298 Ask Clients These Questions To Increase Profit $$$

Learning how to price an engagement is all about knowing what questions to ask. And we have all these things that people tell us, well, you gotta understand this and understand how they value you and do all these things. And I don't know about you, when I hear all of these requirements and all the work that got that ought to go into arriving at a price, I'm like, man, how do I, like, organically, I don't know, work all these things into a conversation? Right? Like, I can understand the theory, but how do I translate that into the client conversation, which admittedly right now I have great muscle memory for. Cause I've done it quite a bit. So how do I, like, naturally weave that in? Ask those questions of clients in a way that's not gonna feel slimy because we've all been in the sales situation where they're just asking like, totally cheese questions. And I'm like, bro, can you just cut the sales pitch? And we just get to the end of this. How do I avoid that while getting the information that I need to price my engagements better than I do today? It's what we're talking about right now, so scooch up a chair. Jason Daly. Okay, today and tomorrow, a lot of what we're talking about has been pulled from down to 40 hours, in my opinion. Is this breaking news. Probably the book of the year. Probably the new book of the year for accountingdoms, especially small accounting firms, by Geraldine Carter, longtime coach of small accounting firms. It is a must buy. I went back through it this last week and today and tomorrow we're going to go through maybe 20% of my notes that I had from that book. Super. Honestly a quick read. Super. Appreciate that it's not any longer than it needs to be. Today we're running through four lessons that I, that I kind of took from that book, the most valuable of which is just a really simplified framework for. Okay, what questions do I need to make sure I ask every single time to ensure that I have an understanding of. Of where the client's at to. To better price my engagements? So the whole premise of the book is getting down to 40 hours, but not just 40 hours, like even breaking through that to. To 25 hours and, and even less and overcoming the blockers we have. But fundamentally, at the end of the day, to do that, it's about just running a smarter firm. And it's, it's a lot of, I don't wanna say obvious, but it is a lot of things that in some form or another, you probably already know. And you're maybe not a hundred percent convinced of. Maybe you're 100% convinced of it and you just haven't had the courage to take the jump yet. This book feels like a good coach who's telling you to stop being a weenie about it and do what you need to do. Already super enjoyed it. So Geraldine, she's got a really interesting background too, that you learn a bit about in the book, but her entrance into working with accounting firms. She's got a great quote here that I think is very relatable. But basically at one point she's in a room of CPAs who are simultaneously talking about purchasing other firms to grow their practice while simultaneously missing kids soccer games. And that just nicely sums up the hamster wheel. But here's a here's a quote that I had pulled out from an accountant. When you are in that state of overwhelm, here it is. Managing my clients feels like trying to keep frogs in a wheelbarrow. He told me. They're all over the place. They take forever to get back to me, and when they do, I've lost the thread and have to start over, trying to remember where we left the conversation. I I bounce around all day long trying to do the things my clients ask me for, and at the end of the day, I've done none of what was on my original list. I'm behind on client work, behind on invoicing, and have a giant pile of AR sitting out there that I need to chase down. When I do invoice them, half the time they're pissed and then I have to write down the bill so I only get paid for half the work I did. I feel like I'm spinning in circles and not getting anywhere. Boy, that was. I think that's probably where most firms are like. There's just this kind of meandering, like following whatever clients are asking for and whatever you want to do is always put on the back burner and you just, you kind of just feel like you're along for the ride. Six sections in this book and what we're talking about today kind of pulls from from a number of them. But first section is Understanding Value. It is probably a where all the value pricing stuff that we went through a couple weeks ago that's extremely detailed and sometimes feels a little too scholarly for my tastes. Well, it still has some good actionable stuff. This first part, Understanding Value. Super actionable. Very concise version of just tell me what I need to know to like make a small improvement to what I'm doing right now. So first section is understanding value. Second is finding your niche. The importance of positioning. Third, define your products. Understanding what your solutions are to people's problems. Not just the services that you deliver, but what your solutions are to people's problems. Fourth is pricing effectively. So a bit of strategy. Fifth, how to let the world know how to tell people that you have something amazing