Most outbound plans start at the top: send this many emails, hope for that many meetings. A show plans better backwards. Start from the number the board cares about, then divide your way up to the invitations that have to go out this quarter.
This note does that arithmetic in the open, using only the defaults behind our calculators. Then it stress-tests the answer, checks it against a real host's calendar, and sizes the list you need before anyone presses send. Every rate below is a model assumption, not a client result.
Start with the right number
The worked example uses a $400,000 quarterly pipeline target. Pipeline, not bookings: the first-year contract value of qualified opportunities created in the quarter. Mixing those two up is where most back-of-envelope plans go wrong. If your board number is closed revenue, divide it by your win rate first. At our default 25% win rate, $400,000 of pipeline turns into about $100,000 of signed first-year contracts.
Five defaults drive everything that follows:
- ACV: $40,000. Average first-year contract value. Programs make sense from $15k up.
- Invite acceptance: 34%. The share of invited guests who say yes. Our sample range is 30–40%.
- Accepted → recorded: 23%. 41% of accepted guests pass the 15-minute producer pre-interview, and 56% of those make it to a recording. 0.41 × 0.56 ≈ 0.23.
- Recorded → opportunity: 33%. About one recorded guest in three becomes a qualified opportunity.
- Opportunity → closed-won: 25%. Only used for the revenue check above.
$400,000 back to 388 invitations
Four divisions. Carry the decimals and round once, at the end.
- Opportunities.
$400,000 ÷ $40,000 = 10. Ten qualified opportunities this quarter. - Recorded guests.
10 ÷ 0.33 = 30.3. About 30 recorded conversations, roughly 10 a month. - Accepted guests.
30.3 ÷ 0.23 = 131.8. About 132 people have to say yes. Around 54 of them clear the pre-interview, and 30 of those reach a recording. The rest either aren't buyers or can't find a slot. - Invitations.
131.8 ÷ 0.34 = 387.5. Call it 388 invitations in the quarter, about 129 a month.
That is the whole model. Every other question in this note is a variation on those four lines.
Two cautions. First, round at each step (30, then 130, then 382) and you land six invitations short. Small here, larger when the rates are worse. Second, 30 guests is a small sample. Even if every rate holds exactly, luck moves the result: one standard deviation is about 2.6 opportunities, so roughly two quarters in three land between 8 and 12. Plan for the range. Report against the average.
What moves the number
Two inputs cause most of the surprises: acceptance and ACV. They move different parts of the plan. Here is the same $400,000 target under four single changes and two combined ones.
| scenario | opps / qtr | recorded / mo | invites / qtr | tier fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| base · 34% · $40k | 10 | 10.1 | 388 | Engine |
| acceptance 25% | 10 | 10.1 | 527 | Engine |
| acceptance 40% | 10 | 10.1 | 329 | Engine |
| acv $20k | 20 | 20.2 | 775 | Multi-Show |
| acv $80k | 5 | 5.1 | 194 | Pilot |
| 25% + $20k | 20 | 20.2 | 1,054 | Multi-Show |
| 40% + $80k | 5 | 5.1 | 165 | Pilot |
Acceptance moves the list. Drop acceptance from 34% to 25% and the quarter needs 527 invitations instead of 388: 139 more names to research and send to. Lift it to 40% and 329 will do. The host's calendar doesn't change at all. It is still 30 recorded guests, because acceptance sits above the recording in the funnel. What changes is the research load and how hard the mailboxes work.
ACV moves the calendar. Halve ACV to $20,000 and the same target needs 20 opportunities, 60.6 recorded guests (about 20 a month) and 775 invitations. That is more than one host can record: Network tops out at 16 a month. Double ACV to $80,000 and it is 5 opportunities, 15 recorded guests and 194 invitations, a comfortable Pilot.
Acceptance decides how big the list must be. ACV decides how full the host's calendar gets.
Stack the changes and the spread gets wide. At 25% acceptance and $20k ACV the quarter needs 1,054 invitations. At 40% and $80k it needs 165. Same target, more than six times the list. That is why ACV is the first thing we ask about on a fit call, and acceptance is the first number in every weekly report.
Which rate to fix first
Every rate in the chain divides the same way, so each one has the same pull on invitations: lift any of them by a tenth and the quarter needs about a tenth fewer, 352 instead of 388. The difference is what else moves with it.
- Acceptance only shrinks the list and the sending load. Fix it with a sharper “why them” line and tighter targeting.
- Accepted → recorded also saves producer time on pre-interviews that go nowhere. Fix it with clearer guest criteria up front and faster scheduling.
