164 Santa's Top Tips for Accounting Firms

We're back.

Happy New Year. Welcome in to 2024. It is going to be a great year for accounting, for accounting firm running. And big news, we got a very special guest with us today. So much of accounting firm running is about keeping up with change, managing seasonality, and you want to talk about the king of managing seasonality? Gotta be Santa Claus, right? So today we're gonna do a little debrief with Santa on how. How his busy season went this year. Santa, say hello.

Oh, yep, it's me. Nice.

Okay, Yep. So come on in. We're talking lessons from the North Pole around running the counting curve. I'll be honest, I'm a little nervous. It's a big day for me. Santa, great to have you here. For anybody who isn't familiar with you, maybe just a quick 30 second intro.

Ho, ho, ho. Well, if you must know, I'm the guy with the big red suit and the white beard delivering toys one night a year. But let's cut to the chase. I run a toy distribution enterprise at the North Pole, manage an army of elves, and somehow keep this sleigh flying year after year. And before you ask, no, I'm not always jolly, especially not after the hectic season I've just had. It's a lot of pressure to keep this gig running smoothly, and frankly, it's wearing me down.

Aww.

But, hey, the kids love it, so here I am. So here I am.

The kids love it, so here I am. So that most people listen to this podcast, Santa, they are accounting firm owners and the whole. The kids love it, so here I am. That's relatable. On a lot of days, people expect you to keep doing this stuff, so you prop yourself up, you put your big boy pants on, and you just keep doing it even when you're super tired. Okay, so starting a new year here, just coming down off of last Christmas. Why don't you run us through? Did you have any big learnings this year on just any aspects of. Of running the old operation?

Well, let's see. With everyone to their screens, the demand for tech gadgets skyrocketed. Had to upgrade the elves tool belts just to keep up. Talk about a budget buster. Sustainability's the big word of the year. Reindeer methane is apparently a problem. So now I'm looking into green slave fuel, whatever that's supposed to mean. Supply chain issues are still a lump of coal in my stock. Had to get creative with sourcing materials, which meant yes, negotiating with yetis. And with everyone streaming their lives, there's this Pressure to make Christmas Instagramable.

Oh wow.

What happened to just enjoying the moment, huh?

Boy, a lot of things to unpack there. Reindeer methane. Didn't have that on my radar. The imagine running the North Pole with the speed at which toy trends change. Man, that sounds rough. The notion that something could get hot Q4 and you have to like pivot that quickly. Maybe the closest thing we have that is to that is like regulatory changes and keeping up with that stuff. But usually that's happening on a longer cycle where you've got time to plan and all that. Not jealous of Santa in that regard, but I will say he talked about digital stuff like shifting sentiments around people doing more things digitally than ever before. I think Covid really accelerated that and we are still on that path. And, and I would argue most accounting firms, I don't know that we are yet giving clients, if we are leaning into giving them digital ways to work with us and like automated ways to provide documents and manage requests and that sort of thing. Obviously we talk about that stuff a lot. And the big pushback is nobody wants yet another portal to, to manage. Honestly, I think sentiment on that stuff is, is changing. Probably goes without saying that's going to become more and more the norm. You year over year. If there's a North Star there of what is the right answer for your firm, Should I push clients to a portal or not? I don't think there's an absolute right answer. Ultimately I think what you need to need to consider is you ought to craft that client experience around what are the desires of your next dream client. If you could bring one client in next, what would they want? Like are these tech forward progressive people where they're like, yeah, don't email me back and forth for documents, just tell me what you need and where to put it. If those are the type of folks that you're looking to attract, create a super awesome client experience for those type of folks. Where that gets hard is when those aren't the people you have today. And I burned a ton of years in firm running not changing for the client we wanted because that change didn't align with the client that we had. And that's a big time trap and it holds you back. But I'll take my situation over Santa's situation any day. Santa, what is post busy season cooldown look like for you? We're a lot of us are about to get into our like busiest seasons of the year. How do you unwind from that now? You're what, like a week removed from from the big day.

