Lesson 3 of 7
Two channels, not seven
Why fewer channels win when your time is the budget
The idea
A channel is any road from you to a customer: your website, Instagram, a newsletter, Google, a friend's recommendation.
Yours
Your website and your email list. Nobody can take them away
Earned
Google, AI answers, reviews, word of mouth
Paid
Ads. They stop when the money stops
Borrowed
Social networks. Yours until the rules change
Your hours are the budget
Big companies have a team for each channel. You might have an hour a day. Each channel needs your attention every week, and about three months before you can tell whether it works.
Seven channels
- A few minutes each
- None gets its three months
- Approving drafts becomes a reflex
Two channels
- You check every post
- Three months to show results
- A clear answer on what works
How to choose your two
Step 1
Where they are
When they start looking (Module 1)
Step 2
How you sell
Online, on a call, or through you as a person
Step 3
What you'll keep up
For 90 days, without dreading it
Step 4
One yours, one theirs
A base you own, and a road to it
Not sure? Try a few cheaply, then put most of your time into the one that works.
Today, with AI
AI makes it easy to post everywhere, so many small businesses now post on seven networks and get nowhere.
There's also a new road: people ask AI assistants for recommendations. That one gets its own module later.
What AI does well
Writing for each channel in your style, turning one idea into several posts, and keeping the schedule.
Where it goes wrong
More channels mean more drafts to check. You start approving without reading, and quality slips.
What stays yours
Which two, and saying no to the rest for 90 days.
Check yourself
Do it in the studio
Choose 2
Pick your two
One place you own and one place your customers already are. The tags tell you which is which.
- 01
Find your type of business among the blueprints. Each one names the channels that work for it.
free - 02
Write the two you picked above in In your own words → Where I am taking it. Then press Save — the team reads it from now on.
free - 03
Open AI team. Keep the seats for your two channels on, and turn the rest off with the switch on their card. A seat that's off spends nothing, and its settings wait.
free - 04
On each seat you keep, set At most per week so the drafts fit the time you have to check them.
free
On the Free plan the seats you keep wait for a plan. Choosing them costs nothing.
Done when Two channels are chosen and written down, only their seats are on, and the week's drafts fit your time.
Go deeper
University courses on the same topic, if you want to go further.
University of Illinois, on Coursera
Digital Marketing ImplementationMaking a plan and matching goals to channels. Free to audit
Stanford GSB
Customer Acquisition for New Ventures (MKTG 326)How new businesses win their first customers