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Activity planning

From the income you want to the prospects you need, and whether they fit your week.

AYour monthly goal

Per month

SL average is 15,000

Enter the income you want this month.

Settled lives
—

BRequired Activity

  1. ProspectsLives × 10—
  2. Set meetingsLives × 5—
  3. PresentationsLives × 3—
  4. Settled livesLives—

For every 10 qualified prospects, expect 5 set meetings. Of those, 3 push through to a presentation, and 1 becomes a new client. Keep the top of the funnel full and the bottom takes care of itself.

min

To approach

min

To book and confirm

min

Travel included

Hours a week
—

CEisenhower matrix

UrgentNot urgentImportant

Q1: Do first

Q2: Schedule

Not important

Q3: Delegate

Q4: Eliminate

Tap an activity, then tap the quadrant it belongs in.

DTime blocking

MonTueWedThuFriSatSun6AM7AM8AM9AM10AM11AM12PM1PM2PM3PM4PM5PM6PM7PM8PM9PM
Hours the goal needs
—
Everything else
0 h
Blocked for Sales Call
0 h

A sketch, not your real calendar. Block the hours you already give to everything else, then see what is left for the plan.

How it works

A planner for anyone who sells for a living. It works backwards from the income you want in a month to the number of prospects you need to reach, then checks whether that activity fits into a week.

Start with the monthly income you want and the average income from one settled case. Divide one by the other and you have the number of settled cases, rounded up, because a case is settled whole or not at all. The planner then applies a 10-5-3-1 funnel: for every 10 qualified prospects, expect 5 set meetings, of which 3 reach a presentation and 1 becomes a client. Multiply your settled cases by those ratios and you have the prospects, meetings and presentations the month needs.

Give each activity the minutes it takes and the planner turns the monthly counts into hours per week, over four weeks to the month. Below that, an Eisenhower matrix sorts your activities by urgent and important, and a time-blocking grid from 6 in the morning to 10 at night lets you paint the hours already spoken for and see how many are left for selling.

Questions

How many prospects do I need to hit my sales target?

Work it backwards. Divide the income you want by your average income per closed case to get the cases you must close, rounded up. Then multiply by ten: on a 10-5-3-1 funnel, ten qualified prospects produce one client. An income goal of 60,000 at 15,000 per case is four cases, which is forty prospects, twenty set meetings and twelve presentations in the month.

What is a 10-5-3-1 sales funnel?

A rule of thumb for how prospecting converts in advisory selling. Of 10 qualified prospects approached, about 5 agree to a meeting, 3 of those sit through a full presentation, and 1 becomes a client. Your own ratios will differ, but the shape is what matters: the top of the funnel has to be full for the bottom to produce.

How many hours a week does prospecting take?

Multiply each activity's monthly count by the minutes it takes, divide by four weeks and by sixty. At 15 minutes per prospect, 10 minutes per meeting set and 90 minutes per presentation including travel, forty prospects, twenty meetings and twelve presentations come to about 7 hours a week.

What is the Eisenhower matrix?

A two-by-two grid that sorts tasks by whether they are urgent and whether they are important. Urgent and important tasks are done first; important but not urgent tasks are scheduled; urgent but unimportant tasks are delegated; the rest are eliminated. Selling is the classic important-but-never-urgent activity, which is why it needs a scheduled block rather than a free moment.

What is time blocking?

Assigning specific hours of the week to specific activities in advance, instead of working from a list. Painting the hours you already give to everything else shows how much of the week is genuinely free, and whether the hours your goal needs will fit.