Well, it should be me kicking back with a cold glass of Kringle Nog. By the way, have you tried this stuff? It's. Never mind. Anyway, the cooldown is more like a debrief with the board where we list all the things that supposedly will fix next year. That we say that every time I give the elves some constructive feedback on their toy making efficiency. But do they listen? And of course, I've got to start preparing for next year because heaven forbid we take a real break. Then there's the Mississippi. But let's not open that can of worms. Oh, oh.

Trouble on the home front. Running the North Pole. Sounds a lot like running an accounting firm where it feels like your break is over as soon as it started. Did he say Kringle Mog? That's. Did you say Kringle Nog?

Oh, the nog. Yeah, it's. Look, it's not important. We should focus on more pressing matters, like the inefficient wrapping protocol that nearly delayed takeoff.

Oh, wow.

Have you ever tried to manage ELF workflow? Now that's a headache and a half. How about we talk about something really useful, like how to navigate state nexus issues for a flying sleigh. Ever deal with that kind of red tape?

Can't say that I have. But even though I am a cpa, I, I, I don't do taxes, so I can't help you there.

Right, you don't do taxes. Got it. But hypothetically, if someone had to figure out taxes for, let's say, a global delivery operation that's based in a place with no official sovereignty, where would they start? You know, just curious for a friend. Ho, ho, ho. Say this hypothetical scenario doesn't affect my Kringle Nog ventures, does it? Moving on. Perhaps you'd like to know how toy trends are changing instead.

Did I just this Santa just fleece me for tax advice? Okay, I'm not interested in that. One interesting thing Santa said there was that he has a board and part of his post busy season cooldown as a board is doing stuff with the board and about you. Do you have like a formal debrief process after busy season? That was something I always tried to do is actually get the whole team involved on a debrief. Because everything that was a big deal in busy season, after a few weeks and after everybody's taking a break feels like less of a big deal. Which is good in many ways. Like oftentimes, tensions are high and you're all about to kill each other by the time you get to the end of busy season and giving that space to cool off is the best thing. But the flip side of that is what I would end up doing is I would get back into busy season and be like, oh my gosh, this is the same issue we've had so many times. Why are we not fixing this? And that gets really, really frustrating when you feel like you're doing that same thing over and over again. So to combat that, we would basically get the entire team together. Hopefully before, like everybody's busy season minds had totally turned off to just do a big old idea dump. The goal wasn't to really even solve any problems. It was just to dump a bunch of gripes and points of friction up just to capture those things to then hopefully eventually do something about them. But the main goal was to, to capture and to also give people a chance to let off some steam and like, say some stuff out loud that might be uncomfortable stuff, but had been building throughout busy season. But I'm curious, Santa, you mentioned that you have a board. Tell me about your board. Like, is that, do you have like a formal cooldown or, I don't know, sort of recap process for post Christmas?

The board, quite the cast of characters. There's Frosty, always cool under pressure. Rudolph with his nose so bright, guiding through red tape as well as foggy nights. Then we've got the corporate bigwigs like Marissa Mayer. Strategic is all get out. And Richard Branson for pushing us to think bigger, bolder. They all bring something to the table, even if it's just more headaches for old Saint Nick. But hey, without them, we'd probably still be using reindeer powered typewriters. So there's that. Ho, ho, ho.

Okay, that doesn't make sense. Mara Mayer and Richard Branson. I didn't have that. I wouldn't have expected them to be on Santa's board. He's light on details on exactly what that debrief looks like, but a debrief post busy season, it is definitely worth having. Okay, let's get into some more tactical things. This whole notion why I originally reached out to Santa to interview him as I was like watching holiday Christmas movies. It's interesting. There's like a lot of different things about the North Pole about managing elves, but just about the whole Santa operation that have a lot of crossovers with entrepreneurship. So let's get a little more tactical here and pick the big guy's brain. So seasonality in the work of accounting firms, big problem. Really hard to smooth that stuff out. Some of us do a better job of it than others. There's certain things, like tax work, that is especially hard to smooth out. I would argue we have with us today the foremost leader in managing workflow spikes. Literally the entire year comes down to a single day. That's obviously hard. But Santa, what do you do to spread out the workflow? Depressurize the big day.

