THANK YOU!

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Steven Libhart.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone, and this week we're going to kind of do a little recap of where we've come from, where we're headed, really just a thank you show to thank everybody who's been listening to us over this 24-week journey and do a little check-in, talk about some of the conferences we're going to be going to, and really kind of go through our journey of where the LawPod started and where we're going to. I know Rhode Island just came out of my mouth.

And this time it came out so strong.

Came right out. So we have Tierra with us. She's our producer. She's the gorgeous lady behind the screen. And Tierra, why don't you give us some of our stats and maybe Tell us a little bit about what you do in the job behind the golden curtain that we wish you had in front of you and you could have pulled it aside and come through. But tell us about it.

I know I'm a lot more comfortable behind the curtain here.

No, you are not, Miss Actress. No way.

I'm not a podcaster, but I am the producer-director, I suppose, of The Accountants Law Pod. And I do everything behind the scenes. I do scheduling and launching the episodes and creating the reels and shorts and writing show notes and chatting with all of our wonderful guests and getting, you know, these 3 corralled together and started on our podcast episodes. And it's just— it's been such a blast. It's been such a learning experience. I've only worked on one podcast before. So when Sarah and Lynda came to me and they said, this is what we want, I said, oh. Okay, let's make it happen. So this is my first time being on with you guys, and it feels such an honor.

Yeah.

And it's been so fun to see this podcast take off and see how it's grown. I'm behind the scenes in the analytics, in the numbers every day, and I cannot believe that our first episode went live June 1st of this year, 2023, and we are already at 13 1,800 downloads.

Um, apparently there was a need for this podcast, this topic.

That's a good point, Linda.

I think so. And I love seeing which topics grab people's attention. I— that you can clearly see there's a need for information from, from within the legal space, but we've also been so fortunate to have Up to this point, just some incredible guests on the podcast. And those episodes, you can see they're doing really well. People are really loving to learn from our friends and colleagues that we've had the honor of having on the podcast so far. The YouTube channel is also really taking off. It's a fun space over there. So if you haven't checked out YouTube, go watch the videos. And just— it's a whole new level getting to watch the 3 of you. interact. You can hear it in the podcast, but getting to watch the 3 of you on screen and with our guests is just really special. So we have come such a long way in a short amount of time, and I'm really excited to see where we go from here, and I'm honored to be a part of it.

So you really are our girl behind the scenes because you not only handle everything, so it's not just the little things, it's a lot of little things. Like, you handle a lot of the— not just the SEO, but you also handle a lot of the advertising and promotion of it, which that's a testament to you that we've got these numbers Because the numbers just kind of blow our mind. Don't you think, Steve?

Absolutely. I mean, we're looking at— we're averaging about 56 downloads per episode right now, and that's in 24 weeks. So that's pretty cool. And, you know, I just—

Steve's KPI, by the way.

That's my KPI. I'm going to be watching this.

We have numbers. We love our numbers.

We love our numbers. Absolutely. And, you know, this podcast, I, I, I'm— I just want to say how grateful I am That, that I get to be a part of this. This is huge in my life. And, you know, Sarah and Lynda approached me way back in the spring and said, let's do this. And I'm like, okay, and here we are. And, and Tierra, you know, just thank you to you guys for making this happen. And we all have different people that we bring into the podcast. And what's really cool is our podcasts are not tailored to how-tos. It's an open dialogue like we're doing right now, and people seem to really find appeal in that. And as you know, I travel a lot in the spring, summer, and fall, and it's just been a blast this last summer to be out in my Airstream somewhere on the planet. And I go, oh my gosh, podcast, half an hour, we got to record. And I run home and I get showered and I get ready and I sit down and there we are. And I'm in the middle of a forest somewhere. I mean, how grateful am I that I get to do that with my work? And one of the things that I've been doing with the podcast that I want to share with everybody out there, the impact it's had on me with all these recordings, is when I have a client who's stuck on something and I go, oh, we talked about that in our podcast, and I'll tell them, go to episode so-and-so and watch that, and it backs up what I'm saying. And then they get back to me and they're like, thank you for that, this is so cool. And then they become a follower. So I'm coming from a space of gratitude here. I can't thank you guys enough for being— we're a family here now, and this just means so much to me. Thank you.

