Episode 144: YOUR Numbers Don’t Lie with Aaron C. Stocks

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or are well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromso.

Hey.

Welcome, everybody, to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. I am pumped and excited because the guest that we have on today is an industry that we've never had on the podcast before. But it seems that everybody that I talk to in the industry and outside the industry, because business principals are business principles, has issues in this area. And I keep referring Aaron and his team and I keep referring Aaron and his team because we've trusted Aaron and his team currently and we still do with all of our stuff. And it came to a natural conclusion. We need to get Aaron on the podcast and learn more about his organization, because in my eyes, they're the some of the best of the best in their industry. And we're going to learn more about that. Mr. Aaron Stocks, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Actually, real quick, I didn't really like this shirt, so I wanted to. There we go. That's much better. Wow.

I don't have one handy and I don't. I don't have one underneath, so I've done that. Holy Toledo.

All right, we ready?

Well, let's just pause for a minute.

All right.

I am impressed.

That's right. I do my research before I came on and wanted to make sure we had the whole vibe going.

I am super impressed. I always knew that I liked you, but you've just elevated yourself to a whole new level. And every time I see that invoice from PFS now, boy, I'm going to stop and take action.

Exactly. You like the cup better, though, don't you?

Well, actually, I like the shirt a lot.

It's pretty nice.

Yeah. Fantastic. And it fits well?

Yeah, yeah. It's actually a perfect size. So good fit, nice collar, well designed shirts. Thank you for that.

You know, all the props go out to Andrea Wyatt, our program director. She's got that well under control, including the hats. You like the hat?

I did. I had to sneak around your back to surprise you to get this gear from her, actually. And here we are.

Yeah. Well, if you turn the hat around, what does it look like?

Let's see.

Ah.

There we go. I don't look very good in hats, but that is. That is the hat. So I'm gonna go back to my glasses.

It's all good. Yeah, well, this is more of a verbal thing, but yeah, you need to see the programs on the screen and all that kind of stuff. I get that. So, anyway, cool. Wow. Super impressive to start off this one. And by the way, I'll remind everybody of this at the end of the podcast. But you can see the visuals this on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and search Unstoppable Profit Producer. Click on videos. And all of our podcasts that have the visual aspect as well, are there. There's about 60 of them. 60 or 70 of our most recent podcasts have the visual and the audio right there on YouTube. So you can. You can see what just happened and what Aaron did. And of course, if you're listening to this, keep him at 10 and 2 and then go to YouTube when you get in front of a computer and you can see the effect of just what happened. Super impressive. Anyway, let's try that again. Aaron Stocks, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Hey, you're welcome. You have earned the right to be here, my friend. And let's just give everybody two or three minutes. Whatever you feel comfortable with, feel about who you are, where you're from. Give us your city and state now. Tell them the industry you're in and whatever you want to share.

Sure. Yeah. So my name is Aaron Stocks. I'm the president of Professional Financial Solutions. We're an accounting firm located in Diamondbar, California. I live local in the area in Ontario with my wife, Nicolette, and she goes by Nikki. We have two fur dogs and two fur cats and that's our children. We love them like children.

My office, again, is located in Diamondbar. We have a staff of just over 35 and our main focus in accounting is insurance agencies. So the independent agent has a big soft spot in our heart and we love helping them grow and manage their financials.

And ultimately, as we say in the platinum and elite coaching circles, numbers don't lie. In fact, we have a sheet that is titled Numbers Don't Lie. But ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, Aaron and his team have helped us, making sure that the numbers are in order so that we can answer to everybody else out there who might ask. So thank you for that, Aaron. You guys have done a fantastic job.

No problem.

So how'd you get started in the accounting bookkeeping? And, you know, you have the CPA arm of your business as well. How did you get started in all this?

Yeah, long story short, I graduated high school in 2009 and there weren't A lot of jobs available at the time because of great recession or whatever we want to call it. So I called my uncle and I asked if I could have a job. He said no. So I did what anyone would do, and I showed up anyway.

By the way, not everybody would do that. Congrats to you. Back to you.