Seasonality, my old nemesis. We've tried a few tricks to smooth things out. We stagger the toy production throughout the year, outlining quotas each month. Elves work better under constant manageable pressure. Then there's the naughty or nice analytics. Automated systems help update the list. Real time prevents that last minute crunch. And finally, we delegate. Regional elf managers handle local logistics, cutting down on the chaos at hq. It's not perfect, but it eases the tension somewhat. Anyway. Now if only my elves were as number savvy as your accountants, maybe we'd be onto something.

Oh no, accountants aren't. They're pretty bad too. You know, people often ask me, jason, who is this episode sponsored in part by. Well, today is. This episode is sponsored in part by LiveFlow. Did you hear the news? LiveFlow just launched a consolidation product. You actually might have seen it on the main channel recently. We did a whole demo day of it. Liveflow's automated multi entity consolidations. It's beyond simple to use. You can easily map multiple unmatching chart of accounts from multiple QuickBooks Online companies into one standardized report. And once it's set up, liveflow is going to get to work updating the consolidations automatically in real time, the realest of time, so you can focus on analysis using instantly updating data across entities. LifeLow can even consolidate financials that are in different currencies. That sounds disgusting. Yikes. And it doesn't stop there. LifeFlow offers flexible, powerful reporting tools. Create customized dashboards that meet your specific needs. You little snowflake. Build executive presentations, cash flow forecasts and more with just a few clicks. The consolidation thing is actually super cool. You haven't seen that yet, Check it out on the main YouTube channel. And thanks to LifeFlow for sponsoring the pod, the monthly quota. What is the. What's the nugget in there for accounting firms scheduling out work throughout the year? Man, I'm so bullish on this. I feel like I rail on a lot of things that are, I don't know, in the accounting space. There's somebody will say something and it's like, oh, this is novel. And then there's somebody that's been doing it for 15 years. And even if it kind of becomes, quote unquote the norm within, I don't know, a corner of the Internet or one group of people, uh, you still, for the next, you know, several decades won't have people doing that thing. But if there's something I could really stress, it is how much success people have had moving to more scheduled work and how that is constantly just like a huge quality of life improvement from the people who are doing it. Uh, so that is shifting from the mindset that we're just gonna do work whenever people bring it into us. And this is kind of an accounting thing, but really a tax thing. Shifting from that notion that you're just going to give them a ballpark, we can probably turn it around within X timeframe without actually giving them like, this is the month or this is the week when your thing will be done this year. And working backwards from there, telling them you have to get us your information by this date. We just blindly trust that. Because this has usually been the case in the past, we think that people will just kind of bring us their stuff when they usually do and we will kind of sort of smooth that out over the year. Hopefully they don't make a run on the bank at once. Cause you know, we're totally hosed. And the thing to me here when it comes to especially US tax firms is if in the past your clients always brought your stuff throughout brought you their work throughout the entire year. The reality is if every single client brought you all their stuff on February 1st, you would still probably finish that work in October. So like, there's oftentimes a resistance to getting people to bring you your stuff, their stuff sooner because it's like, well, if they bring us their stuff sooner, what are we even gonna do with it? Like we don't have extra time that we can just magic up to do all that work. So then when we start looking at things like pre staging client requests and having all those go out, you know, in January or in February, and that actually accelerating the rate at which people give you information because the machine is automatically following up with them for those documents, you look at a positive change like that that like eliminates humans needing to follow up with clients for information. And the initial reaction can be like, well, that doesn't actually mean that we can do all that work. Then when it comes in, if anything it's worse because they're all giving us this information easier or earlier and now they're going to have to wait longer to get the output and the solution here is just taking control of the annual cadence. The more we sit back and just let clients bring us stuff to do when they want us to do stuff, instead of us saying, listen, gang, we do this for tens of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people. This is the process. This is the best way to do it. And you communicating a plan of your own design saying, this is the best way to do it. If you don't do that, that client will always fill in the void with whatever they want. Now, transitioning from a firm that just lets clients do whatever they want to a more intentional here's how we do it. And we're not really going to budge much here. Like, that is hard to go from A to B, because those clients have an expectation of maybe a greater level of flexibility than you're going to allow them going forward. But that is only hard because of the existing reality. And every time you add a new client, they're not beholden to that existing reality. And I would actually argue more of our existing clients than. Than we think are going to be totally fine with this, totally open to this, and we'll actually be relieved and be like, oh, gosh, thanks. Like, appreciate the transparency. I love the fact that you've, like, outlined this sort of annual process. Makes a ton of sense. Happy to jump out of the way. It's literally what I'm paying you to do. And as long as you haven't taken control of when the work will happen, I mean, you are beholden to whenever clients turn up to give you that stuff, and that's kind of a risky spot to be. You run the risk of disappointing people because if everybody brings their stuff in, obviously that's all going to take a long time to get done. And the beauty of scheduling is you can build in stuff like slow times, you can build in stuff like overtime. If you do want to work overtime, certain periods of the year, you're actually then completely in control of how much stuff is getting done, which, I don't know. Oftentimes running firms just feels like you're like riding on a buck and bronco, afraid of what's going to come in the door next. And anything that does come in the door, there's this implicit assumption that you will. You will just do it. So you're just kind of along for the ride, and it ends up ruining vacations and everything takes longer than it thinks it will, than you think it will. And, you know, you know, all of those, all of those struggles, the solution, man, same one as Santa's monthly quotas. Put those L's to work every month. I am curious, as many of us are going through renewals right now, how Santa determines who goes on the naughty and nice list. Because we're all building a naughty and nice list of our own right now, right? Like, what are the factors that go into that to help you decide which clients you fire and which you don't? So, Santa, could you tell us more about how that naughty or nice list works?

