455 The Ultimate Hack to Build Your Client Network

Gang, there is nothing, nothing like in person events right now. Something about COVID something about the move to distributed work, the fact that most folks now are not in an office every day. It has created a greater appetite than ever before for doing stuff in person. Like the vibes are just off the charts even for folks who do work in an office. Because so much of what we consume is online and such a greater percentage of our relationships are kind of parasocial where you see, see somebody doing a thing and you learn from them and maybe you kind of sort of know them. But like you build this relationship remotely. When you put all those factors like into a pot getting people together, man, there is absolutely nothing better than that. But most of us, like we've never done this before. Like it's not, it's probably not your natural state to play host. And so I want to sort of demystify this for you a bit, give you some super basic like baby step ways to play around with live events as a way of building your network. Because there's genuinely no better way to do it if you can get those people together. So I'm going to give you some ideas today. Specifically five, like very easy starter event formats you could run and then nine ways to kind of prime the pump to ensure that those events are a success. Let's do it. We're doing it. Live. Networks. Most of us are like our, our firms or ourselves personally. We are embedded into networks and that's how we find our clients. Networks are just like clients where there's always a juicier one. It doesn't mean you need to abandon everybody that you've got today. But we talk about sometimes the client that will say yes to that YOLO price. Like you stumble into a pain point that you didn't realize exists and all of a sudden this person's happy to pay you way more than, than your other clients, that new client. They're part of a network that you haven't discovered yet. And that's why we gotta, when that stuff happens, we gotta hit pause and be like, whoa, what's going on in this person's world? Who do they hang out with? Like, where do they learn? And nothing builds networks like in person events. Now a prerequisite does not need to be that you only serve local clients. For sure. For some of these things, that's way easier if you're just across town. But I'm going to give you some ideas for how to run events, like whether your client base is local or not. So five different event Formats one, the very easiest one to do. And that's just simply a webinar. And that's not in person, but it's the closest thing that we can get to a one too many in person event virtually. And most of us, we've been subjected to webinars, man, especially through Covid. Like that was peak, peak accounting industry webinar where every single vendor we have was running webinars. And there's a reason for it. In fact, in my line of work, like in content creators, a content creator who's trying to get an a person in the audience to something paid. I talk with many content creators who like as much as 80% of the folks that they convert to a paid thing that happens in a webinar. Like they can post stuff that hundreds of thousands of people will see, but it's not until they can get that person on a call live with them. Like even if there's 500 people in the call, that's where like 80% of actually getting those people over the finish line happens. And that's because it's the first taste of like something real or a more human connection. And there's something about the way our brains are wired that it's not until like you can sort of see that person speaking live and be part of that experience that you can start to build that connection a little bit. And it's not as good as, as in person, but it's a big step forward from somebody just reading a thing that you made. And I still remember the very first webinar that I ran. It was during COVID when all the COVID release stuff was kicking off. And we just couldn't possibly get all the information out to our clients, like in any efficient enough of a way. Like we couldn't call every single one of them. So we were just like pushing off the questions. We're like, we're going to run a webinar Thursday. Here's the link. Just come here. We got like 200 people that came to it, which was wild. And it was, it was me just sweating it out in my office. And webinars are weird because they aren't inherently interactive. Like, you're sitting there, you're talking to a camera, to a screen, and all you have is a number of here's how many people are watching. And you can kind of try to watch chat or the Q and as, but it's very hard to speak and focus on what you're doing and pay attention to that. So like, if you go down this Path. A facilitator really helps here to manage that while you're doing the speaking. But like that, I mean, that was just the thing that I didn't do and didn't know anything about about until one day I did it. And that's kind of how things have to start. The great news is one of the best things about being an accountant is the bar isn't high. Like our clients don't expect that much from us. In fact, you just have, I mean these days you just have like a modern looking website and oftentimes people are impressed. Some people are impressed, other people are like, why can't this whole experience be like, when I buy something