067 Should Accountants Put Themselves Or Their Clients First?

Should you optimize your firm for the client experience or for your internal firm processes? Oftentimes we do a lot of things have to make decisions where those two things are in conflict. Do I do the thing that will make my life easier or do I do the thing that will make my client's life easier? Let's talk about it. Do some Q&As. We're cover a whole bunch of stuff, whether AI chatbots are ready to use with our clients, some follow ups on best practices for firing clients, and digging a little more into delegating your email inbox because you should do it. Come on in, let's talk about it. Let's acknowledge the elephant in the room. After a 66 episode run, 66 weekdays in a row, we came back, did these shenanigans every day. The streak has been broken. Took a couple days off. I was at Scaling new heights in St. Louis, met a whole bunch of lovely folks that listened to this podcast if we chatted. Pleasure to meet you. Thank you for stopping and introducing yourself. I know it's weird, but I met a lot of really cool people, but 66 in a row, firm handshakes all around. I think we'll talk a little more at some point about like how to give yourself a break from doing things. I think we arbitrarily like the fact that we had we did 66 shows in a row made it harder to not do one. And I think there's some parallels there to how we work where when you never leave, it makes it harder to leave. But you got to optimize for the long game, you know, doesn't mean nobody's impressed by your streaks. Like, how do you. How do you ensure that you're going to be doing what you're doing two years from now, 10 years from now, all that. Okay, let's talk about useful stuff. I kicked off this discussion last week on social media and it was still kind of bouncing around in my brain as I was at scaling. What do you prioritize? Do you prioritize the client experience or do you prioritize your internal workflows? And let's just cruise right past the no duh of well, it depends and both. Let's just acknowledge that and move past it. Because what I'm really thinking about is the situations where those two things are in conflict. I can either do something that will make my client's life easier, or I can do something that will make my life easier. Which one do I do? How do I decide which is right? I Think maybe the more old timey model was you always do everything for the client, maybe the more new timing model is I'm gonna set all of the rules and you should just be happy to work with me. But like what is, what's the right answer there? So I can tell you my answer. Like the, the responses we got online were super, super across the board. But I'll tell you the way that I think about it because this impacts like everything that we do. Every software decision, like how we build our own internal processes, all these things impact our clients and what we expect of them. And I think by default, oftentimes we make those decisions based on what will make our lives easier, but sometimes at the expense of clients. I think I kind of have like this, this sort of hierarchy is ultimately what matters more than anything else is are you doing something that for yourself is sustainable? So as you're thinking through what is the best version of this process look like, like the, the trump card that kind of needs to always be considered is, is this something that I can do sustainably? Yes or no? Like it doesn't matter how cool your client experience is, nothing else matters if you burn yourself out and if it's not something you enjoy. So like if you're, if you say we're going to be high touch, we're going to do, you know, real hands on meeting for kicking off, prepping a tax return, something like that, and you want to have that kind of more high touch, more personal feel. But those meetings are super soul sucking for you or take like mega draining, then that's not for you, right? Like that shouldn't be how you set it up. So the trump card kind of above all of this, is this something that's sustainable for you? But the step beyond that then is assuming it is, do you do the thing that enables the rad client experience or do you do the thing that, that makes it easier to get your work done? And I think where I'm at today, and there isn't an absolute right answer here, it's definitely one of those, like how high touch versus productized do you want your firm to be? But where I'm at right now is I think that the, in most cases, if you have a decision that is in conflict, in a perfect world, you do both well, right? Your internal processes are great and the client experience is great. So yes, that's the best case scenario. But in situations where that's gonna be in conflict, I'm going to optimize for the client experience because I would Rather have ultimately have people pay me more money than my systems be absolutely perfect. And the reason for that is, in my opinion today, the path to a profitable firm. I think our minds generally first go to efficiencies and ability to do more work, when in reality a profitable firm, like the biggest driver of that is just going to be how can you price your projects? If you, if your firm runs at a 50% margin and you really invest in operations and you find some way to increase your output by, I don't know, 5 or 10%, we're talking about a fraction of a fraction. So like, if you are more productive, like ultimately, will that reduce your costs? Are you going to let people go? Probably not. So like, operational gains are always like, best case scenario, like reducing your expenses or enabling you to pick up like another project with the same capacity, as opposed to pricing changes which go 100% to the bottom line. So like the old adage of double your prices and go home by noon is flawed because assuming you have expenses, if you double your prices, your profit goes up much more than double. So depending on what your margins are, it generally ends up being like, you can go home at like 10 or 11 in the morning. So like all that being said, like, I want to optimize my firm for how can I solve a more painful problem for somebody so that they will pay me more to do what is largely the same work on my end? Like, that is the path to a profitable firm. And in my mind, and a profitable firm means flexibility. It means I can work less if I want. It means I at least have the choice to not like grind super, super hard because the work that we do is profitable. So today, if I have a decision where maybe I'm picking a practice management system and one has a killer client experience, but is more lacking on the internal stuff. And there's another, that's the opposite, really good on the internal stuff, maybe more lacking on the client experience. Right now I'm probably going to optimize for the client experience because I think that that can drive my pricing, which is ultimately what is going to give me a profitable firm, and flexibility around how much I want to work, how I can pay my staff and all that. I can't remember who first chucked that question in. But like, that's, we face that every day and I think by default. Oftentimes we just see that decision through the lens of the work that we do every single day and not necessarily through the lens of what we ask our clients to do for us. So I think we're probably naturally biased to just seeing it through our lens and what works best for us. And on the other side, clients can sometimes pay the price for that because we're not living out the other side of that engagement all the time. If you had to be a client every single day and submit tax prep and all that stuff, like the same way that they do, you would probably care a lot more about that client experience, right? On the subject of solving more specific problems. So I had a conversation with a lady at Scaling. I apologize, I can't remember your name. It was after my panel as, like, a really good question that I think a lot of us are kind of grappling with, where maybe you're thinking about creating like a digital asset or some sort of course or something like that for a specific niche to get more specific in the people that you're trying to help. Like, use that as a lead magnet to pull in more people. So this person has been working with restaurants in a pretty good sized market for like a couple of decades, and they're like, we want to build like a course or something like that that could not only provide value for existing clients, but will attract more people to our expertise so that we can kind of like keep doubling down, I guess, on the ideal client for us. Sidebar. Like, a really nice aspect of building a course or a giveaway or something like that is you can actually use it to attract the clients who maybe you don't quite want to work with yet. Maybe they haven't grown to the size at which you want to work with them, but you can teach them maybe everything that they need to know to do 90% of it themselves when it's at that very basic level. And then you've got them in your circle and ultimately when they grow, they grow into you and being a regular client. But the discussion was basically just like, where to start? Like, what's the best way to do that? Is that like a course that I sell? What does that look like? And a couple good takeaways that I think came from that discussion by the end were, first, if you haven't built a course before, or if this is a new sort of thing for you, you're gonna overthink the heck out of it and acknowledge that by the time that you get to the end of it, you're probably already gonna be like, I would have done that differently if I could do it again. And to me, the lesson there is like, don't go huge and ambitious on the first one. In fact, when it comes to digital products and getting people to engage with something current, best practice really is actually something under 90 minutes that can enable this transformation for someone in a reasonable amount of time. I think what we do is we have this imposter syndrome that is why is somebody going to engage with this or pay for this? And so we have to pump as much value into this thing as possible. So you give them all of this stuff. When in reality what's gonna convert best is something that doesn't feel like quite so much of a commitment. You wanna tell people, hey, in 30 minutes I'm gonna take you from A to b, or in 90 minutes you're here today and at the end of that 90 minutes you're gonna be there. And the less of a commitment it feels like for that person, the more likely they are to do it. And it doesn't even necessarily mean that you need to like charge less. You just need to show how you can get them through this transformation within a reasonable amount of time. And it doesn't mean that ultimately there isn't a deeper version of that, you know, or like a more robust version that people would want to get into. But that's not where they're going to start. Like the top of your funnel, it's got to be something reasonably bite sized where you can take them on a helpful journey within a reasonable amount of time. And there's people out there that like, that's all they do. Like at that top of the funnel. Like you can actually build a killer business around just getting folks into that pretty simple product. So if you're thinking about doing this for the first time, keep it short because I actually think that will convert better. But also the first one's gonna suck just cause that's how it always is. You've never done it before. Like it's not gonna be that great. By the time you get to the end, you're gonna be like, man, I would have done A, B and C different. And that's just on the production side, if you make this thing, nobody knows about it until you actually have like a strategy to start getting it out in front of people. And that is equally important, if not more important than the actual subject matter itself. And I think this is a trap accountants fall into where we make this really helpful big brain thing. But you still don't know a thing about marketing and how to get it in front of people. That is very much a learned skill. You're not going to nail it your first time. So if you're Getting started. Just starting. Start bite sized. It's like do not start with your magnum opus, Magna. Hang on. Talk amongst yourselves. Magnum opus? Yep. Don't start with your magnum opus. Start with something bite sized. This episode is sponsored in part by Client Hub. Hey, Tales from the Hub is back. Season two, Episode one Buckle up. Recently on Tales from the Hub, you'll remember super smart accounting firm. Well, they adopted Client Hub to manage their work and collaborate with clients. Right after busy season, they sent out a client feedback survey. They are super smart after all. And the results are in. Of course. Clients love working with Client Hub. They're eating it up. When is the last time you heard a client clamoring for a client portal? Right, the clients love the client tasks feature. Super efficient and intuitive. No more emails flying back and forth. Clients love to have access to the super smart firm staff via messaging and Client Hub. Clients are saying the firm is a modern tech forward and client service oriented firm. You already knew you were, but now the survey proves it. And Client Hub playing a big role. Great job Client Hub. That's it for this week on Tales from the Hub. Learn more over at ClientHub app or click the link in the show notes. This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at Cloud Accountant Hub. Staffing do you hire accountants? Bless your little heart. Not the best part of the job in my opinion. Not something I ever enjoyed. Well listen, you can build your accounting dream team with talented offshore accountants in the Philippines that work 100% full time for your firm. Their accountants aren't freelancing or contracting for multiple firms. They're all yours. They work exclusively for you and are incentivized to stay with you and your team long term. They're not going to get swiped. Cloud account staffing is 100% dedicated to the accounting industry and founded by a former accounting firm owner that understands your business, knows your pain points. They had to hire some accountants and they said you know what, we're going to build our own pipeline in the Philippines, going to pull in some super talented people and then open that up to other firms. Basically that's the story. I've been talking about a lot about staffing, building more resilient staffing pipelines for your firms. I had staff in the Philippines like totally red pilled me to like oh geez. Like we need to globalize the way that we get our work done. Check these folks out link in the show description Cloud accountantstaffing. Com and then the other place that conversation went was work with restaurant owners. And so Ideally you're gonna wanna get in front of like, where are those conversations with restaurant owners happening? Just be there, engage. You know, online communities are great for this. Right now. If you got like, if there's a Facebook group where these people are hanging out, Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever those people are, just go there and be helpful. Don't shill, just go there and be helpful and show that you have expertise. But in this case they were like, I don't know that people are really going like having these discussions out there anywhere. Maybe there are in person versions of that. Like, maybe there's groups of people that meet and do this stuff. That's a possibility. But if that space doesn't exist online, you actually have a pretty unique opportunity to be the one to create that space. So ultimately there's actually a lot of value in you being a hub. If you are a niche firm owner, you have a collection of relationships that are very, very specific. And that's like what you do, like that's part of your business is how do I become the person for this very specific type of person, that's really a huge part of your job. But for other people that do that stuff, that's not their job. And so I'm a good analogy here. My job is to go out and find accountants who align well with my thoughts on firm running. And that's what I do. And I put out content every day to that