that they want or they should want. And then six, Building for success with repeatable systems. Okay, first lesson around the questions you ask to get a better understanding of how much a client values what you could provide three questions to ask. Why me? Why now? And why in this manner? So why me if there's five other accountants in the neighborhood? So especially if you're a distributed firm, there's a ton of potential substitutes, right? Specifically, why should they choose you? It is a good question to ask folks when they come in, and oftentimes the answer will be disappointing. It will almost feel like a roll of the dice they ended up talking to you. But then other times it'll be very, very specific where they're like, I saw you give a talk on this thing, and that was the most powerful version of that that I had ever seen. The same firm could have two people come in with those two different contexts. In one context, they could go to any other firm in the country and it would probably be just fine for them. Like, if they just stumbled into you on the other end of the spectrum, like you're one of one, there's immediately a greater amount of value assigned to you because they've already had a positive experience with you. You'll find this as you're starting to put more content out that people come to you with very different contexts. Like they could have listened to you on a podcast for for a year, or read your blog for a year, your newsletter, or something like that. Or they could have just googled you yesterday. Those two people are not going to come in with the same level of, like, perceived value of you. And unless we ask and suss that out, we won't know that. It also shines a light on identifying opportunities to be more one of one. So when you're having those conversations, if it's consistently like, could have been anybody else, then consider where could that person have heard about you or learned about you and the media that they consume or whatever they're doing so that when they came to you, it was a little bit more contextual and you would have a little bit more pricing power. So that's why me. Why now is what led them to come to you specifically. Now, oftentimes there are kind of turning points in a business where they get over a certain hump. They're at a specific plateau that maybe they have to start hiring for the first time, something like that. Or what is that turning point that led them to make the decision to come to you? Now, oftentimes those turning points are great things to build resources and messaging around. It may be a pain that you're solving, a really valuable pain that you may not even be aware of that a whole lot of people have. So in US Tax, that's oftentimes like, you know, a sole proprietor grows to a certain size and they're like, I think I need to be an S Corp. Like, that's the most vanilla version of that turning point I can think of. But ask this of our clients, because if you can get them over that plateau, like there's so much of value that is that we try to project onto them. We're like, oh no, having the books in order will help you make better decisions. And all these different things that are our opinions we project onto them. But value through their eyes is about the understanding of how their business makes money, how it could free up some of their time and head space and energy and not be stressed about this stuff. And if we understand why they are at this sort of tipping point and can coming to you now, then we can visualize, okay, if I could get you over this tipping point, how great would X, Y and Z be? And then we're reframing what we're doing in a much more valuable context, right? And then last, why in this manner? So why come to you as opposed to hire an accountant in house? And in the context of that sort of conversation, you're going to learn a bit about their preferences, maybe even things like, you know, it may be nice for them to actually have a super integrated way of working with you where if you do this sort of thing, maybe that means, well, you could like have a member of our team in your team chat, like in your Slack or your Microsoft Teams. Maybe their goal ultimately is to run a more lean operation. They just don't want a whole bunch of people working for them and say they came to you for tax or some advice and you're like, well, we actually do kind of this whole back office thing for you as well where we'll just sort of be your accounting department in a box so you can keep your team even more lean and focus on what you want to work on. The question why in this manner tells you a lot about their preferences and how they want to run their business, but also how you could like serve them in ways that may not. They may not even be aware of. So all three of those questions give you a better picture into what about what you do that person is going to value. I have actually constructed a little role playing scenario we're gonna run through at the end here to get AI to I. This is first time. Normally when we do these silly little AI things, I'm the accountant and the AI is the client. I flip that on its head. AI is the accountant and I've told it it needs to get information out of me about these three things. Basically the outline I just walked you through and I play