- Recorded → opportunity is the only rate that frees the host. Lift it from 33% to 36.3% and the quarter needs 27.5 recordings instead of 30.3, on the same 352 invitations. Fix it with better guest selection and a follow-up that actually goes out.
So if the host's calendar is the constraint, work on recorded → opportunity first. If the list is the constraint, work on acceptance.
Your target, your rates. The season planner runs these four divisions on your own numbers, shows the reverse funnel and names the tier that carries it.
How many guests can one host record?
A plan is only real if a person can sit through it. Host time on our programs runs about two hours a week: 30 minutes per recording, plus reading the producer's brief beforehand and sending a short follow-up after.
At the base case that is 30.3 recordings across a 13-week quarter, or 2.3 a week. Lose two weeks to travel, board prep or quarter-end and the other 11 carry 2.8 a week. Still inside the budget, just.
base case: 30.3 recordings over 13 weeks
same quarter with 2 weeks lost
at $20k ACV: past one host
at $80k ACV: room to spare
// recordings per week = recorded guests per quarter ÷ weeks recording Model assumptions
Our tiers map onto that capacity:
- Pilot: 4–6 recorded guests a month, about 1 to 1.4 a week.
- Engine: 8–10 a month, about 1.8 to 2.3 a week.
- Network: 12–16 a month, about 2.8 to 3.7 a week. Network adds a roundtable format, which puts several guests in one recording.
- Beyond 16: a second host. Multi-Show runs several hosts at 25+ recorded guests a month.
The base case lands at 10.1 recorded guests a month. Round to whole people and it is 10, the top of Engine's range, with no slack. Soft acceptance doesn't change that: it adds names to research and invitations to send, not recordings. If you want headroom above 10 recordings a month, Network's 12–16 target gives it to you. Compare the tiers on pricing.
What doesn't stretch is the host. Five recordings a week looks fine in a spreadsheet. In practice the prep gets thinner, the questions get generic and guests can tell. When the plan asks for more than about four a week, add a host, not hours.
How big the list has to be
The list is the constraint teams underestimate. Invitations go to named people at ICP-fit accounts, each with a specific reason to invite them. That list isn't bought. It is researched, one trigger event at a time.
Our floor is 300 researched ICP accounts, each with a named guest, before go-live. The number comes straight out of the model. At the base case you send about 129 invitations a month. Invitations start on day 18 and the program reaches steady state around day 90: 72 days at about 4.25 invitations a day, or ≈306 invitations. The first 300-guest list carries you from go-live to steady state while research builds the next batch.
Past the first batch:
- A year at the base case is about 1,550 invitations. If your entire ICP holds fewer reachable decision-makers than that, a year of sending would invite every one of them. Add a second segment, a second role per account, or a lower target.
- Low acceptance eats the list faster. At 25% the same quarter needs 527 invitations, and at full volume the first 300 names last about seven weeks instead of ten.
- A “not this quarter” isn't a no. Ask again next season, with a new topic.
- Referrals aren't in the model. From around day 90, past guests start introducing peers. They are the cheapest names on the list, and every one is upside on the numbers above.
Your first quarter is shorter
Everything above describes a steady-state quarter. The first one isn't, and planning as if it were is the fastest way to lose faith in a channel that's working.
- days 1–5 · brief
ICP, guest criteria, show format
Workshop, show name, host prep session.
- days 6–17 · warm
Mailboxes warm, first 300 researched
Invitation sequences written for host approval.
- day 18 · go live
Invitations start under the host's name
Low daily volume, then ramp.
- day 25 · first recording
First pre-interviews scored, first episodes recorded
- day 60 · first review
Real rates replace the defaults
Acceptance, qualification and opportunities on your own data.
- day 90 · steady state
The model in this note applies
Monthly recorded-guest target met; past guests start referring peers.
Recordings start around day 25, so the first 90 days hold about nine weeks of recording, at invitation volume that starts low and ramps. Don't hold quarter one to the steady-state target. Use it to prove the rates. By the day-60 review you have real acceptance, qualification and opportunity numbers, and they replace our defaults in every calculation above. The full sequence is on the Podcast Pipeline timeline.
Run it on your own target
The season planner does this note's arithmetic for any target, ACV and set of rates, and recommends a tier. The guest-to-pipeline ROI model then runs it forward: opportunities per month, pipeline, revenue a year, and the break-even deal count against the program cost.
If you're still weighing invitations against cold email, Why invitations get answered compares cost per meeting and cost per opportunity on the same defaults.
Estimates, not guarantees. Your numbers will differ, and the first 60 days of a real program will tell you by how much.