end. Ultimate with the purpose of helping people and finding more folks for whom that would be valuable. But you as the person on the other side of this, like you're the client in this analogy, that's not your job. Like you go and you run a firm every single day, you've got other stuff to do. So I have much greater access to other people that do what you do than you do. And so if you put your firm owner hat on and you think about doing this for clients, you're going out there and finding these very specific people with very specific problems. And there's a huge amount of value in you simply being the hub that can then connect those folks and be the facilitator for those relationships. So if there isn't a place out there where these conversations are happening already, it's a killer opportunity for you to be the one to enable those relationships. And I think our minds first go to like, oh yeah, like a free Facebook community or something like that. But that in some ways that undervalues being able to make those high value connections. So it may depend on what types of people these are. Like if these are like executive types, like very, very specific, you can honestly charge top dollar just for being the person to create the room. Like and there isn't even necessarily an obligation for you to put like paywalled content in there or be the one teaching everybody or anything like that. Like there's value in just being in the room. Like that's something that, like that is a hill that I will, I will die on. And was the whole premise is, the whole premise of my accountant community is I'm never going to be like a framework guy because like, I don't really get into like one on one consulting and stuff like that. Because ultimately I think we all have more to learn from everyone than any one individual. We have a ton to learn from everyone's shared experiences. And that was what got me excited about community was like, okay, I'll be the hub for a certain type of person and then I just wanna connect all those people and they will help each other. Because that was always the most helpful thing for me. I didn't want like a framework or anything like that. I wanted to talk with a bunch of other firm runners that had like 30 to 40 employee firms like mine that had made a practice management system switch in the last couple of years that like had a really deep understanding of my issues. It was like that was what I wanted and I found a few people like that and it opened so many doors for me. So like I got to the point where I'm like, that's super cool. How can I just enable really high context connections for other firm owners out there? Whether you're like a solo person going out and doing tax for the first time, or doing running your own accounting practice, or you know, a team of 100 running a, trying to run a super automated, you know, accounting practice. How can I help people get those connections? Because that was the best thing I ever found was like making some friends that did what I did. And if you're running a niche practice like this is you, like you can enable this for people. So if you're struggling to know how to get this stuff in front of people, you're like, I don't even know where these conversations are happening. Maybe that's an opportunity for you to create that space for those conversations to happen. You've already got a captive like initial group of people that could go into that community and your client base and then they're gonna tell all their friends about it if that's really the only place they have to go to talk about this stuff. They're gonna be stoked about it and they're gonna tell everybody they know that does that stuff. You wanna be able to welcome those people in even if they aren't clients, so that they are also adding value to that community. And like over time, like you're the guru, you're the one that made it all happen. And so if they ever need an accountant, where else are they gonna go, right? Pretty cool opportunity. If I were to start a niche practice tomorrow, I think there would be a pretty significant community element. Because it still feels so early for online communities. People are just really starting to taste how valuable those things can be. Just sharing and learning from other people to do what you do. Okay, this one was a LinkedIn DM. Do you think it's possible already or feasible to build AI agents to enable clients the ability to like self help? If you're on my newsletter, newsletter, Jason CPA that just went out Thursday, was that yesterday? And it was kind of all about this subject, like the future of client support. And that is like really good chat bots where clients can self service and like get a copy of their tax return in 20 seconds or pull up past communications or see the status of a project, that sort of thing. And we have this knee jerk reaction to self service chatbots because we have had some truly awful experiences with those. And my initial reaction also is that just feels really low touch. I don't think I would ever do that. But they have gotten so good that even in like a high touch white glove firm, if somebody can like ask this bot for a thing and get it in 20 seconds, that's just better for everybody than having to make a call or send an email and then wait. Right? Like I think we will get over that, those scars of having to work with really bad chatbots. And interestingly in