099 Creating Dashboards for your Accounting Clients?
30 Aug 2023 · 35 min
Jason Staats and Katherine discuss whether accounting firms should build client dashboards, arguing that simple shared calendars and alerts often work better than complex visual ones. They cover how to stop doing all the work yourself and scale through outsourcing and offshore staffing.
Chapters
Hey, come on in. Today we are talking about whether you should be setting up dashboards for your clients to monitor upcoming stuff.
Hmm.
What to do if you are stuck on your growth plan. And what my content team looks like today. Tackling these questions and a whole bunch other questions. Come on in and hang. It's Jason Daly.
Okay.
So coming back from Australia the other day, I was stuck on a plane.
For a long time. Just chatted with a whole bunch of people.
Few of those conversations were really good, good discussions, and I wanted to share.
Them here and build on them a little bit further, share some ideas and see if y' all had any additional thoughts.
By the way, coming to you today from Chicago, Illinois, the city of brotherly love. Is that Chicago? That's Philadelphia, the land of a thousand lakes. Here for the Bridging the Gap conference.
Gonna be doing some talking over the next couple of days.
Okay. The one that I wanted to kick.
Us off here, Katherine, the CPA on Twitter. I know you listened to this pod. I thought this was a good discussion.
I'm contemplating making a client dashboard in.
SharePoint to share with the clients. I'm thinking of adding a client calendar specific to the client. Payroll dates, extra estimated payments, upcoming appointments, quick links, something in power bi, potentially.
Anything that you would recommend.
I like this.
And honestly, this was me for as.
Long as I was firm running. I was thinking, like, what is that cool kind of custom specific to the client thing that I could make, because that is valuable.
Especially the calendar thing. Maybe like the lowest lift version of.
This that's client specific is literally just a calendar that you can share with them.
Because frankly, like most of my clients.
I will happily enforce deadlines on for.
Specific things, but they just need to remember things like payrolls, tax deadlines. And that's, for me, probably the biggest thing.
Like, what are those biggest reminders they need?
And when it comes to building out something custom, the thing you always have.
To think about is am I asking the client to go out to another place where they don't already live? And I think this is why most reminders are. Are generally managed via email. Like estimated payment reminders, stuff like that.
Most of the time, your practice management system's gonna push it out via email because I could create a really nice place for them to see all that stuff.
But if they never come to it, then it is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. So as much as I like that.
There still has to be something that's.
Pulling them back to it.
One thing that was always Helpful for.
Me was what is the most basic high roi, high impact version of this? Like, if I can strip it back to just what the most valuable part of it is, does that get me like 80% of the way there? And oftentimes the answer is yes. Like I would have a problem that I would need a solution for, but over time I would bolt all these other things onto it that are more kind of nice to haves. So what is the core problem in this situation? Is it getting their attention around specific deadlines so that they know what's coming up? Maybe there's a lower lift way of getting there, or even a version one that is, can I just get my practice management system to send this thing out or could I just share a calendar with them? That may be an easier place to start with like a trial set of.
Clients and if they love it, if they rave about it, maybe it merits.
A bigger investment, like a more custom platform. And then if those trial clients really like that too, then maybe that's something that you push out to more of your client base. I would say just try to be mindful of ensuring that that is something that is in a place where they already live. Because none of us need one more place to go out and monitor a thing. Right?
That's always kind of been my beef.
With dashboards in general is I don't need another thing to monitor.
And that's kind of always what dashboards.
Have felt like to me.
What I would rather do is set up the acceptable boundaries for certain metrics and KPIs and all of that. And then I want you to alert.
Me as soon as it falls outside of those boundaries.
But I don't just want another thing.
To watch, another thing to monitor. I think in the advent of like, you know, data visualization, getting really fancy and infographics and stuff like that, I think there was kind of this allure to this really nice visual dashboard. And while, I don't know, like I can so easily get suckered by like a cool, pretty looking thing, but I think that's, I don't know ultimately how helpful that was. If it led us to anything, it was maybe the consolidation of advisory around KPIs and maybe pushing more clients towards developing really simple KPIs.
But to be totally honest, I've never.
Been a huge fan of like the dashboard myself because it just felt like one more thing to look at. And I just want to instead kind of do the opposite, just be alerted when something falls out of, outside of some parameter that I defined.
Chris Lazuri Safe travels. What made you decide to get out.
Of doing technical and focus on making Z work better? So how did I get out of doing technical in the firm?
For the last year or two at.
