Looking for a book or manual (detailed) on "How to Run a Consulting
Firm" ... soup to nuts, including: financial charting and
spreadsheets, branding, sales and marketing, operations, alliances and
partnerships, funding, strategic planning, information technology and
it uses, etc.

Tinker,

Good luck in your consulting enterprise.  To start out, I would
recommend the Entrepreneur.com site's Consulting section at:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/Your_Business/YB_SegArticle/0,4621,290184----1-,00.html

It has an excellent section on "Things To Consider Before You Become A
Consultant", including discussions of:

Top 20 Consulting Businesses Thriving Today
Why an Organization Wants to Hire You
Location and Employees
Income & Billing
Marketing: Brochure Basics,Cold Calling, Advertising, Newsletters,
Public Speaking, Referrals

A final section on "Resources" will also steer you to books and
newsletters on starting your own consulting business ... if you tell
me more about what type of business you have in mind, I can suggest
particular sources.  Otherwise, look over the list to see what suits
you best.

I'd also suggest checking out About.com's small business/consulting
advise page at:

http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/consulting/index.htm?terms=Business+Consulting

which includes such helpful advice as "Ten Steps to Organizing Your
Office", "What Do Consultants Actually Do?" and "How to start getting
paid what you're worth".

While you're surfing, check out the federal government's very useful
Small Business Administration site at:
http://www.sba.gov/starting/indexstartup.html

While not specific to consulting, they are an excellent reference to
all aspects of running a small or home-based business.

If you let me know more specifics about what you have in mind
(particularly type of business and number of people) I can probably
give you some more focused follow up information.

And again, best of luck.

---

Clarification of Answer by davidsar-ga on 07 Jun 2002 09:56 PDT

P.S.  I hope I didn't misconstrue your question by assuming you're
looking at a startup business.  If you've "inherited" an existing
enterprise, I'd probably focus on some different sources then the ones
I listed.  Let me know.