https://www.listennotes.com/e/752a5e5892db4c2b91624dfc2c939100

So you want to run an accounting firm. Are you looking to grow your existing accounting firm? Do you do it like with organic growth, a bit of marketing, or do you go out and start just Hungry Hungry Hippo in for some folks acquisitions like they, they naturally go there. Other folks, they don't. Plenty of stories of people actually starting from scratch with an acquisition. Logan Graff, he bought a small firm to kick off his practice. What's the right answer for you? Is there an absolute right answer in 2025, 20? If you're looking for gains adding to that client list today, we're going to dig into it. Somebody, somebody shot me a message the other day and it's actually a fun format idea I think basically roast my firm that I might acquire because oh baby, are not all accounting firms made equal? And so to, to generalize it, a good idea to buy an accounting firm is very, very hard. I, I, I can tell you there's folks that I know very, very well that are super progressive firms are like plugged into the content, doing all the right things. I know a growing number of those people that are now buying firms from other folks like in my audience doing the same things. That sort of acquisition super, super cool because there's great alignment there. In fact, it's something that happens pretty organically inside of my accountant community realizes. But when you go out to the wild west, like when you start talking with run of the mill brokers, you, I mean you probably know the, like the media and accounting firm. I can only speak for the United States in 2025. It is still one to three partners hustling in an office somewhere with a whole bunch of staff. They may even still be doing stuff on paper. They're almost certainly using a whole bunch of Thomson Reuters products. And it is ultimately the partners are servicing the clients. And so if you look at a firm like that, where you may have some tech debt, you're like, oh gosh, we're going to have to, we're going to have to modernize xyz. That's hard not only because you got to change the tech, but the bigger problem with a firm like that is you got to change the people. Changing tech's not all that hard. It's an integration problem. Changing people who have decades of muscle memory doing work a different way, getting them excited about like pulling up the carpet on, on all of their experience and having to retrain on all these different tools, Good luck getting people excited about that, that's very, very hard. But, but also like when that, that Partner or owner is the one servicing the clients, then what that firm is worth with that owner is very different than what it's worth without that owner. Because I'm going to assume they're working a full time job. In fact, most traditional firms like the owner's working more than a full time job. And so if I'm going to buy that, all that work still has to get done. So that is, that is a full time job that either you or an expensive hire is going to have to step into while managing all the other transitional stuff, which is a whole other full time job. Now the other end of the spectrum, they're a great fit. It's an accounting firm that's like on a, on a modern stack staff that hopefully aren't like too afraid of change. Have some adaptability there and bonus points if the owner has removed themselves from client work. The very best version of this frankly is where an acquisition can happen and nothing really changes. You're talking to the same person. I would say nothing externally from the client's perspective really changes. But that's impossible in most cases because for most small firms the owner is still very, very embedded in the day to day and how they support their teams and in how the clients are served. That's a tricky firm to step into, that's a tricky firm to acquire. But that's the vast majority of the firms that are on the market. Now you got a whole bunch of other questions like how aligned is, is your approach and what you're trying to do with what that firm does today. How aligned are the people within that firm with what you're trying to do? I could tell you if you're blocked on hiring right now, you're going to be blocked on hiring after you make that acquisition. In all likelihood you're going to have some people bounce. You're going to have some people that you realize they're just, they're not a fit for the direction that we're trying to go. I'm talking about staff and that's okay. Like you can actually, you can come in and augment a team with some of your own folks. You kind of have this element of it being a mixed family, but oftentimes in those situations you'll actually find a few folks within the firm that you're rolling up that we're looking for opportunity. And so this is kind of a chance for them to outgrow maybe the kind of limitations with the, the system that they were in before. It is an abundance of like human integration struggles and this is the biggest thing that people get wrong when they're doing roll ups or, or I do, I do accounting firm M and A. Like there's so many people that say they do this now. And where every single one of them gets tripped up is they underestimate how much the humans involved in the process just require time and attention to swing something from this way of doing things over to here. And right now it's just made much worse by the fact that there is so much capital out in the world that has to go somewhere. The perception of accounting as it always has been from the outside is that it is this procedural thing that is ripe for automation. This is not a new commentary on accounting at all. Like, people have been saying this for decades and we've seen so many people come in and not really like shake out and then leave. The latest version of this is PE and this kind of glorification of like, oh well, PE shops, like they're the ultimate big brains on how you systematize and operate, operationalize how these firms work. And there's a degree of truth to that because