our case like the best version of that, so we've got some general versions where you can put general knowledge in a chat bot and that's helpful. But the best, best version is the general knowledge married with the client's data. So they come up and they talk with this chat bot and this is a unique to them chat experience because it's seeing all of their projects like the files that you've got that you expose to the client and your file system, like not your work papers and stuff like that. But in our case, in the accounting ecosystem, who's the one to ship that product? Is it your practice management system? Is it like a client communication layer like Elisio? Is it a standalone plugin that like somehow can see into your practice management system. These client like customer service chatbots are blowing up right now. And if you take one of the cloud practice management systems and if one of them shipped this tomorrow and said here's a optional chat assistant that your clients can now see when they log into their app and it can say like, hey, can you grab me the Q3 941 or something like that. Pretty darn cool, right? It's still early enough to where it's like maybe a little hard to visualize exactly what all the specifics of that would be, but pretty darn cool. Anyways, back to the question, is that something we ought to lean into or do we need to still be like, do we need to maintain that client touch point? Like is that important to the relationship? This is one of those things. And it's one of those things right now that maybe feels a little sci fi. Like if I had pulled random people at scaling new heights and said hey, is this a good idea to let clients self service with an AI chatbot? I think most people right now would say no. But I think out in the wild we are going to begin having much more positive chat experiences where these problems can get solved for us and that will become a little more normalized. Where kind of like what we've talked about in the past, like the ultra high fidelity version of working with me is talking to me one on one, but AI is actually going to enable a version of me that people can talk with and get things from where that's quicker turnaround time, it's immediate, it's maybe lower cost. Like we're kind of getting to a space where like working with your firm does not necessarily have to mean one on one talking with a human being all the time. And the best version of that to me is like just really simple like self service applications. So I do think it's weird now because people have are having still having so many negative chatbot experiences. And like an accounting firm, somebody pay thousands of dollars a year, like you don't want to go and just have that really garbage experience. But I think we're getting there quickly. I don't think it's the type of thing anybody's going to build themselves. And the reality is, because the best version of that is pulling in like the docs from your file system and stuff like that. That is not a DIY thing. That is something really powerful that like our practice management systems could build for us that a client communication tool that integrates with those systems could build for us. So today, going out and building your own version of that right now probably doesn't make sense, but let's keep talking about it because I think the more we talk about these sort of applications, the more we can get the vendors in our space to explore them, flesh them out a little bit and see what makes sense about this and what doesn'. This episode is sponsored in part by Firm 360, the practice management tool that gives you a 360 degree view of your practice. Talked about this in the past. Project management, documents, time and billing, all that stuff's in there. Manage all that stuff in a single place. Story time, though. Let me tell you about Lee Lee's team. They were looking for a solution to modernize their firm's processes. They've grown 30% year over year for the past five years. Holy mama. And their processes were no longer able to keep up with the amount of staff and projects they had going on. Real talk, your systems. Like, yeah, no, that changes with the size of your firm. They still had some of their documents and paper copies and they were going around the office to hand off projects to team members. Yuck. Once they were on firm360, they were able to get all their digital, all their, all their, all the goods, all the stuff in a digital format and save a ton of time because they had it all in a single set system. Got visibility into project process. Everybody's on the same page about what they're supposed to be working on. They even implemented the secure client portal allowing them to deliver documents and collect payments digitally. And you know what took them? Two months. Two months. Not bad. Not switching PMs, not fun. But knocking that out in two months, that's pretty darn good. Hey, let's be a little more likely, huh? You hustle on spreadsheets to manage that stuff. Knock it off. Shuffling papers around the office. Modernize your practice. Learn more about this1@myfirm360.com this episode is sponsored in part by Zero. Hey, listen up, Zero Roadshow. You ever been to a Zero Roadshow? It is like a. It's like a big family band that drives all around the country, getting people to come out and hang and talk about Zero and learn stuff. It's not like an actually actual family band. Like