How To Become An Independent Consultant

Today more than ever before, every single one of us has more options, has more choice, right? It's like, are the buyers that buy consulting services or expert services, they are overwhelmed with people reaching out to them, you know, trying to promote all kinds of different stuff. And so in order for you to have a message that can get the attention and interest of your ideal clients, you need to speak directly to that ideal client.

Hello and welcome. Today we've got a great interview with a legend in the consulting space, Michael Siversky. I've known him for a good number of years. He's a longtime supporter of the work that we do at Systemology and most importantly, he's a systems guy. So he's the co founder with his brother Sam of a company called Consulting Success. And for the past 20 years, they've been helping thousands of clients build more impactful businesses, more profitable and have more flexible consulting businesses. He's pretty much like the consultants consultant, having worked worldwide in over 75 different industries. He's a speaker, author, podcaster all round, nice guy. And oftentimes I get inquiries from our clients looking to transition out of the work that they're doing, their current job to become a client. They're just getting started. And I say, look, you got to listen to what Michael says. Michael knows his stuff inside and out and this is what he does. So I thought it'd be a great idea to have a call with him, especially for those just thinking about starting a consulting business. We oftentimes get inquiries from people who want to become a systemologist and they're not quite ready to become one, or even some of our systemologists who want to take things through to the next level. So I thought, how about we record this episode and next time I get that inquiry I can just say, hey, listen to this episode with Michael and then go check out his website. So firstly, without further ado, wanted to welcome you to the call, Michael.

Hey, David, thanks for having me. I got to correct one thing. So Sam is my cousin, not my brother, but we are like brothers and our fathers are actually twins, so we're essentially brothers. But he's, he's my cousin and I love him, so.

Ah, very good. I love a good family business. So probably my first question, just to kind of set the stage a little bit, there's been a huge shake up in the consulting space and I'd love it if you could just share some of the insights, what opportunities that you currently see on the horizon for consultants?

It's continues to be a growing industry. What we've all experienced over the last few years has accelerated the opportunity for those that have deep expertise. So as long as you have a level of experience and expertise where you feel confident and ideally you've demonstrated that you can deliver results and value and outcome for an organization or for a person, then you have the potential to become a very successful consultant. If we go back in time a little bit, many organizations thought that they needed to have people in house, under one roof. And as we all kind of went through this whole experience called Covid, or as I referred to it sometimes the Covidian times, you know, here we are on the other side and organizations have kind of woken up to the idea that, you know what, we actually can not only run our businesses or our organizations, we can actually grow and thrive by tapping into global talent, tapping into people that have the expertise that we need and they can be anywhere in the world, it doesn't really matter. And in many cases, this actually ends up being beneficial to that organization because the cost of bringing on a consultant will be significantly less to the organization than hiring a full time employee with the cost of, you know, finding them and hiring them and doing the salary and the bonuses and the healthcare and all that kind of stuff. So it ends up actually becoming a really great proposition for many organizations. And so we've witnessed a real acceleration in the demand for external advisors and consultants. And so the industry really is continuing to grow with a lot of opportunity for people all around the world, in many different industries who have expertise.

I definitely think for business owners it can be a shortcut. If you've got a particular problem, getting a consultant who has already seen the solution, as in they might have seen it in another business or deployed it, to have them come into your business and then solve that problem straight away. And then as a business owner, you don't have to think about the commitment of having an ongoing employee. You just get the consultant to solve the problem. And when you pair that with some systems thinking and you effectively document or you systematize what the consultant is doing so that it can be delegated on. And I think you know that that's a big reason I love your work as well. Because you're a systems guy and you think that and you teach that through to your consultants as well. Because the work needs to live beyond the consultant. The consultant goes in and does the work. But then you want that obviously to have some lasting change with regards to, like how a consultant gets started. Like some of the first questions they think about is what is My business model going to look like, how am I going to kind of get myself out? Do you have some insights into great business models for consultants?

