Many business owners get excited about sales and run with the dopamine. (me included)

The proposals are flowing, the discovery calls are converting, and suddenly you're saying yes to everything because it feels damn good to be swimming in the love from new clients.

But then reality hits when you try to fit it all into your calendar. (throw in personal hurdles and you're all set for a super UN-fun time)

Often in a scoping and proposal process, the prep and the communications in between isn't factored in. The same happens on a calendar.

It's like forgetting to chunk travel time in your calendar - technically you can get from the 2pm meeting to the 3pm meeting, but you'll arrive frazzled.

What sit's behind each "Yes"

Let's spell out the reality of what it takes to run a thought leadership practice with life by design. I assume you don't have a job because the idea of working full-time hours is simply not for you. So let's assume you want to average 30 hours per week.

Here's where those 30 hours actually go:

Delivery & Prep: 15 hours

Client sessions, workshops, speaking engagements
Preparation time (which varies by delivery mode)
Travel time for in-person work

Everything Else: 15 hours

Proposal writing and follow-up communications
Email and admin tasks
Finance and invoicing
IP development
Content creation and marketing
Sales conversations and relationship building

Note for business managers: Speakers and facilitators need more prep and travel time than mentors and coaches - speaking generally. A 2-hour workshop might need 3-4 hours of prep, plus travel. A coaching session might need 15 minutes of prep and review.

How to translate your sales pipeline to capacity planning

Whether you're running solo or you have a team, putting a system in place to translate your sales into capacity planning can shift many areas of your business and personal world. I'm less interested in which tool you choose and more interested in whether it actually gets used on your hardest days.

Blocking your calendar - The simplest start, and honestly where I recommend most people begin. Block delivery time, prep time, and buffer time as non-negotiable appointments with yourself. Calendar blocking sounds simple, but here's where most people trip up - they only block the "sexy" delivery time and forget about the invisible prep work.

Business manager flex: For each sale/client booking - don't just schedule the meetings. Block out the prep time, travel time, report/notes writing (AND buffer time).

2. A capacity planner - Think spreadsheet or whiteboard with post-it notes. This is my personal favourite because it's visual, flexible, and you can see your month or quarter at a glance. If you're someone who loves seeing the big picture and moving pieces around, this might be your sweet spot. The mistake I see with capacity planners is treating them like pretty wallpaper instead of working documents - they need to be living, breathing tools.

Business manager flex: Schedule a monthly to quarterly meeting focused on aligning the long-term goals to the current pipeline activity, while considering creative/IP building time.

3. A Kanban board - In platforms like Notion or Asana, move projects through "Pipeline → Onboard → Prep → Delivery Phase 1 → Delivery Phase 12 etc → Complete" columns. If you're more of a systems and process person, this approach lets you see workflow bottlenecks quickly. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here - start messy and refine as you go.

Business manager flex: Set up automations that move clients along the journey based on certain booking types or actions. Or an automation that creates all standard actions/tasks required for onboarding each client when a sale happens.

4. Your CRM as delivery tracker - Use your existing pipeline software to track not just sales stages, but delivery capacity and timelines. I've watched too many brilliant business owners try to manage this in their heads while their CRM sits under utilised. If you're already living in your CRM for sales, why not make it work harder for you?

Psst. I've spent the last year building a CRM specific for thought leaders to do exactly this, you can check that out here.

Business manager flex: Configure the CRM to automatically calculate and display capacity impact when new opportunities are added, giving you real-time visibility into your delivery load.

It's not just about delivering what you promise

When you get intentional about capacity planning, the ripple effects go beyond just better scheduling:

Drop from 40+ hour work weeks to under 30 hours - creating more time for family, friends, freedom, and creativity
More energy, vitality, focus, joy, and presence in both your personal and business world
Strategic clarity about which opportunities actually serve your bigger vision

Stories (we tell ourselves) can be sticky

For many, I see that old stories of what it takes to be successful hold them back from considering this approach. Or perhaps it's an addiction to the brain chemistry that comes with constantly being on the go. (See previous blog on nervous system regulation.)

This is your reminder to price your worth AND know your worth based on:

How do you actually want to spend your days?

How many weeks per year do you want to be tethered to your phone?

And what profit - not just revenue - do you need to sustain your life and layer in the freedom you're building this business for?

You can't do capacity planning without knowing your values (and how your personal and business values intersect), your goals for how you want to live, and your numbers - revenue, expenses, and profit.

Sustainable capacity management isn't just about fitting more clients into your calendar (I know, you LOVE to say yes). It's about designing a business that supports the life you actually want to live.

Next week I'll continue this theme with - How to translate support into capacity (and revenue)

Thinking of you and your capacity,

Katee

PS: On a completely different note, I'm hosting an open week for my Catalyst program for business managers in October. One of the sessions will be a technical tutorial on Social SEO - which is fancy talk for how to get recommended by GPT. Get the details and register here.

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