Largest client share

Share of earned income coming from your single largest client. Each client's fee revenue over this period as a share of all the fee revenue we can attribute to a client. Pass-through costs rebilled to clients are left out on both sides, because a client who buys a lot of media is not the same as a client who funds the firm. Billing lines with no client we can resolve are excluded and reported separately rather than spread across the accounts that do resolve.

One account above a quarter of your income is not a great client relationship, it is a single point of failure that also sets your prices. The risk is rarely that they leave in anger. It is that a budget cycle, a new marketing director, or an acquisition removes a quarter of the firm's income in one quarter, and everything you would do about it takes longer than that. It sits on this board against keep under 25%.

This accounts for where this period's earned income comes from, all the earned income we can attribute to a client in all.

These are shares of one whole, so each dollar of earned income is counted against exactly one account. That is what makes a point held by the largest client a point the rest of the book does not hold.

A share this size arrives one of two ways and they need different answers. Either one account grew, which is usually the outcome of doing good work and is not a fault, or the rest of the book stopped growing around it, which is. The share alone cannot tell you which, because it is a ratio and both halves move it. What separates them here is Lumio Beverages at $430k against the accounts underneath it: Northwind Outdoor at $215k, Harbor and Pine Hospitality at $190k. If those figures held while the top one grew, this is the first reading. If they fell, it is the second, and the second is the one that needs a decision.

Put an expansion conversation on Northwind Outdoor and Harbor and Pine Hospitality this month. Those are the accounts directly under Lumio Beverages, and concentration is fixed at the bottom of the list rather than at the top.

The move that does not work is managing the big account harder, because the share is a ratio and nothing you do to the numerator makes it smaller in the direction you want. The move that does work takes two or three quarters, which is why it has to start before anything goes wrong. Nothing about this month can be changed; what changes is the shape of next year.

This closes no measured driver above, and does not claim to.

Set a ceiling you are willing to live with, review it when you take on work rather than when you report on it, and treat a client approaching it as a signal to grow the accounts underneath.

Concentration is decided at intake and read at reporting, which is why it is almost always discovered too late to do anything cheap about. A ceiling chosen in advance turns it into a question asked while there is still time, and the number itself is yours to pick: what is safe for a firm with deep cash reserves is not safe for one without them. One thing to settle before picking it: the ceiling has to be a decision about Lumio Beverages, at $430k the largest account you already have. A ceiling set below where the book already sits is not a policy, it is a plan to end an account, and that is a different conversation to have on purpose rather than by arithmetic.

This closes no measured driver above, and does not claim to.

The risk is rarely that the client leaves angry, which at least comes with warning. It is that a budget cycle, a new marketing director, or an acquisition removes a quarter of the income in one quarter, and every response available to you takes longer than that. Firms that survive it are the ones that started growing the rest of the book while the big account was still happy. Where this lands is not this tile. It is Gross billings reads $2.00M, with no band set for it. There is no band set on that tile, so it can show you the movement and cannot tell you whether the movement is already too far. The risk here is not gradual. When a dominant account goes, it goes in one budget cycle, and the top line is where a quarter of the book leaving shows up first and largest.