Advisor Spotlight	Mario Nowogrodzki
CPA.CITP, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor® Certified QuickBooks POS ProAdvisor Certified QuickBooks Advanced ProAdvisor QuickBooks POS Solution Provider QuickBooks Enterprise Solution Provider Member, Intuit Accountants Speaker Bureau
	Over the last few years, Florida-based Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor Mario Nowogrodzki has added over 30 clients using QuickBooks® Enterprise Solutions. We interviewed him to learn why and how he uses QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions to recast his business to serve the mid-market.

Why QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions? Mario started off slowly, adding some Enterprise Solutions clients to his existing mix and made a discovery that led him to pursue these clients more actively. “I realized that Enterprise Solutions clients tend to be a higher level client. Typically they need and want consulting work, they appreciate its value, and they are willing to pay for it,” he says.

Client Profile. To an existing base of clients using QuickBooks: Pro and Premier, Mario has added over 30 QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions clients over the last few years. At least two out of three of these Enterprise clients are new to QuickBooks and switched to QuickBooks because of Mario's record with his existing client base, he says. “In some cases we also sold them the software and others the client purchased the software. About a fourth involved implementations only. The rest remain active clients.”

One high profile client is Shula Steak Houses.

Consulting, Not Accounting. “My background is in computers,” he says. “I am a CPA by degree but my firm is a software and consulting business with no accounting, and I do not do taxes. It's a nontraditional firm. We're really a consulting company.”

Staffing. Mario and his wife work for the company full time in addition to four full-time staff and part-time or associate helpers he can turn to as needed. On the QuickBooks side of the practice, there are two full-time senior consultants and one part-time consultant about to move to full-time status. For the IT side of his business, there are two consultants and a network of contractors used as needed.

Conversions. Mario has converted clients to Enterprise Solutions from packages from commercial enterprise-level accounting packages to home-made UNIX systems. “We have never come across a client where we could not accomplish what we set out to do,” he says.

Early Days with Enterprise Solutions. “I started with 2.0,” Mario recalls. “The client had QuickBooks: Pro and needed to grow. Since he had more than five users, we went to Enterprise. This is a very good platform to promote because it works just like the QuickBooks we know and love but is more powerful,” he says. “So my mindset has been with anyone growing out of QuickBooks to put them in Enterprise Solutions.”

History. Mario founded Mendelson Consulting 15 years ago in January 1992. “At first we did software consulting for various accounting packages of the day,” Mario says. “By 1999 we were entrenched with QuickBooks.”

By the end of 2002 he was a QuickBooks ProAdvisor and was soon certified. He certified in QuickBooks Point of Sale as soon as it came out. “The more I became entrenched with QuickBooks, the more expertise I had to share with my clients,” he says.

He was invited to join the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Provider Program as soon as it was announced. (Under the program, Intuit taps a limited number of key practitioners who have demonstrated success with Enterprise Solutions.)

How Does He Get New Clients? Mario says he doesn't quite know the answer. “The Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor Referral Website and the certifications provide visibility. I can advertise openly and I include my certifications and program memberships in my ProAdvisor profile,” he says. “And there are what I call reverse leads — these prospects did not call Intuit. They went to the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions website and I'm the local person in the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Provider Program — with many leads all since last June.”

Day to Day. “I also push the product but not in a sales way. If I have a client who needs four users, I automatically think QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. The client buys and gets a higher end system with twelve-month upgrade protection. That, the unlimited software support from QuickBooks Enterprise specialists, and the articulation of user rights are all great selling points.”