The firm, we had a team of about 40 and I was the sole non, I don't know, service non client.
Facing the only person not doing the work, which was every bit as big.
Of a mental shift as you would expect that to require in a 80 year old traditional practice the notion that somebody would be on the payroll. Like in theory, like one of the owners ought to be the most highest, most capable people. And we're constantly, you know, running behind and struggling with capacity. And you're telling me that the solution is for one of our most capable people to not do the work.
So how did I get out of doing the work? Like eventually my answer to that question became yes, doing the work for me beyond a certain point, I said felt.
Like bailing water over a chain link fence.
I could help one on one and.
Give clients good experiences and all that.
But for me that was ultimately a.
Low leverage way of helping people. I think I could do that until the end of time, but I think there's higher leverage things I can do that would help more people. And so, and this is like probably the number one bit of wisdom I gleaned successfully transitioning from working in the business to working on the business is you just fundamentally have to assign a different value to your time and attention and not always be willing to be the hero. Because the worst version of running a 40 person firm is being the bottom of a filter where you will swoop in and be the hero and do all the work that nobody else can do or slips through the cracks because somebody left or something like that. And as long as you've put yourself in that role, like, you will never find calm, you will never, in my opinion, I could never be happy because I was perpetually terrified that somebody would leave and ultimately I would have to pay the price. Now that's a really, really hard trade off because sometimes there's a very real decision to let down a client rather than swoop in and be the hero. And I think oftentimes that's the rationale for why we should always be the hero. But I'll tell you what the problem with being the hero all the time.
Is, is everybody that works around you sees that.
And oftentimes they will jump out of the way or grow comfortable with you becoming the hero.
And so the fact that you're the hero doesn't do anything to reinforce your business.
Becoming more self sustaining, which is ultimately what we all want, right? The ability for it to run itself. Yet we are so in the weeds and involved in the doing of the work that it isn't running itself. I'm running it.
And everybody around me sees that. And so it becomes easier for those.
People to put work on you. And this was the kind of perspective.
That'S easy to have now and easy.
To have outside of the firm, but.
Inside of a 40 person firm. You mean to tell me that I can employ 40 people and there's something that I'm the only one? Like, there's scenarios where I am the only person who can do that. Like, then what are you hiring employees for? Like, why are all of these people.
Here if you are truly the only person that can do that? And most of the time that wasn't actually the case. You train the people around you to.
Need you to the extent that you do that stuff.
And it's why vacations oftentimes are the very best thing, because they rip off some hard band aids. Because people have to still be able to get work done when you're away. That is long vacations. If you're gonna be gone for a week, everybody will just let that crap all pile up. And you can dig yourself when you get back.
Right?
But some of the biggest steps I.
Ever made were when I would go.
On like a one month maternity leave or something like that. And we had to, in an expedited way, transition a whole bunch of work. And I never got that work back and it was great. So ultimately I got to that realization of I can always come in and do the work, but it doesn't really fundamentally solve the problems that we have. It's not gonna, it's not gonna get people to pay us more for the work that we do. It's not gonna get us to a more sustainable method of fulfilling fulfillment that isn't so reliant upon, oh my gosh, if one person leaves, we're hosed. These were big hard problems to solve and I wasn't going to solve them by sitting there and preparing tax returns or doing month end closes. Right? But you know, there's. I know there's a ton of people who out there who aspirationally want to get out of the doing of the work. And I think to get there, it just requires challenging some hard assumptions of where you're at. You know, it's one of those situations where you can't do it. Today. But if none of the, if none of the sacrifices that it takes to get you there, like, if, if you're not okay with any of that, like, something there has to give some framework of how you work has to, has to break in order to enable this new path. I know so many firm owners who have just sat back and waited and said, well, once we find the right people, like, then we can do it, man. That's not, that's not the problem. Like, it just isn't. It is. Oftentimes you're doing work that's great work for you, but not good work for the firm. Like, it's around a specialization that you have that nobody else in the practice has. So you're never going to be able to get out from under because your other, the rest of your firm don't have that expertise. That was a big unlock for me. Stop taking in work with, like, software development groups. That was really great, really fun work for me, but not really good work for my team. The day that my team started servicing that stuff from sales clear through to advisory everything, and I never had to touch it, we totally removed the element of prying those clients away from me. Right? Nobody likes coming in with the big boss and getting delegated, so don't bring them in at the big boss, like, if you're trying to get out of that stuff. My approach is like, be the wizard of Oz behind the curtain. It enables a higher ceiling for your team because they can own all of that stuff. And for me, it gave me the flexibility to work on the stuff that we really needed to work on within the firm. And over those couple years, like, we did stuff like virtually double our pricing, pull in more qualified people on the team than we ever had before, built an offshore team. For the first time, we got to work on some of the more systemic issues that would ensure that what we were doing was sustainable long term and that we could actually take care of the employees that we had the way we wanted to. We were really cool people and really.
