Revenue Goal Planner

A well-regarded executive coach has eight active clients and income she describes as 'good some months, stressful others.' She doesn't track client starts, doesn't know her average engagement length, and hasn't set an annual target. She operates entirely on feel. The planner converts that feel into numbers she can actually run against.

Give as between-session work with one specific instruction: complete Section 2 (capacity and working time) before anything else. The working weeks calculation tends to produce surprises - most coaches overestimate their capacity by 20 to 30 percent when they factor in vacation, professional development, and slow periods. Getting that number right first establishes a realistic ceiling before she sets targets that would require exceeding it.

In Section 4 (sessions and sustainability), watch whether the coaching hours at goal exceed 25 hours per week. Coaches who are currently at 15 to 20 coaching hours frequently underestimate how 25 hours changes their experience - administrative time doesn't scale linearly with client load. If her sustainability check shows 'no - pricing needs to increase,' watch whether she actually goes back to Section 3 and revises or just ignores the flag.

Start with the client gap number from Section 3: 'clients still needed.' Ask: 'Does that number surprise you?' Then move to the marketing implication: 'At your current conversion rate, how many discovery calls does that require per month?' The conversion math often reveals that the marketing challenge is smaller than assumed - or that the conversion rate is the real problem, not the lead volume. One of those two is almost always true.

A talent development leader with 12 years of internal coaching experience is leaving her corporate role at the end of the quarter to build a private practice. She has a financial runway of 18 months and a vague goal of 'replacing her salary.' She hasn't done any math on what that requires in terms of clients, pricing, or conversion. The planner is the first serious planning tool she needs.

Complete the annual target in Section 1 with a specific instruction: set the gross revenue target, not the net. Many coaches set net targets without accounting for the self-employment tax differential and business expenses - the gross number is larger than they expect. Work through Section 1 carefully before anything else. The quarterly breakdown in Section 1 is especially important for someone starting mid-year - Q1 and Q2 will look different as the practice ramps.

In Section 3, watch whether her discovery call conversion rate is realistic. New practice owners frequently estimate too high because they're thinking about their best conversations, not their average conversations. If she hasn't done discovery calls before, she has no data - use a conservative estimate (20 to 30 percent) and make explicit that the actual rate will need to be tracked from month one. A plan built on an assumed 70 percent conversion rate will fail quickly.

Work through the monthly client starts needed from Section 3. 'How many new clients do you need to start per month to hit your goal?' For a new practice owner, that number often surprises downward - the actual client count needed is smaller than assumed because the average revenue per client is higher than hourly rate arithmetic suggests. Then: 'What's your plan for generating that many discovery conversations per month in months one through six?'

A coach who has 10 one-on-one clients, two corporate contracts, and a self-paced digital course generating inconsistent income wants to reduce client hours and shift income toward higher-leverage streams. She's overwhelmed but not willing to reduce income. The Section 5 income stream mix analysis can clarify what would need to change in each stream to make the shift viable.

Give as between-session work with the instruction to complete Section 5 before anything else. 'Fill in every income stream separately - not a total. For each one, write the price, the volume you have now, and the volume you'd need to reach your target with fewer one-on-one clients.' That exercise forces her to see the streams as separate revenue decisions rather than treating the total as a single variable.

In Section 5, watch whether her digital course revenue is treated as fixed or variable. Many coaches with self-paced products assume the product will scale without additional investment - it rarely does. If the gap to annual target in Section 5 assumes significant course revenue growth without a plan for how that growth happens, the plan is built on an assumption rather than a strategy.

Start with the gap number in Section 5: what needs to change to close it? For each income stream, ask: 'What's the single most important variable you can control here?' For one-on-one work, that's usually price or volume. For corporate contracts, it's relationship development and renewal rate. For digital products, it's traffic or conversion. Making the lever explicit per stream is more useful than a general revenue conversation.