The 60% Rule Every Consultant Should Know

19 Feb 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:51

This content was created by Feras Alhlou. This content was uploaded by Feras Alhlou. This is a YouTube video titled "The 60% Rule Every Consultant Should Know" (uploaded 2026-02-19). The excerpt is an advice-style talk by a single speaker (labeled SPEAKER A) aimed at consultants about realistic billable-time expectations. The speaker warns that new consultants often overestimate billable hours because they neglect selling, marketing, paperwork, and back-office setup, and recommends using a 60% utilization factor (e.g., 160 hours × 60% = 96 billable hours).

Chapters

What percentage of time is realistically billable? Notice a lot of the new consultants assume, you know, I work 40, 50 hours a week, and then if I can bill at $100 an hour times 50 hours a week, that's $5,000 a week times 4, that's $20,000 a month. Well, the math looks nice on a spreadsheet always, but you have to spend time selling. Well, you have to spend some time marketing, do some paperwork with lawyers, You want to set up your accounting system. So even if all that back office is set up and established and it's functioning well, you still have to spend time on non-billable work. So I would say use initially, use, I would say 60%. That is the factor I would use. So if you have 160 hours multiplied by 60%, you basically get 96 billable hours.