the client and it has to naturally find ways of asking me those things in conversation because that's what's hard for me. I don't know about you. I can have these lists of things that I know I need to get in my head, but in the natural cadence of talking with someone, how do I work that stuff in. In a way that isn't awkward or feels like I'm running them through some sales cheese grater that we've all been run through before and we just super don't enjoy. Anyways, we're going to circle back to that at the end. This episode is sponsored in part by Makers Hub. AI this, AI that. Listen to me, I'm the captain now. The biggest thing that is going to impact our accounting workflows over the next 12 months and it's already impacting them now in my opinion is AI vision models. It is the ability of AI to look at something and understand it and pull stuff off of it. And it is already much better than anything OCR has ever done, even picking up like messy handwriting. But when you combine AI vision models with large language models that can do a bit of reasoning and like fill in the blanks and make a make a little decision. The combination of those two things means we can pull things from off of documents and put them where they need to go in a much more automated way. And the company that is crushing this for accounts payable right now is Makers Hub. We've done a few demos of their tool on, on my main channel. Kind of like finally delivering on the promise of automated extraction for invoices. Like people have been telling us that this could be fully automated for a long time. Feels like we just got like a way bigger step closer. Going to be particularly powerful for the hairy accounts payable workflows. We got to pull a bunch of item detail off of some invoices. We did some wild examples in the last demo day video we did with Makers Hub chucking super gnarly humongous invoices at it. And it lifts like hundreds of lines of item detail like almost instantly the same text impacting our 1040 workflows as well in a really exciting way. But if you sell accounts payable to your clients or if you're exploring doing this, I think AI has changed how profitably we can do so. So learn more about MakersHub. Check out the link down in the Show Notes. This episode is brought to you in part by Teamup Helps you find talented accountants in the Philippines Pop Quiz how much do you pay an accountant in the Philippines anyway? Do you know? I'll give you a minute. I'm just gonna tell you. Here's the answer. It depends, but I'll give you some ranges. Monthly salaries for full time accountants in the Philippines for bookkeepers and accountants are gonna range from 900 bucks a month to to $2,000 a month. Tax accountants generally $1,100 to $2,700 a month. Senior accountants managers $1,800 to $3,200 a month and executive assistants $800 to $1,800 per month. For context, a three year accountant in Manila not working for an international firm, usually around 400 to $500. My mental framework was usually in India you're going to pay about half as much as in the Philippines. But another big cost factor is whether you're hiring through a bpo, which we recently learned about. BPO handles some of the logistics of managing and employing that person on the ground in another country, but you're usually gonna pay them another 40 to 70% for that service. Team up their approach. Hire folks directly so you eliminate the cost of that BPO and they just help you find cool people. You pay a recruiting fee and no ongoing fees after them. Wanna learn more about team up? Check out the link down in the show notes. Lesson 2 this was just like a no brainer takeaway. Easy for any firm to do. Everyone in your firm should track a list of client pain points so you can think of these things off of the top of your head for sure if you've had these client conversations a lot. But this list is almost like a North Star for your firm. We've talked in the last couple of weeks about, you know, convincing clients of our value and how hard that can be and how that's kind of the last resort and the less we have to do that, the better. There's definitely some value in educating clients to understand the depth of what it is that we do. But I want to know like, what's keeping the client up at night? What's keeping them from being more profitable? Developing a list of that stuff and just continuing to build on that over time as gold. But then also prioritizing what are the painiest pains, what are most painful and the most compelling solutions we can develop for those pains. If your firm is only ever going to be as good as the solutions you can provide to your clients, then those solutions will only be as good as your understanding of the pains. So we're trying to like create all these band aids and marketing materials and all that stuff, but where is the list of pain points that your ideal client is experiencing that we can use to hook them? And different profiles will for sure have different types of pains and the hookability and even whether they have pains they feel super extremely. These are all variables and what makes them a great specialization or not. Some types of businesses like they just don't have a ton of pains related to what we do that are super extreme. But if you got somebody doing