11. Plan your weeks and your numbers

By Ryan Shaw, 15 years running a marketing agency and 100+ agency clients. Updated October 30, 2026.

A plan is a guess you keep improving. This chapter gives you a worksheet. You fill in your own numbers. Nothing here is a result, a promise or a typical outcome.

The ladder

Every client climbs the same steps. You count each one. Steps 1, 2 and 4 are already in Manage Leads. Step 3 is in your calendar.

Keep your own tally on Sheet C as you go, each day or each week. Manage Leads shows only the latest mark for each business, so do not add it up at the end. Answered means owners who wrote back with interest or a question. Count No thanks in its own column. They are not failures. They are answers, and they tell you which businesses to skip.

Worked backwards, with made-up numbers

Start with what you want. Then ask what each step would have to be. This table is an example only. The numbers are invented to show the method. Do not copy them. Do not expect them.

These ratios are not what to expect. Many people will see lower ones. Some will not get a client at all. The “if” parts are guesses. They are the part you replace. After a few weeks you will have your own counts. Write them in the last column, as “1 in ___”, and the number you need. Throw mine away.

Checking a money goal against your counts

Use your own prices from chapters 8 and 9. Do not borrow anyone else’s.

1. Write the one-time price for a website: ______
2. Write the monthly price for your care plan, if you offer one: ______
3. Write how much money you would like each month: ______
4. Divide: money I want each month, after tool costs ÷ what one new client pays me = new clients I need that month.
5. Compare with your count from the ladder. Is it a stretch, or out of reach?

A monthly care plan changes the shape of the math. A one-time price pays once. A monthly price is charged again each month the client chooses to stay. That is not a promise that anyone will stay. It is why the small habits in chapter 9 are worth doing.

What it really costs you

A price is not what you keep. Fill in your own costs once a month.

• Tools you pay for. Write each one, and what it costs per month.
• Hours. Write down how long each client really took. A note on your phone is enough.
• Your lowest hourly number. Decide, before you look at any client, the lowest hourly amount you would accept from a stranger. If a client falls below it, change the scope, or say no.

The sum is simple: (what they paid you − tool costs) ÷ hours = what each hour paid you. Do the brackets first. Count before tax and fees. Hours include calls, building, changes and notes. It projects nothing. It only tells you the truth about last month.

A simple four-week plan

Where did it stop? Change one thing.

Change one thing. Wait a week or two. Count again. If you change five things at once, you will not know which one helped.

Check yourself

• I know the six steps of the ladder, and where I count each one.
• I filled in my own column of the worksheet, not just the example.
• I know my price, and my lowest hourly number.
• I will change one thing at a time.

Sheets to print

Print these, or copy the columns into a spreadsheet. Fill them in by hand, week by week. Sheets A and B are on the Empty Week Fix page.

Sheet C. Your weekly ladder

Sheet D. Your costs and hours, each client

Next: the tools and links I use, and where to go from here.