Twenty Great Tools To Start A Consulting Business

With companies pushing their employees off the plank into the sea of financial and professional uncertainty, one of the best options to take control of one’s career is to start a consulting practice.  Starting a consulting practice is a good way to get back your self-esteem, which is usually very low after being left adrift, and a good way to generate revenue.

I can speak from experience.  One of the companies I ran was bought by another company and I had no immediate options.  I always hated interviewing and preferred to have more control over my life.

Now is a good time to start your own business because companies still need professionals with a variety of skills, but can’t afford to hire full-time people.  You don’t need many tools to start your own practice, especially with software, the Internet, hardware and online services available.  Here are the essentials:

Microsoft Office 2007: You can store your contacts, send your e-mails, make presentations, design Web sites, create newsletters, create financial spreadsheets and send Word documents.

QuickBooks or Peachtree First Accounting: You need to keep track of your income and expenses.  Both products are very good.  I prefer Peachtree because I find it more intuitive, which is ironic since the maker of QuickBooks is called Intuit.  For those not comfortable with accounting software, you can easily do the same functions by using Microsoft Excel.

Tax Planning: Here, Intuit’s Turbo Tax for Home and Business is the best product on the market.  Intuit totally nailed it with this product.  It is the easiest piece of software I have ever used and I can’t believe how they can improve it each year.  You can do your federal and state taxes using this software.  If you use QuickBooks, you can download your information directly into Turbo Tax. The software also allows you to plan for the following year’s taxes.

Marketing Material: There is a variety of inexpensive software packages such as Business Card Designs and MyBusiness Cards.  The software typically costs less than $30 and usually comes with business card, brochure and other types of templates.  You can also go online and get up to 200 free business cards with basic designs from www.freebusinesscardprinter

Business Plan: You have to develop a road map for your business.  There are a few products you should look at, such as Business Plan Pro and Bplans.com.

PDF Converter: If you are e-mailing contracts and other documents you don’t want altered, you want to purchase something like Nuance’s PDF Converter 5 Professional.

Tracking Receipts

Business Cards: There is no question: The best product on the market is NeatDesk by The Neat Company, a Philadelphia-based entrepreneurial company. This product is a digital filing system that allows you to scan receipts, business cards and documents.  The device takes up a small amount of space on your desk and connects with QuickBooks, Turbo Tax and Excel.  This is really a must-have product because of the diversity of tactics it performs.

Traditional Telephone: The best buy for the money is Vonage.  You get unlimited calls nationally and to some countries abroad for less than $30 a month.  One of the things I like about Vonage is that it forwards my calls to my e-mail, which allows me to listen to the calls on my computer and my BlackBerry.  You can try to use Skype, but I have still found it to be inconsistent and not appropriate for business use.

Mobile Phone: Everyone has a mobile phone, but as a business tool, I still prefer the BlackBerry, which allows you to collect and send e-mail.  This falls under the category of invaluable.  I once was in a remote part of Panama and a client had a problem, and I could respond by e-mail through my BlackBerry.

Laptop: I have fallen in love with my Acer Aspire One, which is a mini-laptop that weighs less than 3 lbs and has a 1 gig of Ram and 130 gigs of hard drive.

Printer/Scanner/Fax: There are a variety of good products made by Brother, Lexmark, and Hewlett-Packard.  Any of them will do the job.  As much as we prefer not to print things out, we still need to do it when we are making presentations and providing written documents that need to be shared.

Legal Software: Get an attorney to develop your initial contracts, but if you are looking to save money, use software such as MyAttorney Home and Business by Avanquest.  There are a variety of templates that you can customize for your needs.

Binding Machine: Any business store carries a binding machine, which you need for proposals and other documents with lots of pages.

E-mail Newsletter: You need to stay in contact with prospects, clients and referral sources by sending newsletters, press releases and invitations.  The two most cost-effective services are Constant Contact and IContact.

Linked-In: There practically isn’t a business person that isn’t using www.linkedin.com to make business contacts.  I get at least one request a week to join someone’s network.

Web Site: A low-cost way to develop your own Web site and host it inexpensively is through services such as 1and1.com; but if you are looking to have someone develop a site for you, put in your request for proposal using Craigslist and watch the responses pile up.

YouTube: A good way to demonstrate your knowledge for free — you take a video camera and have someone film you for one to three minutes providing advice on your expertise.

Blog: You can set up a free blog to demonstrate your expertise by going to

www.blogger.com

Bank Account: Practically every bank provides online banking.  That said, I would suggest using a small bank that will give you more personal service and whose branch managers may be able to make introductions to potential clients.

Credit Card: If you can get a credit card, I would recommend the American Express Plum Card.  Every card comes with points, but not every card can get you an easy cash advance abroad, which I found out the hard way in Italy.

This is a great time to start a consulting practice, which will make you feel better about yourself and more secure.

Start A Recession-Proof Business

It’s no secret that the economy is in trouble. Professionals debate daily as to whether we are in a financial recession, or whether we are just headed in that direction. All of a sudden, we feel insecure about our jobs, our savings, and even our retirements. With so many businesses failing, it’s hard to imagine that starting a business
of your own would be a good idea. The fact is, there has never been a better time to start your own recession proof business at home.

How Can A Business Be Recession Proof?

One characteristic of a recession-proof business is that it provides a product or service that will not go out of demand. Certainly, plenty of people are having to make sacrifices on how much they spend not only on the “extras”, but also on the necessities. Finances for many of us have taught us to set up priorities on how we use our money. That means giving up unnecessary purchases but not the things we need in order to survive. If you provide a necessary product or service, you will have a recession-proof business.

It also depends on your target group for which you provide you product or service. Not everyone is in the market for the same things at the same time. Everyone’s finances aren’t affected in the same way and by having the right target group, you can recession-proof your business.

Some Advantages to Having a Home-Based Recession-Proof Business

Flexibility is always one of the most attractive features to any home-based business. For parents of young children, this could mean not having to pay for child care while getting to spend more time with your children. If a student has classes and needs to work around them, a home-based business will let them work around their own schedule without worrying about someone else’s priorities. Whatever you need to find time for, a home-based business will give you the freedom to spend your time where you need to spend it. A home-based recession-proof business will not only provide flexibility of your time, but will also provide you with financial security.

Another advantage to having a home-based recession-proof business is that you will never have to pay for the gas to drive back and forth to the office again. Many people commute long distances for their jobs and over the last couple of years, this has gotten to be a financial burden for many. When you work at home, there’s no fuel used, no wear and tear on a vehicle, and you don’t even have to go out to eat lunch!

Of course, one of the biggest advantages you will have from starting your own home-based recession proof business is not having a boss to answer to. You don’t have to worry when the economy worsens that you will go into the office one morning to have your boss tell you that he is “letting you go”. A recession-proof business is one that will give you the security to make your own decisions and to benefit from your efforts.