Our recording sessions are just such a bright spot in my day. I love when the 4 of us get together.

It's, it's been honestly having this dream that I wanted way back when.

I was just going to say that you wanted this for a long time.

For a long— Lynda's heard me talk about it before we met, like before we even started together. I've been wanting this and To have this come to fruition and to be with the right mix of people and and really enjoy the conversation. It's a testament to kind of where we are in our own professions, and I appreciate that because I love I'm enjoying this and learning about all the different things from wealth management to opportunities that we can dive in deeper on on how to manage on the business side to the personal side, the health and wellness side. And I have to say, in order for us to keep this going too, the the thing that we'd love the most is is thank you to all that has liked subscribe. subscribed and participated in this. And we, we need more of that— the share, the like, subscribes— in order to keep this going. We are so honored as to where we are. And we kind of just did a soft— it's almost like we did like this pilot thing, and we're starting to feel the momentum. We're kind of getting into our maturity of like a more of like a hard launch type of thing, I guess you could say, or more like a formalized— we've been doing this, we're getting our sea legs. Lynda keeps us structured with our topics. Like, when she's not around, I deliberately do things differently because We want to have her absence felt.

Mom's not watching. Is that what you're saying?

No, I guess you could say, but also just like have a different dive on it because I want to—

Just a planner, and you guys are like, let's just go. And it's like, oh, no.

Yeah, we can do spontaneity.

We can do spontaneity.

But that's the popcorn spunk style too of all of us. And I love that about— I mean, we genuinely enjoy each other's opinions, thought processes, and working through things. So thank you for everyone that's listening. And thank you to the 4 of you, the 3 of us, the 4 of us are all here for really driving this. So I appreciate it.

I was telling Steve a story, I think last week, earlier this week. Time means nothing to me most days. But I remember being in college and working a retail job and thinking, you know what I should do with my life? What I, what I should do for work is I need to be an assistant because I need to help people grow their businesses and reach their dreams and chase their dreams. And so I'm sure a lot of people know this, but outside of the LawPod, I am Lynda and Sarah's executive assistant for their company, The Proper Trust. And so to not only get to be a support to that business and to the two of you is just honestly such a dream come true. But then, Sarah, to see that you have this dream of this podcast and get to be a part of growing that and helping you reach that is just such a gift to me. Because if anyone remembers the Ben Day episode when he talks about the DISC test, I am 100%— I'm a support person. And so this has just been so much fun to get to help you bring this dream to fruition. And I'm really curious, where do you see it going from here? What are your— what are your next goals? What's— what's next?

Oh my goodness. Well, the evolution of the way— I mean, Lynda's our marketing genius, right? The evolution of the way that things are moving, I do see us, you know, helping us build. I see it in more of an ecosystem of business owners balancing work life in a way that's what we face, not what people are shoving down our throats and saying, you gotta have work-life balance.

Okay.

Or like Lynda and I, we have to give up sometimes moments of time, maybe on a weekend or an early morning or a late night to finalize something for the ease of use for the workday to be available to help grow the business or to save time in other things. It's a balancing act.

We should do a podcast recording on that subject alone.

Yeah, but I feel like the way technology— and Lynda speaks to this really well— AI, what she sees happening down the pike. And Lynda, I feel like you should chime in here. But I do think that this— we are flexible enough. We have a niche that we want to serve, but we are flexible enough to grow, and we can see where that journey takes us. I've always kept an open mind, open heart. That's how I feel about things. So What do you think, Linda?

For sure. Like, with AI, you know, it's so easy to be afraid of what's coming, or to look at it in the perspective of it's gonna take over the world. And I've had some of these discussions with people that, you know, I hope they remember to put the off switch on and things like that. And I think that you can't really look at it like that. You have to look at it as, how is it going to make my life easier? How is it gonna improve what we do? and how am I gonna change my skills and work to upskill myself to get to what I need to know? We're gonna be talking to the machines. I, I told this to my husband. I said, you know how you type like this?

