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How I went from a Bookkeeping Service in Burbank, CA to a Worldwide Presence
My company, Nerd Enterprises, Inc. is primarily a bookkeeping service based in Burbank, CA. But of course with the web and the technology available I am able to offer my services to anyone any where any time. In fact due to my efforts on social media, I have received inquiries and worked on files for companies in other parts of the world. Australia and Hong Kong to name two.
I started my company in 2003 offering consulting services in MS Excel. These projects were fun, but if I was really going to get out on my own I knew I needed to offer something that was a little more in demand. Bookkeeping made sense. I had a very strong background in Accounting, Audit, and Finance, so bookkeeping was an easy transition. I started putting ads on Craigslist to offer my services and save people money by having them outsource their bookkeeping services to me.
So today my bookkeeping service is based in Burbank, CA but I have grown. The bookkeeping clients started to recognize that I was much more than just a bookkeeper. So now I offer the full range of Accounting and Bookkeeping Services. We start with the simple bookkeeping, making sure the books are clean (ie accurate and reliable). We finish with projections which are only useful when the historical data on which they are initially based is reliable. Then the process of maintaining those projections forces us to review the books line by line each month. This forces out any errors made and also puts our focus on the details that lead us down the path to our ultimate goals - growth and profits.
Most importantly today, I love what I do. I love getting up every day and starting early and I really don't take any days off. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube my bookkeeping service has gone from a local one based in Burbank to a Worldwide company offering free tips and video tutorials to QuickBooks users everywhere. I have a ton of resources on my blog: http://nerdenterprises.com/blog and as I am writing this I am also working on a full length class which will be available in my new Knowledge Center called "Bookkeeping Principles with QuickBooks 2011". After running a bookkeeping service for almost 9 years I have seen a lot and I have seen what is missing from the many bookkeepers who's work I've been hired to clean up. The key missing ingredients are the fundamentals. It isn't enough to know how to enter checks and post invoices in QuickBooks. It is important to understand the underlying fundamentals - debits and credits and how the transactions you post will impact the financial statements and this course teaches all of that while demonstrating what it looks like in QuickBooks by watching the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statements update in QuickBooks. This is why the QuickBooks Video Tutorials have a heavy impact. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video has to be worth exponentially more than that.
If you want to learn more about how I help businesses use their accounting information, just visit my blog and fill out the form (name and e-mail that's it) to get a free E-book called "Turning Financial Information Into Actionable Knowledge":
http://nerdenterprises.com/blog/turning-financial-information-into-...
I started my company in 2003 offering consulting services in MS Excel. These projects were fun, but if I was really going to get out on my own I knew I needed to offer something that was a little more in demand. Bookkeeping made sense. I had a very strong background in Accounting, Audit, and Finance, so bookkeeping was an easy transition. I started putting ads on Craigslist to offer my services and save people money by having them outsource their bookkeeping services to me.
So today my bookkeeping service is based in Burbank, CA but I have grown. The bookkeeping clients started to recognize that I was much more than just a bookkeeper. So now I offer the full range of Accounting and Bookkeeping Services. We start with the simple bookkeeping, making sure the books are clean (ie accurate and reliable). We finish with projections which are only useful when the historical data on which they are initially based is reliable. Then the process of maintaining those projections forces us to review the books line by line each month. This forces out any errors made and also puts our focus on the details that lead us down the path to our ultimate goals - growth and profits.
Most importantly today, I love what I do. I love getting up every day and starting early and I really don't take any days off. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube my bookkeeping service has gone from a local one based in Burbank to a Worldwide company offering free tips and video tutorials to QuickBooks users everywhere. I have a ton of resources on my blog: http://nerdenterprises.com/blog and as I am writing this I am also working on a full length class which will be available in my new Knowledge Center called "Bookkeeping Principles with QuickBooks 2011". After running a bookkeeping service for almost 9 years I have seen a lot and I have seen what is missing from the many bookkeepers who's work I've been hired to clean up. The key missing ingredients are the fundamentals. It isn't enough to know how to enter checks and post invoices in QuickBooks. It is important to understand the underlying fundamentals - debits and credits and how the transactions you post will impact the financial statements and this course teaches all of that while demonstrating what it looks like in QuickBooks by watching the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statements update in QuickBooks. This is why the QuickBooks Video Tutorials have a heavy impact. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video has to be worth exponentially more than that.
If you want to learn more about how I help businesses use their accounting information, just visit my blog and fill out the form (name and e-mail that's it) to get a free E-book called "Turning Financial Information Into Actionable Knowledge":
http://nerdenterprises.com/blog/turning-financial-information-into-...
Comment
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Comment by Seth David on November 24, 2010 at 10:16pm -
I plan my downtime the exact same way I I schedule appointments with clients. I actually put it in my calendar as an appointment. I was showing a client the other day because many of my clients now hire me to show them how to get organized since that is one of my strong points. He saw an appointment on my calendar that said "PS3 Time" and he asked me what that was. I told him - "Playstation 3".
Truth is I don't take that many days off but it doesn't get me exhausted because I love what I do so much that I can't wait to get up every day and get started. I've found that because I am so incredibly passionate about what I do that in itself seems to help me produce the energy that I need to put in the hours. It doesn't feel like work to me. Sometimes my wife has to pry me away from the computer. Case in point. Tonight is the night before thanksgiving. As of about 4 hours ago my e-mail came to a grinding halt! I've had 3 e-mails come in since then because most people are getting ready for the holiday. I just finished recording a video tutorial on Evernote 4.0 which is a productivity tool that has really helped me get organized and i expect some people will hire me to help them with it once they see this video. It's processing now. So I am working when no one else is working. And I am tired but not in a way that makes me want to quit. I'll simply sleep really well tonight.
In the meantime I did make a commitment to myself that tomorrow at no time will my computer be on. Of course I'll have my droid phone, but even that will be used minimally. I plan to eat and watch TV all day!
One more thought on this. I don't mind admitting that I am blessed not only to be doing what I love, but also to make a pretty good living at it. So when I do take time off there is not an ounce of guilt about it. Even today at a pretty late hour I had people calling and e-mailing and asking for help and I explained politely that I was taking off until next week. So at times I do need to set boundaries and at times I do get burnt out. So I rest. Take a day or three off and then I am usually recharged and ready to go for another 6 months non-stop. The time to do it is now while we are still young! These are the years. I am almost 40 so I've got a good 10 more years to make my millions so that I can really be placed in a position to be of maximum service to others and enjoy my retirement at the same time.
I hope this helps - sorry for the rambling :)
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Comment by Lorna@WebGrrrl.net on November 24, 2010 at 9:18pm -
So when/how DO you take a day's off? That seemed to be my problem when I freelanced and got my business online. I was so exhausted that I decided to go back working full-time.
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