Sales and Marketing

Intuit recently announced that more than 6,000 small businesses and midsized companies have switched to its QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions from more complex solutions.These customers are part of the 38,000 who have already selected the software to help run their businesses.

Independently-owned Los Angeles firm RBZ LLP has named three partners to share the firm’s managing partner position.

J.H. Cohn LLP has announced firm revenues of $175.2 million for its 2007 fiscal year, up 22 percent from the same period a year ago.

I believe there are two keys to success, whether a sole practitioner or a regional firm. They are simple when you say them, but that simplicity can be deceiving. The two are providing quality service, and establishing a reputation for doing so and continuing to do so.

I am a loyal Jet Blue flyer, a.k.a. customer. I got the below e-mail from, I believe, David Neeleman, president of Jet Blue. I wasn’t on any of the delayed flights but I sent him a response. It read, “That's okay, and I hope David gets this message.”

Donald Korb, chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, is getting a ton of good press these days for his efforts to get the agency into the game of recruiting young tax attorney talent.It’s a rare week that goes by in my office that either I don’t have a direct conversation with a practitioner, or I don’t overhear talk from the editors and writers for our sister publications revolving around the ongoing quest of just about every accounting firm to attract and retain workers. So it’s probably by nature of the even smaller pool of candidates that the competition for tax attorneys isn’t the stuff of surveys and opinion polls.

When I was very young, I discovered I was different from most other kids. It is probably because my two brothers and I didn’t have a “normal childhood,” most of our skills and abilities were self taught. That probably explains why I read so many personal self-help books, and have branched out into business books such as, "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Freidman, which I have repeatedly tried to finish, but failed.Thank goodness the mention of Gary Boomer in the book was on page 14. Each time I started another section in that book, I felt like that television character, Marie Barone, who lamented every month when a dozen Florida grapefruits or Bartlett pears came from a fruit of the month club gift.

California’s Pohl, McNabola, Berg & Co. announced that it has merged with Texas firm Helin, Donovan, Trubee & Wilkinson LLP in a deal effective Jan. 1.The combined firm, which will operate under the name PMB Helin Donovan LLP, will have a dozen partners and approximately 65 total staff in the two states.

Somewhere in my parents’ attic, there resides a copy of Vanilla Ice’s debut album, “To the Extreme.”

Most readers of my column are entering their busy season. So many might not read all my columns in the next 10 weeks, and some will not read one until April 17. So those readers won’t miss anything, I have a Cliff’s Notes-type summary -- (the title and a sentence) of 10 possible columns.