Fun to work with, but no amount.
Of good vibes is gonna make up for there being way too much crap to do. And none of those problems were gonna get solved as long as I was sitting there doing the work. So I got to a point where doing the work just felt low leverage. I. I thought that I could help more people by getting out of the work and doing more strategic stuff. And that came down to sometimes drawing some really hard lines and saying, this thing's gonna slip through the cracks and I'm not gonna be the hero. And that's too bad. And we're gonna let a client down and we may lose some clients, but this is enabling us to build to something better in the future. It doesn't mean that we're not going to assess and understand what just happened and ensure that it doesn't happen again. But the solution can't be you perpetually being the hero, because beyond a certain size, being the hero becomes a full time job, right? And you just never get out from under that. And then you get frustrated that nothing ever really changes. But for me, it all started with having to set some boundaries and not stepping in to be the hero and telling my team, I'm not doing this work anymore. Honestly, like, one of the best things forcing functions we had was we moved our tax practice from low search ultra tax. And I just never learned ultra tax. And I know there's a lot of people that are like, oh, I gotta be in there just to understand it. And I never want to lose that edge. Frankly, for me, it was the very, very best thing because I could say, sorry, I don't know how to use it. Like, I know how to do all the tax work and the prep and the technical stuff and review the output and all that, but I didn't know.
How to use the software.
And that was an awesome forcing function. Because you know what?
In a firm of 40 people, the big boss shouldn't be entering numbers into tax software. Like, that's just how it is. But there are a lot of things.
Like that that like require us, requires of us to challenge a bunch of assumptions in the way that we think about this stuff in order to truly get to that place that we want to get to of working on the business. So that was kind of my journey there.
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Link in the show description cloudaccountantstaffing.com this episode is sponsored in part by Copilot Gang. I like tech as much as the next guy. I like finding new apps, plugging new stuff into my stack. But you know what I won't stand for is a scattered client experience. Imagine this dream world where a client can log into one thing and get access to all the things. Easier said than done right now, right? Because you got all these different tools with magic links and log into this, login to that. To get like all of that stuff out of a single portal is really hard right now. Oh that was until Copilot.
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Medicine to drop into 300 AD list the three things where you drop them off and explain why there's always one person that asks a question like this right? I I said the slap chop. Ever seen the slap chop on those made for TV things is like a little disk and it cuts stuff up. The knowledge was double entry accounting and the medicine was laughter. Megan Man, I'm not even going to try the last name. I'm sorry.
How big is your content support team? Which roles do you outsource, man?
I get, I get.
I get this question so much.
Who's your editor? What camera do you use? And it's like people see your videos and it's one of those things where when you make it look easy, it's like the compounding work of a whole bunch of different things. It's lighting, it's equipment, it's building a team of editors and stuff like that. So I've basically run like a little production company for the last couple years.
Right now I have a halftime onshore video editor.
I have two halftime offshore junior editors. I do all of the writing for everything myself. All of the main YouTube channels go through my computer for the final edit. So the team does 95%, but it will come through me and I will, like, tidy up the last few details generally.
Although that hasn't been the case since.
I was in Australia. Like the last few weeks, I've been giving up some control on that stuff. But 100% of the writing goes through me. And we've got like three halftime people on there. My next hire around media is probably somebody managing content publishing, and there's platforms that we're not consistent enough on that we probably should be on. Since this year, I'm just treating this as kind of more of a business. What I don't want to be is the person on social media that, you know, is always trying to show you something. Like, I see my job now as just being helpful and I don't want there to be any more complications than that. Like, yes, there are things like my accountant community and stuff like that where people will be able to pay me for that stuff. But, like, it's not at all central in my content because we've all seen the bad version of that. And there's so many Internet think people that are just trying to sell you your course or something like that. Right. I don't want to be that guy. So, that being said, we make a lot of really cool stuff that nobody sees. And so my next hire is going to be more around consistently publishing to other platforms, probably repurposing stuff that we already do just to get the work that we're already doing in front of more people. Because social media is kind of like, if you think about my business, social media is kind of the top of my funnel right now. About half of my business is my accountant community. That's about half of how I make money. The other half or so is sponsorships on content. So for all of my business, which even for me still I have to put quotations around it because it seems silly. For all of my business, social media is the top of the funnel, but it's also the very best part of my business. The fact that my function is to just be helpful on social media. How can I help people? That's ultimately what's going to pull more people into your audience.