Yeah, there's really three. I often say three and a half, but it's more like four different models that are commonplace in the consulting world. You know, you have the solo independent consultant, you have the firm owner, you then also have the productized kind of consulting business. And then the fourth, which is why I say three and a half, is the hybrid, which essentially you take elements of one to three and you combine them together. Now, that's the different business models that have been proven time after time, decade after decade, inside of the consulting world. But I think the big thing and the most important thing that we always counsel our clients on is what we refer to as kind of this business lifestyle triangle that in many cases, when people start their businesses, and we've seen this even with people that have been in business for many years or a decade plus, they've set up their business so that if you thought about a triangle, the business is at the apex, at the top of the triangle, and they put their lifestyle underneath it, which means that their lifestyle has to take the brunt or the weight of the business. And so they often have to make sacrifices inside of their lifestyle. And that might be relationships, time with their kids, loved ones, elderly parents, their own health, you know, so they're making these sacrifices, and really what they've done is create another job for themselves. And we're very big believers that it should be flipped to the opposite, where you put your lifestyle at the top. You get very clear about, you know, what is meaningful for you, what is fulfilling for you, how do you want to spend your time. And then once you're clear on that, then through a process of having a conversation and kind of looking at which is going to be the right business model that will help to. To achieve that level of success for you so that your business is the one that, again, supports the lifestyle, not the other way around. And, you know, we work with consultants, some who are very successful, solo independent consultants, and they want to remain that way. For others. They're very clear that, no, I want to build a bigger business, saying that it goes beyond me. I want to employ people or work with a bigger team because I want to make a bigger impact. And others really want to master one thing. They don't want to just. They don't want to do custom consulting. They don't want to have a new project every time that has tons of new variables. They essentially Want to get good at one thing or a few things and master those and build systems around them. And that's where kind of the productized consulting services comes in. And others will take little elements of each and combine that together to create something that really works for them. So that I think is really the opportunity for a consultant, it's really the opportunity for every entrepreneur is to realize that the limiting beliefs or what you think you know is the way that you have to do something in almost all cases isn't that you can be that kind of creative agent inside of your business and select what do you want to do, what is meaningful for you, and then figure out the best path to create that kind of those.

First couple of steps then is probably critical. I mean, even with the first stage in systemology where we think about the critical client flow, as a consultant, you have to go through that idea. I know you, you teach this really well for, well, who is your ideal client and what is that primary product or service that you're going to sell them? And then what is the linear journey that the prospect and the client goes through? I think getting hyper focused on that. Do you have any tips around how someone might pick a niche and think about who their client might be? And again, you talked about some of the different business models there, how they might then start to make connections with what would be ideal for that target audience.

Yeah. And so, I mean, you hit on that. Exactly. We call this ideal client clarity. And it's really the, the first stage or step of, of our framework and what we take all of our clients through, even those that in some cases have been consulting for a period of time. Because one of the most common mistakes that we see people make is they go too broad. And if you're newer.

Right.

The temptation is to say, well, I've, I've worked in a lot of different industries, I've helped a lot of different types of people. I provide a lot of different kinds of services. And some people even point to larger consulting firms that are established and say, well, look at them, they're successful. You know, they have 25 different capabilities. They're not limiting themselves. Right. Limiting and kind of air quotes themselves to, to one industry or one type of client. And what we continue to show people is that, yeah, don't look at where that company is today, look at where they got started. And if you study these companies, you'll almost always find they started with a very clear lane, that they were known, they had competitive advantage. And so because they were known for that they were able to get traction very quickly. So even though the temptation is to go broad, in fact, what you want to do is you want to focus and you want to be very specific about who you can serve best, where you can add the most value. We have a process that we take our clients through called the niche scoring method. And this is essentially where, if you're in a place where, let's say there's maybe two or three different industries or types of clients that you feel, well, I could work with all of these. What it. It helps if you can go through and look at some different criteria and score each of these. So let's just say that you have experience in manufacturing or pharmaceuticals or architecture or agriculture. Doesn't matter. You go through and you answer a bunch of questions. And these questions are around things like, you know, where do you have the most experience? Where have you created the most results? Where do you have the most access in terms of being able to connect with people or a network? And so you kind of go through and score each one of these based on those kind of questions and a whole bunch of others. And what you get at the end of that is a score. And you look at that and you go, well, I'm scoring at a 15. For agriculture, I have a 23. For manufacturing, I have a 30. Let's say, for this other. For pharma, well, maybe I should actually start with pharma. And it's not that that always has to be the 100% place where you want to get started. Maybe if somebody really feels more passionate excitement around agriculture, that's okay, but it helps them to kind of get clear on where they have a bit of an advantage and where they're likely to see, you know, faster results and. And attain greater traction. So that's kind of where we always get people to begin. Light bulbs start to go off as you go through that, because you start to see, well, yeah, I guess I have a lot more results here or greater accomplishments or more, you know, successes or, yeah, I know a whole bunch more people in this one area than I do in this other. And that now typically becomes where you actually start your marketing, right? Rather than going out and saying, I need to do run a whole bunch of ads or I have to, you know, create all these complex funnels. For most consultants, their first clients. And we see this in the studies and kind of surveys that we run at consulting success for the vast majority, actually over 50% of consultants say that their first client came through their network. And actually, for 50% it's a previous employer. So looking at where you have that access and those connections is actually a great starting point and kind of low hanging fruit for people to get their first clients are kind of to build the business up a little bit.