international stuff or like there's, there's just a lot of situations, you know, restaurants navigating tip credits, like there's just specific situations where what you can do is really valuable R and D credits, E commerce companies with really hard accounting integration issues. The best specializations will be those where they have those pains and feel them really, really intensely and we can be the solution for them. But where are we tracking these pains? Like that's, that's something that's absolutely worth doing. And then prioritizing like what are the, the really severe pains for, for the type of client we want to attract. Lesson number three. Geraldine frames it as quote, edit, edit your least valuable tasks. This can be any task in the business, not just client facing things. So these are tasks that are on your plate right now. Ultimately we're trying to get out from under the low value stuff. So is there as an alternative to doing low value work, is there like a resource you can give to a client to help them or a member of their team DIY that works. Is there a referral partner that you could send that lower value work to if it's still worth doing in house for you? Is there, is there someone on your team or a hire that you can make to do that low value work? But really think hard about that, whether it's worth you doing. There's definitely a trend right now of accountants kind of doing everything for a smaller number of clients and how as you bundle that stuff, I do think there's like a greater value assigned to the fact that you're willing to do all of that stuff. And then are there, are there things that aren't valuable that you can just stop doing altogether? So depending on your model, that may be a little harder to do and like the we'll do everything for you sort of model. But wherever possible, especially when it's low value stuff, think about what we can eliminate. I did an MBA when I thought I was leaving the accounting profession just to try to kind of reassess and zoom out and be like, what do I want to do? And one thing they talk about a ton in any business is understanding the value chain of the business. What parts of what the business creates provide value to customers and what parts don't. Because oftentimes you do all these things and certain aspects of them deliver a disproportionate amount of value. A good example of that they've talked about in the past is how in my firm we started delivering every set of financial Statements with a 3 minute loom video and you get to have this monumental task that takes tons and I mean tens of hours to get this thing done. But then taking five or ten minutes to record a three minute loom walking over the financial statements and including that in the delivery, it's then like the only thing the client remembers. And they're so appreciative of it. That's a great example of something in that process that has, that provides a disproportionate amount of value disproportionately high. There are other things that provide a disproportionately low amount of value. So in the US folks are generally not good about tracking receipts. And if that falls on your plate and the expectation is that you have to do that, that can be a massively time consuming undertaking that the client assigns little to no value to. Other countries like Canada, way more restrictive on the sorts of receipts you have to provide. And like all the reasons why you need to have those receipts as opposed to the US is very, very willy nilly in that regard, I think compared to many countries. But receipt management, if that's taking up half of the time of delivering your bookkeeping engagement and the client doesn't value it at all, is there a stripped back version of that that is good enough so that you're not pumping effort into something that they genuinely don't Care about number four. This was a good insight that when you improve the experience for one client, thinking about your systems and just how clients step through all the ways that they interact with you and onboarding and recurring services, that sort of thing, when you improve the experience for one client, you're actually improving it for all your clients. But what we get sucked into each day is, is being the hero on, on the one to one level, rather than working on the firm itself, which is kind of the most important asset, and developing what the firm is capable of so that it impacts all of your clients. I've been thinking a lot about, you know, the, the most simple framing for me is like making things that work while you sleep. And that whole idea and that concept was what ultimately led me to making YouTube videos and stepping away from client service and stuff like that. Because ultimately I think the Internet enables an unbelievable amount of reach where you can help people at scale in a really exciting way. And I was just totally geeked on the idea of making things that can work while I sleep. And it's why I've never done any sort of like consulting for accounting firms or anything like that because I didn't want to make that leverage trade off of should I take that call or should I make one more podcast episode that could help a thousand people, you know, and consistently making that decision and not taking those meetings and not responding to those