And that's pretty cool.
I think just being helpful could be worse than that. Now, that being said, people always ask what I do in the stuff that I use. I mean, it's the product of a year's years and a lot of work and honestly, a lot of money, a lot of investment. It's absolutely not what you should be doing. Like, it's the. How I recommend people start is, like, you got to start by doing that stuff yourself. Like, the reason that we can get the video edits, like, really dialed to my sense of humor and stuff like that is because I learned how to do it all myself and I invested the time in it. Just like anything else. Hiring out a function is a learned skill, right? Like, we all learn the right and the wrong ways to hire accountants and train them to be successful. Like, man, that's all a big learning process. So you kind of got to find your own journey. No, it's not just because I have a magic editor. I do have killer editors, but I've been through over 100 editors. And that's why it's not a magic camera. You just got to do it. And honestly, that, like, that, the super polish and all that isn't really a big deal. Like, if you're going to start doing video, like, just record janky looms like that. I mean, that was my first six months of making videos, was recording looms on a webcam in this little, like, workshop, the same workshop I work in now. But it was a total mess. It was like a dumping ground for all my family's unused children, toys and stuff like that. Just start simple. And honestly, if you're, if you're producing content for your clients, it doesn't matter that much. Like, it doesn't. It's not a huge deal, and it's not a very high bar to app produce other folks. But don't start with your camera. Don't start with who do I need to hire? And all that. Start with finding something that you enjoy. Like, that was another big driver for me. As I learned. I actually really enjoyed the creative aspect of putting together funny things on video. And it was the fact that I learned that I loved that that made the doing of the work more than anybody else would think was reasonable. Like, that was what led me down that path.
Anthony Zepeda. Sorry, man from acuity. How did he start?
We all know the cool, awesome Jason. You stopped that. That's here today. But how did you get here? Working on creating a newsletter, personal website and blog. Yeah, actually, the last podcast, we talked a lot about this, honestly, and it's amazing, frankly. And that even recording that really put things in perspective for me. Five or six years ago, all I had done was prepare a bunch of tax returns. I'd never talked with anybody really, outside my firm. I'd been at a couple practices. My thinking was so small and so limited. And in the last five years, building a network has just exploded all that. And I'm in a really cool position where I can put out content that I think attracts smart people, and then I'm made smarter by those smart people that I attract. And then there's kind of this flywheel of then I steal their ideas and I re share that stuff, and it attracts more smart people. So I feel like I've been able to be the hub of a really unique type of accounting firm runner, and then I'm ultimately the beneficiary of a lot of wisdom from them. But it all started with, I mean, I was just a tax preparer. The first stuff I did in content, I mean, I've shared before, I just started posting on Twitter every day what I was working on, what I was up to, and kind of learning. But again, like, for every 10 posts you do on your own timeline, or for every one post you do on your own timeline, do 10 on somebody else's. And the replies, like, that's. That's the best part of social media is the replies.
But the first, like, maybe business y.
Thing I did was a newsletter called Launch for Accountants. She shout out to all the launch for accountant OGs out there, especially if you've got a fanny pack, there's a collector's item. I don't even have one of those. Basically, I was doing a bunch of tech discovery stuff on my own and combing through these websites and finding cool new apps for accountants each week. So I just started checking that into a newsletter and I said, I'm already doing this work myself, so I'm just gonna put five or ten new apps every week in this structured format into a newsletter. And some people subscribed, but, like, there was. There's no element of anything that I've ever done that's like overnight success. Like It's. It is. It was like posting three times a day on Twitter for years and picking up a subscriber here and picking up a subscriber there. And these days, like, nothing happens on my stuff that, like, moves the needle all that much. Like, it is just about consistency, being there every single day, building relationships, and, like, generally being helpful, but also, like, being a good human being. Like, I don't know. I. Like, I've shared before. Like, there used to be this element of, like, oh, what if you get canceled? Or something like that when you're kind of an online personality. And I'm just like, I've never been less worried about that than ever before when I see the people that do get canceled and the idiotic things that they do. Like, it's just. I mean, it's just really, like, be a compassionate human being and try to understand where other people come from. That's a. I don't know. That's not something that everybody has, I guess. So, like, be kind and be consistent and be helpful and that. That gets you there. But it's been years of work. Like, there is no, like, snap your finger and you shortcut to get there. So just start. As accountants, I think we chronically overanalyze. So if you're thinking about doing this stuff, just start. Like, that's how you learn. Is building the habit and doing it more than anybody else would think is reasonable. Like, I did video stuff and I put more effort and more money into it than anybody else thought was reasonable. And now that's why it's really good. And people are like, wow, like, how do you do that? You must have a killer editor. All these things. It's like, no, I was just cranking on it harder than anybody else was. And honestly, being better at other people than things, Being better than other people at things is usually as simple as that. Just investing more time and effort into it than anybody else is willing to do.
