How Paragon Won Big in Cannabis Payroll (Lessons from a Niche Market)

because this is a legacy market that is now legalized. So there are people that have been functioning very well in this market on their own illegally. So you're taking something that has already had a long history of existing, and you're trying to push or be a part of the people that are like, hey, let's do this the right way. And that takes a lot of accountability on your own behalf before you can even begin to serve others, because it's so easy to walk—

it's kind of like if I go go into a CPA partner and look, we're trying to make this a reciprocal relationship. And I ask you, Clark, what types of businesses do you serve? And you go, oh, any small business, 1 to 500 employees, 1 to 5,000 employees, as long as they can pay their bills, you know, like I'm happy to serve them, bring them in. And like, you know, it's just like, well, I got nobody for you then. Welcome to Payrollin'. The show where you will learn how to operate and grow your payroll business from the most dynamic minds in the business. If your company offers payroll services, this is the podcast for you. And now here's your host, Matt Vadie. Let's go. Clark, you are an Emmy-nominated filmmaker turned vice president of brand marketing for for a cannabis payroll company?

Yeah, it's, it's a little, it's a little strange. I have a pretty well-versed background in all things media related, and I'd like to think as media is just like an expression of storytelling or just an expression of self. I got my dual master's from Johns Hopkins University. I was studying film and I was studying to be a producer/director. Simultaneous to that, I've been in branding ever since I actually was in high school. GL Magazine— shout out to GL Magazine— gave me my first job while I was in high school, and I've been in branding ever since. But my true passion is just storytelling and being able to use media as a form of getting X across, whatever that might be. And so payroll is something that I think many people need. It's a service that has provided a lot of help for a lot of people, and I just enjoy being a part of a community that I get to actually help people in.

I might be wrong in this, but I'm gonna guess you convince somebody at Paragon that there should be a a brand role versus a marketing role? And what did that conversation look like? And why did you convince them? How did you convince them that they should invest in the brand versus a traditional marketing role?

Yes, luckily I was kind of blessed. I didn't have to do too much convincing. I think that I just had to show more of the impact of what it could do. I came from another company. The company that I was in before, I was in payroll. I had actually been one of the people to start the cannabis community within that company. They did a a large range of, uh, help for different vendors, government contracts. Cannabis was one. They were doing schools. And I also was working at Navy Federal after that job, and Brian McVicker actually told me, come on, come to Paragon. I think you would love it here. I'm interested in uplifting our brand and marketing section of the company because prior to that it had been word of mouth. And to be quite honest, I think that's what made the job for me a lot easier is that they had what felt like a thriving community already that was rooted in purpose. A lot of their, you know, marketing, if you will, was really through word of mouth and coming from the advocacy of current clients. So when I came there, I was just trying to lean into, okay, who are we? What do we stand for internally? How do I express that externally? And what are ways that we can kind of use the organic momentum of it being a pretty boutique company, but serving 650+ clients in a very niche market. So luckily I didn't have to do too much convincing because kind of as I was coming along and teaching them brand and marketing from a different perspective, everyone was all on board and they could see the momentum itself. So I was lucky in that way. But in general, I find that people— that is a rarity for people to lean into for payroll. So I could see why.

Shout out to Big Dog McVicker.

Yeah.

The 5 Ps. If you haven't gone back and listened to the episode with Brian, he's the man. He's an absolute stone cold sales assassin, as I said about him when we were out at IPPA a few years back. You know, interesting, you and I talked for a few minutes last week, and one of the things that kind of popped into my head as we were talking is, you know, I saw this kind of post that went viral of a job posting for a storyteller. Some of the biggest Silicon Valley companies are now just hiring straight up close to $500,000 a year for somebody who's a storyteller, obviously for the brand, for the company, for the entity. Story has become almost infamous at this point. Like we all understand the value of story. We understand that ideas are best transferred through story. We understand the value of someone being able to articulate and, and tell and sell through stories. Like where do brand and marketing coexist on the story front? Like how do, how does a brand story become its marketing and vice versa? And like where do you think there are differences between branding and marketing.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. And it's funny because it's like when even posing the question, like, we know that story matters, but I feel like inherently we still don't really understand the impact because it's a neurological thing. It's an experience, you know, we're humanistic and our basic needs is connection. So I think people think that they know what it means, but they don't really understand what it means. And when you're getting marketed to— and I'll answer your question, I promise— all the time you're really inundated with stuff and you have no connection to the stuff. Brand is really where you're developing trust. It's a trusting— marketing is how you're getting the exposure of who you are. So it's like how you're amplifying who you are, but it's not necessarily the underbelly of who you are. And I find that brand is really storytelling. Marketing is just like the megaphone to be like, hey, you know, this is how you find us, this is where we are. But brand to me is more important I mean, this could be a very controversial hot topic, but I think that brand is truly the meat and potatoes of what people should be focusing on and is more important than marketing because that is fundamentally who you are. That's your essence, and that's what you're solving for others. Because I find that right now, especially since you're inundated with so much content in general, even on your own personal life, you're just looking at stuff scrolling. It's like doom scrolling. I think the purpose now is to build not just efficiencies for people, but you are elevating experiences. And that only happens with sound brands because in order to have a sound brand, you have to know who you are truly and what you're solving for. So to me, I think the biggest differentiation is that brand is your essence. It's like, you know, it's your soup. It's It's you got that special sauce and everyone, you know, you're serving something for a reason. And marketing is like where you're putting it, who, who needs it, where, like, you know, you're bridging that gap of meeting the community's needs through the marketing.