there isn't a bus or a van or anything like that. I think most of them fly. But it's coming to specifically Austin, Atlanta and LA. So first up, we got Austin coming July 27th. At quote unquote, the line looks like a fancy hotel. If you have ever been at a Zero event, you know those people know how to throw a party. Am I right? If you haven't, think about it. So zero roadshow chance to come and hang with a bunch of folks into kind of like the progressive approach to building an accounting practice. Meet some folks that are using Xero in their firm. Six hours of CPE per event. Whoa. Learn about the latest Zero product updates and even hang with some of the Xero like community app ecosystem folks. So July 27th, check that one out in Austin, Texas. I'll put a link in the show notes to register and if you go, send me some pics. Send some pics over. Maybe post some pics in the comments. I've been to some zero roadshows before. They're a good time okay, on the subject of delegating email, I just love this. This was like a story of where somebody tried to delegate their inbox and it fell apart. So this is. I'll just. I'll just read this out. So today I was committed to closing my email and not addressing anything that came in until 10am what ended up happening? I did no work. All I ended up doing was responding to what came in that day. A full 9 to 10 hours of responding to hey, just a quick question. When is my return going to be ready? It punched me right between the eyes for the second time this week. My question is how to deploy this on phone calls Interruptions. Someone decides it's a good idea to call me out of the blue because surely I'm not deeply engaged in something else. They get the receptionist and ask for me. They don't ask for anybody else, they just ask for me. Oftentimes all they want is copies of their returns which are readily available in their portal. And they need to call and ask me. And before you even say it, I know the answer is to condition clients and set expectations. But you all have that client who has at least a 30% chance of being called Bruce. Bruce doesn't upload files. Bruce doesn't do the written word. Bruce calls people. In particular, Bruce calls you. He leaves voicemails with no specifics whatsoever. He just has some quote unquote quick questions that could be anything. The more off guard you are, the better. But as a courtesy to everyone, he reads off his callback number twice before hanging up. He has an AOL email address that he occasionally where he occasionally prints off all of his emails and calls people to discuss the printed email. You don't condition Bruce. Bruce does Bruce things a Lot of things to unpack there. On the subject of like optimizing your email experience, it sounds like in this case like you just got too much, you got too much stuff to do and not optimizing email like won't really get you any closer to sanity. But if you can't leave email until 10am and still then get all your email done by the end of the day, there's just too much stuff happening in email. And the solution to this is very nuanced. It comes down to what is the type of firm that you want to run long term? Do you just want to run a super cool firm where you're the guy and maybe you've got some admin help but that's it? If so like to your point, you've got to somehow enable more self service, you got to somehow do less. And people these days, you know they're, they're setting the expectation with clients where you can't just call me, you got to get on my calendar. There's got to be an agenda, a reason for why we need to talk for just these reasons because people will call you for pointless things that where that was unnecessary. And on the subject of Bruce, we've all got, most of us have Bruce's and the like real new agey. The kind of, you know, the Twitter response from the, the skinny jeans wearing new age firm runner is like I, I refuse to ever work with a Bruce. And that's an option. You just don't work with Bruce's. But oftentimes the problem here is we underestimate how many times we have to repeat our expectations for clients. We just have to remind them over and over and over again. Especially when they're, we got to keep hammering that into them. An email signature is an underutilized place for reminders on procedures for clients. Hey remember you can always get your tax returns, your financials, all that stuff at any time via this link. Like stuff like that. I do think sometimes we under communicate that stuff and then we're frustrated when people don't follow those rules because we see every single time that we communicate it, but they don't. So best practices like relentlessly communicate what is the best way for you to communicate with that client. Maybe that is a reminder that they need to schedule via your calendar so at least you've got a couple day buffer and you can make a mandatory field in there that they have to put what you want to discuss. Is that an ultimate solution? I don't know but it may be that it may Be a good next step from where you are today. And then ultimately, like, yeah, there is a question of like, I started work with a lot of Bruces and over the years the number of Bruces that I worked with reduced. We did kind of that annual cadence of the stuff that we. The clients that we were most excited to work with and least excited to work with every year. And the hard thing is, Bruce is a