I know that particular templates in your program because you came and did that private session for our system ologists. And I saw firsthand the light bulbs that went off in the brains of some of the systemologists who we've already kind of picked a niche. But you kind of go even that step further to get laser like focus on where you start. So just I suppose underscoring the importance of getting very clear on your target audience. And another question that pops up quite frequently that we hear from the systemologists and just in the consulting space is how much should I charge? That's always a bit of a prickly one for new consultants.

So if you don't mind, I'm going to rewind us for just a little moment there because I want to say maybe one other thing that might help people that will kind of point to the importance of really getting the ideal client clarity. And it's because today more than ever before, every single one of us has more options, has more choice, right? It's like, are the buyers that buy consulting services or expert services, they are overwhelmed with people reaching out to them, you know, trying to promote all kinds of different stuff. And so in order for you to have a message that can get the attention and interest of your ideal clients, you need to speak directly to that ideal client. If you say we can help all these different kinds of people with all these different things, your message is diluted. It's not going to stand out. So this is why ideal client clarity leads to the next step in the process, which is what we call developing a magnetic message. And that message is predicated on actually being able to say, here's specifically who we help or who we help best. Okay, now to fast forward to your question, I just want to add that in. Yeah. Around pricing. So where most consultants start, right. The status quo, the default, where most people kind of operate from a money perspective is hourly fees. And in some cases hourly fees are okay, you know, for somebody who's just getting started. If you charge your first project based on hourly fees, fine, it doesn't really matter. You're getting experience, all good. If you're looking to build a firm model where you're essentially making money through, you know, putting other associates or consultants out into the market and you're charging a margin on that or you're capturing a margin between what the client is paying. Let's say they're paying you $300 an hour equivalent. You're paying your consultants 150 or $100 an hour. Great. There's a margin that can work. But for the majority of consultants out there, hourly fees is the. The opposite of what you should be doing because you're trading time for dollars. And the only way to grow your business if you're using hourly fees is to work more hours. Now, I don't know about everybody listening, but I personally, you know, don't want to attach. I don't want to trade time for or dollars for four hours. I want to be able to create or to benefit from leverage mean that I don't want to work more hours. I want to be able to potentially work, let's say, less hours, but even still make more money. And that might sound very hard for some to kind of fathom, but you can achieve that. And the way that you achieve that is not by trading your time for dollars and not by using hourly fees. It's by really understanding the value and the outcome that you are creating for the client you are working with. Because the truth is, the clients don't care about how many hours you work. If you can deliver a result for a client in one hour, they would actually prefer and benefit from that as opposed to having to wait a week to get that same result. And so, you know, a way to kind of think about that is let's say you go into the dentist and you have some really, really bad tooth pain. The dentist could say to you, listen, it's going to take me 30 minutes, and I'm going to get rid of this terrible pain that you have. And it's $1,000, and you might go $1,000. That's ridiculous. Right? And maybe it's less than that, but I'm just gonna make this number up. I was actually at the orthodontist this morning with my. One of my daughters. So this number is fresh in my mind. But let's just say it's. It's 30 minutes. So the dentist could say to you, well, you know what? That's fine. We can take a week to get rid of this pain for you if you want, and it's going to cost you. Whatever you would say, no, no, let's do this right now. Because I have this pain right now, and I'm willing to actually potentially invest significantly more to get rid of this pain now as opposed to waiting. So this Is the whole idea that with hourly fees it's backwards because you end up getting. The incentive is for you to try and, you know, work more hours to deliver something where the client would actually benefit from getting that result sooner if you can deliver it. So this is why consultants often think that they. They need to, you know, spend more time or work hour, you know, longer in order to deliver the result for the client and get paid well for it. But the client actually benefits from you delivering the result faster, which means that it becomes more valuable for you. So that this is the way to really grow and scale your business significantly as a solo consultant or as a small firm owner, is to shift away from charging on an hourly basis and instead really get into deep, meaningful conversations with that buyer to understand what is the value as part of this engagement for you, and then to base your fees around that value so that the fee is great compensation for you, but it's also a great deal for the buyer. They look at that and go, yeah, this is a really positive return on our investment where you're going to help us to make an extra 100,000 or extra million or extra 10 million or whatever that is. And so we're willing to pay you a significant portion of that because we're getting such great value. Does that make sense?

