The Second Order is a book about everything that happens after a customer's first order: the email before a subscription renews, the retry schedule for a failed card, the cancel flow that asks why before it offers anything, the texting program that stops losing its list one send at a time, and the numbers that tell you whether any of it worked. Thirty-one short chapters follow one invented brand, Pellwood, through real problems.
It is out now. Get it on Amazon, Kindle or paperback.
Every chapter ends with a spreadsheet. All of them live on this page, free, with the formulas built and Pellwood's numbers filled in as the example. Click a link, make a copy, replace Pellwood's numbers with yours, and keep it. Yellow cells are where you type. Gray cells are formulas. New sheets are added here as they are finished, so this page is the one to bookmark.
Part 1. The game
The Cohort Tracker (Chapter 2). Paste in your orders, get the 30, 60 and 90 day table and the chart.
The Retention Scorecard (Chapter 2). The top three numbers, the next seven, and what to check first when each one slips.
The Revenue Waterfall (Chapter 3). Enter seven numbers, see your leak.
The Bet Ranker (Chapter 3). Each project with its expected move, dollar value, read date and "I am wrong if."
Part 2. The journey
The Lifecycle Map and Flow Inventory (Chapter 4). Seven stages, a row per flow, the owner system, and the settings that get forgotten.
The Capture Test Plan (Chapter 5). Where the popup shows and where it never does, the one question, the email-first test, and the settings checklist.
The Flow Timing Grid (Chapter 6). Every welcome and abandon message, email and text side by side by the hour, with a collision check.
The First 35 Days Map (Chapter 7). Every message from day 0 to day 35, its one job, and a plan-aware tab for prepaid.
The Cross-Sell Eligibility Model (Chapter 8). The eligibility rule as a checklist, the four mechanics costed side by side, the trigger, and the holdout math.
The Winback Matrix (Chapter 9). Six reasons, the treatment for each, timing, the code per flow, and returned against still here at 60 days.
Part 3. The channels
The Campaign Calendar and Pre-Send QA (Chapter 10). A month of sends with the audience, the one job and the offer rung, plus the six-minute checklist.
The AI Inbox Checklist (Chapter 11). Seven checks to run before every campaign goes, because a piece of software reads your email before your customer does, plus a log of what the Apple and Gmail previews actually showed.
The SMS Economics Calculator (Chapter 12). Every text send with its cost, revenue, opt-outs, and what those opt-outs cost in future value. Net is what is left.
The App Decision Scorecard (Chapter 13). The reasons-to-open test, what the app has to keep to pay for itself, and the matched-group plan to measure it.
The Direct Mail Breakeven (Chapter 14). One row per drop: cost per piece, contribution per reactivation, the holdout math, breakeven, and whether the lift could be chance.
The Loyalty Economics Model (Chapter 15). Every reward costed at what it costs you, redemption and breakage, the liability line, and incremental margin per member with a holdout. Pellwood's first-year program next to the redesign.
The Support Save SOP (Chapter 16). The six-reason save ladder as an agent reads it, the CX hold rules, the AI agent's rules of engagement, and a weekly ticket tally with the contacts-per-hundred math.
The Touchpoint Audit (Chapter 17). Every place a customer goes without being sent there, what it says today, what it should say to a stranger, a buyer and a subscriber, and a score before and after.
Part 4. The money
The Subscription Event Spec and Touch Ownership Map (Chapter 18). Thirteen events with their details and two test timestamps, one owner per message with a switch for every native version, and the pre-launch checklist in order.
Part 5. The machine
The Test Log (Chapter 23). Every test with lift, p-value and significance computed for you, plus the sample size and read date calculator.
The rest of the sheets from the book are being added, chapter by chapter, over the next few weeks. You can also open the whole folder and copy from there.
Something broken or confusing in a sheet? Reply to any email from The Second Order and tell me which one.
Jason
