How to Start a Business

Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business —Ideal for Bookkeeping or Bookkeepers, Accounting or Accountants, or Consultants – This book will help you start earning money in your OWN business with the wealth of information it provides. It includes

• Steps to start your own business (and estimated start up costs)
• How to define your services and set billing rates (includes average billing rates)
• How to improve your knowledge and experience
• How to obtain new clients and effective marketing ideas
• Details about websites, client engagements, market opportunities, growing the business, and MUCH more.

The book includes results of a national survey of QuickBooks ProAdvisors about their annual income, use of engagement letters, over 300 comments and advice on things they wish they had known sooner or done differently, their KEYS to SUCCESS and more!

Bookkeepers, accountants, tax preparers, and consultants will all find beneficial information in the book. With your own business, you can decide what hours you want to work, services to provide, and work from home if you choose! This book will help you SUCCEED!”

From the Author
* Thinking about starting your own consulting business?
* Need ideas to help grow your business?
* Not sure how to get clients or what rates to charge?
* Want advice from other top consultants?

If so, then Successful QuickBooks Consulting is for you! After owning my own traditional accounting practice for about five years, I realized I did not really enjoy the work I was performing. I went back to school and earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship. Now, I am the owner of M. Long Consulting, LLC. Speaking, training, consulting, and writing are now my focus, and I could not be happier!!! I have been able to be my own boss, set my own work hours, and select the clients and type of services I want to provide. Most importantly, I have been home with my children while they are growing up! It is my hope that I can help share my knowledge to help others achieve the same in their lives! I truly enjoy helping others start and grow their own business as well as helping small and growing businesses to utilize QuickBooks to manage their business with good financial information.

Alison Ball, Sr. Manager, Accountant Training Network, Intuit, Inc.

“Michelle Long has created a very comprehensive guide for anyone considering starting a QuickBooks Consulting business. Her use of real-life examples and the fact that she has used her own experiences along with those of other leading QuickBooks Consultants is very compelling.”

Cheri Streeter, MBA and Small Business Development Center Director, Overland Park, KS

“Sharing best practices is what Michelle Long does best — whether it’s teaching QuickBooks in the classroom or sharing her tips in this book. The best part is: Michelle actually practices what she preaches — in her own consulting business. Michelle’s guide is full of practical how-to’s and is the perfect first step for anyone contemplating starting a QuickBooks consulting business.”

About Getting Started In Consulting Book/Guide

More people than ever are making the jump from corporate offices to home offices, taking control of their futures, being their own bosses, and starting their own consultancies. Consulting is a bigger business than ever and growing every day.

For almost a decade, Alan Weiss’s Getting Started in Consulting has been an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to strike out on his own and start a new consulting business. It provides a rich source of expert advice and practical guidance, and it shows you how you can combine low overhead and a high degree of organization to add up to a six- or even seven-figure income. You’ll learn everything you need to know about financing your business, marketing your services, writing winning proposals, meeting legal requirements, setting fees, keeping the books, and much more.

This new Third Edition of Getting Started in Consulting is more comprehensive, up to date, and practical than ever. In addition to the nuts-and-bolts basics, you’ll also get a wealth of new information and resources:

• How to leverage new technologies to lower your business costs and increase your profits
• A budget sampler that shows you how best to maximize an initial start-up investment of $5,000, $10,000, or $20,000
• Free downloadable tools and forms to help you design and start your business quickly and easily
• New interviews with consultants who achieved rapid success, including their personal stories and most effective techniques
• Brand-new references, examples, and appendices

If your dream in life is to get out of the office and out on your own, consulting is a great way to make it happen. Make sure you do it right—and do it profitably—with Getting Started in Consulting, Third Edition.

From the Back Cover

Consulting is clearly one of today‘s most rapidly growing and changing fields, with total worldwide revenues expected to reach over $100 billion in the year 2001. With more companies outsourcing many functions and a growing population of professionals pursuing the dream of self-employment, there is a great demand for information on how to start a consulting practice.

This book provides focused, practical guidance on beginning a consulting business that teaches you how low overhead and a high degree of organization can translate into a six-figure income——in many cases, while working from a home office. Along with a wealth of helpful charts and tables, here is comprehensive coverage of essential areas such as:

• How to finance a consulting practice
• Marketing consulting services to corporate clients
• Writing proposals that sell
• Legal requirements for consulting practices
• Fee setting, billing, bookkeeping, and more

From downsized managers and executives, to retired professionals seeking a second career, consultants in large organizations who want their own practice, employed managers seeking greater employment security, to entrepreneurs, MBA and similar graduates who desire an independent future, and those who seek to establish a part-time practice, Getting Started in Consulting will prove an invaluable resource to attaining their goals.

The consulting profession has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the ’90s, and observers expect that both the demand for such services and the avocation’s undeniable allure will continue to draw people into the profession.

However, management consultant Elaine Biech believes that most newcomers are completely unprepared for the operational realities they encounter. So after two decades of mastering the accounting, marketing, and managing skills necessary to succeed as a consultant, she has organized them into one helpful volume called The Business of Consulting: The Basics and Beyond.

Biech considers all phases of a typical consulting business, from start-up and attracting new business to subcontracting and balancing personal and professional responsibilities. An accompanying disk includes various documents and worksheets described in the text. –Howard Rothman

Review of The Business of Consulting: The Basics and Beyond

“Here are the nuts and bolts for a successful career in consulting. A few hours with Elaine’s book will save you years of trial and error.” –Jerry C. Noack, , vice president/group publisher, TRAINING Magazine

“If I were just starting into the consulting field today, this is the one book I would choose to advise me, caution me, support me in my business, and ‘professionalize’ me!” –Marjorie Blanchard, , chief financial officer, Blanchard International

“Every consultant should apply her principled practices to guarantee satisfied customers.” –John E. Gherty, , president and chief executive officer, Land O’Lakes

“This book is filled with real-world, practical and proven tactics that can be used to grow and build a successful consulting practice. It is a must-have resource for people who are thinking of becoming a consultant . . . and for those who already are one!” –Dana Gaines Robinson, , author; president, Partners in Change

“The Business of Consulting will serve as my consulting practice workbook. The comprehensive coverage of the subject–along with the practical tips–make it the best tool I have.” –Pam Schmidt, , vice president, American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)

“Read her book. She shares all her secrets!” –Gail Hammack, , regional vice president, McDonald’s

Get Paid for Your Experience

Want to strike out on your own and take control of your job security? Become a consultant-it could be a lucrative move. Whether you’re a computer whiz, a business expert or a fundraising dynamo, your special skills are in demand. Learn everything you need to know to turn your expertise into a profitable business.

Learn how to:

• Assess your skills
• Define your market
• Find and keep clients
• Obtain licenses
• Set rates
• Monitor cash flow
• Hire staff
• Use the internet to boost business
• Prepare contracts, agreements and reports
• And more!

With answers to frequently asked questions, an appendix of additional resources, and a valuable list of the top 20 consulting businesses thriving today, this guide puts you on the road to success. Interviews with successful consultants offer valuable insight into how they have taken their careers into their own hands-and how you can, too!

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide