Top Questions to Ask Attorneys on a Discovery Call

Welcome to Accountants Law Pod, 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 have a, I think, a really good one, especially if you just landed here because you don't know what you're going to do with a first attorney client and they reached out to you and you need to make a phone call back or a Zoom call back. And it's, what's the questions you would ask on a discovery call? So I'm gonna put Steve on the spot because I don't wanna do that to Sarah today.

I had a feeling you were gonna do that.

Because I know you came so prepared because you like hit the Google. So go ahead and ChatGPT, go ahead and what would be your first question? You only get to say one so Sarah can guess one.

Well, first of all, good morning to your bright, shiny faces. It's so nice to see you 2 today.

Good morning. Yeah, it is a nice morning, mid-morning, and afternoon for others.

So the, the, the one most important thing that I feel you really need to think about before you jump into a consultation with a potential client or a brand new client is listen. Tell yourself to stop and listen. This— it's not so much a time For us to talk. It's more of a time to ask them the questions. Would you agree or disagree with that?

Definitely. But this— yes. So you start the conversation, you're saying let them talk to you. What if they come on and they just go, hi, Steve, nice to meet you?

Well, so then that's when you can, you can jump into the questions and— but, but ask those probing questions, but let them talk. You know, then you can, you can flow into what you can do for them later if you're making the notes and keeping track of everything. But you want to find out what their main objective is. Why did they come to you? What have they been doing in the past?

You might know, right, Steve? Maybe they've written a little bit on your form. So I think what you're leading to is some good points of like, okay, you start the conversation and then as soon as they start talking, just allow yourself to listen to what you're hearing is what you're going with. Yeah, I agree.

And I like to ask them specifically because we work with attorneys. I like to ask them more about their firm and what makes their firm special. So maybe we're talking to a family law attorney and, you know, we ask them, what makes yours special? What is it that really gets you going and getting up in the morning and being excited about your firm? And what can we do to help facilitate that? And those sorts of open questions of what can we do for you?

Or why did you start your firm?

Why did you start your firm? Do you have specific requirements? Do you have specific challenges? Do you, you know, is your staff in-house? But, you know, nowadays that's important to know. Are there particular things that are super important to you over other things with your accounting? And, you know, what sort of challenges have you had coming up to today's meeting with your accounting? What would you change? Those sorts of questions.

When someone, you ask somebody what makes your firm Special. What kind of answers do you get for that question?

In family law and in like civil rights attorneys and things like that, they— you really start hearing the passion for why they're doing what they're doing, and you find out what they did before they became a family law attorney, as an example, and what, what led them on that path to want to help people the way that they help them. So it's just finding all the nuances about them and what makes them and their law firm tick.

Yeah, I think what's nice in an initial discovery call, sometimes my impression is they're coming to you for a need. Obviously, there's an immediate need or there's a thing that just really— that was it. Something broke and they're done.

Something broke. Yep.

They need it, right? And so I kind of, in my mind, when I'm first on, it's like, okay, well, let's talk about why you're here. Where do you need guidance or support or Maybe just a revamp, or you're exploring a new software. So identifying a little bit more of the structure of what the need is. And then I like to flow into some of these other areas if time permits, because it's nice to understand what you're saying, Steve. What are other services that could potentially come down? I'm not gonna offer everything on the onset, but what are the other things that could potentially need some guidance or support in, or Like Linda and I often find they need— we found a workflow issue. It wasn't— it was maybe the wrong person in the wrong seat, or it was a workflow issue, not understanding the full practical sense of what needed to happen. And kind of dealt with this with a few folks. And we see, I guess you—

what do you—

you're shaking the trees. You're like, what do you say, Linda? You like wrestle everything out. You kind of identify. where things need to go, or you save a lot of time in areas without, without too much tinkering. And it's not even sometimes in the accounting portion, it's just the workflow to get to accounting. So what backed that up? What made that a problem?

So usually too, a lot of times they'll say to us, well, my bookkeeper's leaving, my current bookkeeper's leaving, or another one we get sometimes is, well, I know my bookkeeping isn't right.

Yeah.

And then we're like, well, what do you mean by not right? What's not right about it? And you kind of probe that way to get more data from them, which just goes back to what Steve said. You're listening to them. But also sometimes they'll say, I came to you because I've been doing these books myself for a long time, and I think it's time for me to let that go. And oh, by the way, and then, you know, that will lead into When was the last time it was reconciled? And like, oh, I'm really behind on that. And, you know, I just realized I need to let it go. And what were you doing on a spreadsheet? Okay, because you want to ask them, what software are you using? That's another big question. Like, what software are you using? Using QuickBooks? Kind of help them when you're talking software, like using QuickBooks. And then do you have a practice management tool that you're using? Do you have— Maybe some kind of legal tech software you're using, trying to dig that out. And then they might even turn around and say, no, I don't use anything. Do you have any that you would recommend? Because you're going to start with also, what's your practice area? You want to know, but you might know that information because what we do is we actually can see from the email their website address if they don't provide it in the discovery of the questions. And you can plug that in and take a look and kind of just look around and see where they're at. You really should do that kind of homework before Yes.

Well, the other thing you say, Lynda, is when are you doing this accounting? A lot of them are doing it on the weekends, after hours, late at night, trying to get it between things. And it's a rush. And really, yeah, it looks easy on the front end, but you start miscategorizing things and you start matching things incorrectly, or you have consistent revenue dollars coming in at the same price point. and you've matched things incorrectly. Now you don't realize that somebody really didn't pay you or that retainer was mismatched, or those are not cheap cleanups. I'll just say that.

Well, you know, quite often we'll be approached by somebody in the firm who's not actually going to be super involved in the accounting function. And a really key question is, is how involved are you going to be in this process? And a lot of times it's the managing partner who's just ready to make a change, but a lot of people in the firm don't know about it yet. And they're shopping. And so if you can feather that out right away, who's the decision maker? Who would we be working with? What is their position? If it's a smaller firm and they say, well, my paralegal, you'll be working with her all the time, then you know kind of the path you're going down before you get on it. You know, it's a very key question to ask.

Yeah, I— so I feel like what we've covered is We— areas of questions to identify, or areas of ask— places to identify why you've come to us. What's the pain point? Is there one, or is it that you're ready to pass the baton because it's better serving your firm for you to do the legal work and not really do the accounting work? Because really, you shouldn't be doing that side. You should be doing what you went to school for, is the legal work.

When we ask them, they're like, oh yeah, I'm doing it on Sunday night or whatever. It's like, okay, well, we'll get you out of that. You know, we'll let you have some time, maybe even have time to have a vacation along the way if we get you going really in a good place. And they get all excited about that. So it's a great kind of open door.

Well, they're relieved when they know they get to practice law instead of being an accounting person.

Yes, because they'll fully admit that that's not their forte. But another question we wanna ask too is, do you have trust accounting? Because not all do. And how do you, how do you do your billing is another way you could say it. Like, how, how is your billing handled? And then again, sit back, let them tell you the story. Like, and if they don't tell you how often it happens, you want to know, is it the 1st and the 15th? Is it only the 1st or the, you know, what are the dates that are that, that way? And then you can get into, you know, is it something that you're gonna want us to do?

Well, the other part too is when you're identifying these areas or groups of things that you need to— sometimes you have to figure out what's not being said because you kind of, you kind of figure out the story. So I hear like little nuggets and I'm like, okay, trust accounting is not balanced. There's no formalness around billing structure. The things that are— and it's okay. There's no judgment from our side. We're, we're just here to help. You know, you asked us, you asked to join the call. You wanted to find out what our services are. We're just here to help you if that's where this engagement lands. And it is scary to think about, like, opening that secret door of, like, this is how bad it is. Don't judge me for it. No, we never judge you. We're just here to tweak it, fine-tune it. support you and remind you that we're business owners with you. We too run our own firms. And so we understand these levels of intricacies of things that, you know, you've got different state compliances, you got different things that are on you that you need to help support in.

So we're fortunate too, Sarah, because we get to do them most of the time. We don't always do them together, but a lot of times we do them together. So Sarah might pick up on something they say and she'll—

Good point.

dig more information out of them, and then I'll be in the background listening. That will mean something that'll come in my head that when it's my turn to speak, I'll just come out and ask another question that kind of feeds off of it, which gives her time to think and listen and look at her notes and say— like, a lot of times you end the conversation too, and I can go back and I'm putting it all in our database, and I'm like, oh, I forgot to ask what payroll provider they were using, or do they have payroll? But you get a lot of those questions will come out of like, how many people in your firm? How many attorneys do you have? How many people work for you? And then they'll start to tell you, well, there's 8. There's 3 attorneys and 2 paralegals and a legal assistant. And they start to go through the litany of people that work for them. And then in that conversation, they might expose that they're employees, but they might sometimes say they're a 1099 or a contractor. You might want to ask those questions to get that information. But then you might say to them, when you figure that all out and you notice they do have a staff, you might want to say, who's your payroll provider? Who does your payroll for you? Because you're trying out on a discovery call, you're trying to get the information you're gonna need to therefore go by and start to prepare the quote. Can you find that out in the, in QuickBooks? Yes, you, you can probably find the fee to the payroll company, but sometimes you wanna talk to them and see, you just wanna talk to them and see how up to date that is. Are they doing it manually? So you wanna find out if they're doing it with some strange little company that's nearby, or are they using a big provider? I think those are just sometimes questions to get out of there, get the information out of them. And then sometimes asking them the entity type can be a hard question because some of them might not know their entity type. But finding that out is helpful too. But again, you can put that in the follow-up email or the request for documents, tax return. You want to look at that tax return because they may say it's one type and it's actually something else. Oh, I'm an LLC. And you might be able to tell that in the name, but the LLC might actually be acting as an S. You want to— you want the details and you want to have the right details. That's the critical part of that.

So let's dive a little deeper. I think it's upfront, it's important to ask how many bank accounts do you have? How many credit card accounts do you have? Are you using your personal credit card for firm expenses or do you have a firm credit card? That'll tell you a lot right there. And, you know, again, just listening and not, not passing any judgment or saying any at that point, but just knowing what you're going to be coming into.

Yeah.

If they say they have a personal credit card and they just run it all through the firm, then, you know, you've got a lot more transactions to filter through every month because you'll have their personal transactions in there as well that end up being draws or what have you.

You know, you could also ask them about their client expenses too. Like, how do you handle expenses, right? Your advanced client costs, how do you handle those? And then that might lead into— and I've had attorneys say, the small firms will say, well, I pay everything on my credit card. It's never really true when you start to look at it. It's not true, but you want to see how they're processing it or handling that. And it's a good question to ask.

Yeah.

You know, are you using bills and bill payments? You're paying by check, ACH? How is that handled in the firm? And is that some service you're going to want from us? Because it may be something that's handled in-house. Or are they going to outsource it? So you want to have that information.

And are they looking for ways to learn more about the, the, the KPIs, for lack of better words, the KPIs in their business? You know, what, what is it that you want to change? What do you want to look at? Is it your labor cost? Is it your accounts receivable? How old is that? Is it turnover of employees? You know, what is it that is a pain point for you that we can help identify and help fix for you? You know, those sorts of questions, those probing questions again, you know, because it's— they— if you create an environment where they feel really safe telling you just about everything you need to know, you get off on a much stronger foot with them.

Yeah, absolutely. I think anything to talk to them about their accounts receivable.

Yeah. Well, the thing, you're not going to be able to capture everything. You may have a guide or a checklist, right? I think the big thing I personally feel very strongly in this, and Lynda knows this, I don't care if it's an in-house or an external group that you've utilized to support you or if it was you. Everything we learn is not for us to think in our minds that we already have the answers.

Right.

Already know how to do this.

They're all different.

I caution that. I hear that from a lot of people when we discuss things, not just in casual conversation. And I have found through the years that I'm reserving that space in my head where I'm like, no, I just, I'm not, I never want to shame somebody else or make someone else feel less than or tell them that they hired the wrong person. They now they're aligned with the person that could probably fit their needs the best.

Great.

So I want to put the 2 of you on the spot right away here.

Okay. Okay.

We're 3, we're 3 minutes into the call. We're just Just now breaking the ice with this potential client, and the first thing out of their mouth is, how much is this going to cost?

Always. A lot of times we get that. Can you give me a range, Steve? That's what I hear a lot.

Right.

And so how do you handle that?

Well, I wouldn't— how would I know until I look at— until I diagnose and look at what you have? I can't honestly tell you. I'm not going to price— my services are not a commodity. It's a custom tailored price to the needs of the herd. And I, I don't walk into the doctor and ask. They don't know their pricing. 90% of the time they don't.

Right.

The dentists don't know.

Right.

Front desk won't know until they get in to diagnose you. You pay for that initial visit. A mechanic, you pay for that initial visit. Why in our space of time and in this industry that we are, Why is that an okay thing? An attorney doesn't know the fatality— like, they don't honestly know the full spectrum of how much the bill is going to be until they get in and start. And you pay for that consult.

Sure.

Identify potentially. That's the same in this industry. And if you're not paying for a consult for a professional like us, you've got to start asking the question why. Because time is not free.

To me, that's a giant red flag right away.

It's like right away.

And I try to take the conversation and take it down another path and get back into the questions again. And to your point, I say, I don't know until we can look at the books and diagnose it and see what's going on in there.

Yeah.

And that's a question I think you should be prepared for before you go into the conversation. Right. Have that answer ready. Because this can be nerve-wracking when you're first starting out, especially in this industry. could feel intimidated by talking to some of these attorneys. You know, you're talking to somebody who's highly educated, and you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, what if they ask me a really hard question I don't know the answer to? And I think it's okay to say, you know, I don't really know the answer to that, but I'll get back to you on it.

I'll get back to you.

And it, you know, 2 big things is don't talk too much about yourself. They might ask, tell me about your firm. It's been me talking the whole time. Tell me about your firm, but keep that concise.

Yeah.

Because you don't want the call to be about you. You want it to be about them. I think that that's important. But yeah, for sure.

Small elevator pitch that's really not an elevator pitch. It's just that in your mentality of like, oh, tell me a little bit about— okay, general sense. Here we are. This is kind of how we work in our, you know, but we're the owners. We were caught off guard in the sweetest, most kindest moment. It caught me off guard. And I want to circle back with this individual, but he was humbled by the fact that we met with him. He knew we had a team and a staff, and he was humbled that it was—

I like that.

And I, Linda, I know we didn't really talk much about it, but we were definitely caught off guard by that. We said, oh, thank you. It's important for us to know who our clients are for our team to support. And yes, it's not going to be us. Doing the work. And I think that's the biggest thing too, is if you're— however you're structured, if it's just solo, I understand that's, that's what it is. If you are one plus plus, whatever you have, you, you introduce that person if— when the time is ready. You know, this is the person that will be working more, you know, in conjunction with your file and more concretely with you. So I would like you to know that that way they're safe. They're safe to continue that conversation. You're not just passing the buck.

And how did you hear about us?

Yeah.

Where did you come from? Because everybody knows everybody in this industry.

I think that's— well, I'm so referred-based. I basically—

same.

If it's not filled out, I'm really not— I'll be honest, it's like my little thing. If you don't fill that out on my form, you don't tell me your referral source, I'm probably not going to engage. Honestly, I'll be honest. I don't— my one side of my company doesn't— that's just not me. I want clients that I want to work with. I mean, I really enjoy— I pour my heart into it.

On our form, it's a required question.

It's required. It's a required thing.

But that helps. But sometimes you get a random person reaching out that doesn't go through the form, and I'll ask them if they say, well, I saw you speak at such and such event, or I saw your YouTube videos and they really spoke to me. I watched one for one particular topic and then I went back and watched a whole bunch of the other ones and I'm like, oh, this is— which is the point of them. This is all over my head. I really don't know this stuff and I really do need to hire somebody. So I think that that alone, and it definitely, if you're being referred by another colleague, we want to know that because we want to support them back and recognize them and thank them for it.

We don't want to We get leads that don't fit ours. They're not our niche. We want to pass them on. But when you think we do pour our heart into these files on our personal businesses and our joint venture together, we do. We do a lot of work and it means a lot to us. So it's an important piece of work, I guess. Body of work.

Yeah. And it is important to know how they're doing their billing. Are they fixed fee? Are they evergreen? Are they billing by the hour? I mean, those are questions you want to extrapolate only because you want to be able to know that when you go to do the pricing for them, especially if you're going to be doing the billing. You want to understand, and if— do they have software? Are they doing it like in an archaic way without the software? Another question too, with trust accounting, do you have a side spreadsheet for something? How's the compensation being presented in the company? You know, oh, I got a spreadsheet for that. We want to see that.

There's always a spreadsheet. Interrupting because I know there's always a spreadsheet.

There's always a spreadsheet. So ask if there's, you know, you have a spreadsheet for any other details that I need to know. I like that. Compensation, you want to ask about that compensation because if there's multiple partners, Sarah will just come up and say, well, how are they, how are we, is there a bonus structure that you follow or, you know, is it eat what you kill or something like that? And the fact that when you're In the conversations with the attorneys, especially if you're new, like, practice this with someone. Learn the lingo and start to use the words in the conversation. Because I had a lady last week or this week, and she said, I knew from your website you were my go-to. And the fact that you speak my language— I've talked to so many bookkeepers, and I know that they're nodding their heads saying they've done the work before, but they don't talk to me like you're talking to me. They're— you're asking questions they did not ask. So I know you understand this industry. And she said, I wanna tell the world that this exists, that there's accounting firms that all they do is law firm legal bookkeeping. Says that their legal accounting is being done by this firm, that that's what they live and breathe. And there's other people, obviously, we have them in the Law Lab because of this niche is so specialized. It's helpful to the client because now they're not having to go, well, a 3-way bank reconciliation is— and that's another question you could ask. Do you have a 3-way bank reconciliation? You know, this, and especially if they're calling you from maybe your own state or a state you're familiar with, you know, this is required by the bar. And if they go, oh yeah, well, I, you know, ask to have a copy of that when you get the documents from them because you want to take a look at it. As we know, Sarah, we saw one and all it was is just a picture of the journal, general ledger. It wasn't really a 3-way bank reconciliation.

Yeah. So, Steve, and you're like, Very similar in my other business. You and I are very similar. We are based— you're in a community that's just your state that you're in is a very per capita is the most, I believe.

Very top heavy with attorneys. Yes.

With attorneys. Yeah.

Which is great. We have so many tools available to us here.

Exactly. And I imagine in a lot of your discovery calls, I'm just projecting here, and you just correct me, but you probably have a good sense already of like, you know, a little bit about them just because of the nature of some of the referral-based communities that you are in. Do you feel when you're in those calls, do you ever feel that you already— you gravitating to us, not a judgment, but a certain kind of sense of feeling of like, I already know what I need to be doing in this. Before they even finish the sentence. And you just like, you know what I mean? Like, you're already there and you just have to—

Yeah, you kind of develop that 6th sense, I think.

Yes.

When you're going into it, and that helps a lot with whether you even want to do a consultation with them.

Well, that's where I was. Thank you. I was kind of leading.

Exactly.

You just went there because sometimes if you know that much, It may not suit you. There might be—

It may not be a fit. They're not all a fit. You know, you really, you really want to serve the ones that are serious about their business that aren't just, you know, putting a patch Band-Aid on it, if you will. You know, you want to be careful and not undermine their expertise or their decision-making abilities. You want to, you want to, when you hit those pain points or those subjects, you know, it's nice to just pause. For a minute and say, okay, I think that this is something that's super important to you, and we can talk about that later. And you make a note and you can follow up then and find an article or something and send it to them when you thank them for the consultation. And here's that document that I promised you, or this was one of your pain points, and here's something you might want to read. And so back to your point, yes. You, you can get that sense ahead of time. Again, go to their website, look them up at the bar, look them up, see how they're incorporated. You know, go to the Secretary of State and see what's going on. There's a lot of things you can do ahead of time.

Yes.

And you'll find out who knows who a lot of the time. How did you hear about us is so important. So important.

It really is.

Because, you know, they'll say so-and-so referred me and you're like, oh, I know who they are. Or, you know what, I'm familiar with them. And you don't have to say you worked in a law firm with them or they Or a former client or whatever. It's just—

You don't have to tell. Like Linda said earlier, you keep yourself concise, right? It's really about them exploring and getting comfortable. And is this— it is a 2-way interview, by the way. I mean, it is like, yeah, it may not be—

Focus on too many small details. You shouldn't go down the rabbit hole. You might ask them, yeah, you know, do you— have you tracked KPIs? But I wouldn't get into the details, nor would I give advice on a discovery call. I would keep it really high level in the discussion.

Good point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want it— that's for later when you've landed them as a client, knowing that they might want that CFO type of service. Yeah, they might ask you some questions. It's a good time to mention it, but keep the conversation very high level. Don't go too down into the weeds of a conversation with someone, and then don't give them advice. You haven't looked at their records. Do not give them advice. Free advice or anything like that.

Oh, yeah. Don't even offer entity structure changes. I hear people offer these things all the time. Have you considered these things? I mean, it's almost like, hey, have you had these conversations with your tax professional?

I love when they go, one more question for you while I have you.