Well, it's almost how you feel about that brand, right? You talked about the experience piece. And I think every time I hear experience and I hear brand, I always think about Disney. When you're waiting in a line at Disney, you are immersed in whatever that line is to, right? So like if I'm waiting in line for a Star Wars ride, like I'm surrounded by, I'm on a, I'm on a Star Wars set somewhere basically, right? I might as well be on the movie set. And you know, while we can't do that in a virtual environment, you know, one of the things you, you had me thinking about as you're talking and, and throw you a little curveball here, but you know, the, the brand that I keep seeing getting promoted around a lot in terms of like, we're going to leverage their model to grow our business. Ironically, it's Barstool Sports. So Barstool Sports gave everybody in their company a microphone and a camera, right? At the end of the day. So everybody there is a content creator. And you know, now, I mean, I'm, I'm on the treadmill at a, at a hotel a couple weeks ago and I see them on Fox Sports. They've gone from just this little tiny ragtag newsletter to on Fox Sports and to everybody out there. You know, they've got dozens of creators with, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers throughout the organization. And like, how do we as brands, I wonder, do some of that? So obviously we're all into content creation. I'm sure you guys create a ton of content. Some of it's very polished, some of it's very brand, but some of it's very raw behind the scenes storytelling type stuff. Like, how do you guys do that? Do you do any of that today? And if not, you know, what's a blueprint you think we could and should follow as it relates to like shining a light behind the scenes on our brand and actually highlighting our people in the process?

Yeah, I think that you're presenting just in general like an interesting query. So the first half of what you said, we'll start with Disney. I think Disney was a really good— the reason why I feel like it was good to bring up is that initially you're saying we're waiting in line for Disney, right? But Disney, if I'm not mistaken, played also a decent role in Pulp Fiction, which they're not blasting all over the world that they've done. Disney also, I think, in general is one, a child experience. Is it place? Is it, or is it an app? You know, Disney bought Fox, now it's a streaming platform. So I think in terms of brand, that's a very poignant brand to point out because they've become a household name, but you can't put your finger on really what it is. But you know the essence of Disney, you know it, you can't. And it's almost like this ineffable experience. It's this feeling that if you saw something, you'd be like, that's Disney. Just like if you saw something else, you'd be like, that probably is Nickelodeon. Or if you saw content, you're like, that's definitely HBO, that's not Netflix. Because inherently you are starting to build the language, whether you know it or not, about what's acceptable and not the guidelines of what you agreed to digest as a consumer. And to be believable. So when people step outside of the bounds of what their own guidelines are, it feels off. It's like, that's not Disney. That doesn't, that doesn't make sense. But I think too, it's about in terms of story, what you want to present externally and what you want to keep close to your chest. So what I'm suggesting is that Disney does a very good job for the most part, in my belief system, of sharing things and externalizing it when necessary and keeping it on the hush when necessary. The people that need to know will know. Sometimes, and the people that don't need to know don't need to know, the kind of thing. And then you're talking about accessibility, which is a really good point, because accessibility isn't just about what you're offering to others, it's also internally what you're offering to your teams. I think your teams, regardless of who they are, if they are working in your company, then you're validating that they should be there. So they are and should be thought leaders in their respective areas. So I think it's smart that they are given a platform to share their truths in whatever capacity as a, as a fundamental organization that you see fit. But I think that that dynamicism is also going into what, that to me is a version of DE&I efforts as well. Like to diversify voices allows more space for your team to be more dynamic and more robust in what you are trying to serve as a holistic community. And in doing so, amplifying that and giving them the space to communicate, because how I communicate is very different, I promise you, than the rest of the team, but no more or less valuable. It's just a different lane. And I have a certain type of feng shui, if you will, as a person, if that's even a thing, or an aura. And what I—

there you go. You got to use the term aura. Anytime we can crowbar aura in there.

So, which, by the way, loving the green background you got going on. But I would say that in general, those two things about accessibility and disclosing information when and where and who has authority to speak. Are all things that I think shape brand. And even the inability or, or denouncing people from being able to speak is a brand choice, to say there's only one voice of this brand and that is X. So I don't know that there's a right and wrong, but I think that people should be very cognizant of the decisions that they're making to do so or not.

You bring up several good points there, right? Because I, I feel like you kind of go one of two paths with this, and whether you make the decision consciously or subconsciously, it's like, we're only going to put out polished produced stuff, or we're going to flip open the iPhone and take video whenever the mood strikes us, right? And we're going to— I have a just ship mentality. Like, I just recorded an episode. I don't know if it'll come out before this one or after this one, but on the venture acquisition. And when I got done, I was like, man, I said this word too many times. And oh, I got rushed through that section. And it just wasn't really the best I've been. But it's time to ship it. That one's been sitting on my desk for a week. Like, it's time to ship it and move on. Like, that's my mindset. Whereas somebody else might be like, no, no, no, no, no, we're going to reshoot that 5 times until it's perfect. And oh, there was, this was wrong. That's just not how we do it. And we ship and move on because we know we're not talking about the difference between millions of views and tens of millions of views. We're talking about the difference between hundreds and thousands. And while those compound, we'd rather, you know, we believe velocity wins, right? We put out content consistently. And I will say this, I get this a lot of like, Man, I can't believe you just put yourself out there so much. I could never do that. You know, you post everything online. You mentioned something there about like what you're willing to share and what you're not willing to share and how you polish things up. Like, you'll never find a picture of my children online. You'll never see me exploiting my like family weekend where I'm like, you know, taking the selfie of all of us going for the family walk and being vulnerable and authentic, quote unquote. Like, it's just not— this is a work— like, I post on LinkedIn primarily and it is a work platform. Like anything out there is related to work. And even if it's personal, quote unquote, and vulnerable, it all ties back to pushing the personal and professional brands forward. Like, it's, it's an intentional move. And I think people have to understand that you can still be authentic, but you can control your brand, personal and professional, however you want to, without necessarily playing guitar and doing deadlifts in my feed every day. Shout out to those of you that do that. All right, so let's talk about, you know, you guys are a cannabis committed, and I'd like for you to unpack that term for me. Like, tell me a little bit about how we got to cannabis. Like, was it where Paragon started? Did you end up here? If so, when? Like, walk me through that progression.

Okay. So after a decade of supporting many different sectors, Paragon got a client that reached out to us in 2007, was wondering, hey, do you guys service the cannabis community? We reached out to our banks to see if there was a possible alignment there. Come to find out, we did all that we could and it was, it worked through that experience. We unveiled that there was a long list of issues of how that community in particular were not being serviced, and then was further snowballed once throughout different states that it became legalized, that the margin of which that, that service was happening or the disservice was happening was pretty wide. And so, um, in 2016, the CEOs of our companies decided to go all in, hit the industry hard, and try to to be an advocate for operators in this space in a way that they were getting real good boutique service. And what I mean by boutique is that the cannabis industry in general comes with a lot of historical issues, is the only word that I can say. I think that it comes with a lot of marginalized and all I can say is underserved help or lack thereof. And because of that, compliance is made more difficult. As you can imagine, even opening up a dispensary itself, even with it being legalized, is very difficult. It's very difficult for a wide range of reasons. And so in general, I would say the owners of this company really sought out to be advocates for business owners, and they understood quality service very well because they had already had that under their belt with their many different companies. And in this one in particular, they had a team who had been working together for over a decade prior in payroll. So they had the backend of a long history of just serving through payroll needs. The transition into cannabis, they were able to also bring aboard cannabis experts who were either invested in the community, advocates on their own, had businesses on their own, whatever the case may be. And so you kind of have this weird dynamic that works so well, which is kind of also the tech aspect behind it, as you tech grew. They were implementing tech, they were implementing service, and then they had industry-specific thought leaders to help uplift it, and all culminating in a very intentional experience, you know, like, because you're not going into Cannabis Payroll haphazardly. If so, that's kind of a problem altogether. So I, speaking of branding, I had the utmost respect for their intentionality behind that. That as a choice to just up and change your entire trajectory of your company prior to you knowing it's going to work out, mind you. Because at that time, you know, cannabis companies, cannabis payroll companies came later and could see, okay, we want to buy in now, you know, we're going to just like have this hot ticket item. But they are doing it ahead of that curve, which is a lot of risk. But they well understood that there was a market for business owners to get adequate help.

Did they enter the market just for all the fun puns you can do? I mean, let's be honest. No, they, uh, But I mean, as a marketer, it's gotta be a dream come true that they let you guys do all the fun stuff with the weed talk and, you know, all, I mean, like it is—

And what's that? All these fun, yeah, puns for days. That's helpful.

Yeah, dude, I'm so jealous of that. That's one of the many advantages to niching down. But the, so help me understand that. I mean, like, was there a distinct growth or like growth curve from there when they decided to go all into that niche? Did it take some time? Did they hemorrhage some business? Did it like, what did it look like in terms of growth after making that decision to niche down?

It took some time. It's a lot of growth, a lot. I think, I think anybody that doesn't acknowledge mistakes that they've made, or like the fact that a journey takes missteps, it takes problem solving, it takes shaping and making sure the right team is there, is, is lying to you. So I think it took a lot of that, which is why I'm like, the courage was there and the wisdom was there to know that it would take a lot of missteps. And by missteps, I think that they fundamentally had to find the right team. They just had to do a mixture because this is a legacy market that is now legalized. So there are people that have been functioning very well in this market on their own illegally. So you're taking something that has already had a long history of existing and you're trying to push or be a part of the people that are like, hey, let's do this the right way. And that takes a lot of accountability on your own behalf before you can even begin to serve others. So I think internally, as a unit, as a team, we're always discussing what are we doing that we can elevate or do better? Like, where are our problems? What are the bottlenecks? Where are we not serving people? Where are we mistakenly maybe having certain ideals that are part of the issue that we're trying to break? What are the ways that we have even inherently, uh, taken in some of the stigmas that are— should not be there, you know? Like, why are we charging extra just because it's a riskier thing? If we're in this space, then aren't we signing up to be in this space, you know? So I think it's all of these different questions that you have to ask yourself. And I have to give it to Steve and Mackie, the CEOs, for taking on such a challenge. But I think they've done it earnestly, which is sometimes a harder route. So for example, it is what, 2026 now? Um, and I've been here for about 3 years and they're just now using branding and marketing. I think that is like to the capacity that they're doing now. So I think that is a heck of a journey to be able to stand on and say that up until that point, from really a little bit before 2016, set a foundation where it's not just about exploitation of a message, it's not just about marketing. Like they were building the brand by doing. And so they just needed somebody to come in and like really elevate what had already been marinating just off of them being advocates and working in this space. And then in general, I think company culture-wise, for example, there are— I lobbied for NCIA, which is an organization that does very good work in trying to be grassroots in legislation. And having your brand marketing director go for lobby days, and was even before I was a VP here, I was, you know, lobbying on behalf of business owners as if I was one of them. And it's the same with our quote-unquote sales team. They are very heavily rooted into the actual community itself, wanting to advocate for business owners, wanting to advocate for law legislation changes, and being on the side of wanting a true fair market that is destigmatizing a lot of the things that this particular industry is facing. So, I know that's long-winded, but in general, I really enjoy Paragon's, even before I was here, ability to stand in something, which is something that I think is one of the boldest moves that companies do in general in terms of brand and marketing or storytelling or messaging is just having a stance in the world. It's like you're halfway there.

Yeah. Well, it's, and it's so hard, right? Because it's so easy to walk. It's kind of like the, I've probably given the analogy on here 50 times. If I go into a CPA partner and look, we're trying to make this a reciprocal relationship. And I ask you, Clark, what types of businesses do you serve? And you go, oh, any small business, 1 to 500 employees, 1 to 5,000 employees, as long as they can pay their bills, you know, like I'm happy to serve them, bring them in. And like, you know, it's just like, well, I got nobody for you then. I talk to founders in the payroll, HR, and accounting industry every single day. And they all tell me they need more of one thing. It's not more money, it's not more AI tools, it's more time. How do I get more time? Well, I hired a virtual assistant through OutsourceScale.com that helps me manage my inbox, manage my calendar, handles administrative tasks for me, helps support my marketing efforts, and much, much more. The cool thing about OutsourceScale is that they actually train the virtual assistants on the latest and greatest AI tools. To make sure that they can't only do that administrative work for you that you need to get off your plate, but they're doing it in the most efficient and effective ways possible. I've been so happy with my assistant from Outsource Scale that I've actually added multiple other teammates to our other companies through them. Their pricing starts at only $799 a month, and they make it super easy to get a new teammate onboarded and part of your team very quickly. Check them out today at Outsource Scale.

.com.

Yeah, like, and well, and it's funny because I'll see when I'm at the gym in the morning, you know, they have all the TVs up and of course they'll have Fox News right next to CNN, right next to ESPN and whatever. And like, um, of course every headline is of the same news story and they're exactly opposite of each other, but that's a whole other story for another day. But you'll see businesses advertising on Fox News or on CNN that are distinctly saying like, here's my base and going to pander to you the same way these other political analysts do. But as a brand, right? I mean, they literally— like, how many companies have thrown the word patriot in their brand in the last 12 years? You know, like, I mean, it's insane. Uh, you know, one of the cool things— it's a little bit tangential here, but I'm just noticing from the outside, obviously, like I mentioned, I've known Brian for years. Paragon is exceptional at acquiring talent. So that is something that I've noticed. You, obviously, tremendous background, really sharp, did a wonderful job with the brand and marketing. Everybody I've met over there— Josh, Brandy, like the whole team I've met— have just been exceptional at their roles. And so kudos to— now let me ask you a question. Have you been saying CEOs, plural?

Yeah, two.

Okay, talk to me about that. Two CEOs?

Yes, they're long-term friends and have been long-term business partners, and I think— and are very dynamic people, like, just in general. I think one gives the vibe of, uh, almost philanthropist, super excited, ready to go, genuinely is all about service, and is really big on us meeting the of people. The other, I think, is like super laid back but very keen and making— and very sharp and just being like, just listening and trying to gauge what's the right type of move and why. So I think both of them playing together makes just a really cool energy, kind of like top-down, because I think that they allow each person that comes aboard on the company to bring their own essence. Which we were talking about a little earlier in the conversation about like, not everyone on our team has a camera and is able to like record, which we should steal that idea, by the way. But in general, I think that everybody has the ability to shape the company in some regard. Like, it's tiny enough where your words mean something and it can carry to the top. And I think that having both of their energies play well together gives us an opportunity right on down to say, okay, well, now that I'm here and I'm observing XYZ, I think we should really do this as a, as a possible means in the industry. Or we've attended these conferences and people are asking, and whatever that is, we're able to shape-shift in a way that I think most companies aren't or are very traditionalistic in their approach where they're like, no, we've been doing this for X amount of years and we refuse to budge. We refuse to change or see things differently. And that's almost impossible to do in this type of industry.

Well, I just, I smile because I got a message back from somebody earlier this week about one of the services we offer to payroll companies, reached out to somebody, hey, you know, we do this and says, we just, we just don't outsource. You know, we've been doing this 27 years and we just don't outsource. And it's like, man, you're like, how do you hate to hear that from your prospect if you're literally an outsourcing company, if you're in the payroll space and you're, you didn't even ask you to actually outsource anything, but it was just a hilarious response in my opinion. You know, one of the other, so a couple of things we glossed over it there and I know everybody gets tired of me talking about it on here about the niches. I do want to hear about cannabis committed versus cannabis friendly. But first, like you were talking about it there, like think about all the opportunities to level up when I niche into something. My software can be developed. We lost a deal a couple months ago to somebody I hope listens to the pod. I think GovCon maybe is the name of their business. I know, I know the guys from IPPA, but I'm flaking on their names at the moment. But like, you know, we had a government contractor leave and go, hey, we're going to them because they focus on government contractors. And it's like, man, that's hard to argue with. Their name is literally like GovCon payroll and we're not, you know, like it's like, and they outgrew our PEO and like there was no argument there that it was the right move for them. But you know, they, they took iSolved, they took a platform anybody has access to, but then just put some reports, put some integrations, put some different things in place from a technology perspective that makes sense for the target audience, which I'm sure Paragon does as well. And then we, we talk about the puns and we talk about funny, but like, you know, there's a whole bunch of other things like what's the name of that report that, you know, Cannabis companies have to submit every quarter, right? That's different than a nonprofit has to submit. So Matt Umholtz was on here a couple months back talking about speak like a native, not a tourist. When you go all in, like, everybody on the team knows this stuff, not just, you know, that one payroll specialist who's like, hey, is Susie back there who worked with the other 5 in this industry? Like, you know, everybody knows this stuff, and there's such inherent value of everybody speaking the same language. I think it can't be, you know, and everybody's got to be asking themselves at this point, Matt, you've been been saying the same thing for 5 years. Why are you not nonprofitpeo.com? That's a damn good question that I need to ask myself when we get off here. But talk to us about like cannabis committed versus cannabis friendly and like how some of that plays out related to what I just discussed there.