interestingly, the structure that most PE firms come in with is the same structure that we talk about that is superior to the traditional partnership model. So like us, you know, a lot of the folks plugged into my content and myself, like we're small firm runners. Like I ran a, a 40 person firm in the grand scheme of things, that's still a small firm. And so we can like, we'll look at kind of the PE stuff and the, the mega scale things and we're like, ah, that stuff's evil just because it's big. The reality is the, the model that a lot of the PE shops are coming in with are much more similar to the models that we talk about here every day than the traditional partnership models. So there is some wisdom to it, but there's also a lot of naivete, lack of experience of, of actually doing that, knowing just how painful and how much time it takes to get people working in the same direction and actually do that work like productively and at a high enough level. It's kind of a mean joke, but I like to say every time a PE roll up happens, it's great news for small firms because a whole bunch of employees and a whole bunch of clients are going to shake out of that transaction. So there's a lot of money getting pumped into figuring that out. But I'm not like, I'm not really, not really for or against PE so much as just I, I Just haven't seen a version of it that's really cool. That's like been very successful in my opinion. The success folks have found is combining things to get a group up to a certain number and then packaging and reselling that stuff. It's like the subprime mortgage crisis, but with accounting firms. Because if you look around at the market of accounting firms that are up for sale, there's. There's some subprimes out there, aren't there? But kind of the fun of doing this stuff the way that we do it on, I guess on a smaller scale is the. There are no absolutes here. Like, there's a firm out there who would be a tremendous target for you. And it's a great argument for building your network, for making more connections. It's amazing once you're, Once you're out there and going to some accounting conferences and just chatting with folks from the people that comment on these videos, it's amazing how small of a world it actually becomes. Like in the grand scheme of things, there's not all that many people that consume my content. But it's funny, as you get networked with more of them, it's a very small world. And it's usually the folks that are hanging out at in like kind of similar watering holes who are going to be most aligned with your vision for how to run a firm. So on the spectrum of good acquisition to bad acquisition, in my opinion, brokers have their place. But social media, making friends, being engaged in and you know, online communities, not just mine, there's a bunch of really good ones that's a whole lot cheaper than a broker. And that's usually a collection of folks that are much better fits than some random accounting firm where there's like no context, they don't consume any sort of thought leadership. Like that is going to be a real slog. I think there's still a place for acquisitions. In fact, what Logan Graf did, if you've seen his content, he started his own firm, but he started with acquiring a small book of business from, I think it was the firm that he was leaving and basically that gave him cash flow on day one. And so if you're struggling with how am I going to pay the bills when I get started, that was how he got it done. He worked out a seller finance deal. Basically where he was going to be making money from day one wasn't really all that risky because he could go out and take those clients with him if you have that opportunity. That's awesome. Like that's a pretty good way to start. But just recognize that your day one clients are never going to be your forever clients. So and Logan talks about this quite a bit like don't feel beholden to who you have in the moment within reason. Those clients are a means to an end and there's, there's a version of that that you can take too far and you don't want to leave anybody you know hard done by. Again, this comes down to your network. Can you find a great home for those clients? They will super appreciate it if you're no longer the home for them. But even itty bitty acquisitions when you're getting started. If you can find the right fit, they have their place. Today's episode is sponsored in part by Client Hub practice management system that delivers WOW seasons year round, not busy seasons. Seasons that will dazzle your clients for two reasons. One, Client Hub is drop dead simple man. If you're too tired of a practice management system that just feels like you gotta have a PhD in learning something new, Client Hub you hop in, the vibes are great. It just all makes sense. But two, remember there's a second reason Client Hub offers a game changing client experience that is you can actually get clients to like collaborate with you and be helpful on the platform because the portal wasn't this like afterthought. Bolt on now. Very cool. 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Learn more about ClientHub check out the link down below down in the show Notes Team up is a recruiting firm that helps you hire direct in the Philippines. Talented accountants that's different from the outsourcing or offshoring companies you most commonly hear about. Where you're Actually hiring the company. With Team up, you're just hiring a person because you can just hire people in the Philippines, same way that I may hire somebody in Reno, Nevada. It's actually a great example. That's a pretty, pretty suspicious place. I'd say the Florida of the west side of the United States. How do I trust them? How do I train them? How do I do xyz? Well, how do you do it for like your onshore people? But you really are just working with them. They're an extension of your team. That's what Teamup specializes in. So with Team up, you do a flat one time price to recruit that person. Most hires are about four grand. This, this one