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.”

The Professional Caterer’s Handbook: How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful Catering Business

“The most comprehensive catering publication I have ever seen. Valuable reading for even the seasoned caterer!” — Mary Crafts, Owner / Senior Event Planner, Culinary Crafts

“This leaves no possibility unexplored. If catering is an art, assimilating this book will make a Picasso out of you.” — Wahid Fakhir, Wahid.Fakhir@peabodyorlando.com

Product Description

Do you need a comprehensive book on how to plan, start and operate a successful catering operation? This is it–an extensive, detailed manual that shows you step by step how to set up, operate and manage a financially successful catering business. No component is left out of this encyclopedic new book explaining the risky but potentially highly rewarding business of catering. Whether your catering operation is on-premise, off-premise, mobile, inside a hotel, part of a restaurant, or from your own home kitchen you will find this book very useful.

You will learn the fundamentals: profitable menu planning, successful kitchen management, equipment layout and planning, and food safety and HACCP. The employee and management chapters deal with how to hire and keep a qualified professional staff, manage and train employees, and report tips properly in accordance with the latest IRS requirements.

The financial chapters focus on basic cost-control systems, accounting and bookkeeping procedures, auditing, successful budgeting and profit planning. You ll also master public relations and publicity, learn low-cost internal marketing ideas, and discover low-and no-cost ways to satisfy customers. One section of the book is devoted to home-based catering entrepreneurs. With low startup costs and overhead, a home-based catering business can be an ideal do-it-yourself part-or full-time business.

Another section is for restaurateurs that wish to add catering to their restaurant operation. A successful restaurant s bottom line could be greatly enhanced by instituting catering functions in slow hours or down time. For example, many restaurants are closed on Saturday afternoons, so this would be an ideal time to create a profit by catering a wedding This book is also ideal for professionals in the catering industries, as well as newcomers who may be looking for answers to cost containment and training issues. There are literally hundreds of innovative ways demonstrated to streamline