Books / Build and Grow Your Small Business Consulting Firm
Build and Grow Your Small Business Consulting Firm
by Steve Kennedy
The practical path from "I could help them" to a firm with clients, rates, contracts and a calendar.
You have spent years inside a business: running its operations, keeping its books, selling, hiring and managing its people. Owners around you keep asking for help, and you could give it. This book turns that experience into a firm. Over twelve chapters you choose one lane, set up the business in a week, check which services need a license before you sell them, price the work so it pays, find your first three clients among people who already trust you, write a proposal that gets signed, deliver it so the client keeps the result, and plan your first ninety days. One invented consultant, Marisol Talbridge of Sacramento, California, goes through every step with real-feeling numbers, and every chapter ends with a worksheet, so by the last page you have a plan of your own rather than an idea.
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Twelve chapters, twelve worksheets
Build · Chapters 1 to 7
- Chapter 1Why small businesses hire consultants, and why now
- Chapter 2Choose your lane
- Chapter 3Set up the firm
- Chapter 4What needs a license, and what does not
- Chapter 5Price it
- Chapter 6Your first three clients
- Chapter 7Discovery to proposal
Deliver · Chapters 8 and 9
- Chapter 8Deliver the engagement
- Chapter 9Run the firm on one platform
Grow · Chapters 10 to 12
- Chapter 10Grow
- Chapter 11Ethics, confidentiality and data
- Chapter 12The first ninety days
Back of the book
- WorksheetsAll twelve, collected
- GlossaryThe terms, in plain words
- AppendixThe license gate: what each service needs, and the states that register paid tax return preparers
A sample: how Chapter 1 begins
Chapter 1: Why small businesses hire consultants, and why now. The point.
Small business owners pay for outside help for four reasons. They need a skill nobody inside has. They are entering a season they cannot staff. They need an outside voice that someone important will listen to. And they are afraid of something, most often cash they cannot see.
The person who decides is the owner. The person who decides alone is rare. There is usually a second person in the room or on the phone: a spouse who co-signed the loan, a business partner, the office manager who has run the books for nine years, or the banker who wants a better set of numbers before renewing the line. Each of them hears your offer differently. The owner wants the problem gone. The spouse wants to know it will not cost the house. The office manager wants to know you are not there to replace her. The banker wants a statement he can put in the file. Sell to all four or you will sell to none.
What comes with the book
- Twelve worksheets, one per chapter, collected at the back: your lane, your rate card, your first thirty names, your proposal and your ninety-day calendar.
- A one-page proposal under seven headings, and the engagement letter it leads to.
- The license gates in plain words: tax preparation and IRS representation, audits and compilations, legal documents, investment advice, investors, insurance, loans, selling a business and background checks.
- The license gate appendix: what you may do without a license and what needs one, service by service, with the federal rule and California as the example, plus the states that register paid tax return preparers, each read from the agency's own pages on November 7, 2026.
- General information, not legal, tax or accounting advice. Confirm every rule with the agency that sets it.
What readers say
Free for signed Consultant Partners
Consultants who join the Consultant Partner Program get this book free. See the program at https://www.allinoneforprofit.com/partners/.
About the author
Steve Kennedy is the founder of All In One For Profit and All In One Nonprofit. He built the platform for the owners who do the work all day and the paperwork at night, and for the consultants who help them. More about Steve
More books
The First 90 Days series, six short books for the owners you will serve, and Tips for the Day: https://www.allinoneforprofit.com/books/
Consulting for nonprofits too? The nonprofit edition follows the same method for consultants who serve nonprofits: https://www.allinoneforprofit.com/books/build-and-grow-nonprofit-consultant-firm/