time fee. Team up, no ongoing cost. Most offshoring groups, about half of what you're paying is actually going to the company, not to the person. Team up even has a guarantee if that hire wasn't a fit for the role that you put them into in the first six months, Team up will find you a replacement at no cost. Does indeed do that. They don't do that. Hiring in the Philippines is simpler and easier than you think. My last four hires in my firm, this was like three, three and a half years ago, they were all in the Philippines. If you want to learn more, check out the link down in the show notes to schedule a call with Timo. Whether it's the right thing for you probably boils down to what are you most comfortable doing? There's people out there who are real acquisition nerds. And so Patrick Dichter is a good example. He talks a lot on Twitter about he's bought, I think three firms now. We've interviewed him on the podcast a couple of times. But Patrick runs a podcast that is about like business valuation and sourcing deals and stuff like that. Like, Patrick is a real geek when it comes to all things M and A. And to me that doesn't mean that M and A is the path for everybody. It just means that's the stuff that he's into. So that's probably the path for him now. The dark side of that. Because every, every, every version of this, like there are pros and there are cons. The dark side of that path is change management is the fact that's a real struggle, that it goes a lot slower than you wish it would. But in some ways it can make growth faster potentially. I mean, virtually all of the biggest firms out there, your regionals and all of that, they are the size that they are because they've done rollups and acquisitions. And so if you're trying to get big fast, that is one way to do it. It sounds kind of awful to me, but if that's kind of your skill set and your sweet spot, like creating organizational alignment and getting people from A to B, that's probably the path for you now, growing a firm organically, I don't really see that as an alternative because I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. So the most common framing I get for this question is, should I buy a firm or should I grow organically? And I would say you can do both. I think you should always be growing organically, and I think you should always be open to an acquisition if it makes sense. Like, you know, if there's somebody where you're, like, in a mastermind group with them and you really hit it off and they. They run a great firm and something in life takes them in a different direction, shouldn't you consider that there are opportunities, like, if you're plugging in with other professionals, there are other opportunities like that that will surface that would probably make sense to say yes to. Similarly, organic growth right now is so easy and by comparison, cheap, that we ought to be doing that too. And when I say organic growth and I say the M word, marketing, this to me, like, isn't even marketing through the lens of, like, hire a marketer, learn how to use HubSpot, stuff like that. Marketing, to me, for small firms, what that really means is just visibility. In fact, somebody told me the other day, I can't remember where I saw this, they'll just go to industry conferences with the folks they want to work with. They don't even exhibit. They just wear a T shirt that says, I'm a cpa. Ask me a tax question. Like, that is as hard as it is right now. Where most people get blocked is they're trying to serve too broad of a customer profile. If you can get specific, find a group that has painful pains, you can solve for them and the money to pay for a solution, and then be the most visible person in that space. You will have more work than you know what to do with. I go back to. We did a podcast episode on this a while ago, but it was a software developer who's like, I kind of want to hang up the sticks and be done with software development. Uh, what's a cool business? I could buy and kind of employ my engineer skills to, you know, scale or something like that. So you bought an accounting firm. It's interesting. This is like, my most read post on LinkedIn in the last 12 months is the story of this developer. Because I think it just, I don't know, it's social media, it validates what we all want and think to be true. Just fits right in that pocket of, of something that someone will engage with and be like, yeah, that's how the world works is definitely a feel good story for accountants. The developer bought the accounting firm thinking, well, I can be able to automate the crap out of this because of these, you know, these nupty accountants don't know what they're doing. What he found a year in was workflow was workflow and there wasn't a whole lot that he could do there but sales and marketing, there were loads of opportunities in. And again, this was not complex stuff. This was a little like five staff shop, I think. And he basically doubled the size of the accounting firm in, in 12 months with some very basic sales and marketing. I don't have enough context to like almost any of us could double our firms in 12 months by taking on really bad work, right? So I don't have enough context to know if like, were those really like good profile clients or not. But the main takeaway there was from a developer who's not a sales and marketing person. The quickest gains in that firm were by better positioning the firm. So being able to say that this firm is for a specific type of person and just doing some really basic efforts within that domain to get in front of folks. And that's all it really takes. Like you don't need a PhD and super big brain marketing stuff. The biggest thing for us, frankly, gang, is making the time right? Like you have so many demands on your time where you're like, yeah, no, that makes sense, I should do that. But then you never will because you can never come up for air. And so this, I mean my take on this, this starts with just firing yourself from more jobs. Uh, I've shared before, I, I