emails or those dms that are just going to be kind of a one, one to one thing. Now I have a really big library of helpful things that can aid anyone. And when people do have questions, I say at this at me publicly on social or pop it in the YouTube comments or something like that and then I'll answer it in a Q and A or where a bunch of other people can benefit from it as well. The polar opposite end of the spectrum is what the day in and day out at most firms look like where you are just working one on one with entrepreneurs. You may be doing amazing things, but they're the only ones that will ever see it. And as you kind of the big boss running things where it's up to you at the end of the day to decide who gets to do this and who gets to do that, there's no greater opportunity for you than to work for those things. Spend time working on those things that impact all of your clients and even beyond. We gotta be really careful not just to get sucked into that one on one thing until the end of time. Okay, an exercise. Buckle up. Circling back to the conversation of what are the questions you can organically ask someone as you're learning about them to better suss out how they value what, like the work that you're going to do for them? The framework I love from this book, getting to the questions, why me? Why? Why now? Why? In this manner, I set up an AI assistant to serve as the accountant and naturally, in conversation address those three questions in kind of a back and forth interaction. I'm going to play the dummy client and we're going to see how well the AI does this in a natural way that doesn't feel like slimy and salesy. That's what we're trying to avoid. To give us a picture of, like, what's a clean way to do this? This episode is sponsored in part by liveflow. Boy, if you've been around this podcast, you know we have run a lot of Live flow ad reads. You cut this podcast ad feed and it bleeds Live Flow ad read. In fact, you know what we should do? Hang on, I had a whole ad read for this, but I just got a better idea. You know what we should do? You know how we made that Jason bot that's like connected to all the podcast episodes and you can ask it questions and It'll go across 280 episodes and give you answers. Let's just make. Ooh, let's make a bot. That's just all my live flow ad reads and I can just ask it questions. I have this workflow problem. How can lifflow help me? I spent a bunch of money on a reporting platform. Is this something that LifeLow could have done for me instead in a spreadsheet? Because that's where I'm actually happy and comfortable. What's the easiest way to connect my spreadsheets to to my clients QuickBooks data in a single click and the chat assistant would be like lifflow. No, it wouldn't. It would be like, oh man, I hear you. Oh, that's a real tough situation. You got yourself there. Here's what you're going to do. And it'd be like a two paragraph long way of just saying Live Flow could be good content though. We should put something useful in this ad read Live Flow. It's the easiest way to liberate data from those client QuickBooks file files. Whether you're in Excel, Google Sheets, you get a little Live Flow button. It's like an extension. You click that guy and you can run all your favorite QuickBooks reports. Sync that data into QuickBooks. Like a one time sync or an ongoing like rolling sync. Do like some some kind of real time reporting stuff. Great way to get data out to stakeholders who you don't want to have access to the QuickBooks files. Also be a banker, an advisor, employees of the business, quite possibly even the business owner themselves because they keep breaking things. That is live flow. To learn more about that one, check out the link in the Show Notes this episode is sponsored in part by Stanford Tax and I'm sorry if I sound upset today or a little emotional. I just got the news that we lost someone that was very near and dear to all of us. If you came of age in this profession doing tax work, Stanford Tax they just killed the paper organizer. You know the paper organizer you print out of your tax software and you send it out to your clients. It's big and it's dumb and it doesn't make any sense and ask them a bunch of pointless questions. But it's dead and it's never coming back. Okay, Stanford Tax it gives you a modern way to gather the same information using pro forma info from your tax software. Like it will actually intelligently ask the questions that need to be asked, taken into account that pro forma data so that on January 3rd every year you aren't cleaning out the local staples printing out umpteen reams of paper organizers, only to mail them to your clients and never get them back. We did a demo day of Stanford tax on my YouTube channel where you can see how it works in five minutes. If you're still using paper organizers, please stop. Please, please just stop it. I know you're still working on extended 1040s. Man, this is the time to be kicking the tires on new tax tools so you're not going in blind to next tax season. So you know exactly what you're working with and what'll work and what won't work. So by the time you get to next January, you are absolutely humming. Okay, if you do tax stuff, check this one out. Stanford Tax. I'll put a link in the show notes.