Thanks. Showed up anyway and said, hey, you could pay me or not, but, you know, need to get some work experience. Because most of the applications that were sent out, you know, required work experience. I was going to Trefi Community College at the same time, and his business went from a small family business to a very large business rather quickly because of all the foreclosures. And they were in the process serving industry. So a lot of filings and court running for attorneys, et cetera. So his business grew, and he asked me to take over doing accounting for him. And I was about 18, 19. I still don't really know what it is, but I'll figure it out. So I did what anyone in that position would do, and I Googled, you know, how to account, you know, and so QuickBooks popped up and, you know, I was able to teach myself QuickBooks. And I would make a lot of mistakes throughout the week. I'd write down all my questions and I would go to class and ask my teacher how to fix them all. They would. They're very nice at Chaffey. They have a lot of adjunct professors, so a lot of people actually in the industry. And they would tell me how to fix things. I would go back and fix them and. And so on and so on. And so after some time of that, I picked up my first client that wasn't my uncle, because someone that worked there asked if I could help them with their own business at home, you know, on the weekends or whatever. I said sure. So I set up a desk at my condo and I started doing their books, you know, after. After hours or weekends or whatever. And then kind of word got out and I got some more clients. And my now wife, Nikki, who was my wife at the time, I had her quit her job and helped me. And then my best friend Alex, who still works here, had him quit his job and helped me. And so now we had three people in my condo, got a little bit ridiculous. So we moved to an office in Covina, and then we eventually moved an office here in Diamondbar.

What a great story. And congratulations on the grit and just fighting through it and, you know, becoming more through everything. And I'm so glad to hear for you and your uncle. So you and your uncle still get along today, huh?

Oh yeah, we get along great. So he's still a client of mine and I take care of him, of course. So yeah, he taught me a lot through business. Not just gave me an opportunity. He is a good businessman himself. So he taught me a lot through the years.

Yeah, business principles are business principles. We talk about that a lot. And I just have to ask, so the Alex that you referred to is the Alex that I know?

Yes, my second employee. You know him?

Yes, I do. And he, I've worked closely with him over time. Phenomenal, phenomenal talent. He is so good to know that I may have to yank his chain a little bit next time I communicate with him.

You should. Thank you.

I'll take that permission and run with it. So anyway, you kind of self taught yourself, you know, that's, that's the epitome of the high achieving entrepreneurial personality and mindset and we find a lot of that in the insurance industry as well. You know, entrepreneurs who, you know, don't know where to start, don't know what to do. All they know is they need to work hard and they need to figure it out. And they ended up figuring, they end up figuring out on their own. And that's when sometimes we meet them and they say, we want you to fast track us. So you figured out on your own. Kudos to you. And then you became a certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, correct?

Yeah, so when I was going through trying to learn QuickBooks, there was this little segment on there said, hey, you can become certified and we'll give you more classes or whatever. So I did that and that, that was a good experience. It was a lot more robust program back, back in the day because QuickBooks was pushing it. And so yeah, a lot of training through their videos and a lot of resources.

Fantastic. So you know what, you, you know, you're really good at what you do, your team is really good at what you do. So kudos to you. And growing a team to the level that you have, which now has an international flair to it, we may get to that in a little bit, but just phenomenal. Great business story. And you know, if somebody says, what's your experience been with pfs? I will say this, I will say they are on it. They are on it. And they are on it all of the time and they act with immediate action. So props to you guys. I mean, even when you call on the phone, I mean somebody picks up within two to three rings every single time.

So I got that from actually My uncle, right. So he taught me something way back in the day. And so he gave us a scenario. He's like, let's say one of my clients called one of our clients. So his clients call and said, hey, I need you to pick up my dry cleaning. He's like, what do we say? And so obviously we said, oh, we don't do that. We file papers. He said, no, you're gonna go pick up his dry cleaning, you're gonna deliver it to him right away and you'll tell him you need anything else, you know. And that was kind of something he instilled in me when I was younger. And I've kind of tried to take that to PFS as much as possible. I'm not going to pick up your dry cleaning, Mike, but the idea of it.

Exactly. I'm good with that.