Mhmm.

That's gonna be gone away, which he's terrible. He never took typing because his mother told him the secretary will do it. I said, well, she was wrong on that one. So, you know, you really need to have those skills. And what we're gonna be doing is actually verbally communicating, but we— it's like a different language. You need to learn the language And the only way you're gonna learn it is to play with it. AI right now is at a place where you, you can already do this, and I really highly recommend get on the free ChatGPT and start playing around with—

Yeah.

Trying it out, looking at the results, and then improving the results. And you can do that with your marketing, and it will save you a ton of time. That's the part I'm blown away by is I know what it took me to do a, a blog post years ago, and I might have been working with you, Tia, and it was like 6 hours it took me to write the post, draft the post, write it, do the video, put it all together. It was a 6-hour thing that I did on the weekend to get my once-a-week post out. And now I can do it in probably less than an hour. So that's a huge improvement. And it all depends on how, what you're doing, what the post is, how long the post is. I'm obviously, but you can write it, have ChatGPT improve it. You can do the videos. Now you can have Midjourney make you the, the, the images for it. You don't even have to think about that where before you, I would try to think of something kinda cool to go with my topic. So it's not just business people all day long. It doesn't catch somebody's eye. Those are the things that you're gonna be able to do that are more, you don't have to think about it as hard.

Mhmm.

So now if I'm not thinking about it as hard, how am I gonna redirect my brain for what the, what you do need? Because it's always gonna need that set of eyes on it, I think.

Mhmm.

Always that final viewing of in our brain input.

Should we, should we write to ask ChatGPT, how do we celebrate where we are at with our podcast?

Well, we, we are celebrating when we get to QuickBooks Connect. So we are gonna be speaking at QuickBooks Connect, which is coming up. This is gonna be coming down. We're gonna actually put this show in on Thursday before Connect, and we're bringing our whole staff to QuickBooks Connect.

That's huge.

She's gonna hang out with us. Actually, we're gonna all be together in the same space. But we are speaking together, the 3 of us, and I'm sure Tira will be in the audience. So if you want her autograph, you can get it.

Yeah.

But we're gonna be speaking on the legal tech stack. So we're gonna go in and talk about what we use, what we, what we tell the attorneys they should use, and really what works best for us. And we're gonna take questions. So it's your opportunity if you wanna come to our session, we would love to have you and ask questions. That's what we're there for, to help people. know how to work the technology side. And if you're thinking about working with attorneys, they are a group of people. Don't be afraid of them. They are very tech— a lot of them are tech backward. Not all. We went to ClioCon. It was rooms full of people who are looking towards the future.

Yes.

But we do run across them that come to us that are still working in an old system. And our job is to get them to move forward. And they rely on our expertise. Even a current client will rely on us for where things are going or what's coming down the pipe. They ask us these questions. which I never would have believed in my journey as a bookkeeper or an accountant, that the person would come to me and ask me about technology. But they realize we are very tech forward as a group of people. And I think that's wonderful. Like, I want to be that person that's on top of technology when I'm, you know, 100 years old. That's my goal. So, you know.

Well, and to Sarah's point about you being the marketing expert on this side of the fence, Lynda, you also are the glue that keeps this thing together. Professionally. I mean, you just, you help guide it. You help, you have great ideas right before we record. No, seriously. I mean, you, I really respect you for that and I thank you for that. And you mean a lot to me. I think you know that.

I can't wait to meet you in person because we haven't met in person.

I know.

This is Sarah and I. I've never met Lynda in person. I've never met Steve in person. The only member of our team I've met is Sarah.

So—

It's going to be like, it's going to be like the adopted kid that got found and we're going to meet each other. Yes.

There'll be a lot of hugging. It's gonna be a lot of hugging, nonstop hugging the entire time.

The other thing that we want to do is we will have our microphones if you feel compelled and you want to join in on some, like, little short video feeds. We'd love to have you on.

We want to connect with you. We want to connect with our listeners. Yeah.

And anyone else who is new to the platform that wants to come up, say hi, talk to us about things that we We want to engage. We genuinely enjoy it.