Yeah, I would say kind of piggybacking where you left off, I also think like language is not just you're fluid in the actual language of the industry, it's also in the relationship. Relationships, like relationships are a language. It's a, it's a type of intimacy. So whether it's a partner, whether it's a client, whether you're talking to a quote unquote prospect, that all is like a language. And, and I think that coming out of MJ BizCon, which was one of the top events that you could possibly go to in Vegas, that we always are there, we always have a booth. That's an example of where this year we went and we felt so warmed by even more than any other year because because we really felt the relationships in the room. Like, it was— you could post all day long, do it on LinkedIn, whatever, whatever, but you could feel the actual care and energy in the room where people are coming up to you and they're like, Clark, hi, what's up? You know? And then they're turning to someone else on our team who is not in branding, not like— has no— they're not doing podcasting or anything, and they're saying, giving that same warmth because they know them just as much off screen, on screen, it doesn't matter. They just know the team. And so just before I move on to Cannabis commitment. I just think in general, like, language is also in the bonds you build with people, and people know authenticity off bat. I mean, we can all pretend that we don't, but you do, and you know service, like true service, off bat. And so in general, I think that's also just like a subcategory that often gets overlooked, and when you foster relationships, it really goes a long way. But in terms of cannabis commitment, I think the kind of springboards why we wanted to start it. We were all trying to think through like what sets us apart, but not necessarily what sets us apart. Where do we stand now? Like, it had less to do about other people. It had more to do with recommitting to the stance that we started off with and saying, okay, are we standing 10 toes down in this commitment or not? Because we saw all across the board that it was becoming a very exploitative experience even within the industry itself. So for example, there are payroll providers that are, are still banking with federal banks. When dispensary is, you know, joining that payroll company, they're using some sort of name that a bank doesn't recognize that they're dealing with cannabis at the time. And then, uh-oh, they found out, cat's out the bag, and you're dropped. Now you've given them your money and you have nowhere to go, and now you're putting yourself in a compliance, a major compliance risk. And I mean, you could be completely shut down. So we started thinking about just in general, what are things that are happening as major issues and where do we stand with those? And we realized that, okay, let's hold a mirror to ourselves first and let's start with accountability and let's make sure that we're doing things that aren't exploitative to the people we're trying to serve, that aren't exploitative to the community. I mean, money is money, business is business. You gotta have it. But at the end of the day, it doesn't give you the right to like gouge, bleed people, or to be part of the issue that you're trying to fix. So the Cannabis Commitment Manifesto is something that we were trying to be very disruptive in just calling a spade a spade and being like, okay, listen, off the record, let's just, let's just hold up, you know, let's just make sure that we're all functioning in a way that we say that we are. And if not, let a spade be a spade. Paid, call it as such. At least give people the visibility to make their own decisions. And I think that that's more or less what you were also talking about earlier. We are not here to serve everybody, we're just not. And we encourage people to find the right fit. What's more important for us is to be a person, or a company, or an organization, or people that give the right education so people can make and have agency over their decisions, to know what they're getting themselves into. Because does no one any good when people are thinking they're doing something the right way and then they're being penalized by the same people that are meant to serve them. It just doesn't make sense. So the Cannabis Committed Manifesto is our expression of saying, look, these are the things that fundamentally, as you are looking for a vendor, as you are navigating the lay of the land, these are things to consider. As you're considering them, this is where we stand, just so you know. And they can do with that as they will, you know. And I think that everyone had a different kind of nuance to perspective of it, we had a lot of people be very excited because they're like, finally someone's actually, you know, saying what it is. Because a lot of times what happens is then you become a target, you become exposed to carrying truths. And that's okay because that, that would mean that we were doing our job by elevating the bar even for ourselves. And I think that anytime that you can be a leader— a leader in the space is not just supposed to be safely the head honcho in the land. They are supposed to continue to elevate and raise the bar. They're supposed to continue to have constructive criticism. They're supposed to continue to navigate challenges that maybe they didn't think were going to arise, but say, as an industry, are we, are we falling short of the things we know we can do now? And so I think we fight to legitimize the space. We fight to make sure that business owners feel feel like they have the educational liberty to make decisions on their own and autonomy to do so. And we fight to make sure that they know that not only do they have a partner in us, but speaking of partnerships in general and relationship buildings, we really build an ecosystem for other companies to thrive that we feel are also cannabis committed. So for example, we have a partnership now with LRS, their retirement system. And so we want people to think through retirement. Government. Now, we don't necessarily deal with it directly, but we have a very close relationship with people that do and handle it specific to cannabis, because again, it's a niche market. So the manifesto meant a lot to us, and we were really happy that it was well received and it built conversation, at least for us to start thinking about it. Even if there was pushback about it, I think it's important to be a disruptor in the space so that we can keep pushing the needle forward.