had an 1800 client firm. I started as a junior staff member in that firm. By the end I bought out a number of the partners. I still had one partner, but then ultimately was the one person in the business that got myself entirely out of client work. And this happens just by relentlessly firing yourself from jobs. So every client has to have an owner who's not you. Every subject matter in the firm has to have an owner that's not you. Like who's the expert in, know, the new tax bill or cost segregation or whatever it is. Until you give something an owner, things will default to you. But then also every tech platform in your firm needs an owner that is not you. So then the only thing that slips through to you are the things that don't have a home yet. And your job is to find a home for them. That is you then running the machine rather than being part of the machine. And a lot of our fears with delegation, which is, I mean it's ridiculous when it's framed this way, are, well, geez, if I stopped reviewing tax returns or if I stopped preparing tax returns, if I stopped meeting with clients, what would I even do? What would my value to this business be? Buddy, if you ever find yourself in a position where you really don't have anything to do for one, that's exceptionally unlikely. For two. Is that, is that the worst thing? I mean, you went into business for yourself to have more control and more agency, but oftentimes we, we are afraid of delegating because we don't then know what our contribution would be. We don't. It's probably an identity thing where it's like, well, I don't do these things. Like what am I? You're a business owner and oftentimes the thing that your clients and your team are clamoring for is the thing that you won't have the time to do or the capacity to do until you fire yourself from the jobs you have today. So marketing and being visible and all that, it's not that you can't do it, it's that we generally just don't make the time for it. But at the end of the day, in an accounting firm, there is no more important thing than the quality of the client list. It is not your ability to prepare the next tax return, your ability to prepare the month on close. It is your ability to find another client who will pay twice as much for the same work so that you can cut three legacy projects and make the same money in half the time or less. That's the most important thing that we can enable for our accounting firm, which nobody tells you when you are in high school accounting. Two doing 12 column ledger paper stuff and you're like, I think I kind of like this stuff, right? So then you do it in college and then you go to do it for somebody else and all you ever do is you crank on their clients and then you go into business for yourself and you're like wait, somebody's telling me that I'm just, I'm not even going to do this stuff anymore. Unfortunately, like that is the path to running a more optimized or a more profitable accounting firm, those two things are kind of at odds. So I'd say regardless of your appetite or excitement level for doing acquisition, everyone should be doing organic. The question of who should be doing organic is a little different based on your firm size. If you look at say pasba. PASBA is like a community for bookkeeping firms. We heard a, a PASBA talk that I gave last week. Pasba's approach here is beyond a certain size. You actually do. You make a marketing hire and pull folks in to help the business owner. Either for them to help you get in front of more folks that you're are your ideal avatar or they're putting out content they that attracts folks within that space. If you are a very small firm like single owner, say 10 employee or less million dollars in revenue or under, I don't know that that makes sense. I can tell you the vast majority of the time partnering with a marketing agency in that scenario will be a disappointment. Some people you may naturally come around to enjoying being the quote unquote rainmaker, which is really just being the visible person. And so you're kind of the face of the business while the rest of the team is getting that work done. Everyone. You know, if, if you're in a firm like that, that least it has to at least be part of your Persona. Like I don't know what the perfect answer is for how much time you should be spending trying to be visible and attract the next person versus doing the work, but that's gotta be at least 20% of your time. And most firm, small firm owners, you're not spending a day a week, you know, reaching out to a podcast host within the space of the folks you wanna work with to say like hey, here's something helpful I can provide going to a trade show and just, and just being visible and hanging out and meeting people in that community. So in a firm that size, while it's not something that comes naturally to most of us, try to find the version of it that you are most comfortable with. So I often come back to, you know, of all the different types of content out there, what's the one that leans into something that you enjoy? So if you enjoy high level conversations with smart people, do an interview podcast. If you enjoy writing, do LinkedIn and a newsletter. But again, it has to be for a very specific type of person you're trying to serve. If you like making, making dumb jokes, make YouTube videos. That's not true. There's a lot of different ways to, to do YouTube that isn't just making dumb jokes. But on, on the question of acquisition versus organic, I think the reality is we have to have our eyes open to both. I do think that acquisitions are over glorified. And this isn't just an accounting thing. This is an every industry thing. There's, I mean there's so much stake in today's economy and well, when you get beyond this EBITDA multiple, then you get in then or this revenue threshold, then it jumps from this multiple to that multiple. 