We run a behavior algorithm. Factors in everything from kindness to creative truth telling. Each child gets a score between 1 and 10. 10 being a true angel, 1 being a tiny troublemaker. Those on the lower end get a warning instead of coal these days increases their odds of improving next year. Now, for your clients, you might consider their promptness in payment, responsiveness and compliance with your advice. Fire the ones that drag you down. After all, even Santa's got a limit to his patience.

Giving them a warning. That's interesting. Do you give clients warnings? Like, if they're on that fringe and if you're consider. Like if they're one of those fringe clients where you might fire them, is there a way to give them a warning that, like, prods them into the zone of being a better client? That's a messy one to answer. And it's probably messy because I don't think most firms have, like, an explicit framework for how they measure the fire ability of a client. And in the early days, and if you're a solo practitioner, it's gut feeling. Usually it's like, do I enjoy this person or not? Because it's just you. You can make that decision unilaterally and it's a more simple thing. I always come back to phone pickup ability. When that person calls, am I excited to talk about them or am I like, oh, gosh, there's no way I'm taking this. We'll see what their voicemail says, and then maybe I'll send them an email. At the end of the day, I wanna be surrounded by people that I really enjoy working with, and it's totally up to you to craft that reality. But once you grow beyond the solo outfit and you start adding team members, what you find is you have a notion of what a good client is and the type of person you enjoy working around. But that's not going to be the same as your teams. And oftentimes the way that a client treats you is not the same as the way the client treats your team. Over time, we got more systematic about how we measured this because it needs to incorporate not only my own thoughts on these clients, but also the staff's thoughts. And so this, this scorecard for your clients. And it is worth going through this grading process at least once a year. It needs to include your inputs, needs to include your team's inputs, and it probably needs to include inputs that are more 10,000 foot level, like, does this client align with maybe the industry that we're trying to push towards profitability, stuff like that. I don't think any one of those things maybe trumps all the others. Besides maybe clients that you are like, we need to get rid of this client for some reason. Or where your staff comes to you and you're like, they cannot keep coming here. There's probably a few trump cards that could be played there. In fact, I talked to someone not that long ago who was telling me they basically let each of their staff members fire a couple of clients per year if they want to. Totally optional, but if they want to, they can throw them out. And I have seen a lot of people leave firms because they couldn't stand the clients that they, they worked with. And it is always better to lose a client than to lose a good staff person, in my opinion. Santa mentioned promptness of payment being a factor. Nah, you just gotta have rules for how clients pay you for getting the work done. And they either follow those rules or they're not clients. But I do think in the traditional billing cycle of like invoicing hours and you know, being net 30 or being the type of clients you have who only pay the bill when they want the next thing done from you, I do think that's pretty common practice. In fact, I went to do some hands on work with a client doing sort of some cleanup stuff, helping them with bill pay at one point. And we looked at their accounts payable register and our firm was the oldest outstanding AP by a mile. Because this business basically just paid bills to whoever cried the loudest or threatened to stop service and that they were running cash super tight. And that was how they decided who got paid. And at the time the firm was like, this was earlier, earlier days when I was a junior, this was a very traditional firm where we'd send out an invoice and I don't know that we even really sent reminders. There basically was no process for following up with clients who hadn't paid. The partner would just see it the next time they went to bill them and then maybe the partner would call them. But the reality was the client was taking a hundred days longer to pay our firm than anyone else they worked with in their entire business because there were no rules around how we were supposed to get paid. You just gotta lock that stuff down. I'm a big advocate of getting payment information from folks on