Success Story: Sherrington Financial Fitness, Paso Robles

Three years ago, Sherry Herrington found herself out of work, in the middle of a divorce, and sole provider for her pre-teen son. When she came to MCSC Counselor Sallie Hoge and said she wanted to start a QuickBooks bookkeeping and payroll services company, it seemed as if she were setting herself up for failure. She wasn’t even QuickBooks certified! But Sherry had the drive, work ethic and natural abilities in bookkeeping. Even more, she believed in herself. And she had incentive; after all, who else was going to pay the rent? She had no choice but to start making money from the get-go.

Sallie and Sherry met weekly for several months while Sherry worked on becoming a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. The meetings were what Sherry needed to keep accountable for her action plan. Sallie helped with the business plan, laying out the steps to getting the proper licenses, and was a sounding board for Sherry’s ideas about business name, logo, client contracts, and business development plans.

Sherry didn’t wait for the work to come to her. She pounded the pavement and networked with previous employers and co-workers. It wasn’t long before Sherry was working nearly full time as a QuickBooks consultant and trainer for one company. The money was good but Sherry knew that she shouldn’t be putting all her eggs in one basket; she was depending on one client for all her income. It was a tough decision but she started pulling back from the client and developing new leads and sources of income.

As is the case with many business owners, Sherry struggled with the decision of when to hire, and worried that her income was not steady enough to support both her and someone else. But the decision to hire an assistant to do the simpler QuickBooks and payroll work paid off, since Sherry could then focus on being out in the field doing high-value QuickBooks projects and growing her business. One employee turned into another, then another so that after three years, Sherry employs three part-time people.

Sherry grew up in Morro Bay and currently resides in Paso Robles with her son. Sherrington Financial Fitness’s area of expertise is QuickBooks, including: set-up, clean-up, training, ongoing maintenance, and payroll. During the last three years, Sherry has periodically used Sallie as a sounding board when deciding staff delineation of duties, increasing fees and rates, and revising client contracts and marketing materials. Sherry’s favorite part of being self-employed is creating a company in her own vision. And she said that if she had to do it all over, she would absolutely use MCSC again, “I wouldn’t have succeeded without Sallie’s and MCSC’s help and guidance.”