I don't see any possible way that you're making any sort of actual profit on this (or even really breaking even) at this rate, unless you've got some redicuously cheap labor....
Consider this... If you're doing $40 an hour, and you had a full time person billing 100% of the time (ie 168 hours per month), then you'll max out for that employee at about $80,000 of revenue....you then have to pay taxes, mileage, insurance, etc... Now, take into account that a single full time employee doing this full time in reality will never do more than 100 billable hours a month... This is from experience and even assumes that you're fairly streamlined in terms of paperwork, supplies, travel routes, etc... This means, at $40 per hour, you'll only pull in $48,000 per year in revenue for that full time employee....assuming you have a streamlined operation. There's no room in there to pay them, pay taxes, pay mileage, pay for their portion of office space (and other expense), pay for billing, pay for your time in management, and so forth. I'd double it as a starting point if you're in a rural market, triple if you're urban, and probably more for people who aren't regular customers. Still, a lot does depend on your market and your business model. Are your employees knowledgeable? Do they really know what they are doing on this stuff, or are they just fumbling through... Keep in mind, as well, that small business consulting is not too different from dealing with people in the home construction / repair industry--there are a lot of people who just walked off the farm, so to speak, and claim to be in the business (no insult intended, and some of them do well). They aren't always the best in terms of quality, and they aren't always the best in terms of professionalism. Most businesses that have some sense pay more to get better quality...in some sense, if you price yourself higher, you price yourself into the good customers. You also give yourself the money to do it well... -Clint Ricker Kentnis Technologies On 8/15/07, Mike Hammett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Does this sound fair to all parties? > > My normal rate is $40/hour, with $80/hour for emergencies. > > I charge $150/month to manage a business's network. This includes 3 hours > of support. I also will VPN into the network and ensure that operating > systems, anti-virus, etc. are updated, which does not consume any > hours. Additional support is available at $35/$70 per hour. > > > ----- > Mike Hammett > Intelligent Computing Solutions > http://www.ics-il.com > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/