About Jennifer

A story of my bookkeeping business, my fascination with the Internet, and my desire to help people.

I started my degree at UCSB after graduating from high school. But I never finished! I came home from the university after two years. The problem was that I changed majors several times because so many things sounded interesting! I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up and I couldn't pick one thing out of the many choices.

A couple years later I got married, then I started taking some accounting courses again and realized that I didn't need a degree to start a bookkeeping business. (You might not have known that, but it's true.)

My kids were young and they needed me at home, so I started my little bookkeeping service in 1992 by sending letters to potential clients, where I introduced myself with a business card and an opportunity for a free consultation. I picked up a lot of clients this way, and I felt good about working part time at home to help my family. I finally had some focus!

This was well before the Internet, and also at the very dawn of accounting software. I did my clients' books and financial statements on paper journals and ledgers, balancing everything by hand with a ten-key! This went on for a couple years, until I found an inexpensive shareware program called Medlin Accounting Shareware. This little program served me quite well for a long time.

QuickBooks was slowly making headway in the market. At this time there was a LOT of resentment in the accounting industry over Intuit's marketing practices, of marketing directly to business owners rather than to accounting professionals. I was one of those who felt that resentment, at least initially. (Looking back, I have to say that Intuit's marketing has helped my business, by a LOT.)

As the kids grew and reached Kindergarten age, we decided to homeschool them. So I worked part time in my business, homeschooled my kids, took care of the house, cleaned, cooked, did laundry... all that stuff.

At some point it became far too much to handle, and I decided to let the clients go so I could dedicate my time to being with the kids. It was a hard decision and I felt bad for my clients, but I didn't feel that I had another choice.

I did this for several years. But the kids grew, and homeschooling got harder and harder as they got older. So I decided to put them in school and start the bookkeeping service again.

Wow how things had changed in that short time! QuickBooks had grown and taken over most of the accounting software market. I knew right away that I had to get up to speed, quickly, in order to be competitive. So I bought the program, worked through some of the mock companies that came with it, then became certified.

Remember how I said that I did my clients' books and financial statements by hand on paper journals and ledgers? I was SO GLAD for this. It proved to be an excellent foundation for learning the software. I mastered QuickBooks in a short period of time due to this experience.

All during that time of homeschooling, the Internet went from nobody-ever-heard-of-it, to something that more and more people were becoming aware of.

Because I'm an information junkie, I was the first person I knew who got online regularly and participated in forums. I was an active participant in the homeschooling community at AOL during this time. I also did some work for Mary Pride and her magazine, Practical Homeschooling, where I wrote articles for her.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of sharing information over the Internet. I can still remember the first time I really "got" how powerful the Internet can be.

It was about the year 2000 or so. My (now ex) husband was in the middle of building a ramp from our backyard to our deck. He's extremely handy, and often begins a project without really knowing how he's going to finish it.

So he's in the middle of building this ramp, and realizes that it needs to make a turn - but also realizes that he doesn't know how to construct the turn. He's already consulted his handy-man books and can't find any help in them. Hmmmm.... what to do?

He shows me his dilemma, and I think to myself:

"I wonder if I can find some directions on the Internet for building turns in ramps?"

I go inside to my computer, and use my favorite search engine at that time, which was Alta Vista. Typing in some ramp-related keywords....

Not only did I find instructions, but photographs! Now that was very cool. Remember, we're talking 2000.... this kind of thing was completely new and most people did not use the Internet much like they do now.

He walks in, annoyed that I left him outside. He didn't realize yet what I had found.

"Look! I found some pictures for you on the Internet!"

He stands there looking at them... and because he's so handy he doesn't even read the instructions. "Wow, that's it! I can do that!" He was so excited. And out he went to finish his project.

Here's a small picture so you can see the turn...it's a little tough to see, but it's the pie shaped piece in the middle of the ramp. It is a piece that is parallel to the ground, and connects the lower part of the ramp (on the right) with the upper part of the ramp (on the left).

I'm sure he would have figured it out eventually, by talking to friends or co-workers.... but I found him that bit of information in about three minutes using the Internet.

I was so inspired by finding those photos! And felt a lot of gratitude to the person who posted them. I then knew that I wanted to share information too, so that other people could quickly and easily find what they needed.

So I slowly started looking into building a website. Over time I found that there were a lot of choices.

I downloaded a lot of so-called "easy to use" website design tools.... we're talking Yahoo, 1&1, godaddy, FrontPage, etc.

I do not know who those people are kidding! Those tools are NOT easy to use for complete beginners like me.

I probably wasted more than 100 hours trying to design my own website using those tools. All that wasted time was like money out the window - very frustrating! My webpages looked so amateurish, there was no way I was going to put them up live for the world to see.

So I kept looking, and waiting, and looking, and waiting....

When I first heard about Site Build It, I was skeptical. I didn't know anybody who used it, never had heard of them before, and didn't really believe the claims of how much easier and more effective it is for building a content-based website that will create business success.

Plus... they're located in foreign country called CANADA. And I never considered myself a prejudiced person but I am embarrassed to admit that I am! I honestly wondered if Site Build It really be that good not coming from the good 'ol USA. Ugh. Old habits die hard.

But I kept running across Site Build It, again and again, as I continued searching. And the more I searched, the more I realized that SBI was probably going to be a good fit for me.

I took the plunge in December 2007 and purchased Site Build It. I am so glad I did and I have NEVER regretted the decision. In less than two years I have achieved the following:

1. My site is listed on the first page for the search terms, "QuickBooks help." It's highly ranked for many, many other accounting related keywords because there are over 250 pages of unique instructions about QuickBooks here at the site... and I wrote them all myself (except one!).

2. In 2009 I launched the super popular Get More from QuickBooks series of eBooks.

3. I currently have 7-8K unique visitors per month and the trajectory points to 10K plus next tax season (2011). I am really proud of this accomplishment because the traffic is 100% organic with zero dollars spent on advertising.

4. Currently 1700+ subscribers to my electronic newsletter.

SBI did not do this for me. They provided the tools and instructions for building the website. I took my QuickBooks and bookkeeping knowledge and applied it according to their website building instructions.

So now that my dream of a successful website and bookkeeping service is realized, I have decided to finish something I started years ago as an idealistic teenager who just didn't know what she wanted to be when she grew up. I'm going back to college to finish my degree, and I have finally picked a major: Accounting! I'll be working on it in the evenings and on weekends, so if you need help with QuickBooks I would still love to hear from you. Click here to contact me now. I offer the best bookkeeping you will find, guaranteed.

Thanks for reading my little story.

Curious about SBI? Learn more here.

Contact me for bookkeeping or QuickBooks help