You can tell by the way you're talking about it just how much care, thought, that word commitment rings true, right? And I think that's important to a business partner, right? So if I'm going to become a client of yours, if I'm going to become a partner of yours, to your point, this isn't a weekend trip. I'm not a tourist. This is where I live. This is where I spend my 9 to 5, and there's inherent value there. And you guys do a lot of things really well. You know, one of the things I love and and I know Brian and I are of the same mindset here, and I'm sure this decision goes above him and around him or part of him or part of everybody, but pricing on the website, man, like this goes back to that transparency thing. And like you talked about earlier, like if I'm a cannabis serving company and I don't have pricing on my website, it is an industry that people have traditionally, you know, it's one of the first things I hear whenever somebody's trying to convince me to get in the space is, man, they pay. And it's like, well, you know, they're being overcharged because they have had to, you know, because of the weird banking regulations and all that. Which is, you know, I love to hear that that's starting to settle in. We just had a conversation with a potential partner earlier today. One of the things that drove me to start my own business was I remember when I was at a company that rhymes with ADP, that whenever I would go into a big building full of our customers, or I'd go up and down a block of customers, I'd find one that had been with them for 10 years that had taken 10 price increases of 5 to 8% every single year and was paying 175% of the current book price and couldn't get a price reduction.. And then I'd go into the guy next door and I would hammer that thing down 40% off the current book price. So now you're talking about a nearly 100% price discrepancy for somebody that's brand new versus somebody that's been with you for 10 years. And I was like, this just isn't fair. So like for us, yeah, we're very public about we don't discount. We've only raised prices to our existing customers one time in 11 years. Now, do we raise prices to new customers that are in line with inflation? Of course. Like if I've been serving you for 8 years, it's not getting harder. It's getting easier, dude. Like, let's be real about it, man. Like, I mean, I can keep padding in and go, oh, you know, inflation, but it's like, dude, like, you know, you gotta stand for something to your point. Right. And, and that's one I get beat up on at IPPA every year. Everybody tells me what an idiot I am for not raising prices more. And I say, you know, I just, I'd rather do what makes me sleep well and what makes our customers. And, you know, this manifesto thing, I, I think you're onto something here. I might have to create a manifesto.

It sounds, yeah.

It sounds fun just in the nature of what it is. So, all right. So you obviously you're in brand and marketing in the payroll space. Now I've merged those two together. Sorry. So you've obviously researched a lot of the brands that we've, we talked offline. We won't dive into it too much. You know, one of the biggest mistakes we talked about is like, you know, if I'm a payroll company, I'm basically trying to make my payroll website or marketing look like some vomit of everybody else's stuff just mixed together and like, you know, maybe slightly different. Maybe there's one thing in there that's a little bit different. Like what are some of the other big mistakes you see payroll role and ATM companies doing when it comes to their marketing? Let's call them out. Let's call them on the carpet right now, Clark, you and me.

I would say worried about other competitors more than their people. I would say not being forward-thinking about where they hope the industry lands. I would say not thinking through legacy and, you know, how the implications of how it even started, I think, is important that decision. I don't think people really think through legacy at all. For example, we really want to uplift the tribal sovereign community on our end, or minority communities who were disenfranchised prior to being legalized, and just letting them know that we're here to serve them at any time that they need, in the right ways that they need. I would say small things like when you go online, how many people are so sick of AI? Like, you get a chatbot and you don't ever get actual people. And that was something that we really, really tried to anchor down on and making sure that our percentages of answering the calls are 95% of callers reach live support, you know, 87% of support answered within 30 seconds, just making sure that we're maintaining actual accountable numbers to make sure we're, we're meeting people's needs in real life. And I think that in general, remembering we're humans, I think that a lot of issues that I find, whether it's branding, websites, whatever, it's the disconnect of noticing that you're not just, I think people are so just like money hungry, honestly, truly, that they're not even thinking through what you're doing. So their website, everything sounds like regurgitated, I don't know, lines from each other. And they're forgetting that people are actually possibly not getting paid. They have their family, they're not able to feed their families if you're not able to do something right. And you, they're not able to have have, you know, their lives are impacted by what you do or don't do. And at the end of the day, I personally don't think the amount of money that you receive is enough to put somebody else in a position where they can't feed their families and where their businesses are closing and where, you know, that it just— I don't think they're thinking that way in general. And so in terms of messaging or in terms of when you're relating things, and another thing is like, who are you guys. That's something that we even had to notice on our website. Like, you know, why are you using stock imagery? It makes no sense. Use your actual people because people need to connect to people. So I think in general, both companies and buyers were smarter and we're getting sick of the nonsense. We just want to connect and we just want to know very clearly, are these my people? Will they help me or not? Everything else is just kind of fluff. Yeah. So I think we try to have like a mixture between visibility and exposure of our team. I think the fragility or humility in which we're wanting to expose that— to your point earlier when you were saying I keep my kids offline, that's a very clear boundary for us. I don't know, we haven't, we haven't really gotten to the point of exposing some of the things that our teams are doing, but that's something that I look forward to doing more of because I think that a lot of people that are on our team are, they're very dynamic. Literally, they do really cool things. Right. There's really good talent. So I would say even exposing that on a site is interesting and it doesn't even have to be related to payroll.