Yeah, you hear that? Yeah.

Or your favorite line, can I pick your brain on this?

Am I even close to doing this right? I don't know. Somebody told me to do it this way. And I'm like, can I share my screen and just show you?

Yeah. But you want to keep it to— I mean, having a 15-minute consultation call, if you're giving it away for free, which in the beginning, yeah, that's gonna happen. That's how you do it.

That's how you do it.

But as you get to a different level, you can start to charge for that. But in the, in the free 15-minute, know that it's not gonna be 15 minutes. You cannot get this conversation, what we just talked about, done in 15. It's not gonna happen.

Right.

But you also don't want it to run into an hour either.

You wanna use that 15 though to say, hey, you know, it appears that This sounds like something you want to do more of an exploratory thing. We'll have to set up a more formal call and then, you know, and go from there. Consults are tricky. And like you said, Linda, you have to decide if you're starting out, it's one path. But if I would say eventually quickly evolve once you get the strength and the confidence, it is a pay-to-play space. Yeah.

And if they're telling you that their trust is all jacked up and I know it, and how long has it been jacked up? Don't really know. I think it's been a year or 2, but I'm not really sure. You know, say that I charge a fee, or we charge a fee to do a file review, and it's $595, $695, $795, whatever you're gonna charge depending on the size of the firm. And then just let them know, because that's gonna kind of— Even having a paid consultation, that cleans out all the low-priced tire kickers that you probably don't want to work with anyway, that you don't want to put all that effort in only to go You want to charge me $500 a month to do this work? I can get it with QuickBooks Live for $200 or whoever for $200.

Go ahead.

It's not the same service.

It's not the same service.

You just say that, that's great.

And we're here.

We're here if you need us in the future.

Yeah. We don't tend to get those, thankfully. But, you know, I think too—

Not anymore. Yeah.

Website states it too. You want the website to be clear enough to know that this is a service I'm selling. This is not after-the-fact bookkeeping. This is not like dumping bank feeds and that's it. This is much higher level. And in fact, most of our clients, they have a full service, right? So full service bookkeeping or accounting.

And for the client that's asking for the discovery call, this isn't about you picking my brain and getting service fees and stuff like— no, no, this is a relationship.

Right.

It's gonna be building a relationship with us.

It's a partnership once you become a client. Yeah, we're your biggest cheerleaders. We're gonna be looking to make sure that you're in a great place compliance-wise. We're gonna help you maybe reduce your costs, and there's a lot to it. We're gonna help you navigate the waters of peril. It's, it's very complex. We spent a lot of years gaining this knowledge, and you— there, there's a premium to it, but you're gonna be able to sleep at night.

Yeah, it's a premium to sleep at night, and it's not a fly-by-night. We're here.

We're people.

We're here to help you. And yeah, and I think that's the biggest part of it. But yeah, definitely just be prepared for your call. And if you need to practice, it's nerve— I just remember the first time I talked to an attorney, I was so nervous. So be okay that you're going to be so nervous. You get better and better each time. You might have a flop here and there. That's just normal.

Or you might forget something. And like you said, Lynda, after our call today, I had a few follow-up questions to help me identify a couple Things, shoot that over. That happens. That's happened to us.

People, like anything else, they're people, and they're not— you don't need to fear them. Most of them are very, very kind human beings, so they're more than happy to assist you with whatever you need, your needs are. If you forgot to ask a question or ask for a document, or maybe you discover something when you get the documents, you're like, oh, I need to know more about— there's like 5 loans on here that they didn't mention. Or provide me documentation on. And you might see things when you pull up that balance sheet that are like, are these still existing? Because there's balances here. And, you know, you'll find that out too once you start to get involved with the discovery part of the job of it. But yeah.

And if you're a brand new bookkeeper, you know that you're scared about talking with attorneys and all of that, and you take on that solo attorney who's brand new themselves. You can have a really wonderful trip with them in the accounting world, bringing them along, teaching them, learning yourself. It's a great learning tool for yourself.

It is.

And then at some point when they're so happy, you can say, is there somebody else you know that can use my services? And you start building and start building and start building. And then you gain that confidence of having those consultation calls with the mid-sized firms because they all started somewhere. They typically Got out of school, went to work for a big firm, got beat up having to produce a lot of hours for that first couple of years, and then decided to go out on their own. They come with a bank of knowledge, but they don't know what they don't know about accounting. And it's a great opportunity for you to grow with them if you're new to this. So don't let that intimidate you. Jump in. It's like swimming for the first time. Jump in and start paddling and you'll, you'll be amazed where you'll go.

