Business Discussions

Meta and her family in Juneau, Alaska  Name: Meta Mesdag Business: Salty Lady Seafood Co.   Location: Juneau, Alaska Launched:  April 2018 Meta Mesdag is a mom of three in Juneau, Alaska. Wanting to be available to her kids, Meta has opened two successful small businesses out of her home. Although both ventures have kept her super busy, Meta decided earlier this year to start a family “mariculture” business -- an ocean farm where she, her husband and kids will grow (and then sell) oysters, clams, mussels and kelp, all of them working together. Did Meta know anything about mariculture when she dreamt up the idea? No. Did that stop her from starting it up? Absolutely not. Here, at the very beginning of her new business journey, she tells us about the challenge of launching her business and how she persevered despite strict regulations -- and some very heavy concrete anchors. Meta has no doubt that she’ll be successful as a mariculture entrepreneur. After meeting this det

Each and every day, the inspiring self-employed folks in our QuickBooks Community remind us that entrepreneurs find their calling in their own unique way. Some can’t imagine ditching the security of a day job, while others give it up in a flash. We’ve met moms who tailor their career to fit their family life, friends who join forces to bring a business idea to life and sons and daughters who are carrying on family business traditions. If you recognize your own entrepreneurial personality among these eight, let us know. Are you a different type altogether? Tell us more! The Opportunity Grabber You see a niche -- or a gaping hole -- in the market, and you know you’re the one to fill it. You think outside the box and imagine new ways of doing things to appeal to today’s 21st-century customer. You’re outgoing, enthusiastic and you know how to get others excited about your ideas. You’re in good company: Meet Scott Wolfe CEO of zlien, Jennie Nigrosh of The Green Garmento, Leslie Barber of

Welcome to Community Conversations! In this ongoing series, I sit down with small business owners to talk about what’s great and what’s tough about working for yourself. You’ll hear loads of ideas, insights and inspiration. We invite you to sit back, listen and learn! Here’s what you’ll find in this episode of Community Conversations ...  Julie Gordon White is an award-winning entrepreneur, business coach and host of QB Community’s Momentum to $1 Million group. Julie reflects back on her journey as a successful business woman. It all began, she explains, when she decided to spend three days alone -- in complete silence.    Romy Taormina is CEO of Psi Health Solutions, Inc. and inventor of fashionable wristbands proven to relieve nausea. Romy created the bands after experiencing  intense morning sickness during her two pregnancies. As a business owner, she says, she discovered telling her story was a strategic, creative and powerful way to grow her bran

Name: Sharon Coleman Business: Lemon and Honey Gifts Location: Mill Valley, CA Launched: September 2018 (wahoo!) Seven years ago, professional voice actor Sharon Coleman was diagnosed with colon cancer. She underwent extensive treatment, including spending many uncomfortable hours getting chemotherapy at an infusion center. Two years later, the cancer returned, and Sharon once again endured surgery, radiation and chemo. Thankfully, today Sharon is five years cancer-free. She’s also celebrating another significant milestone: This month, she launched an online business that’s directly inspired by her own harrowing experience with cancer. Sharon has founded Lemon and Honey Gifts which offers a carefully curated selection of gift boxes for men, women and kids going through chemo. Sharon thoughtfully and lovingly selects products she knows will help ease the side effects of the difficult treatment. When we caught up with this newly minted entrepreneur, Sharon had been in business for exact

Major life events like having kids, getting laid off or relocating are often the impetus for deciding to work for yourself. Another common motivating factor? Realizing you’re ready to make some serious changes to your lifestyle and your work style. Tell us:   Can you pinpoint the exact reason (or reasons) you “pivoted” and decided to steer your career into the entrepreneurial lane?   We can’t wait to hear your “pivotal” stories!