And we are bringing some kind of small thank you gifts to the people who are able to connect with us, you know, not run away from our little microphones. But we'll have a limited number of really, really fun swag bags that we're bringing. And these are also going to be filled— this is kind of my special project— they're going to be filled with discount cards and kind of gifts from the guests that we've had on the podcast so far. So all the way up to our wonderful Miranda, whose episode will drop this week, that last week when this episode comes out. But as we're speaking now, it'll be out this week in a second. Speaking from the future. But just as a thank you to them for coming onto the podcast and just really having such wonderful discussions with us, and we can see that it's so valuable to our listeners. So we're gonna have a limited number of fun swag that we're gonna be, you know, have, have on hand with us. So if you, if you see us coming at you, take a moment. We'd love to chat with you. We wanna connect with you, and we wanna kind of spread the word about the LawPod even more while we're at QBC. And I think that's something we're really excited about.

Especially if you're a listener, we'd love you to come up and, and talk to us. We, we're trying to figure out what would be the best to serve the listeners. So we would love to hear your feedback, any suggestions of topics. We, we actually brainstormed in the very, very beginning, and it was a, it was a blast. We pulled up a Google Sheet, and we just all started typing in topics, and we had, like, the whole year planned out in a matter of, like, 5 minutes. And now as we kinda think of things, I think Tierra, like, listens to us talk, and she starts to add them in that ideas that we have for future ones, but we'd love to hear from the listeners to hear what would be something that you'd like us to speak on because there's so many topics and they don't have to all be towards the, you know, the legal accounting. They can be on marketing, they can be on anything. Speaking to a client, maybe you had a rough time of it with a client. How should I handle it if that happens in the future? There's so many topics out there and I think it's a great opportunity to stop and meet us. We would love to meet you and just tell us what you'd like to hear.

Absolutely. And I'm sure you're going to start hearing my voice a lot towards the end of podcast episodes telling you where you can send us questions and suggestions and interact with us either in our inbox or on our website. But you can also follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, we are on TikTok. I post a lot to Sarah's LinkedIn and Facebook. And, you know, so if you see her posting a lot, it's actually The big secret. It's actually me. But please, yeah, like she said, subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Click that like button, leave us a review, and interact with the content. It leaves such a big impact for us. It just brightens our day and it helps us grow the podcast and make it something that we think you'll really enjoy. And when you see it at See Us at QVC, come say hi to these 3 celebrities. They're going to be together. For the first time. And I think it's going to be a really special moment. But yeah, please, that's perfect, Linda. Let us know what you want to hear, what you want to see more of, and we can't wait to grow this with you.

And our little ask, and I don't know how we're going to do this, is I asked Mel Robbins if she would be on our show.

Oh, I was praying for this.

She did the paperwork for it.

Have you shared this story on the podcast yet, Sarah?

I don't know. It was awesome. Like, it was an amazing—

Give us a play-by-play. Paint me a Birmingham. How did this all go down that you tried to get—

Well, I'm actually head over heels. I've been following her since, what, '70s?

Sarah's a fangirl. She's like, when we were in Nashville and Mel was at ClioCon, she's like, she's coming to speak at 4 o'clock and I'm gonna stand in line at 2. I wanna be in the front of the line. I'm not kidding you. She really was. Unfortunately, she was in the wrong line.

They moved the whole signing thing. Yeah, but that's okay.

I was like 3.

I was number 3. I have a picture that you need to post probably of me getting signed with her, but it was the most amazing thing. I'm standing in line. I'm walking up with, you know, I've got all these books to get signed and stuff. And she looks at me and she goes, girl, I love your glasses. And I was like, oh my God. And I froze. I'm like, Sarah, how can I freeze? So I was like, oh, I love you, Mel.

I can't believe it.

And so I started telling her a story because my mom and my taunt did this little thing, and I showed her pictures of what they did. They were holding up a sign. It was so, so cute. Lynda and I witnessed the most fun things together with these 2 ladies. And it was— and so I was just standing there, and Jessica, one of our podcast guests who we'd met there and just enjoyed, Just gotten herself her book signed, and I just randomly screamed out, Mel, would you be on our podcast? And she's like, yes, but you have to do X, Y, and Z. So we have to come up with a hashtag because I really want her to be on this.

