Portfolio career jargon cheat sheet

The terms that come up constantly once you start selling your own work. Pulled from The Economics of the Portfolio Career.

• CAC, Customer Acquisition Cost: how much you spent getting a customer (ads, marketing team, tech).
• LTV, Lifetime Value: the amount a customer pays you over their lifetime.
• ICV, Initial Contract or Customer Value: the first amount of money a customer pays you.
• Revenue: how much money comes in the door.
• Profit: how much money is left over after you have paid your costs and overhead.
• Costs: expenses directly tied to a sale (transaction fee, commission to partner).
• Overheads: costs not directly associated with the product (office, software).
• High ticket: relatively expensive.
• Low ticket: relatively cheap.
• Upsell: after closing a low-ticket sale, you offer a higher-ticket option.
• Downsell: after making a high-ticket sale, you offer a low-ticket option, usually to retain customers.
• Cross-sell: after making a sale, you offer similar price-point products.
• Clickthrough rate: how many people who visit your profile on social click through to your website or landing page.
• Conversions: what percentage of people who engage with your content, or visit a landing page or checkout page, turn into subscribers or customers.