Names: Ashleigh Miller and Sandra Zhao Business: ZURI Location: Online, New York City and San Francisco Launched: December 2017 Sandra Zhao was running a bakery in Kenya when she met her future business partner Ashleigh Miller, a Persian rug dealer in New York City, at a wedding in Nairobi. Sandra was wearing a stunning dress she’d made from colorful handmade fabric. Her sartorial decision was fortuitous, to say the least: The dress became the inspiration behind Sandra and Ashleigh’s joint business venture, Zuri. Inspired by the bold and beautiful textile prints in eastern Africa, they set out to sell a single style of dress in an array of ever-changing patterns. The dresses are made at a sustainable, carbon-neutral factory in Kenya that supports wildlife conservation and provides jobs to the community. The dresses are exported to and sold in the U.S. Ashleigh and Sandra are part of a growing group of apparel entrepreneurs who aim to balance profit with ethical and sustainable p

  When you're coping with the countless stresses of running a business, you have to take your motivation where you can find it. Maybe you visualize your goals, read daily affirmations or find meaning in cat calendars (hey, I don't judge!). Many small business owners have a favorite quote or two that helps them get through a tough day. But some of us out there -- like me, for starters -- suffer from something I like to think of as IQA: Inspirational-Quote Anxiety (IQA). I just ran across an oldish article from Forbes titled "Top 32 Quotes Every Entrepreneur Should Live By." Challenge accepted! Here are a few of those potentially life-changing quotes: "The best way to predict the future is to create it." (Peter Drucker) "To win without risk is to triumph without glory." (Corneille) "When you cease to dream you cease to live." (Malcolm Forbes) These are all great. They also feel about a million percent unrelated to the actual daily grind of working for myself. No

Hello, I am starting my own business, start running this 22 but I am worried about taxes, first should I charge taxes on my business, we are selling food, and them how is gonna be my business taxes, is everything so confusing, ty in advance 

You have questions about running a small business, and our QB Community members have answers! Everyone here knows the importance of building meaningful member-to-member relationships, and there’s no better way to learn, discover and get inspired as an entrepreneur. Best of all? When members share what they know, everyone benefits. Check out this recent QB Community conversation, and you’ll see what we mean!     @AudreyPratt asked: “If you have an online store, do you prefer ebay, Etsy or Amazon? And why?”       @ALexRuf answered: “I used to sell my handmade beauty accessories on Etsy and Vinted. And a good friend of mine suggested that I set up a standalone website using a wordpress beauty accessories store theme. With my own website, my sales tripled and more. The key is to market your website and I use social media platforms for this purpose.”   @Shahji answered: “Many clients of mine have a personal website and they also sell on Amazon o

  There are plenty of listicles floating around highlighting the traits successful entrepreneurs all seem to share. Based on what we’ve seen and heard from the intrepid small business owners and freelancers in our community, we’re sharing your spin on those all-important qualities – and we’re asking a burning question: Which of these qualities do you think help you the most when it comes to starting, running and growing a business?   You’re a natural-born leader. It comes naturally to you to communicate, guide, motivate and encourage others to do their best. You enjoy inspiring people to work together to achieve a common goal. Even when you’re facing a mountain of thankless tasks, you stay positive and keep the end goal –  the freedom of working for yourself! – in sight.   “The key to success for any organization is the leadership and the people. If you get the leadership part right (you) then the people part should be naturally attracted to you.” — Stev

I have a friend named Khaki. When she started mixing an all-natural skin care product in her kitchen a few years ago, she called it Khaki's Bomb Balm. Catchy, right? But when she expanded, she called her new line of products Face/Food Natural Skincare. I don't know how she came up with the particular name (I always thought "Khaki's Bomb Balm" was pretty awesome) but now that I think of it I should probably ask her!   In the meantime, I'd like to ask you: How did you come up with the name for your business? In your opinion, is it most important for a business name to be catchy? Meaningful? Easy to remember?  

Would you be surprised to learn that a gold-medal winning Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz didn’t like the pool? It’s true! So how then did he put in thousands of hours of practice and beat out all his competitors? I’ll let him tell you: “The pool is terrible, but that doesn't have much to do with my record swims. That's all mental attitude.” Mind over matter, positive thinking, growth mindset, mental attitude -- these are all phrases we hear about as students, athletes and as business owners looking for a leg-up on the competition. What does having the right “mindset” truly mean for entrepreneurs and what does it actually look like in the real world? These 12 entrepreneurs tell us about the mindset that keeps them motivated and helps them muscle through the ups and downs of being self-employed.   Angela Smith of Purl and Loop, a yarn shop says: “Until I ran a business, I never realized how powerful a positive mindset could be. It amazes me that I can say I’m going to do something and