We're sitting on a park bench overlooking a bustling city square. Oh, it's a warm afternoon and the sound of a nearby fountain mingles with the chatter of passersby. I lean back, crossing my legs casually, and turn to you with a friendly smile. So, I'm curious, I begin, gesturing towards the busy square. What made you reach out to our firm specifically? There must be dozens of accountants in this city alone. What caught your eye about us?

First, Are we at a. Was that a park bench? Are we in Like a park. Haven't done a lot of discovery meetings at a park, but I'm into the vibe. How did I find them? I was just searching for people that could do bookkeeping and tax in our area. And you had a few positive reviews. Let's set the bar low.

I nod thoughtfully, absently tapping my chin with a pen. A group of pigeons suddenly scatters near our feet, startled by a passing jogger. Ah, reviews can be helpful, but they don't always tell the whole story. I chuckle. Sage, I'm glad ours caught your eye, but tell me what's prompting you to look into bookkeeping and tax services now? Has something changed recently in your business that's made this a priority?

That's the why now?

I lean forward slightly, genuinely interested in your response, while a street musician starts playing a lively tune in the background.

Oh. I look to the street musician. Hold on a second, I say. I walk over to the street musician and hold out my hands. Do you mind? He stops playing and hands me the accordion.

I raise an eyebrow, intrigued by this unexpected turn of events. A small smile plays on my lips as I watch you take the accordion. Well, this is certainly a first in a client meeting, I say with a chuckle, adjusting my position on the bench to face you better. Are you about to serenade me?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Financial this is a business meeting woes.

Or perhaps compose a ballad about the joys of proper bookkeeping. I gesture encouragingly, curious to see what you'll do next. The pigeons, seemingly unimpressed by the musical interlude, continue pecking at crumbs near our feet.

Was that necessary? Okay, I got an accordion now. I rip one of the most incredible renditions of Hot Cross Buns anyone's ever played on the accordion. A small crowd gathers. An upturned hat fills with tips. The song ends. Polite applause ensues. I have a brief negotiation with the musician over who's entitled to what tips. But I excuse myself so I don't keep my accountant any longer.

I stand up, clapping enthusiastically as you finish your impromptu performance. As you return to the bench, I'm grinning from ear to ear, clearly impressed. Now that's what I call a diverse skill set. I laugh, shaking my head in amazement. You know, if accounting doesn't work out for you, you've got a promising career as a street performer. I sit back down, still chuckling. But seriously, that was did she just.

Say if accounting doesn't work out? I don't. I don't do. I don't do accounting. I don't Think I've even told her what I do.

Quite something. It makes me wonder. Is your business as unpredictable and exciting as you are? What kind of venture are we potentially dealing with here?

What should we go with? What am I doing? I'm. I'm a golf caddy. Let's stick with that.

I blink, surprised. A golf caddy? Fascinating. What's changed recently that's made you seek professional financial help? I imagine caddying can have its ups and downs, income wise. I lean forward, genuinely curious about your answer while a leaf flutters down between us.

My playing partner has been getting into more international tournaments, so I've been traveling and we're getting into a lot of tax stuff that I'm just not going to be able to handle.

I nod, understanding dawning on my face. International travel does complicate things. Why not hire an in house accountant to handle this? Seems like it might be more convenient for your globe trotting lifestyle. A jogger passes by, momentarily distracting me as I await your response.

That was the why in this manner question. Why would. Why wouldn't a caddy hire an accountant in house? Is that a thing? Okay, I don't want to run a team. It's just me. What's the my yardage book and the open road and sometimes my accordion.

I smile, standing up and brushing off my pants. I get it.

Where you going?

Keep a focus on your strengths. Listen, I've got another appointment, but I think we can help you navigate these new waters.

That was brief.

Let's set up a proper meeting to discuss details. Sound good? I extend my hand for a handshake, ready to wrap up our unconventional chat.

