# Is Your Overhead Too Low?
Source: https://dairycoach.com/is-your-overhead-too-low/
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2024-01-24
Author: Tom Wall
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[](https://dairycoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/overhead.jpg)
*Photo Courtesy of PhotoPin.com*
Most business owners would probably agree that carrying too much overhead is too costly.
On the surface, overhead looks like deadweight. The more overhead you carry, the more your revenue efforts need to work to get out of the hole and back to zero. Expenses that don’t produce income put a real strain on the revenue creators.
But what happens when you’re laser-focused on avoiding or eliminating your company’s overhead? Is it possible that you could be running “too lean”?
When you’re first starting out, revenue tends to be low while expenses tend to be high. In those extra sensitive start-up years, survival is usually your focus and everyone on your team needs to produce revenue in order to keep cash flowing. When you only have 5-10 people on your team, each person makes up 10-20 percent of your business. Everyone wears multiple hats and you don’t have extra funds for a “dedicated manager” to make sure everyone does their job. You need each person to be a productive, self-starter.
But what happens when your business grows and you expand beyond your initial core crew? When your workload requires you to hire more people and you end up with the “I just work here” mentality, can you still afford to run as lean as you did when you started?
Sure, it’s wise to stay as lean as possible for as long as possible. But at some point, hiring someone who’s accountable for holding other people accountable is a smart move. And yes, hiring a manager might feel like you’re simply increasing your overhead expenses. But if you hire effective managers, they’ll pay for themselves by making everyone else more productive.
Ultimately, if your revenue producers aren’t producing like you know they could be or should be, the real question is… “How much time and money are we losing/leaving on the table?”
As your business continues to grow, your need for smart, strategic overhead will continue to grow with it.
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