from Amazon, those people can go jump in a lake. But you're going to put a ton of pressure on yourself for this webinar to, you know, have production value and camera be just right and all these things. Your clients will absolutely not have that expectation because you just showing up on camera is probably light years ahead of what they do. And so if you have something valuable like put that thing out in a webinar, even if it's just giving value to clients, don't worry about like the, is this, is this eliminating hours that would otherwise be billable. Like there is so much value to be given to the universe and so many people who will happily pay for it that like it is always worth putting that information out there and trusting that that will help you. I like, I'm very opinionated on this stuff. I think in 2025, information is free like that. Like you can't pay, you can't pay wall information. You can pay wall application of information or a framework to your specific situation. But information ought to be free. Like my business, like with the things that I talk about here, everything that I know, like I share. Like I don't have frameworks that are behind a paywall or anything like that. I would say I have, actually I would say I have a network that's behind a paywall. The only thing people pay me for is to be able to connect with the other folks who this content kind of vibes with. But my education, my training and all of that stuff, I will always put it out there because if you just think about the things that you know and how little we leverage it, if all we do is just have one on one conversations with clients as opposed to being able to put it out where anybody can consume it, that is such a bigger opportunity for discovery and for people finding you. Because there are, I mean there's hundreds of Millions of people out there. There's a, a whole lot of people out there who could benefit from what you have to share. But if you put in the effort to make that thing and then you put it behind a paywall where it will never be discovered, you're like chopping yourself off at the knees because it's never going to find the people who would have most valued you. So the whole, the whole fear of like giving away too much information or giving away your secret sauce, I think that's the strategy now is you give away the secret sauce and people are like, my gosh, this is a ridiculous amount of value that you're giving. They then build a relationship with you and they're like, like, you have helped me so much. Then when it comes to actually the application of that or just doing it for them, they're going to be at the front of the line to take you up on that. So webinars, like, this is the easiest way to start here. It's kind of sort of a live event, but in person's better. So second event type just a dinner running like a local dinner. And in my experience, there's actually a lot of folks that are very happy to sponsor this sort of thing. So, like, cost shouldn't really be a factor. I know actually a lot of folks that will run dinners and actually make a lot of money on hosting the dinner themselves and then bringing sponsors in. But this is as simple as what would an interesting group of people to get together be? And then, you know, a seat or two are reserved for sponsors who just get a seat at the table. Like, there is no presentation. Everybody's just there hanging out. And I can tell you I spent years stressed, like blocked on this because I don't like the responsibility of playing host and trying to ensure that everybody has a good time. I'm going to feel awful if somebody doesn't, if something goes sideways as a result. I didn't do this stuff. What I've found is it's a hundred percent about the people that you get together. And if you know these folks, like, for most people, there's such an energy just when you're around folks that do what you do. So like, the commonality is what creates connection. If you've ever been to like a networking thing where it's like all these people that do all these very different things, I hate that stuff. It feels very scummy. You have nothing in common with these people because everybody are. Is doing different things. The only common thread there is they're all just trying to get business from each other, which is awful. Like what a. What an awful premise around which to have conversations, right? But if you can bring people together that do similar things, the connection is just automatic. And so I've found when I get people together into a space, it all just kind of takes care of itself. Like, and I'm sure there's going to be exceptions to the rule, there's going to be jerks and all that, but just you don't invite the jerks. And in a room full of 10 people or 20 people, if there is one jerk, like when everybody else is cool, like that jerk's going to be left to be a jerk. In my experience, I build this up to be much more of a risk than it actually is. And when you get people together to do similar things, they just like they have a great time. Today's episode is sponsored part by Team up, the people who help you find talented accountants in the Philippines and hire them directly. Did you know in the Philippines there's actually some really good tax talent out there? What did he just say? You can hire tax professionals in the Philippines? Of course you can get hired any type of talent. In fact, Big four's regionals, they all have huge offices in the Philippines. Hiring there looks. I mean it looks a lot like hiring in the States. Let me give you the profile of a recent actual hire team up made for a firm who was looking for a senior tax accountant. They had over 20 years of accounting experience. The last eight with US accounting firms working on tax they'd done it all. Partnerships S Corp. C Corps individuals, trusts Proficient with qbo Lacert Go System Tax RS oh gross. CCH Engagement? Sure. Prep Tax Caddy. Nice firm hired this person. What do you think they cost? Drumroll please. 