The math

The method works. The hours are real. If the hours were fictional, you would already be doing this every week and this book would be a poster.

Minutes per stage (steady state, after setup)

Stage minutes that become a week

Playbook Hours a year by hand
Watch (×2) 80 min/wk
Go deep ~10 min
Four layers ~35 min
When + how ~15 min

Per live target after monitoring: about 10 + 35 + 15 = 60 minutes to a sent, logged note. Three researched network notes a week: about 3 hours of deep work plus 80 minutes of watch ≈ 4.3 hours weekly.

One-time setup (first month):

First-month labour: roughly 10–15 hours of setup, plus the weekly run rate once the watch starts mid-month.

Steady weekly run rate (serious but sustainable): about 4–5 hours a week for watch + three fully researched network notes + logging and one batch of follow-ups. That is about 200–260 hours a year if you keep it alive through delivery season. Drop to one note a week and you roughly halve deep-work time, but the watch still costs ~70–80 hours a year on its own if you never skip it.

Checkable arithmetic for a full year at three notes a week, forty-eight working weeks:

Tooling, indicative 2026 pound bands

Prices and credit models move. Treat these as coarse bands, not quotes. The point is the shape of the stack.

Lean network stack (Sales Navigator + light extras): about £90–150 / month (roughly £1,100–1,800 / year).

Heavier stack (Sales Navigator + Apollo + mention tool + some finder credits): about £180–300 / month (roughly £2,200–3,600 / year).

Neither band includes dedicated job-change SaaS. Add that only if relationship mobility is the core of your business, and expect the monthly number to jump hard.

Compare this motion to the stranger motion

Network motion vs stranger motion (order of magnitude)

This book (network)

~230 hours / year at three researched notes a week. Tooling ~£1,100–3,600 / year lean to heavy. Address finding usually free because you already hold it. Warmth partly pre-paid.

The gap: missed.

Companion book (strangers)

Public-signal bench alone at hiring intensity ~270 hours / year for one client type. Core bench tooling ~£4,000–6,500 / year before job-change automation. Full seven plays stacked ~616 hours. Address waterfall is a paid multi-finder cascade.

Figures from this book’s stage minutes and from the public-signal bench / cost chapters of The 7 Network Plays. Same honesty standard. Different job.

Per conversation, network motion is cheaper in both money and status risk when the observation is real. That is why this book told you to run it first. It is not why you should ignore strangers. It is why the order is network system first, public-signal plays second, panic lists never.

Hours and money together, network motion at full steady state: about 230 hours a year of operator time, plus about £1,100–3,600 a year in tooling depending on how heavy you build the watch. No single product stitches the surfaces. You still move facts between LinkedIn, alerts, filings, your sheet, and your sent mail. That integration tax is the middle. The outcome is still correct. What most operators underestimate is the cost of personally assembling and feeding that middle until the month delivery takes the desk back and the watch dies on schedule.

The process is right. The outcome is worth wanting. Being the human who personally runs six monitoring surfaces and a four-layer cascade on every target, forever, is the part that should feel absurd.