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I’d really appreciate your insight on these questions:
How many clients do you have, and what’s your main market area?
(I’m trying to figure out a reasonable goal for client numbers.)
Bill-
My niche is seniors as I discovered I had an affinity for this demographic, their schedules and mine work well, and I could develop access to the referral sources needed to reach this market. Ten years in, I don’t set goals in terms of # of clients as each client is on a different schedule (ranging from 2x week plus work from my office to “when needed”). Instead, I learned from an experienced professional organizer, to set a billable hours goal. Mine has been 20 billable hours a week, generating the income I want and leaving time for marketing and maintaining my own “back office.” That said, I have no control over how many clients come to me and generate billable hours but I DO have control of my marketing, networking, and AADMM organizational hours that ultimately lead to billable hours, so I also try to stick with a weekly activity goal. Hope this helps!It will be very tough to set goals based on the number of clients, rather than on number of hours you will need to work to make the kind of money you are hoping to make. Clients can vary. I work with high net worth clients and some of my clients could take up to 30 hours/month because they have multiple properties, staff, businesses, etc. Others might take 3 hours a month. My advice would be to design a weekly calendar based on how you want it to look and fill in the time until you get it where you want it. Remembering to leave time for networking and administrative work as a part of running your own business.
I was told early on that 20-25 clients would be the threshhold due to the need to customize what we do for each. This guide has held true and I have mostly seniors but also some younger with spending issues. Further, I have branched into more fiduciary work with Trusts, POA and Conservator appointments – these require more paperwork and logistics but can be more lucretive. I would not attempt any true fiduciary efforts without multiple years of experience.
At the 8 yr mark, I hit 25 clients and brought on a second person to handle the day to day so I can concentrate on marketing, education, client setup, projects and the more unique situations. I grew the business slowly and with intention.
I think some of the answers are hitting it, but rather than ask how many clients (since each tends to be slightly different in terms of needs) I’m interested in billable hours/week or /month. Thanks for the answer so far! (I also am interested in this information in order to validate the business model I developed at startup)
Hum – number of hours per month is not how I bill but I will try to back into a number. My staff person is working about 30 per month and growing. I am working about 50-60 which would typically be billable. Marketing and Admin in addition. I love that I do not need to work full time! It allows me to do pro bono work, etc
As mentioned above, some clients will want several hours per week, and others several hours per month. You’ll probably end up with a mix depending on client needs and wishes.
This is the way I think of it : there are approximately 2,000 work hours per year (50 weeks X 40/hours per week, minus vacation and other time off).
So, it’s a matter of just doing the math.You know how much you charge per hour, so simply multiply that number times the number of billable hours that you work/want to work per week- times 50- and that gives you your approximate income for the year.
That number only includes billable hours; and does not include marketing, networking, administrative work, and other non-billable hours. Therefore, for me, it’s more realistic to focus on the number of billable hours I can generate, rather than the number of clients.
So many factors run into this as mentioned above.
1) Billable hours needed per client (ex. seniors and executives may need more of your time)
2) Your rate and how many billable hours you want to work
3) Other items you may bill for (ex. do you bill for travel time?)
4) How much administrative time you need to focus on your business
5) Does your rate reflect your value? (sometimes we under-value ourselves then come up short)
6) Are your workflows and processes minimizing your admin time? (This could be a huge time-saver thereby
allowing more time for billable hours)
I’m sure there is more I haven’t thought of yet! But you get the idea…Thank you everyone! These are very helpful perspectives!
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