file, giving them the price for that stuff upfront. And as long as the project comes in within the scope that you expected, you have an agreement where you are within your rights to pull payment as soon as the project is done. And that just keeps things simple. That's. It's one of those things where if you're not living that life right now, it can be hard to think through, how do I communicate this to my existing clients to get them to that new, better reality? And so as a result, we're like, I don't know how to change from where I am now. But then you keep taking in all these clients who don't have this expectation, and you're training them on that bad payment cycle. Also, like, you just gotta rip that band aid off. At the very least, start doing it with new clients. You got way better things to do than to chase invoices and all that. On the subject of lists, I have a complex relationship with checklists. I feel like they are necessary, but I feel like human nature is. I mean, it's just like you put a post it on your monitor, you see that, post it for a week, and then your brain just does not process that post anymore. In fact, Huberman's talked about this quite a bit. Like our. We adjust to our surroundings, and our brain learns to kind of like, turn off the things that are always there. And for you and your spouse, for one of you, that may be a pile of clothes that's always sitting on the floor, maybe that's post it note hell that you got stuck all over your office. But I kind of feel like checklists work the same way where they're helpful the first few times you're doing something. And then humans just, like, go down and take off the list and, like, increasingly ignore those things over time. Santa, you famously have a list that is checked twice. Would you agree with that? What's your take on checklists?

Ho, ho, ho, Checklist. Here's my hot take. They're like a shiny new bicycle on Christmas morning. Great at first, but then the novelty wears off. You start with good intentions, but if you don't keep it fresh, folks just go through the motions. So I shake it up, keep the elves on their toes. What I do is a surprise audit now, and then I'll pop into the Workshop unannounced. Check a few toys off the list myself. Keeps them honest and you'd better believe they pay attention after that. Accountability, that's the key. Now if you'll excuse me, I need another swig of this. Well, never mind what it is, it's good though. Really good.

Is that the Kringle knock? This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at Cloud Accountant 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, all yours. They work exclusively for you and are incentivized to stay with you and your team long term. They're not gonna 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 gonna build our own pipeline in the Philippines. Gonna 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 okay, surprise audits. I think it was Chad Davis actually that told us they have like a roving team that that goes around to the various different projects within their firm and they will pull at random a client and they have to do the month end close just based on the documentation that's out there. And whether they can do that successfully is taken into account as one of a number of factors in folks annual reviews. So they have this expectation that everybody's documentation has to be of the quality where if they got hit by a bus tomorrow somebody else could come in and do it for them. And, and they actually secret Santa this by like having a roving team of people who will do month end closes to Santa's point here keeping the elves on their toes. He's inspecting the toys ultimately he's looking at the quality of the output. He's not so much looking at are they giving the checklist the tender love and attention that maybe you want them to. And if the quality is where it needs to be on the output, doesn't matter that they went through the checklist. I don't know. I don't. I don't know. To me, like, if you say no, that kind of defeats some of the purpose of the checklist where you're looking for a. Like a quality assurance standard. And so if your job is to build rockets, you've got a lockdown quality assurance process where everything is very high stakes and you're making sure everything fits within the box that it needs to fit in. I don't the. So there's a book checklist manifesto. Want to go through that at some point? Because I love the idea of checklists to lock everything down. But every time within a firm, we've used them in the wild. Like, the reality is, I don't know that people pay that much attention to them. I got to ask, because he keeps alluding to it, what is this drink you keep talking about?

