own time at a stated rate. Then a written recommendation on which to continue, which to stop, and what you would try next. The channel that failed must be reported in the same detail as the one that worked. If neither produced a customer, report that honestly and analyse it — that submission can still pass. A practitioner reads it against the rubric below and returns a written mark. If it does not pass, you get the reasons and one resubmission.
| Grade | What earns it |
|---|---|
| Pass | Two channels genuinely run for four weeks with tracked effort, spend and results, and a cost per customer calculated for each. |
| Merit | Cost per customer includes your own time at a defended rate, and the failing channel is reported as fully as the successful one. |
| Distinction | A recommendation that distinguishes a slow channel from a dead one on evidence, and states what would change the answer. |
Before you submit
- Two channels, each run for at least four weeks against a real offer.
- Effort and spend were logged as you went, not estimated at the end.
- Your own hours are counted at a stated rate, and the rate is justified.
- Cost per customer is calculated per channel, not in aggregate.
- The channel that did not work is reported in the same detail as the one that did.
- The recommendation says what to continue, what to stop, and what to try next.
- For merit: cost per customer includes your own time and the failing channel is fully reported.
- For distinction: the recommendation distinguishes a slow channel from a dead one and names the evidence that would change it.
Handing it in
Marked by a marketer, growth practitioner, agency owner or founder who has acquired customers on a small budget and can tell a slow channel from a dead one. You will need an account to submit, so that the mark has somewhere to land. Sign in or create one. The modules are open either way.
Modules
8 modules, self-paced. Nothing is timed and nothing is scored.
- 1The channel mapWhere customers for this actually come from.
- 2Referral and word of mouth, engineeredThe strongest channel, usually left to chance.
- 3Local and offlineStill the largest channel for most small businesses.
- 4Marketplaces and platformsReach you rent, and what renting costs.
- 5Content and search, and the honest timelineThe slowest channel, and the one people quit two months early.
- 6Cold outreach that is not spamA researched message to someone it could plausibly help.
- 7PaidHow to lose money slowly enough to learn something.
- 8MeasuringCost per customer, and the four weeks that tell you something.
This course stacks
Can find the people who want the thing, say honestly whether it fits them, and know what each of those customers cost to reach.
A credential is issued when all of its artifacts have passed. It records the courses, the bands and the dates, nothing else, and no score.