Hey. Today's episode is sponsored in part by Financial Sense, and I am very excited to share. Financial Sense is putting on a virtual conference called WorkflowCon, and yours truly will be there talking about how to use AI for workflow stuff. Conferences happen in late October.
20 got actually a pretty, like, rock.
Star cast of speakers. Don Brolin, Ryan Lazanis, Kelly Parks, now Carter Gray, Veronica Wasek, Allison Baltrell Turner, Nicole Davis. Whole bunch of super smart people use the link in the show notes to sign up for free. Yep, I said it for free. They've got all the sessions organized into tracks so you can pick something that makes the most sense for you. You know how I feel about conferences. It is the best way to get out of your kind of group. Think tunnel vision that we all have within our firms. Come check this one out. Hit the link in the show notes for more information. Hey. This episode sponsored in part by Firm360. I know you were just about to ask Firm360 practice management system that gives you a 360 degree view of your firm. All that stuff all in one tool. And if you listen to me talk software much, you know that I'm an.
Advocate of asking my peers, hey, what are you using?
What is working and not working.
And you know what?
There is a whole bunch of reviews online for Firm360 and I'm not talking about the stuff on the Firm360 website.
When you know, you know, they just cherry pick the winners. I'm out.
I'm skulking Capterra right now. Come on in. Whole lot of happy people hanging out there leaving reviews for firm 360.
So I know I can trust them.
Let's talk about Tempe B Certified public accountant. Got a 1 to 10 employee firm quote. Great solution for small firms. We've been using Firm360 for several months now and with each monthly feature update we are loving it even more. We're a very small firm that needed an affordable yet effective CRM solution. And Firm360 has filled that need. I've implemented other software programs. This one has been the easiest by far to get up and running. What else do you need to hear? Okay, Tempe. Be more like Tempe. Good for you, Tempe. Learn more about Firm360 in the link in the show notes. Let's do a couple more. What type of services would you provide if you wanted to be a scalable Solopreneur? Man, those things are kind of at.
Odds, the two of them. Scalable Solopreneur.
I. I would have a really hard.
Time ever being a pure Solopreneur because there is so much just, I don't know, so much grunt work in the work that we do that has not yet been automated. I would have a really hard time doing all that stuff myself. I gave her basically two paths. I said number one, one version of Solopreneur right now is you're the face of the biz and you outsource fulfillment across a number of outsourced content. So you are basically the face of the business.
You are accountable for the output.
But behind you is a bunch of contract groups that you work with to get the work done. And there was a time where I.
Would have clutched my pearls and gasped at that.
But like, I mean that's, there's a whole bunch of business out. The businesses out there that are just like that, where all they do is sell leads to plumbers and stuff like that.
Ultimately at the end of the day.
You'Re putting your name on this stuff and you're responsible for the output and, and AI is actually gonna push us to business models that are more like this, I think. So at the end of the day.
If I hire a really good junior or a really good intern and a.
Really bad intern.
Is it okay for work to go out the door? That's worse because I've got a bad one like no. So less and less I'm concerned with.
How the work gets done behind the scenes because ultimately all that matters is what you deliver. Like that is what I'm accountable for. So one really interesting version of a.
Solopreneur is basically you have all of.
Your work outsourced, you do the final review on this and you are the face of that company and you manage all the interactions with clients. I know a few people doing this now running super profitable firms. I think it's absolutely makes a lot of sense right now, especially with how work has become globalized. You still have some of the downsides.
Of managing people, but it's a whole.
Lot less than like a traditional full time like onshore employee. And to be clear, outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean offshore. Right? Could be onshore also other option. I said number two, if you really want it to be just you, the path to building a mega profitable firm.