Well, and here's an idea everybody can steal from me that I've had sitting and just been too lazy to execute on. That'll be so easy is just like come up with 5 questions, interview every teammate with those 5 questions, link to that video on their bio. That's so much better than the like you hover over and it changes to a picture of them holding onto their snowboard. Like, you know, like, I mean, everybody's doing that. Like, that's fine. Like if you really want to get behind it, like just do a quick 5-question interview with everybody. And again, like, you know, it's easy for me to say, cause I haven't done it, but, and I look at our website and I go, man, one of the things we've realized recently is like, we're very good at telling our story, just not at scale. And so like, you know, we, we have a lot of people telling our story one-to-one on a regular basis. Our story resonates and it's on the website. Ish, it's still, there's a lot more to go there. And so I think, I think we all have room there. And you know, for me, I'll add, I was kind of thinking of some, some mistakes as you go and just AI slop in terms of content. Like I just, I mean, the inability to even prompt, I think is like, you know, people talk about like, you know, a lot of different thoughts and things around AI and like, should you use AI created content? Shouldn't you? Yes, you should, but you should know how to prompt it properly. Like, hey, if you can't put in a proper storytelling framework for, hey, this is how I want you to reformat these thoughts into, you know, or maybe follow ADA or maybe follow PASS, problem, agitate, solve. Like once you can uncover some of those basic things in terms of general marketing, what appeals to people, and then, you know, weave some of your personal story into it or your brand story into it and make it something that's not just like, hey, write a LinkedIn post for me about why somebody should buy payroll from me. I mean, some of this stuff is just so lazy and slop.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, there's just no real voice. I think to your point, you kind of nailed it there at the end, right? It's like there's got to be some of your internal voice has to come out. I always say like people get a really good opportunity to determine if they like me or don't like me before they do business with us. And then they can decide like if they're, you know, for better or worse, like my personality is going to permeate in our brand because I'm the CEO of the company and that's just going to be part. Yeah. Like if you don't like me, you're probably not going to like the—

Yeah.

Even though our team's all very different, like we tend to like, you know, I helped forge the core values, man. Like, let's just call it what it is. So, you know, the core values I talk about online all the time. Time, you're probably going to disagree with them when you start working on this.

And that's okay. And that's okay.

Yeah, there's plenty of other great providers out there. We're not the only one, that's for sure. All right, so any parting thoughts for the good people out there before we hang up?

I would say in terms of, I guess, brand and marketing, just to remember purpose, intention, and worry less about competition and more about if you are serving the needs that you set out do. I think a lot of people get very distracted by the market at large, but it's like every market is kind of like oversaturated to a degree. I mean, how many shoes can you pick out? How many, you know, it's just, you know, but they all serve a purpose, and I think everybody can have a space that's flourishing in their own retrospective needs, or, you know, can be very successful. I just think that the way that we do it in general canabis is just one niche market in which that's the case. But payroll in general, I think we all are serving real people's lives. Like, it's a big deal. It is. And I think sometimes that just in general gets overlooked and isn't something that we think about, whether we're marketing or we're branding or whether we're just working, because it can be just a day-to-day task that we don't consider. So it would just be reminding that.

And work with purpose, y'all. Make sure— so I'll leave you with this. You had me visualizing, like, I have, uh, I don't have a lot of shoes, but I have a reasonable amount of shoes, and they do all serve a purpose, right? I mean, there's, there's a pair of, you know, red, white, and blue New Balance that still look brand new that are like probably 7 or 8 years old. I always laugh about it because my nephew has the same pair and his are just destroyed. He still has them from, you know, 5 or 6 years ago, and they're just wrecked. I don't know how he still wears them, but mine look pristine because they serve a purpose. I only wear them in certain— I have probably 5 other pairs of sneakers. These ones serve a very distinct purpose. They're worn with very distinct outfits. That's all they do, man. Be— have a purpose.

Have a purpose, and you're always going to be remembered by that purpose.

So that's it. All right, well, I appreciate you, Clark.

Absolutely, this is great. Thank you.