Mel Robbins, if you're listening, if somehow you are listening to this podcast or seeing it, I'm going to throw a challenge out to you. I will come to wherever you live and I will mow your lawn. I will do your dishes. You don't want to know how long it's been, I think. Mel Robbins, everybody, we want you on our podcast. Please come visit us.

This is the ultimate call to action, I think, for any of our listeners is, like I said, interact with the podcast when you see it. Tag Mel Robbins. Tag her on Instagram. Tag her on LinkedIn.

Yeah, there you go.

Tag her. Try to get her attention because we would love to have her on the podcast.

If you don't know her, please know her. Subscribe. Yeah. Amazing.

She's a phenomenal speaker, especially her TED Talk.

Yeah.

That's one that's super, super famous. And if you've never listened to it, highly recommend it.

And if you don't know what 54321 is, go find out. We're not going to tell you, and it'll change your life.

It will.

It really will. I mean, it's done a wonder for us all. So, well, thank you for hosting this, putting this on for us today. We're so excited about QuickBooks. I know Lynda and I feel so honored to have all of our team members there. It's just such a great, heart-filling moment to be able to offer this and have this.

And so honored that they accepted our— I mean, not everybody got accepted, and we're really honored that they accepted us as their teachers at Connect and the fact that they really let us put our presentation together. And I'm just hoping a lot of people come. It's going to be Monday night at QuickBooks. Find us. It's Monday night, 4:30 to 5:30. It's a really good presentation. It's kind of a fireside chat with the 3 of us. And then Sarah and I are doing initial— another one, additional one on Wednesday on HR. It was HR advisory. What they named it, they changed the name a few times. It's mostly advisory. So it's gonna be more on how you can add some advisory into your repertoire of skills when working with your midsize clients. And it's an important skill to get, and it's not an easy one to get that Cross from doing everything and not getting paid for it to getting paid for it. So we're going to be talking a little bit about some things that you might not think are advisory that really are and how you can add them in and really help your client, because that's where we're going to be in the space of. So as technology excels and accelerates and gets more in-depth in our job, it's going to free up time for that one-on-one to really help your client become profitable in their firm. So that's our job to help them. And I think that They want the help. They need the help. And this is going to be a lot about that kind of a shift to get there. And it's on— that's on Wednesday at 4:30. So both our sessions are on at 4:30 in the afternoon, Monday and Wednesday. So we'd love to see you and join us and hang out with us and hear our presentations, ask questions. We'd love to answer your questions too. So, Tira, you get to take us away live.

Oh my gosh. I do get to take you guys away live. Let me just subtly find my script.

I know I didn't give you that long, like, let's go, you know, heads up.

Usually I'm very prepared, but I'm a little out of my element today, so forgive me. But I have it up now. So here it live, and—

You get to see the beautiful face behind the voice.

Oh, you guys are so kind. Well, as we've been saying, to support the Accountants Law Pod, please, please, please take a moment To like this episode and all the episodes that you've loved. Share this episode with your colleagues and with your friends, and most importantly, subscribe to this podcast. You can follow us on YouTube or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And as we said, subscribing to the podcast helps all of us because you'll never miss an episode. And we can continue to grow and learn and just see where this wonderful podcast takes us. If you have any questions, topic requests, or guest suggestions, You can email us at info@accountantslawpod.com or send us a message through our website, accountantslawpod.com, or come find us at QuickBooks Connect and give us your notes. Give us your, your questions and your comments. We would love, love, love to interact with you while we're there. We didn't mention it today, but if you'd like to join us in the Accountants Law Lab, which meets every Friday, visit our website at accountantslawlab.com to sign up. It's really easy. It's right there at the top corner. And thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for, for letting me join you guys today. I feel like I'm part of the cool kids club.

Yeah, of course. Always. Thank you.

Lifeline. What are you talking about?

Bye, everybody.

Bye, everybody.

Bye.