2,700 USD a month salary for a senior tax accountant in the Philippines. Usually going to come between $2,200 and $2,800 USD per month. A lot of folks worry about whether this jeopardizes like your onshore pipeline. I always tell folks doing the two things they are not mutually exclusive. I need to be building talent onshore. But when this sort of talent is about a quarter of the cost offshore, the reality is I also need to be building talent offshore. I got to be doing both. Team up. They just work with accounting firms. Great place to start to learn more about them. Check out the link down in the show notes. Today's episode is sponsored in part by makershub. I took some heat on social media lately because I said that Nobody's crushing accounting AI. And if you think about it, the tech in the accounting vertical, there's like, I hate to say this, there's kind of no cool AI happening there. The cool AI is like meeting recorders, chatgpt stuff outside the accounting vertical. But there's one exception to that. And the exception is inside Accounts payable Makers up, arguably the leader here. They're like an AI first, accounts payable like bill pay solution. They are driving innovation on what is literally the fastest changing part of accounting. The part of accounting AI is most disrupting ap and it's because vision models combined with large language models can get us way further than OCR ever could. Vision models, they can read everything down to like handwriting. Way more accurate than OCR was. But then large language models, they can use a bit of intelligence to be like, does this pass the sniff test? Like, does this actually look correct? And the combination of those two things, like it can, it can take it way further than ever before. Makers have especially good at really hairy stuff, pulling a huge number of like itemized things. All the, all the dumb ways that people invoice you that are like off the wall. Done some demos of Makers Hub actually on my YouTube channel if you want to see how it works in like five minutes. It is very, very good. To learn more about maker sub. Check that out or check out the link to them down in the show notes. So that works for like local folks right now. Third thought here is a dinner at an event. And so I do this a lot is I say when are all of the people in this space converging on one thing? Maybe it's a conference, maybe it's a trade show, maybe it's some sort of local get together. And then I will build an event around that. Before that or after that could be a breakfast, could be a dinner. The opportunity is geographically you have everybody in one space and now you can run your own simple little event. And it's kind of a little bit more special because you got folks that have converged who aren't normally together. Number four is one other sort of local thing, like a recurring breakfast. And when I think breakfast, I think of like the old guys. This just feels like an old man thing. But I'll be totally honest, I mean they're like, they're doing it right. I mean, I love breakfast. Is there anything better than a good breakfast? I think the best breakfast places, if you go in and it's full of old people, I think, you know, that's a good breakfast. But a Recurring thing like this, like this is a whole different level of connection. This one only really works like within a local network. But to be the one that puts it together, that's, that's a really interesting thing about being a connector is. And accounting firms are actually very unique hubs of like entrepreneurs where you have loads of clients who are entrepreneurs and as a result, you know many more entrepreneurs than most of those entrepreneurs do. Like, most people are not very connected. Think about accounting firms. The average accounting firm owner, how many other accounting firm owners are they connected with? Virtually none. Like, the only people that they bump into are like maybe other local firm owners that go to maybe the same local continuing ad events. Like this was my case for a long time. There was a monthly continuing ad thing that was like on the second story above this grocery store. And we would go to it every month because we would get one hour of cpe, but also because they had these twice baked potatoes that were unbelievable. And all we would talk about in and around the event was the twice baked potatoes. But in passing we would see a couple folks from other firms. That's the extent of, of a relationship that most firm owners have with other firm owners. And for your clients who are entrepreneurs, by and large, it's going to be the same story. There will be exceptions, but most of them do not have an abundance of connections. This is what makes it an opportunity for you. And when you play host, when