Well, I think, Steve, you have brought something to light that Lynda and I so appreciate too, is when you get into those moments and you're getting it, you're hired, you won, you're hired, however you want. It's a great partnership between you and this new client. And you find that there's a lot of things that weren't disclosed that were ambiguous moments, out-of-scope moments. You jot those down. And you have really helped us understand that those are things that we need to discuss with them. We do it, but we don't do it in a way that you've structured it. So I think there's A lot to learn through this process, even if you've been out of the game of doing it because you have other people do it for you. Because we do have some friends and colleagues that have people that do this. They've structured their businesses in this way. Or it's a reminder, like the 3 of us, I know we do a lot of our own discovery calls, and that's just the nature of who we are.

So I love them. I love getting to know attorneys. They pop out of the rocks, out of the woodwork, and you're like, hi, how's it going? Let's, let's, let's figure this out. You know, it's fun.

A little bit. I can end on a little bit funny story. Sarah and I had this rash of like 3 Steves ask for quotes from us, and the 2 of us sent them all. They were all around the same time. Actually, it was the 3 of us because Tierra was just as confused. And they might not have all been Steve, but they had an S name.

They had an S name. Yeah.

And we were like, which one was that again? Because it was just all 3 were at the same exact time and they all came with an S. And we're like, oh my God, which one did— which is that the one with, you know, losing Ling Law? Is that the one that just started their firm? Or is that the— and it was kind of became a running joke because you're like, we can't remember which one was which. We just kept getting them mixed up. And it's not a bad problem to have, but it was just kind of comical for a bit there because they all 3 came like in the same— within like a 2-week period.

Yeah.

Yeah. And they were all similar looking. I don't know. There was just something about all 3 of them that we just got so confused.

And, you know, to your point, I like to stop after the consultation and write down the notes or type them up and then save them, save them so that, you know, you can share, we share them on your calendar, do whatever your process is to follow up with them and keep that document because they may disappear for 7 months and suddenly pop out of the woodwork again. And it's really cool because you can pull up that document when you jump on that call with them again. You can go, well, when we last—

remember you, Steve?

Yeah. When we talked last May, you said this, this, and this. Have you made any progress? Where are you at?

Exactly.

Yeah. And I've done that. I've done that. I've found the notes in 17hats and in Lissio, and I'm like, who are we talking to? And I'm like, oh, let me look. Oh, that's who I'm talking to. Because sometimes you're just talking to all these different people. Hard to remember. And it's very helpful if they didn't hire you right at the beginning and then they resurfaced 3 months later. Yeah. How are you going to remember them? But then when you look wicked smart, as I would say from Rhode Island, you look wicked smart when you're on the phone and you're like, oh, I remember you. And that makes them feel special too. So that's—

Well, you know what else I've seen happen? They'll go to work somewhere else, but they were so impressed by the consultation. All of a sudden they pop up over here at Bob's law firm and you're like, well, hey, how are you? What's going on over there?

That's not the firm you were before.

Right.

That was good stuff today. Thank you for this conversation.

It's one of those things I'm passionate about.

Yeah. And I think this is going to definitely help other people who are listening that are maybe just getting— because we've talked to some people like, I just found your podcast and it's really great. And I think that if they're just with one attorney or no attorneys and they get their first call and they're nervous, this is going to be a great one for them to listen to and hopefully ease their nerves and know that it's okay to be nervous because we were all nervous.

Yeah.

And if you're an attorney out there that's watching us, go to the podcast. There are tons of subjects that we've talked about now that— and it continues to grow all the time. And you'll, you'll learn some things that you can bring to the table when you're doing your consultation with people like us. Makes a difference. All right. Tiara.

To support The Accountants Law Pod, please take a moment to like, share, and review this episode and be sure to subscribe to this podcast on YouTube and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. If you have questions, topic requests, or guest suggestions, you can email us at info@accountantslawpod.com or send us a message through our website, accountantslawpod.com. To join us in the Accountants Law Lab, which meets every Friday, visit our website at accountantslollab.com to sign up. Such a great job. Well, we'll see you all next week. Bye, everybody.

Thank you.