It does. And almost feel like the hourly. Right. It's not really fair for both parties. Like, the consultant oftentimes has put in a tremendous amount of work to learn and get the knowledge and understand the problem deeply and understand the solution. And if you're just working on an hourly basis, you're not actually rewarded for all of that work that you've done. And like you said to the point that the client just wants the problem solved. And if you can get laser like, focus on who the person is you're serving, what is the problem that you're solving for them, and then you can solve it in the quickest possible time. Of course, you should be rewarded well for that.

Yeah. The incentives are not aligned when you're working on an hourly basis because you want as the consultants to make more money, which means that you need to drag things on and take. You get paid more when you take longer to deliver. The client wants you to work less because they want to pay you less. If you can just put the time to the side and instead focus on what is the outcome. Do you actually desire client? And you get clear on that and say, well, okay, I understand what you want, I understand. Let's. We've now kind of identified Together and you share with me what the value is to you and to your organization. And this does not always have to be about money. It can be about a whole bunch of other things. Right. There's both tangible and intangible value. Once you get clear on that, then you just figure out, okay, well, what makes sense in terms of an investment and a fee for you that you would be happy to, you know, have me deliver that result for you. And then once you've arrived at that, the benefit or the, I should say the goal is for the consultant to deliver that result as quickly as possible and that you should be rewarded for being able to deliver that sooner rather than taking longer.

Yeah, I love that. A lot of what I find, the work that you do, you're great at finding almost like this baggage that sits in a lot of consultants heads and then challenging them and then when you think them through, it's actually quite logical. And it's the breaking of those myths and misconceptions that really help a lot of consultants move through to the next level. I know one, and this probably happens a bit with some of the consultants, systemologists as we're training them up, they get stuck with getting that first client. Once you kind of figured out who you're serving and your business model and how much you're going to charge, actually getting out there and doing it sometimes like many of them are even great like delivering and doing the work and then it's, it's different. Now what I've gotta go into marketing mode and I've got to get my first client. I don't know if you have any.

Thoughts around that, just to your point before, about kind of helping people to, to break past limiting beliefs or to, to see the bigger picture. That just comes from making a lot of mistakes myself. Right. I've been building consulting business for over 20 years and so I've, I've learned my own lessons. And yeah, you know, you make enough kind of mistakes that you learn from them. So but yeah, to your, your question specifically, most of the consultants that we speak with, most of the people that you know that reach out to us who are at the early stages, I mean we have a lot of people who are well into six, you know, multi seven figure businesses even. But for somebody who's, who's newer in the consulting world, their, their challenge, their problem is, is not their expertise. Right. They have that they're already good at, at whatever they've developed those skills. Their problem is exactly what you said, David, which is how to get Clients. Right. How to actually run my consulting business effectively, profitably, strategically. So what we almost always suggest that people do, and this is again very low hanging fruit for most consultants, is when you ask a question around, you know, who do you know that could either A be an ideal client or B, it could be an ideal referral source to your IE clients and that you have not had a conversation with for eight to 12 weeks. When you ask that question, most people go like a lot of people because you were typically not that good at staying in touch with our network. Some people are amazing at it, but the vast majority, you know, I'd say overwhelming majority know a lot of people that you've met at conferences or past employment or whatever it is, and you haven't really touched base them with them for a long time. Well, these are all people that if they fit into one of those two buckets of an ideal client profile or an ideal referral source, if they knew what you were actually doing, there's a very good chance that they would either know somebody that could benefit from your expertise that they can connect you with, or they themselves might want to have that conversation. So the first thing that we always do is kind of arm our clients. And in some cases, again, these are people that have been consulting for a period of time, but they're just sitting on this gold mine of opportunity that they don't really know how to leverage. So we call this network leverage and a network reactivation campaign where we arm them with, with scripts and templates and kind of a proven approach of how to get in front of all these people and let them know what it is that you're now doing. You know, again, it's what we kind of call the magnetic message. We put that in front of people, but doing it in a way that is not, doesn't come across as salesy or promotional. People actually appreciate knowing what you're up to and you're able to deliver a very succinct message. But they now get, they now go, oh, I know exactly what David is up to. And so that now allows them to go, hey David, like I think actually we should have a conversation because I could probably benefit from what you're, what you're looking to do, or hey, David, I know somebody. Or maybe it's a week later, but they meet somebody at an event and go, oh, I know somebody, his name's David that you should probably talk to. But if they don't know what you're doing, they can't do that. So that's Always where we get people to begin and we go deeper into other marketing things if you want. But that's kind of step one that in many cases can help people jumpstart, you know, their lead generation and ultimately create more conversation conversations, which is how consultants actually generate business.