you're the person that brings it all together for whatever reason, like that value is attributed to you. And that's one thing in what I do that I didn't fully realize was how much people like how you can build a business around being a connector. How much appreciation folks would have where it's like, I got you two into a room and it was you two that did all the work. Like it's because of you two that you're now best friends. But they both are like, you know, endlessly appreciate, appreciative of you. And I'm like, man, I just, I kind of just made the space and got you together. But that's a really cool opportunity. Frankly, it's a great business because that relationship is not dependent upon you. It started because you got them together. But it's interesting how that value then it gets gets attributed back to you. Last event type here, number five is a wee little, little mini retreat. And this is like a one day or a half day or probably start with a half dare that's at a fun place to hang, like you know, a brewery or something. Like that don't do like a stuffy hotel sort of ballroom sort of thing, I think. I don't know. That stuff's pretty stale. Do a half day at a cool place with a little bit of food. This is one where you'll definitely want to pull in a sponsor or two and like send a couple of emails. You will be surprised how easy it is to find sponsors for this sort of thing because sponsors know there's nothing quite like in person events. And I get now like this, like this probably feels wildly ambitious to you where you're like, I would. I've never run an event in my life. Like you're talking about a half day thing. They'll start here. Like this is a little like baby sort of ladder. Do, do that, that next thing when you're, when you're comfortable with the thing before it. But probably don't start with a half day if you're like me. I mean half day, that sounds really scary, but in a couple of these and just like smaller scale things. If anything, the mistake I made with half day things is trying to build in too much programming. When I get all those people into a room and then like the vibes are just unbelievable. They're all hanging out, having a blast and talking with each other and like just very excitedly and interacting. And then you, the event runner has to come in and be like, but yeah, can everybody sit down? We've actually just because on this sandwich board it says from 3:20 to 3:45 we have to do this thing. I'm going to need you all to stop having fun now. That's, that's the mistake that I've made. Trying to do this stuff is actually getting in the way of the very organic connection that's happening. When the very best part of, of this whole thing is the organic connection. That's the big thing that accounting firms have not, not accounting firms, accounting conferences have not done a good enough job with is creating opportunities for organic connection and then like creating a space for just for more of it to happen, but also for it to continue happening. Rather than it being this rushed scramble to get from thing to thing. Because we're trying to pack in as much programming as possible. Like where is connection supposed to happen and what are the fun little activations and, and corners where those people can go hang out and have a hor. De. Maybe a nice, maybe a nice adult beverage. That's the good stuff. Now because we are accountants, our mind goes to. This feels like a whole lot of time, buddy. Like you Know what my billable, you know, my billable rate is? I think if you zoom out a bit and you look at like the, you know, everything that could happen over a year, how many of your days or half days do you actually remember? I mean, so many of those things. And we can honestly go years not being able to put our finger on a business thing that we did that we can even remember because we're on this hamster wheel solving these ephemeral problems for somebody else. And what this is, is an investment in you and in your network and being more connected with folks and in the skill of being a connector, which is a tremendous advantage. Like if you're a connector, especially in this day and age with social media, when you combine the online stuff with the in person stuff, you just exercising that muscle and getting comfortable, that's tremendously valuable. And I guarantee you, you put on something like this could be, could just be breakfast, could be lunch, whatever, getting a few people together. When you reflect back on that last month, that event, that's going to be top five, that's going to be top three for you. You are going to remember it. Whereas had you not done that that afternoon, you, you would not remember what you did. You just wouldn't. It's a totally, totally worthwhile thing to me. Now I can give you nine quick tips because you're an accountant, you're already overthinking it of like how do I even knew that? What about, what about this? What about that? And it stops you from even starting. Let me give you nine, nine quick tips. Number one, pre intro. The attendees send out an email or something like that so that everybody knows who's going to be there. A little bit of context about them. So, so that before they even get there, they're excited to see those people. Number two, set clear expectations ahead of time of what they're getting into. If they know what the event is and what will or