In honor of National Talk in an Elevator Day (yes, it's a thing!), I'd like to reboot a past discussion that never gets old: What's your elevator pitch?   An elevator pitch, as QB Community Manager @ShanaNiederman defines it, "is the way you quickly and concisely describe your business or services in the few seconds it takes to ride an elevator with a prospective client, investor or other interested party." Got it! Now exactly how many seconds are we talking about here?   You might be surprised to hear this (I was), but the "elevator pitch" as originally conceived is based on the average length of an elevator ride in New York City - a whopping 118 seconds. (For all you non-New Yorkers, Wikipedia pegs the typical elevator ride at between 30 seconds and two minutes.) Most people would agree that you do not have anywhere close to two minutes to make your case. You probably don't even have 30 seconds. In fact, research indicates that in this age of shrinking attention

  Award-winning business coach, entrepreneur and mentor Julie Gordon White is founder of The WELL, a coaching and training company that helps women build and then sell their business for big bucks. Julie knows first-hand the kind of strategic thinking and decision-making that helps entrepreneurs grow a business into a successful, appealing, sustainable brand (she’s done it herself, several times over!). Here, Julie shares her insights about the importance of authenticity, why small business owners should pay attention to what millennial consumers want and why she recommends never naming a business after yourself (apologies, Oprah!).   Julie, your personality/persona is very much a part of your brand identity. How do you align who you are with the services you offer?   All companies can benefit from the founder having a visible personal brand in addition to the company. We live in a transparent world, and knowing who is behind the brand and what they stand for is

  Thumbs up if you’d “like” to get more social media engagement! The crew at Bad Rhino, a media marketing agency* that works with small businesses like yours, shares some of their hottest tips for reaching your target market (and beyond!). Try them out and let us know how it goes! 1. Always use images. Posts with images receive more than twice as much engagement than those without. Keep a folder of professional-quality pix ready to post, or use stock photography if you don’t have a visual product (looking at you, accountants). Funny gifs or memes generate lots of looks, and user-generated pix are a great option, too -- just be sure to credit the original poster (see #9 below).   2. Hashtag it up. Using 15-20 relevant hashtags per Instagram/Twitter post is ideal. Stumped for ideas? Let’s say you’re a honey vendor at a farmers market in Seattle. You might use #honey #local #seattle #market #markets #bee #food and so on. Check out RiteTag for popular tag suggestions if you nee

  You have questions about running a small business, and our QB Community members have answers! Everyone here knows the importance of building meaningful member-to-member relationships, and there’s no better way to learn, discover and get inspired as an entrepreneur. Best of all? When members share what they know, everyone benefits. Check out this recent QB Community conversation, and you’ll see what we mean!   @Flyer asked: “Hi all, I recently got laid off for the first time and was offered a 6-month gig that will be paid via 1099. All I have done is open a business bank account after creating a LLC (Sole Proprietor). I need to figure out what type of software to use, and I also would appreciate some general advice. With a dedicated bank account and a LLC, I will keep business income and expenses separate and hopefully take advantage of all the deductions I can get. Thanks for the help and advice!!”   @Peter_G_Stone answered: “I would suggest QBO Essentials. You can in

  Baubles, baubles everywhere! The QuickBooks Community is proud to have many talented jewelry designers among our members. Here, ten of them share how they got their businesses up and running.     Elisha & Andreas Argentinis of Metal Pressions: Andreas says, “My wife was making jewelry and selling a few pieces on Etsy alongside her full-time job. She’d wanted me to get involved with the business early on, but I never had the time. But in 2008 after the economic crash, I started to look at what she was doing and saw massive room for growth.”   “There are thousands of custom jewelry makers on Etsy, so I knew that if we were going to turn this into a really successful business, we’d need to differentiate ourselves. No one else was offering full customization at the time, so it was this point of difference that convinced me it was a good business idea to run with. Everyone said we were crazy — I’d worked in web development and marketing and my wife was in pharmac