I suppose the follow up from that because my brain already goes, okay, I can almost see this linear journey that we've just gone through of okay, you're going to be a consultant, I'm going to identify my target audience, I'm going to get clear on the problem, I'm going to think about my business model, I'll think about what it is that I'm delivering. I'm going to go to my existing network and start having conversations. Then the bit after that, after we start to have a couple of conversations, do you have any tips on then how to kind of move into the sale? That's a lot of consultants struggle with the ask. And you got some tips there.

Yeah, I mean this is for a lot of people, sales is a dirty word. Right. They're very uncomfortable with it. And what I always encourage our clients to think about is that sales is not something that you do to somebody, it's something that you do with somebody. And I don't know who first said that. So I can't kind of give credit where, where it's due. But I think when, whenever that came into my mind, it really resonated and it's the truth that sales is something that you do out of service. It's not that, it's not something that you, if you view sales as something that is only beneficial for you as the consult, you're going to hesitate to do it because it feels kind of icky yucky it like you're just not comfortable because it's one sided. And most consultants that I know and certainly the ones that we work with, the reason they're doing what they're doing is not only just because they want to make more money, it's almost always because they want to make an impact. It's because they want to help people. And so when you shift that, that mindset to going, you know what I understand there's people out there right now and organizations out there right now and communities out there right now that, that are having problems or they want to, you know, achieve something or improve something and if I know that I can help them, then if I, I believe I actually have the responsibility to let them know otherwise they're going to keep having those problems. And this shows up in so many different industries and so many different kind of walks of life. But once you see that, once you actually view sales not something that you are doing to them, but rather with them. When you look at sales and having a conversation not as persuasion and trying to trick people and force them to do something, but rather as a collaboration where you get to ask questions that provide value. And this is why the approach that we teach around having what we call kind of an effective and meaningful consulting sales conversation is all about asking questions that even if that person that you're talking to decides not to move forward and work with you at that time, they're going to walk away going, wow, that experience that I just had kind of blew my mind because you asked questions that got me to see things that I didn't see before and you got me to think about things that I wasn't thinking before. Therefore, just that experience by itself was so valuable that they can't help but think about why do business with you at some point or refer or introduce you to others that could benefit even if they can't benefit from you right now. But that's really kind of the big mindset piece. And then beyond that, just the other thing that I'll mention on this, David, is what most people do when they have a sales conversation is they stay at a very surface level. They talk about their process, their methodology, they ask very high level questions. What you want to shift to do is ask questions that help to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise and go beyond the surface level to really identify and get to the core of what that buyer, what that person cares most about, what is most meaningful for them, what do they truly value. And then together you collaborate by asking a whole bunch of questions and kind of taking them through that, that process so that at the end it's very clear to that buyer if they have a need or they want to improve something you can help them with. They see you as the, as the best person or best company to help them to achieve that. And you've already identified the value and, and that whole process is what ultimately connects you to being able to charge based on value use, value pricing. Because you've now had that whole conversation around what is the value and the outcome and the benefit and the result for that buyer. So now that they're, you know, it's easier to justify your higher level of premium fees because the buyer now sees the value of doing this and they actually look at working with you not as a cost, you know, not, not as an expense, because you're not now you're, you've shifted away from being a commodity consultant, just taking them through what, you know, every other consultant has. You've actually engaged deeply with them. They see you as a peer, they see you as an advisor, and they can see how moving forward with you is actually going to benefit them. And so now investing into working with you, into this engagement is an investment, not a cost anymore.