80% of that is outright false. And it's a narrative that's pushed by the folks that have something to gain in a roll up. The number of people that make money on a deal even when three quarters of the deals never go through it is shocking. And those are the folks that are pushing that narrative. It's no different than software companies getting you on a webinar to show you how important advisory is. And here's how our tool helps you do advisory. It's like there's a seed of truth to all of these things. But when the person jumping into my comments on every single LinkedIn post is saying, wow, this, this firm had success and did this. XYZ wants to get past 3 million. Then the multiple jumps from this to that. That's not an independent source of information. If you're like me, you actually had a lot of clients who went through this where they were promised these things. I had a clients, clients who were involved in a number of rollups and not a single case did it work out. In fact we did a number of these. I can say universally the business owners that went into those rollups ultimately came to regret it and never saw those benefits. Their staff left like the thing that they built that they were most proud of, like got ruined. And maybe there's exceptions to this rule, but the norm isn't for everybody to get together and have a great time and then sell for a better multiple. And the same is true in accounting firms. Like I know many people on many different, you know, from quarter million dollar firms to probably $10 million firms who have done deals, who have been very close to doing deals with other firms with everything. For all the narratives around like, well, you got to get to 5 million, you got to get to 2 million, you got to get to 3 million. Once you get to 10 million, that EBITDA multiple and then it's, then it all changes within that size range. Most of that narrative is entirely false and entirely secondary to what is your reputation, who is in your network. Because the best multiples that I've seen have been acquisitions from very respected people by their peers where they understand this person does things differently. And that's so good for my firm that I'm going to pay, let's say above 2, because reality is in our space. As much as people will like to tell you otherwise. Deals beyond 2 aren't happening. By and large, deals beyond 1.4x revenue aren't happening. And the exceptions to the rule there is when there's. When there's a connection, when there's a network. This episode is sponsored in part by Verito. New Sponsor Alert. Have you ever gotten that gut drop feeling when a. 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Down in the show notes Another argument for having a killer network I don't get real excited about brokers going out and sourcing deals for me because the vast majority of times when I've seen that it's a pretty rough firm or there's some pretty big surprises when you get into it, especially these days when it's never been easier to build your network than it is now. Like there's so many different ways to do it, from social media to simply dropping a comment on this YouTube video. It's never been easier to build your own network where this stuff can happen organically and you're probably going to be much better in alignment with than anything a broker is going to bring you. So there's. There's definitely a glorification of all this stuff that has never really resonated with me. Because if the victory scenario in running a business is then, you know, say, selling it to a regional firm, the vast majority of the time, and honestly, I don't. I've never seen any transaction where this was not the case. The clients get hosed, they're annoyed, they don't want it. The staff gets hosed, they're annoyed, they don't want it. And the legacy that you have, the payoff that you give the staff and the clients for coming to work for you and buying into your dog food, is to take a check and cash out. That to me, doesn't feel like a victory state I would be excited about. That's kind of always been my issue with the goal ultimately being a sale. Now I can tell you with the network I have today, which was not the network I had five years ago, I can maybe see a version of that that makes more sense because I've got other friends who run firms who I trust that are Know that I know are trying to do right by people, many of whom probably run better firms than I could. Even having that network totally changes the calculation for me because that's not selling to a big regional, that's not doing a roll up, that's probably going to end in tears. That's a very different prospect. But. And we used to give our clients this advice too. Don't run your business. With the goal being this only ever works out. I only ever get to retire if I can sell this thing. Thing. That's not the way to do it. Create a business that cash flows, that makes money. In fact, I've always said I would much rather design a business, you know, if I wanted to get out of this thing. If I'm running a firm, I want to get out. I would much rather design a business that's easier on me to run, that I can hang around for for a couple more years, make that money while the business is, is operating, and then do a discounted sale to the team. I would much rather do that, work a couple more years in a business that I enjoy before a discounted sale, then sell to a third party. Unless I have a really high degree of confidence that that third party is going to do right by the clients and do right by the staff. I do think those deals are possible. I don't think they very often happen through a broker. I think they happen through a personal network. But if you're considering what do I do? Just tell me what to do, Jason. Do I do acquisition? Do I do organic? My answer is do both. Invest time in your network. Invest time in being visible to the type of clients that you want to serve. This stuff takes care of itself. You can't will into existence the perfect firm deal that doesn't happen. You can increase your surface area for the right thing coming along for sure. And that's the value of investing in your network. But if someone like tells you you gotta find