Wednesday, October 19, 2005
What Next?
Over the past several months, I've posted general info covering pricing, scheduling, professional education, tech gadgets, QB troubleshooting, etc. Now it's time to go in-depth. Who's out there and what specifically do you want to read about? How old is your QuickBooks consulting business? How many clients do you have? Let me know what direction you want to go...
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3 comments:
16 years consulting, 15 for Quickbooks. 250 active clients (some daily, some monthly, some annually). My direction goes with technology: first it was simply DOS and Quickbooks, then it was Windows and Quickbooks, then it was Windows, Quickbooks and Internet, now am teaching all complete with working with merchant services, online banking, downloads and shopping carts. My wish list would be 1) get an Intuit shopping chart no bells and whistles, but uses same merchant services as intuit so all in one. 2) get the web site usage up and running again - that was great and 3) get the pricing structure organized. I hate it when a client can buy QB cheaper at Costco or Online than through my Intuit link. I can understand box stores, but not your site vs my site.
Dear Geni,
You raise some good points and I know that Intuit is working on enhancing ecommerce capabilities of QuickBooks. There is also third-party software available to make ecommerce transactions flow into QuickBooks easier (one example is eBay's Accounting Assistant which allows you to automatically post fees, etc to QuickBooks). You might also want to post these suggestions on an Intuit Feedback form. Go to our website at www.realitycheckonline.com, click on Support and hit the Free QB Support site. There is a place for feedback. Some ProAdvisors that were on the Intuit Customer Advisory Council in 2003 (myself included) pointed out the issue about big resellers selling at lower prices than we small resellers. Intuit's response was to the point, and as a busines owner I understand the rationale: they buy huge quantities in bulk and so get a better deal. You can't ask Intuit not to be a for-profit business. Thanks for raising these valid points!
That point was raised by Intuit for the first time this year. Apparently, they have stopped undercutting us by selling to larger conglomerates at lower prices. That is good news! And, I agree, you can't beat a software sale supported by services. Intuit has realized that and now offers their 30-days free support. I've seen some shrewd selling on eBay where the software is sold at very low prices and includes some free consulting - a perfect example of how to grow your business, but I wonder about the level of consulting with such a large client-base. Lots of issues here. Suggestions for blog ideas we can discuss more are always welcome. :)
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