When I started QuickBooks consulting in 1993, most of my clients were still using QuickBooks for DOS. There was no QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program or Intuit ISP program. I lived from hand to mouth for many years schlepping from one client to another, always knowing that my billable time was limited by twenty four hours in a day.
After putting up an elaborate “consulting-oriented” web site in 1995 I was quickly picked up by Yahoo and rose to the top of their ranking under key words like “QuickBooks” and “QuickBooks Consulting”. In those days, before the proliferation of remote access, clients were reluctant to send their financial information into cyberspace or share it with someone with whom they had not established a personal relationship. I was all dressed up and nowhere to go.
In desperation, I decided that if I could not generate revenue as a QuickBooks consultant over the internet, I would lower my “calling” and try to sell the damn stuff. I approached Rich Walker at Intuit and asked him whether they had a consultants’ reseller program, but none was set up yet, and it was several years later that the ProAdvisor Program and the affiliate programs were born.
In order to get some income, I continued consulting and wrote a guide book called “QuickBooks Remedies and Performance Enhancements “which I sold through Amazon and on my web site. It did so-so. I also taught QuickBooks at local community colleges.
In 2000 the QuickBooks affiliate program was born and I changed my web site www.quicklabs.com to become sales oriented instead of consulting oriented. A funny thing happened. People started buying QuickBooks from me and since then I have always been Intuit’s number one affiliate. In addition to selling QuickBooks, I made my site a value added resource by publishing my guide book on it, and having a newsletter section, a section for tips and as much content that I could muster up.
In 2004, using QuickBooks as the management foundation, I launched a web site called “PalmFlex” for my wife’s glove business, which at that time was only local. The idea was that I would spend 80% of my time doing QuickLabs work and 20% of my time helping my wife with her business. However, PalmFlex soon took off and the ratios changed so that I was spending 80% of my time working for PalmFlex and 20% of my time doing QuickLabs work. Something had to give, and that is when my QuickBooks consulting and teaching days came to an end.
Several people have commented on my ecommerce proficiency but there is no magic to it. I live and die by Google. A whole new discipline was born centered around Google Analytics and the ROI of key words and clicks. Fortunately I have a great internet professional to help me optimize my search engine performance.
I maintain my philosophy of presenting QuickLabs as a value-added site so that visitors get more than banners. I offer links to resources, integration information and anything I can find that is educational and currently interesting for QuickBooks users. To that end I have approached many associates and vendors offering them attribution and a link to their web site for articles or information that I can put on my web site. Most have been agreeable but most have not followed through, possibly because there is no exchange of money or they see no value in having a link to their web site. This is surprising because the more links to one’s site, the higher the potential for a good organic ranking in Google and more visibility. I spend over $10,000 a month advertising QuickBooks on Google, and expect this to double in the next few years. This brings a lot of eyeballs to my site. We should not underestimate the impact of the internet on the way we do business and live. To get a better understanding of this, read “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson.
Although my internet consultant says, “Exchange links for links”, I am willing to exchange links for QuickBooks information that will add value to my site. In other words, “Will work for content.”

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 4:30 am and is filed under QuickLabs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.