I would hold a handshake just like that.

AJ Pa's mid handshake, a mischievous glint in my eye. Well, unless you want to challenge me to an accordion duel for my services, no. Then yes. Just like that. You're unique, your needs are clear and I'm intrigued. Let's make it official. I gesture towards the path leading out of the park.

Where are you taking me?

I chuckled, dropping my hand. Oh, I'm not taking you anywhere.

She still had the handshake hand part.

Ways and set up a formal meeting later. But now that you mention it, there's a great gelato stand around the corner. Fancy a scoop while we iron out some details? I point towards the park exit, eyebrows raised in question.

Did you have a meeting to get to? I pat my pockets. I left my wallet in my apartment.

I roll my eyes good naturedly. A world class caddy and accordion player, but Forgetful with the wallet. Classic. Tell you what, this one's on me. Consider it an investment in our potential partnership. I start walking towards the gelato stand, gesturing for you to follow.

Two scoops.

I laugh, shaking my head. Pushing your luck, aren't you? Alright, two scoops it is. But in return, you'll have to tell me more about these international tournaments. Deal?

Deal. Okay, let me have it. Like round out. Like end the conversation and round out an outline of what it collected for those three questions. The why me? Why now? And why in this manner? Okay, I'm using cloud for this by the way. Cloud AI. So certainly here's the information I gathered to answer the three questions. Number one why me? The client found our firm through online searches and positive reviews. They didn't have a specific reason reason for choosing us over others, suggesting they might be open to alternatives. That is a good insight. Number two why now? The client's playing partner, presumably a golfer, has been entering more international tournaments. This has led to increased travel and more complex tax situations that the client feels unprepared to handle on their own. Number three why in this manner? The client specifically mentioned not wanting to run a team or hire an in house accountant. They prefer to keep things simple and focus on their core skills caddying and Accord and apparently accordion playing. This indicates a preference for outsourced professional services that can handle complex issues without requiring the client to manage additional staff. Solid insight there. And that's kind of why you ask those three questions. So what they learned was they're not differentiated at all because they could go to any other firm. Like they didn't find them through a differentiated context. It was just like Google reviews. Why now? They are at a tipping point where they're doing international stuff. So what does that tell me for my firm if I'm going after caddy's? Maybe that's a great thing to build marketing around or a landing page or just messaging in general. Hey, you're starting to do international stuff. You now need a different type of help in our firm suited for that. And then why in this manner? We learned this client they prefer outsourced stuff and don't want to build a big old team. So even just the framing from my firm, if this is something I provide the framing of like accounting department in a box, like we can do all that stuff for you. We can fill the seat of multiple FTEs if you end up needing it and let you run as lean a team as you possibly can. It's clear that they value this which is going to change how I price this. So we've got some things working for and against us here. Working against us is the fact that I'm no different than every other firm. To them, working for us is I have expertise in solving these, these international tax issues specifically for caddies. Those two. That's, that's a. If you have that need, it is weird to stumble into a Google firm that's like, yeah, we, we're great at international tax for caddies. Let's just cruise past that. But then also working for us is the notion that we can kind of be this outsourced provider for them, filling the position of roles that they would otherwise potentially have to hire for. Honestly, that was actually really good and a very natural interaction. There was one there that was like felt a little bit rough. I think it was the. Why in this manner, why would you not hire an in house accountant? Would a caddy ever hire an in house accountant? I don't know. They would. But all in all, actually a pretty natural interaction. And the AI assistant absolutely peaced out when they had the information that they needed. I think it was basically three or four questions that got them there. That just might have been a helpful exercise. All right, I've got Geraldine's book linked in the show notes. Highly recommend you check it out. It is a great kick in the pants, like get off your stump. Sort of, sort of motivational, like you'll absolutely pull a few tidbits from it. Quick read. Highly, highly recommend. Check that one out and I'll see you tomorrow.

Sa.