a deal in the next 30 days, do you think that's gonna be a very good deal? Almost certainly not. Right. So it's more about like what are the habits that will increase the likelihood that I have access to a deal that makes sense for me. And what are the habits that will ensure that we continue attracting premium clients who will pay us more than the clients we even have today? Focus on the habits like the week over week inputs of doing that stuff. That's probably the better thing to focus on. So to me that looks like devoting some time to visibility, becoming kind of the default option for a specific type of client where the next time they're shopping for a bookkeeper or a tax pro, their mind jumps to you or your firm because they just saw them on a podcast. They see you at the trade shows, they see you're on the board of that certification group that may out a bunch of content for the type of folks trying to serve. And then on the flip side, on the acquisition side, to me those, those ongoing habits look like meeting people, engaging, you know, on social media and learning from, from other firm owners. Going to accounting conferences. You know, I'm bullish on accountant communities because that's kind of the only place where you can join a group and within 30 days make a bunch of friends that do exactly what you do. Like that is the easiest way to build a network. I don't know any other scenario, you know, Whether you're a $10 million firm, whether you are someone thinking about starting a firm, whether you're a solo firm, whether you're a single owner, million dollar firm. I don't know a single scenario where within, you know, 30 days you can be in a mastermind with five to 10 folks that run firms just like you. Be part of a larger group of, of a hundred folks in kind of a, an online forum where you can share questions privately and get advice from other real firm owners. Like that feels like the ultimate shortcut to me. That's why online community is still kind of my only business. Like I don't do paywall education or anything like that. Because at least for me, that network, having that network, it was a huge upgrade to my firm. I mean, it just, it overcame any issues with picking software. Cause I could just ask other firm owners strategy questions like just feeling burnt out. For me, I solved all that stuff by building a personal network. And when it comes to M and A and the acquisitions that go sideways, the best filter for those deals to me is like actually knowing these people, understanding how they run firms and your competitive advantage being your connections, not that you found a broker that you can cut a check to and like find a firm that way, right? So there you have it. Do both. Why do I listen to this podcast? Jason just tells me to do more every single day. There, there is a lot to do. And the folks who, who are like prolific that you look up to that look so impressive, like they do so much stuff. What they do differently to you, it's not what they do, it's what they don't do. Right. Because what's standing in the way of you doing that thing where you're like, yeah, I probably shouldn't do that. What's preventing you from doing that is all the stuff that you're not yet ready to give up to delegate, to say someone else can own this thing. And I recognize they're not going to do it perfectly just like I would. But that's okay. That's a skill that I got to learn along the way is how to hire people into those roles and, and trust them to make my life easier for me to be helpable. Maybe to hire an assistant for a first time delegate. My email inbox, all those things, when you look at the other people, they're like, how do they do all that stuff? They're so impressive. Usually the secret is the stuff that they no longer do that you still do. I still follow this in my life. Like I look at the folks who are doing really impressive things like running impressive media businesses, like sort of influencer folks in other industries. I want to know their team structure, I want to know their day to day, how do they run their life. And the same still holds true. I'm like, oh geez, okay, I'm still doing all this stuff. They hired somebody to do all that. Let's figure that out. I feel like that's, that's pretty commonly the secret across any type of business. Got any thoughts? Drop that stuff down in the comments. Want to sell your firm? Drop that comment down there too. If you're looking for a firm, comments are always open. You wouldn't believe the serendipity that can happen. Like just in comments around my YouTube videos and podcasts. There's been actually some pretty wild stories to that end. And if you want to come talk with me about it, real me, not this AI avatar that's delivering the podcast right now. That's a joke. No avatars here. Come into a city near you. We got events coming up in LA, Chicago, Denver and Atlanta. Head over to jasononfirms.com events. Would love to see IRL. In fact, as you're hearing this, I'm at scaling new heights, having a tremendous time with many folks. Tomorrow we're doing a meetup at Scaling literally just to hang on the conference room floor. Over a hundred people have RSVP'd. I'll be hanging out with folks, meeting a bunch of you. But all of those folks will be hanging too. Like we last did this at Engage, had over a hundred people that got together at the expo hall floor and everyone walked away from that meetup with someone like they're making connections like that I that I tell people is I think the very best thing that I can enable for people is, is I can help people directly. I can meet you, I can be helpful and all that stuff. But you have so much more to learn from all the other people that are consuming my stuff than you do from me. So if I can do one thing for you, it's hopefully to connect you with other smart folks. The best version of that happens in person. So I encourage you to come check out an event. Jason on firms.com events Bro, thanks for being here today. This has been fun. Okay, I'll see you the next one. Sa.