Oh, finally asking the right questions. Kringle Nog. It's this creamy, dreamy concoction recipe passed down through generations of classes.

Oh, wow.

But why do I keep bringing it up? Well, it's more than just a drink. It's a moment of peace in the eye of the holiday hurricane. A sip of sanity when the toy drums won't stop beating. I might have thought about sharing it with the world, maybe as a little side hustle to keep the sleigh in the air, but let's not get into that. It's for personal enjoyment. Definitely not for sale. Unless, you know, someone showed interest. But you're not interested, are you?

No, I am, actually.

Back to business. How's that client list coming along?

Okay, No, I am interested. What are the ingredients? What? Tell me more. What goes into this drink?

Well, since you're so curious, Kringle Nog isn't your typical eggnog. It's a potent mix to warm the coldest North Pole night. We start with the finest aged dark rum, blend in a generous pour of cognac for a kick, and add a splash of brandy to make sure you forget about those production backlogs. Then we whisk in rich, creamy egg yolks, a bit of sugar to sweeten the deal, and a sprinkle of holiday spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, the works. Top it off with a heavy cream float that's richer than Scrooge before his ghostly interventions. But remember, it's just a hobby, not a business venture. Unless you think there's a market for it. Ho, ho, ho. No, no. Let's keep our focus on your accounting queries.

What should we push a little further on? He keeps alluding to side hustle. He doesn't seem particularly happy with his main job. If the Christmas thing is wearing thin on you, Santa, have you considered doubling down on the side hustle, leaning into this a little more?

Ho, ho ho. Let me be frank. Sure, the thought of trading in the sleigh for a cocktail shaker has crossed my mind more times than I'd care to admit. But let's just say Christmas is in my blood. It's the family business and these boots are hard to fill.

Okay, a couple specific examples from holiday movies I wanted to ask Santa about. In the movie Elf, you used a jet engine to augment the pulling power of the reindeers to keep the sleigh in the air. Any other examples of marrying the modern with more traditional. I feel like North Pole is like kind of straddling that, like traditional stuff with modern tech. Any examples of where you're plugging tech into your business right now?

Ho, ho, ho. The jet engine was a necessity. Magic alone isn't what it used to be. What with all the doubters these days, we've got to keep with the times. Can't just rely on the old ways. For one, we've implemented a high tech GPS system. It's not just about knowing who's naughty or the fastest route to their chimney. And let's not forget the manufacturing side. We've got 3D printers in the workshop now. Printing toys on demand makes those custom LEGO sets a snap. To produce and to manage the mountain of letters from little boys and girls worldwide, we've put in a high speed digital scanning system with AI to interpret every wish. It's about striking a balance, you know, maintaining the OLA holiday magic while steering clear of obsolescence.

Yeah, okay, I to make sense of every wish. That's interesting. Where do you stand on AI Excited for AI Is there a risk it displaces some of your workforce?

Excited? More like thrilled. Between you and me, these elves can be a tad finicky. You give them a couple of candy canes and. And they think they're running the show. AI on the other hand, doesn't need breaks, doesn't form unions, and certainly doesn't give me any lip. Imagine a workshop where the toys pretty much make themselves an inventory is managed down to the last jingle bell, all without an elfin error in sight. Now there's a Christmas miracle for you. Of course, I'd Never really replace the elves. Where would the charm be in that? But the idea of a little less elf drama and a little more efficiency. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Let's just say it lights up my tree.