So you niche in the insurance industry, and that's one of the many reasons that we were introduced to you and subsequently made the decision to start doing business with you, is because you know our industry and it's. There's not too many out there in what you do, bookkeeping, accounting, CPA realm who know our industry like you guys do. And I love that. And that's one of the many reasons I want to get you on the podcast. And so go ahead and share with us because I know you know how to walk the walk and talk the talk. Somebody who's in the insurance agency business, who has an operating account, who has a trust account. You know, one of the biggest buzz things is, oh my gosh, trust accounting drives me nuts. So what are you seeing out there? What do you hear and what's your philosophy on helping people? And I'm going to ask you another question in a second about when they come to you, but what's your philosophy out there on trust accounting and that thought process and what are you learning about that?

Yeah, I think that the concept of trust accounting, especially if you're in insurance, is pretty straightforward. Right. I mean, you're going to have fiduciary, non fiduciary funds in there. It's important to piece those out, transfer job rating account and make sure that the sweeps are coming out correctly. So if you're a small agency, it's not extremely difficult. Right. But the larger you get, the more transactions that come through your trust account. Balancing that on a frequent basis is important. We have big insurance clients where there's a couple hundred transactions going through their trust on a daily basis. So those need to be done daily. Then there's some that just have maybe a handful, and those can be done monthly. But making sure that's reconciled correctly and actually used correctly is very important. Now, in California here, there's a regulation to have a separate trust account. Right. But some states don't actually have that requirement. I was surprised to find out you could just kind of co. Mingle. I would never suggest doing that. Obviously, keep them separate. Very important. And that's kind of how that's our philosophy on the trust accountant. Quite the last thing is just making sure you have a good agency management system to help track the trust transactions or else it could be complicated the larger you get. So I'm sure everyone here deals with the pains of amss, but very important to have a good one and actually use it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know when we came to you, you actually taught us some easier and simpler ways to handle that trust accounting issue, and forever grateful for that because we were doing it a super complicated way because that's just how we were taught. That's the benefit of anybody who does business with PFS is the fact that they are niched into the industry and they figured out a lot of this stuff for us to make our lives easier. By the way, speaking of states, can you help people across the country or.

Yeah. So, I mean, accounting is universal, whether it's the United States or a different country. There's some variances between. Like in the US we use gaap. In other international places, they use ifrs. But for the most part, accounting, especially across the United States, is the same. Tax obviously varies state to state, but yeah, we can handle all 50 states.

Fantastic. So if you're watching and or listening to this and you might not be on the west coast, in fact, I know that people that I'm very close to on the east coast also do business with Aaron because they trust Aaron and his team just to take care of business. And they had kind of some of the same issues that we had when the introduction came. Trust accounting issues, they were so far behind, stuff wasn't getting done and they were super concerned about it, as they should be. So I will say this just from. And I'll let you piggyback on this in a second, Aaron. But at the end of the day, one of the things I love, love, love is PFS sends a end of the month good news. Your management reports are ready and they are on time all the time. And I just go ahead and review those. So I love that philosophy. How did you come to that and is that just the norm?

I would say it should be the norm. You know, we've ran. I don't want to speak for every accounting company out there or talk bad on any accounting company. We all try our best. But, you know, I ran into situations where, especially early on, a client has come to me and said, hey, you invoiced me for this work and I don't really see a product for it. Right. And you're like, you know, you're right. You know, we did do a lot of work, but there was nothing you got tangibly. And so it was a kind of a disconnect. So early on, we decided that regardless of the service we provide, we're going to give monthly financial statements or management reports. Right. Which will be your profit and loss and balance sheet. That way, you know that we put a lot of work into it and you can see it. And it also helps you run your business overall. So I would say it should be the standard. I have run into companies that we've taken over from that don't send financial, except for maybe once a year or less frequent. But the standard should be monthly financial statements.

Absolutely. Because numbers don't lie. I love that. So let's talk about that. What are some of the issues that people who come to you, whether inside the insurance industry or outside the insurance industry, they come to you. There's flags, there's issues. They can't figure anything out. They got issues and they need you to help them. What are you seeing out there? And anybody that's either watching or listening to this podcast, what should they be thinking about with regard to their accounting, their bookkeeping, their CPA work?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of issues come to mind. Every client's a little bit unique, but I would say universally, every independent agent has struggles with their agency management system. Right. It does so much for them. There's so many moving parts. It connects to our accounting software. Right. And so number one issue is finding the right agency management system, but then utilizing it. Right. So they might get signed up for an AMS and only use half of it or something. Right. And that's very common. So for us, when we first come in and take a look, you know, we try to take a look at your. Your agency management system too. Obviously, one of the most popular ones is Hocksoft, a lot of people use, and we're very familiar with it. So, you know, we'll take a look at what you're doing in Hawks Ops and be like, you know, you need to make a few tweaks this way or a few Tweaks that way so we can get the data out of it that we need. So I'd probably say it's the number one issue.