  How is summer already coming to an end? Like it or not, this weekend we say goodbye to August and hello to September. Before that happens, let’s revisit our top ten most popular articles this month when we focused on marketing and branding. 10. Why Balloon Artist Veronica Champion Believes In Marketing Basics - Veronica tells us what she loves most about being a balloon artist and what she finds most challenging – besides learning how to tie a balloon. 9. Julie Gordon White: 5 Hot Tips on Turning a Business Into a Brand Worth Big Bucks - Five tips for getting your brand-building off to a great start with smart tactical decisions about everything from what to name your business to how to market it on social media. 8. 5 Common Small Biz Marketing Mistakes & How to Avoid Them - We identify the top five marketing mistakes that brand new businesses commonly make so you can avoid them. 7. Startup Snag: My All-In-One Website/ Marketing Package Wasn’t a D

  Let’s meet seven entrepreneurs who create and sell pottery that is both beautiful and functional for everyday use. They tell us how they took their art form and turned it into a business.     Bridget Dorr of Bridget Dorr Ceramics: “I studied Art Therapy in college and hoped to use it to help heal people in my community. I worked with adults with disabilities for several years, but found that I was missing something from my life: I needed to express myself. Clay and ceramics were always my passion in school, so I began making small pieces here and there for enjoyment. Once day I decided to put them on Etsy, and slowly started selling my work.” “My first customer was from Ireland. I made a very simple set of ceramic cups and the customer managed to find my shop and buy them. At the time, I didn't think anyone would purchase my pieces. They were very underpriced. On that order, the shipping was more than what I made from the items, but the feeling was exhilarating!” &nb

Hi,I did read the discussion here: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/Do-more-with-QuickBooks/Starting-a-new-accounting-business/m-p/141381#M1295  The catch with the responses in that thread are that they indicate that the choice of software 'depends on your client base'.  Now here is the thing:  I am a CPA, CMA in Ontario, Canada.  I want to set up my own practice mostly to provide tax services, but I would also offer bookkeeping services - in fact I would prefer to keep the books for business clients so the tax filings are easier.  My target market is sole proprietorships, individuals with rental properties and CCPCs with a small number of employees.  There are many articles about administrative tasks - registering a business name, obtaining liability insurance, registering for HST, filing articles of incorporation, and so on.   What about the actual DOING, when you don't have a client base yet?  What is the chicke

  Handbags, belts, guitar straps and bow ties -- these six entrepreneurs took their small accessories business into the big world of retail. Here, they tell us how they got their businesses started.     Sara Rossi of Beau & Ro, a handbag company: “I don’t have a design background, but I live in the Garment District of New York City, so I have easy access to amazing materials and manufacturers. This really helped me when I was putting pen to paper in the beginning because it showed me what my options were. When I had my first samples made, I hosted a launch party for friends and family. Everyone there bought one of the sample bags. I launched online on the same day, and got my first orders just a few days after.”   “I’m opening a 1,800-square-foot store in Nantucket this year with two other women who run their own companies, Milicent Armstrong of Artemis Design Co and Taylor Ivey from Ellsworth & Ivey, which I never thought I’d be able to do!”   Read

  You’ve launched your business, built a strong customer base and have some rave reviews on social media platforms. You’re bringing in a steady stream of revenue, too. With all your tireless work paying off, it might be time to ask yourself this question: Am I building a business or a brand?   Of course, you can’t answer that question without first understanding the difference. Broadly speaking, when we think of a business, we’re thinking about any company or organization that sells products or services. Maybe it’s your local taqueria, your go-to financial advisor or your favorite shoe store. These businesses survive and thrive because you love their burritos, accounting smarts or comfy flats.   A brand, on the other hand, does more than just meet the functional needs of its customers and clients. It consciously creates a strong emotional association that goes beyond its goods or services. Lego, for example, represents far more than just colorful building blocks. The b

I just launched a Kickstarter campaign for my brand, Just Madras. I am looking for any tips of the trade so that I can reach my goal!

Should Public Relations expenses be an advertising and promotion expense or professional expense?

      What is DSO   Daily sales outstanding or DSO is the number of days it takes a business on an average to get paid after it raises an invoice. To understand this better, consider a business with 100 customers. If all the 100 customers pay the invoices raised by the business in exactly 45 days every time throughout the year the DSO value for that business will be 45 days   How is DSO calculated ?    DSO is calculated by dividing the value of receivables by the average sales per day       What is a good DSO value   Usually companies have DSO values around 30 or less. This value again depends upon the industry you operate in