will not be expected of them, then everybody kind of more naturally settles into that state, I think. And it actually makes them more likely to agree to come because they kind of have a mental image of what that's going to be rather than it being unknown. And the, the less ambiguity there is, I think the less scary it is for folks who may struggle with social anxiety or just are not the butterflies who will immediately say yes to an event kind of to the, to the same end. Number three, address first time scaries. Say x percent of people are joining for the first time because the hardest one for someone to attend will Always be the first one. But if you say, like, hey, 60% of people are just like you, they're coming for the first time, that helps a lot. Number four, I'm a big fan of assigned seating because I probably know more about the people there than anybody else does. And if it's anything involving food, hopefully you've got some milling around time so people can connect with each other. But the bulk of the time, if it's anything involving food, is going to be hunched over a table talking with the four people that are within shouting distance of each other. And so those folks will have the biggest impact on that person's event experience. And because I know a bit about everyone, I can increase the likelihood that the right people will connect versus it just being completely random. I think people also appreciate to a degree being told what to do, because if you don't do this, there's the uncomfortableness of like a couple people are having a conversation and you have to walk up and like, sit next to them or like, is it okay if I sit by you? Like, I think the more you can strip away the discomfort that's inherent in that social stuff, the more the easier it is for people. Another really good example of this, probably the, like, most supercharged events, like virtual events that we've run in my community, and you should completely steal this because they're really cool, we use a tool called, what's it called? A tool called Twine. And Twine is an extension for Zoom that will let you do like some dynamic breakout room sort of things. So the format of these events, it's really cool. Basically, we have a slide deck where we share in zoom a slide at a time, and the slides have prompts and everybody joins that session together. And in the context of my community, this is like, you know, we run different sessions for different types of firms. So this, say this is tax firms between 300k and a million in revenue. So you get, you get 30 or 40 of those people, they join the Zoom call and then they get spun out into groups of three, and every, say, eight minutes, that group of three rotates. And Twine, this Zoom extension, does that automatically. It reshuffles all the groups and pulls you in with two new people. But if you didn't have prompts, if you didn't structure that, that would probably be an uncomfortable thing for most of us. Right? Like, that almost feels like it's like a speed dating thing, almost like a networking thing where I'm like, I don't know what to even talk about. But if you use, like, these prompts, and so we're sharing the slides of, like, what's the best thing you changed this? Tax season? What's the. The app that you're happy with? Then when you throw those people into a room and a new prompt comes up and you go through that one by one, those are things people are excited about, they're passionate about, because it's so core to what they do. And you've taken an event that's ambiguous and scary, and you've kind of put it on rails and made it sort of the least intimidating it could possibly be, regardless of your comfort level with social stuff. And so if you are planning an event like this is. This is why I think assigned seating is really good. Like, if you can put it a little more on rails, I think it cuts through some of the uncomfortableness that can be inherent with meeting new people. It also helps, like, when you're explaining how the event works, to illustrate that it is on rails. Because the people who are like, I've been to parties before where I just come in, maybe I chat with a couple people, but then I just kind of stand there and it seems like everybody else is chatting, and I don't have anybody to chat with. That's not fun, Right? And, like, to be honest, every single person at a party like, that is how they feel. Like, it's because we're focused on ourselves. But if you communicate the format of the event, make it clear that, like, nothing will be expected of you, like, here's how it works. You can take some of that stress out ahead of time and make it more likely that they'll agree to come. Can you tell that I run events for. For accountants? It's okay. I have the same problem. Like, I'm not. I'm. I'm not an extrovert in any way. Today's episode is sponsored in part by Cloud Accountant staffing. Their backstory. They're actually an accounting firm that started hiring accountants in the Philippines. They just started doing it for some of their friends, and now, now they will do it for you, comma, friend. They help you hire talented accountants in the Philippines because they've got recruiters on the ground there pulling from what is actually an increasingly powerful finance workforce in the Philippines. All of the big four offices have, like, huge offices over there. Any type of talent you