The last question I'll ask, and it kind of relates to something you were saying there around helping to, you know, really understand that value piece. I'd love to know if you have any tips for consultants to help grow their belief in their own, like, offering, like to really sell effectively and feel like you and know that you're giving someone a disservice by not oftentimes recommending or getting them to buy your product if it's the right fit and it solves their problem. Yeah. I'm wondering. You've got to really believe in what it is that you're selling and if, if you have any thoughts on that.

We have a lot of resources for people on that. It's a topic that I'm personally, you know, very passionate about because what I've observed over the years is that you can know a lot of stuff, so you can have knowledge, you can have skills, but if you don't have the mindset, you're, you're probably going to struggle rather than succeed. So it is really important that people work on that. And again, there's a lot of different resources out there, whether it's books or courses or, or trainings from us or from, from others as well. But I think that the big thing is that, you know, if you can deliver a result, if you have experience, right. Consulting is not the right kind of area to get into. If you've, you've never, you know, achieved an outcome or a result, then I'd say go and work in, you know, to get those skills. But if you know that you can help people and if you've actually been kind of called to the table of a buyer is having a conversation with you, you want to recognize that there's a reason that they have, they're having that conversation with you. Nobody wakes up going like, oh, I just can't wait to speak to this person for, like, just for fun. No, they're talking to you because they've likely identified that there's something that they don't have inside of their own knowledge base or their network or in their company that they believe that you do. And so you've Earned a seat at the table. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter, you know, your background, doesn't matter how much money you have in your bank account, and certainly don't compare yourself to the person that you're speaking with, because I know when I was in my 20s, you know, working with billion dollar organizations, certainly everyone that I was meeting with had a lot more money than I did, was a lot older than I was, and a whole bunch of other things. But there's a reason that I was called to that table. There was a reason that I was having that conversation, and there was something that I knew that they didn't, or some edge or some access, and that's what was going on. So once you understand that you are actually a peer to this person in, in regard to, you know, why you are there, then that start, that should start to help you to see and feel more confident that you can just, you know, show up. So that's, that's the big one. There's a lot of pieces we need a lot longer to kind of get into, like how to really work through it. It's also a process of practice. So, you know, day one, you may not feel that way, but once you then have a really great conversation because you've learned how to have a meaningful consulting sales conversation, you leave that feeling like, wow, like, I really performed well. I got great feedback from that buyer, or I've landed my first project, or I've landed a bigger deal because I've learned how to shift away from hourly fees to value pricing. So each of these steps, when you learn kind of proven approaches and strategies and how to shift your mindset and then you apply it and you see the impact of that. That's what makes you more confident, right? That's why it's like you need to get the right system or resources. You need to take action on that. And then when you do, you see what works, what doesn't. You adjust, right? You fix. And from there you just keep growing and growing and, you know, and success. Like, you'll be on that path of success.

I love it. It is. It's about getting on this path and then sticking with it. I know we could talk about this forever, but I feel like that's a great primer for someone who's interested in becoming a consultant or taking their consulting business to the next level. I think the best place, and I mentioned it before, it's consultingsuccess.com will have links close to the video as well, is there anywhere else other than the website that you think is a great place for someone to get started?

Yeah, it's a great place. We have the Consulting Success podcast, also several books. So we talk about mindset. And so there's a book I wrote called the Elite Consulting Mind that actually goes into 16 specific mindsets to help people kind of expand, see the bigger picture, overcome some of those. The most common kind of challenges that you'll have is a whole bunch of stories in there from clients that we've worked with and, you know, even from my own experience over the years of building businesses. And then there's also another book called Consulting Success, the actual book that people might find helpful. But yeah, I would suggest going just to consultingsuccess.com kind of home to everything, a lot of free resources and others to help people really get moving or get to that next level.

Perfect. Well, huge thank you from me. I love the work that you do. I love the way that you just give it all. Anytime we've ever caught up, you've always just said, how can I help? So I very much thank you for that and looking forward to working with you in the future.

Happy to, David, and thank you again so much. Always great to speak with you.