Is, you know, using the agency management system. Once they are using it properly, then you can start getting data out. And the next two issues would be not reconciling their trust correctly. Right. Or not reconciling their commission statements correctly. And so those two tasks, you know, we take on usually ourselves and help those get resolved. And so those are probably the main issues that people have.

Yeah, those are probably the top three major issues people have.

And the great news is because we can trust pfs, they'll just log right into the system for us. They'll do all the back end work. I know that they work around the clock just like many of us do because I find them in there at various times and they're just taking care of business. So I love that about the fact that we can set up the technology to just let them do what they do and because, you know, we all should be doing only the things that we can do. Everybody's got their top three personal gifts, talents, vital functions. For me, I like numbers, but I don't like to do what they do. And they do a great job. So thank you for that. So.

You know about insurance agency business owners, you help with all of that. Anything else come to mind about things that you can do to help people in the industry or even any business period?

Yeah, you know, I think it starts with, you know, most independent agents got into business because they were usually an insurance agent. Right. And then they kind of branch off and think they can do better than their employer, which is entrepreneurship and I love that. Right. And so when they do that, you know, there's, there's so much that the prior employer was doing. Right. For them like payroll or whatever that when they start their own, they're like a little bit overwhelmed and they're just trying to generate enough revenue to survive. Right. And I totally get that. So for, for startup agencies that are just getting started, you know, I'd recommend getting your accounting done to start because having to come in and clean it up costs more. Right. And so again, getting good AMs in having the data entry and reconciliation done on your operating trust and credit cards. Right. Having your carry commission statements reconciled, making sure your premium payable is being paid out. If you need help with accounts payable, we can help with that too. Closing your books at month end and then having a monthly financial so if you know you're profitable that month that's really what we can do. For a startup agency, that's extremely important to start at the beginning and for more seasoned agencies, you know, having that done monthly, you know, we run into agencies all the time where they're like, you know, we've operated 10 years, never really had a financial. We kind of give our bank statements to our tax guy at the end of the year and, you know, it works, right? And, and it might work, and that's fine. But you know, actually knowing your numbers on a monthly basis is really priceless. Especially maybe if you have multiple locations or multiple lines or verticals of business. Knowing which ones of those are profitable and which ones aren't can really increase the bottom line.

Yeah. Or if you're looking to do acquisitions and grow your business in that realm or make it part of your growth strategy, I mean, if you need money and you go to get money from any kind of lender, they're going to want to know that you are on your game. And having these items at your fingertips to say, yep, we got them right here, we have them reconciled every month, blah, blah, blah. It's like, boom, oh, we want to do business with you. So it's another thing that is a huge add on.

Yeah, that's huge. Right? So right now, you guys, everyone probably knows there's huge M and A activity, right? Acquisitions going on, people getting eaten up by bigger companies, and then the natural cycle, those employees leave and start new agencies. Right. It's an ever ending cycle. But.

Having the proper advice when you're going through an M and A activity, whether you're buying a business or you're being purchased is priceless. I know it's usually an expensive process to hire people to do that for you, but it's worth every penny. So for our clients, our clients get bought and sold all the time. They're buying clients, they're selling or they're selling. And so we have a lot of experience with that. Not only from the accounting or helping the attorneys with language just for accounting purposes to make it better for our clients, but also when they're buying an agency, checking out that agency's books and records. And then if they're going through bank financing, banks can open you up to a whole new world of requirements. Right. Most independent agents can just use cash basis or accrual basis for income tax purposes. But if you get larger and you're acquiring businesses, you might actually have to conform with gaap, which is a whole new animal. So, yeah, we have a great amount of experience there. And I would always recommend a professional when you're dealing with any M and A activity.

Fantastic. That's great information. Thank you for sharing.

No problem.

