Is your biggest client really your best one?
Fourteen clients, what each billed and what each cost in partner hours. Ranked on fees the order is obvious. Ranked on fees per partner hour it is not the same list, and the cumulative column is where the decision lives.
Work Starter Statistics free
After you install, this is the model to open.
Which Clients Are Actually Worth Keeping?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
The answer
Where the fee book actually sits:
- Top two clients
- 32.1% of the book
- Top four
- 50.4% of the book
- The median client
- $140,000 53.8th percentile
- Best fees per hour
- $3,073 from the 8th ranked client
The middle of the book is $140,000, which is the honest definition of an average client here and nothing like the $151,500 arithmetic mean. If the largest client leaves, that is not a gap in the pipeline, it is a fifth of the firm. The second reading disagrees with the first in a useful way: the largest client returns $1,990 a partner hour while the eighth returns $3,073 and the tenth $2,939. Rerun on the fees per hour column and the order changes substantially. A percentile has no opinion about which clients will still be here next year.
The model
Client names, fees billed and partner hours, with a cumulative share column the ranking does not produce. Rank and Percentile carries the original row number, so every rank traces back to a name after the output sorts itself.
| Clients | 14 |
| Fees billed | $1.2M less than the mean suggests |
| Largest client | $339,000 |
| Arithmetic mean fee | $151,500 |
| Rank, percentile and share | calculated |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- What is the lowest rate that is not a subsidy?What Rate Do I Have to Charge?
- Which few tasks are eating the whole calendar?How Long Do Our Tasks Really Take?
- How much should you pad the next estimate?How Wrong Are Our Estimates, Usually?
- What three-point estimate does your history give?What Shape Are Our Task Durations?
- How many people does the rota actually need?Cover Every Hour With the Fewest People
- What is a point of utilization actually worth?Will the Team Bill Enough Hours?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Statistics in Google Sheets.