can hire in the US you can hire in the Philippines as well. But when you start out, you're gonna have all these ignorant questions and the stuff you're even afraid to Ask, like, how do I even get them a computer to work on? Do they work on their own and VPN into mine? Do I send them a computer? What about like power outages, Internet outages, like team building? How does any of that stuff work? I can tell you the mistake that I made is I got stuck on those things for like two or three years and tried to think through all these solutions. How am I going to do my disclosures and all that? Gang, that's like half of the value of these services is they've walked so many accounting firms through this. Stop trying to guess what the right way is to do it. Let them tell you what has actually worked and not worked for other firms. They will hold your hand through it like it's the reason that these services exist. So if you're considering it, like, just hop on a call with them to learn. You got nothing to lose. At the very least, you'll come away with like, some new ideas and thoughts on how this stuff actually works. Highly recommend having a chat with them. To learn more about cloud account staffing, check out the link down in the show notes. This episode is sponsored in part by Ignition. Come, come, come, come, come. Here's the thing. Here's the thing about client billing. You can't bill for the time you spend billing. You can't. You can't. It is pure waste. And we're bad at billing because it's, it's icky. You let things slide, you don't get paid. You waste time. Waste time chasing people for money. That's not what I did. I would just, I would, I didn't want to waste time chasing them. And so I would just, I just eat it. Don't do that. This is where Ignition comes in. The leading revenue generation platform for accounts and professional services. When I was running my firm, Ignition wiped out our ar, it's true. And significantly reduced the time spent billing clients, saving our partners over a thousand hours in the first year because they didn't have to bill all that stuff manually. Man. With Ignition, we want more business with impressive online proposals. No more hustling, hustle and peace PDFs and Word docs. We automatically pulled payment up front or at the end of a job when it was done. No more dialing for dollars. We transitioned our firm to more recurring revenue and better managed scope creep. No more leaving money on the table. Ignition is making thousands of firms more money and genuinely made us more profitable. Check out why over 7,000 of the smartest businesses run on ignition@ignitionapp.com I'll put a link in the show Notes. All right, little idea number five here. Plant some conversation starters. So organize people around some sort of context. Maybe one side of the table or one part of the room has some sort of of label or something like that. Another good way to do this as idea number six is use name tags that have more context than just their names. So for example, if I'm getting a bunch of accounting firm owners together, what's some context that I could build into that name tag that would be valuable? Maybe the size of their firm, maybe their service mix. Is it a bookkeeping firm? Is it a tax firm? Do they do both? Is it wealth management? How about what practice management system they use? You build that stuff visually into the name tag and that could be literally text. The better version is like color and like sort of visual identifiers that make it immediately clear as you walk up to a person like you, you immediately have stuff to talk about that makes it so much easier to start a conversation. Number seven, for any event, have a clear off ramp. And this is like if you're doing a dinner or a half day thing, something like that, already have a plan for where people can go after that. If they want to keep hanging out, some people will have to bounce, some people will want to keep chatting. And as long as you have a clear answer for like, hey, we're going to go do this afterwards, if it comes up at all, then people will just plan on, on tagging along and going to that thing. If there is no plan, half as many people will go to that next thing because then there's the work of making the plan. And sometimes like the coolest connection happens in the after party, the, the hanging out and, and just going and doing something after that. Idea number eight, while you have them, this is a really big one for webinars as well. While you have them, get them to the next one if you want them to come to another one or if you want them to bring a friend, maybe next time. That's. Ooh, that's a, that's a juicy one. Capitalize on that while they're there, because while they're there at peak level of excitement and you kind of got them, you got them backed into a corner. Try to find a tactful way to be like, hey, we're gonna do this again in two weeks. This is super fun. Like, scan this QR code. You've got early access to RSVP right now. And I'd even, I'd even encourage you to bring A friend, just something like that. You gotta strike while the iron's hot. Last one here, number nine. Send a clear follow up afterwards to help those people connect with each other after the event. Remembering names and faces is really hard. But almost always when you come out of event you'll be like, oh, that person said something smart or