I think is for you to become like the go to guru for a.
Hyper specific type of person and then sell one to many services into this group. This is like my maximum big brain. How can one person just make stupid money sort of things.
So I said, for example, you're gonna.
Offer coaching to group dental practice owners over $20 million. So that's the specificity. Group dental practice owners, you know, over this big revenue threshold.
And you run monthly masterminds of 10 people who pay $1,000 a month to be there. Now that sounds like a lot, but remember a big part of the value of you getting those people together is you are the hub, is you're also enabling the connections of all those people.
To come together with very specific, like minded valuable people, right?
So they're all paying $1,000 a month to Be there. They get access to a little private.
Community so that those people can interact as well.
You run five of these masterminds a.
Month and you've got a 99% margin, 600k a year business, pretty much pure profit. So if you want to do something super specific, I would or like with just you that can be hyper profitable. I think it's all about finding a very, very, very specific type of person, becoming the guru for them and then selling one too many services into that group. I said something like that may feel sort of nut like shouldn't say nets feels like super out of reach but it is the product of like you know, a decade in my mind of networking and content production to find those people and become the guru. But man on the other side of that, that's pretty cool. Pretty cool opportunity.
Let's do one more daily podcast. This was Mike Manilak. Daily podcast seems like quite a task for creating content. How do you find new stuff to discuss? Well, let you in on a secret, Mike. I don't publish every day, am I right? But I know what you mean. I said, ever heard that expression, the more you write, the more you have to say.
That is so true. I can't remember where I first heard that. But somebody said something along the lines of if you're not sure what to say, like write. And as you write you will find that you actually have more to say than you realize because it kind of organizes thoughts in your head and all that. And I think the fact that I can blather on as long as anybody else in the profession about this stuff is a byproduct of the fact that I genuinely believe that I have more conversations with firm owners. And I talk about this stuff more than just about anybody.
Most of the like influencer, the people that talk about stuff in our space.
Now, most of those people still run firms. And this was me up to 1231. I now have the luxury of through social media, through my private community, stuff like that, of being able to just like have these conversations all day. And I think the reason that I have so much to say is because I'm having so many of these conversations.
I'm writing so much about this stuff.
Like remember, like every single time I sit down to do a daily pod, there's a good 20 minutes of research. There's at upwards of a couple hours sometimes. Every time I'm writing YouTube videos, like that's usually a half day, a half day or so to write a main channel video. Like I am talking with people and thinking and writing on this stuff around the clock. And I think that's why I have way too much to say about all of this. And it would be, like, completely unthinkable for me if I wasn't spending so much time talking about this. Like, how could somebody have so much to say about it? I also think that we, like, go super deep on the nuance. The nuanced aspects of firm running. Like, this goes way beyond something that, you know, your vendor is ever going to set up a webinar for people to come to that's around client onboarding or value billing or something like that. Like, we definitely get more into the nitty gritty than. Than other people do.
But this is the shop talk that.
I would have super enjoyed when I was running firms because we can go into just deeper stuff. I'm also in an incredibly fortunate position to not be partnered with anyone. And that is what springboarded, like, all of my content. The fact that I had my accountant community in the beginning, and those people could basically finance the little production company I was running so that I could reinvest that money back into content that was helpful for people most. And I mean virtually every other quote, unquote, influencer I know in our space, whatever you want to call them, they can only go out and do that business via partnerships with other software companies who will pay them to do that stuff. And I'm. It's not lost on me. I'm so fortunate that I didn't have that from the beginning. And I value more than anything else now my independence and my ability to say what I want to say about just about anything because my money's not coming from partnerships. I think that is the value of.
The accountant community that I run.
Like, it has held out as, like, hey, this is like the only community that isn't run by your software vendor. Like, there is no conflicts there. So I've been in a. In a very privileged position from the beginning to be able to have these conversations with people and talk about stuff not through the lens of, hey, have you tried out this thing? Or look at how great this product is? But, like, just being as real as possible. What's working? What's not working? What about this tool is great? What about this tool is not great? Like, that's. To have collected all of that.
It's really cool.
Like, just the fact that I'm able to have those conversations each and every day, and then I get to be the mirror for all that smart stuff and reflect that back out into the Internet and help other people, man, there's.
Worse jobs, especially when you come to.
Conferences and people are, like, super grateful and appreciative and all of that. It's not a bad gig, but it.
All works because you lovely people turn up.
Thanks for being here today, and I'll see you in the next one.
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