One of the most important decisions you’ll make as a principal is the size of your team. For every team member, there needs to be enough income generated to cover their role.

Employ too few, and your team will burn out and work ineffectively. Employ too many without the revenue to support them and you’re not going to stay afloat financially.

My wife and I met with some of our members in Melbourne recently, and we were surprised to discover that there are almost as many styles of running an agency as there are principals running them.

We talked to one principal with a team of 12 staff who holds a meeting every Monday at 8am sharp where they hash out the week’s work and targets. Another principal, with a similarly sized team, said his staff were self-starters who were off doing their own thing most of the time, only calling in when they needed support.

But however your business runs, you need enough income-producing staff to cover operational costs, including the salaries of your administrative team. The numbers I give below are observations, not recommendations, as each principal will know what works best for their unique set-up, but they will give you some ideas for structuring your team.