I heard something about what they do that I wanted to follow up on or I heard they had a need where I know someone who could totally fill that need for them. But afterwards if you, if you're like afraid of getting their name wrong, misremembering who it was, there's some risk of it possibly not being what you thought it was, then you just won't send that email, you won't follow through. And so you as the host afterwards, and be careful when you've got sponsors here, be careful, be careful with this. The way that I do it basically, basically I just share. I send a follow up email to all of the non sponsors and then I put the contact info for the sponsors in the body of the email rather than like copying them like everyone else. I find people coming out of event, they have such a good time hanging with everybody, they have no problem with their information being shared with the other folks who were there live hanging out. But I probably wouldn't share that with the sponsor as well. But that makes it easier for them to go back and like follow up. And then when we talk about value attribution folks, how folks perceive the value of you putting on that event for them when that connection gets made. Here's what I used to think that was wrong. When that connection gets made, say you heard somebody, an attendee heard someone had a need and they knew a person that could fill that need, they go out and they make that connection after the event. And the person like they're like, oh thanks, that's super, super helpful. And the way my brain works, I'm like, okay, they're going to attribute that to the person who made the connection for them, right? They do. But they also just as much attribute that back to you because you created the space where they could get that stuff done. And in a world where like everybody's trying to convince everyone harder than anyone else on a landing page or on social media content, stuff like that trumps all of it. Like that stuff always wins. Now the perfect setup is both, is like having a compelling offer, a juicy reason for clients to come work for you. Landing page, a website that's more interesting than we, we offer peace of mind. But if you Compare like being the best person for beekeepers. If you compare that with actually having given people real value. And I don't need to like be paid for this value. Like, I'm not asking them. Like, I'll run dinners for accounting firm owners and they don't pay to be there. Like, there's no cost and there's no like call to action. Like you're not seeing selling them on anything. There's maybe a trap here where you're trying to. Trying too hard to do the ROI thing and may. And maybe I'm naive here, maybe that's a dumb approach actually. But I can tell you my experience. You create the space like you be human, be a connector man. All that stuff comes back to you like tenfold. And it's absolutely time worth spending. Probably a pretty foreign thing for most of us. Like, we are not the type of folks who are hosts. I would encourage you to just give it a try on a really small scale. And that could just be going to lunch with some of your favorite clients and be like, are you comfortable meeting some of the other folks I work with? I think you would totally hit it off and you could maybe even help each other. And you know what? They can, they can say no, but it's, it's really fun. I, I have found getting to play host, the vibes are incredible. You have all these concerns about little details and what could go sideways when in reality, if it's just a cool group of people, that stuff, in my experience, it takes care of itself. To that end, if you're here at the end of the podcast episode I'm doing, we may be up to like 40 events I'm doing by the end of the year. It's going to be a busy year. I want to hear from you. If you are in San Diego, Vegas, New York City, Orlando, Louisiana. Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Portland or Seattle, those are the cities where I have events already planned. If you're in or around there, get in touch. I can send you some more information if we haven't already been in touch with a lot of other places people have complained is not on that list. Some other potentials, Toronto, Dallas and Austin, Philadelphia, Boston. Potentially one of my, one of my sort of KPIs in my business now is meeting more people in person. It's one thing to have like followers and stuff like that, but that's, that's kind of cheap. Not kind of cheap. It is cheap. This in person stuff has been so transformative to me that like, I think a really good yardstick KPI for how can I enable that connection for others is how many people am I able to meet in person during that year and kind of create a space for them to connect with some peers that they otherwise wouldn't have met? Part of why we're going super hard on live events this year. If you're in those cities, shoot me a message, get in touch social media, dm, whatever. It's not hard to find my email either. Please don't be weird about it. I don't bite. There's. I know there's kind of a parasocial thing where that can be scary or you're worried that that may go sideways. Don't worry about that. I'm a normal person. That's probably not a thing that normal people say. Do normal people say I'm a normal person? Probably not. Game. Thanks for coming to hang for this one and I'll see you in the next one.