Sounds like it. Okay. Sounds like Santa's got a complex relationship with his elves. Understandable, relatable in many ways. Okay, in the movie the Santa Claus, you fell off the roof and there was a card in your jacket that said the person to find that card becomes the next Santa Claus. And most of our accounting firms, we don't have such a succession plan. There's obviously something that he has put some thought into. Any wisdom around succession planning? How accounting firms should be thinking about that?

Ho, ho, ho. Wasn't that quite the plot twist? Succession planning is crucial, even for St. Nick. The Santa Claus card was one way to ensure the red suit never goes empty. Accountants could learn a thing or two from that. Maybe not a card, but certainly a plan should be in place for when the calculator stops ticking. You've got to prep your second in command. Make sure they know the ledgers and tax codes inside and out. And hey, if something unexpected happens, your successor needs to step up without missing a debit or credit, perhaps setting clear criteria for who can take over. Much like my cardhead. Ho, ho, ho. But make it legal, documented, and not just on some whimsical snowy rooftop. Solid planning keeps the sleigh flying and the business thriving, no matter who's holding the reins or the calculator.

Interesting. Is that second in command. That probably makes sense inside a firm where you've got partners or senior folks, usually you want to have some sort of written document saying, like, here's what happens in the case of a partner dying, or something like that. Like, this is how the estate is compensated and how the work gets done and all that. Interestingly, for solo firm owners and for small firm owners, I think this is a conversation worth having with other firm owners. Like to have a mutual agreement of how one could enable succession for the other. Man, you think about firms, 10 people and under, what percentage of them actually have a succession plan as opposed to, you know, if the person in charge drops debt, everything just stops. All the clients get a letter and like, that's it. I don't know that a card inside the suit is the option, but definitely something we need to be thinking about. Okay, this silliness has gone on long enough. Santa, give us. Give us your one top bit of advice, wisdom for folks, something you've picked up over the course of running your operation.

Here's something. Embrace the chaos. You think running Christmas is all milk and cookies? Nope. When things go sideways and they will, use it, adapt, innovate, and come out stronger. The more perfect you try to make things, the more you'll feel like you're chasing your own tail. Perfection's a myth, especially when you're managing a thousand elves or clients. Leverage the mess. Learn from it. And remember, it's the rough landings that teach you how to fly the sleigh better next time. Ho ho, ho. Wishing you a year of well managed books and not too naughty clients. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some Kringle Nog to test for quality assurance.

Of course, give up the whole perfection thing. That's pretty darn good advice. Like, there's no such thing. I tell you what, as thought leadership grows online, and there does need to be more high quality thought leadership around accounting firms and talking about the nuanced things around them. Unfortunately, right now there's too much service like surface level, Instagram, able thought leadership that is just like an inch deep. And it's like, is it really that simple? Like, did it really work that well for you? Like, it doesn't go any deeper than that. Reality is, nobody is running perfection. I know a lot of thought leaders that run really messy firms, like really messy practices. And honestly, that's not a reason to not get out there and do thought leadership because it's messy for everybody. And oftentimes there is more to learn in the messes than in, like, the thing that went off without a hitch. But if perfection is the expectation, you're just. You're never gonna. You're never gonna get there. Before we part ways here, Santa, you kind of sort of alluded to maybe trouble on the home front with Mrs. Claus. Hopefully you're able to patch that up.

Happy holidays to you two. As for the Mrs. Let's just say the North Pole has been a bit chillier than usual.

Oh, wow.

But every marriage has its blizzards and we're no exception. Couples therapy with a holiday twist, perhaps. Now, if you don't mind, that's one snowstorm I'd rather not plow into at the moment. Let's just focus on spreading cheer and keeping those reindeer flying. Ho, ho, ho.

Okay. That is if Santa just left. He just slammed that laptop shut. Thanks for coming. Hang today. Happy New Year. It's gonna be a fun year. Lots of stuff planned. This week we're going to be talking about my journey through the various different ways that we did renewals and how price was a big factor in there and ultimately drove some super big shifts in profitability in our firm and some other stuff around self limiting beliefs this week. Thanks for coming and hanging. I'll see you in the next one. Ho ho ho ho.