great guy. Bruce, I'd have him over for Thanksgiving. Bruce is a really good dude. It doesn't mean that Bruce is what my business needs. So the two ways that I mitigated Bruce's as I ultimately got completely out of client work is I hired more capable people around me who could manage client relationships. In the early days, I came into a very traditional firm where you had the partners who are great with people, but they wanted to control the client relationship, which meant that they could get by with a lower level of production staff who just wanted to crank the numbers and were not like the sort of folks who are energized by managing client relationships. And as long as that is your team, you really don't have a way to delegate any of that work. So I hired higher level folks that loved working with clients. And so my what I would try to do is like, build trust between Bruce and that person over time. But ultimately there were people that I could just never get off of myself. And I was having this conversation with somebody at scaling. There are like, in the end, those were the hardest clients for me to let go, as I did everything I could possibly do to delegate them, to get someone else to be the main point of contact. But at the end of the day, you still end up with those couple of clients that demand a ton of your time because just nobody else is good enough. Sometimes there's a degree of like, us being unwilling to like, put them off to someone else too, because you have this personal relationship. But in my experience, on the other side of letting a client like that go, you get so much time back. It is like the 8020 rule. It's like the 99. 1 rule. There are certain clients that just, especially when you're in a team, require so much more of your time than other clients. When your time is the most valuable of anyone's time within the firm, sometimes you just gotta let them go. But that's not to say that there aren't other things to try first, really, like, persistently communicate your expectations for how clients will communicate with you. Try to pull in team members that can help. Where your clients can build trust in those folks. Ultimately, if you want to get out of more of that client work, the drug is bringing clients in day one with your team, not to you. And it means pivoting a firm to attract clients who are great for your team, not for you and your specific expertise. And then you're the wizard of Oz behind the curtain from day one. And there is no disassociating the relationship from you at all because it didn't come in for you. But if you can't, if you can't get unglued from email, that's probably just like a total like everything that is on your plate problem. I think more so than an email problem and I would argue like maybe even a better argument for pulling a higher level person in to help with that email. Because it's obviously on fire, it can probably get better. Just plugging a firefighter into it's probably a temporary solution, right? But it's better than no firefighter as far as I'm concerned. And this stuff just happens over time. Like you build up stuff, you add more clients, you build more relationships. And unless you're really intentional about how you ever get under, get out from under any of those things, this is just the inevitable destination where you just end up with more on your plate than you could possibly do. We always underestimate how much time we're going to have to do things. Because at any given point in time we never remember all the things and the things we do remember. We assume the best case scenario will happen and there won't be any issues and you'll have complete information, all that. So we always underestimate how much time it's going to take to get that stuff done. That is totally normal. You just gotta be open to change and like willing to challenge some of your assumptions and just kind of rethink the process. Like that's completely natural. That is so much of what this job is is just iterating, trying new things and being mindful of like how self limiting we are. You know, you don't think you can ever transfer that relationship. And if you think that you never will. You can't imagine delegating this thing because how could you ever delegate it? It's like the sum of all of that you've learned your entire career. How could anybody understand this? Rather than thinking like oh, is there a, is there a part of this process or is there some fraction of it that I could delegate or could we change the process? Or is the fact that it is only doable by me, an acknowledgement that maybe this isn't the right work for my firm anymore. If I'm trying to get out from under it, should I be doing work in my firm that only I am capable of doing? If you're trying to stop doing client work, the answer is absolutely, like if your team can't do it, you shouldn't have it on your client list. So anyways, a lot of things that go into that question but a good discussion like we all struggle with some version of this. Thanks for coming and hanging. We got some fun stuff lined up next week. Probably take the 4th of July off but we're gonna do some more talking about scaling new heights. What happened at that conference, Nothing happened happened there but just like folks that I talked with kind of some, some trends that folks are talking about. We'll do some more of that next week. Doodle. Thanks for hanging by.