I would be interested to hear what's your break even point. I understand the dollars may vary depending on the type of job, but generally speaking, how many jobs do you need to win on a yearly basis to keep the doors open? Specifically looking for input from 1-2 man firms, but would be interested to hear from all if you are willing to share.
we are a small office. to be honest we put all our money back into the office so break even is always elusive. it's a bit of a circle. hire more people so we can take on more work, pursue other projects, get the projects, pay the staff, get ahead a wee bit but then realise we need to build more capacity and hire more staff which means we need more work....
my old office needed 30 million dollars of projects/ year to break even. we don't need quite that much, but i can foresee a day when that come, if all goes well.
just for reference, one school in the area i was working in usually had a budget of 30million. so if we got a school project we could expect a nice bonus. if we didn't then...not so much. also just fyi, we usually got one school project every 2 years on average.
My rule of thumb is that I should be billing $100K per professional per year to come out ahead. We usually have a principal, 3-4 staff/interns and a part time admin., so the revenue goal is $500K. Of course it goes easier if that is earned on a big project or two rather than a lot of small ones, but these days one can't be picky.
Apr 26, 11 12:57 am ·
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How Many Awards Keep the Doors Open?
I would be interested to hear what's your break even point. I understand the dollars may vary depending on the type of job, but generally speaking, how many jobs do you need to win on a yearly basis to keep the doors open? Specifically looking for input from 1-2 man firms, but would be interested to hear from all if you are willing to share.
at least one.
one project seems a safe minimum ;-)
we are a small office. to be honest we put all our money back into the office so break even is always elusive. it's a bit of a circle. hire more people so we can take on more work, pursue other projects, get the projects, pay the staff, get ahead a wee bit but then realise we need to build more capacity and hire more staff which means we need more work....
my old office needed 30 million dollars of projects/ year to break even. we don't need quite that much, but i can foresee a day when that come, if all goes well.
just for reference, one school in the area i was working in usually had a budget of 30million. so if we got a school project we could expect a nice bonus. if we didn't then...not so much. also just fyi, we usually got one school project every 2 years on average.
My rule of thumb is that I should be billing $100K per professional per year to come out ahead. We usually have a principal, 3-4 staff/interns and a part time admin., so the revenue goal is $500K. Of course it goes easier if that is earned on a big project or two rather than a lot of small ones, but these days one can't be picky.
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