Yeah, so all of that's in play and more. And so my great recommendation is if you're hearing something, you have questions about it, or you want to learn more, just reach out to Aaron at the end of this podcast. I'm sure that there'll be information on how you can reach Aaron. But what's the best way just to have somebody call you or send you an email?

Yeah, call or email me. No problem at all. Sure, Michael, link my information there. But yeah, call her emails. Great. Be happy to have a conversation with anyone about their accounting needs.

Fantastic. So one of the things that I've learned about Aaron and doing business with he and his team over time is the fact that they have created a great business. Aaron's got, you know, 30 plus team members, as I say, on his team. But one of the things that I just learned as we're getting ready for the podcast, you've developed a unique recruiting and hiring process. And you said you'd be willing to share more about that. Because I always love that. I mean, the first P is the toughest P, and we talk about that a lot in our UPB circles. What do you got? Tell us a little bit.

Sure, yeah. It's a lot to unpack, but I'll go a little bit high level.

We'll take the Cliff Notes.

Yeah, the Cliff Notes. Okay. So we kind of made a point maybe three or four years ago that we're going to hire as many people as possible. Okay. And so what are the limitations to us hiring? Right. When before our philosophy was do we need people because we have too much work and we need to hire? Right. And so we stopped that, we put that on the shelf and we said, all right, how can we hire as many people as possible? And so right now, our biggest constraint is actually training new people. Right? And so we now know how many people we can take on and mentor to become bookkeepers or whatever position they're going to be holding. Right. And so we're limited by the number of staff we have to mentor new staff. But regardless of how much we're limited by, we recruit every day. So some of my office is posting job ads on the typical sites, right. ZipRecruiter. Indeed. Whatever. And we're posting every single day. Or we have an ad every day and we're interviewing every week, regardless if we need someone. Because again, you might not need someone. But we went with the approach of the work's going to come. Let's get as many people hired as possible.

So.

So that's what we do when we have our interview process. It's a little bit unique as well.

We go through our initial interview process and we've really developed questions that we feel like can weed out candidates who aren't great fits and give us candidates who are good fits. And then when we do our tryout time is what we call it, which is in between the initial interview and before an offer letter, we call it tryout time. And so they come into our office for two hours approximately and we get to work with them and actually talk with them. We give several quizzes which. Which is kind of funny to see them squirm and go through them. But the quizzes are very important. It could be it's things like accounting fundamentals. Some is just like memory. One's a disc assessment, which I know Mike's a big supporter of, and, and several other key components. And that spits out a number. They get scores in all of them and it spits out a number. And if they're over the numbers that we want, then they're a good candidate. We're probably going to be hiring them. If they're under, then they're not and we won't be. So we tried to put numbers into our hiring process and it's really allowed us to have great, tremendous hiring even through this great recession. Rate resignation. Yeah, great resignation, whatever they're calling it, where people are leaving their employment. We haven't had a lot of that happen. And at the same time, we've been able to recruit pretty successfully through this process where labor is short. That's because we're constantly looking though. And that's our hiring approach. And it goes into. After that, they get assigned a mentor in our office, et cetera. But that's really our unique hiring approach.

That is fantastic. Thank you for sharing that and I'm so glad that you brought that up on a possible conversation item. So at the end of the day when somebody's interviewing with you, after they raise their hand and say, yes, I'd like to talk to you further use simply score them.

Yeah.

On a scale of 0 to 100 or what does that look like?

We use 1 through 5, but same idea, 5 being the best. And so we have like 10 pieces of criteria that we look for and some of it is test based, like, hey, take a memory test and see if you can retain this information. Take a disc test and depending on the position we're hiring for different.

Disk components or whatever, the grades of disk or whatever it is, wherever they fall, could be good or bad for that position. Right. We have like a, again, a bookkeeping quiz. Take this bookkeeping quiz and it will score you. And then some are a little subjective. Right. Like are they a flight risk? Have they had, you know, 10 jobs in the last year? That would probably be a high flight risk. Right. So all that gets computed in a scale of 1 through 5 and then it spits out a number and that would be a reasonable hire for our office.

That's fantastic. So ultimately what you're trying to do, you're just trying to set them up for success and achievement within your organization.

Yeah, we actually did a little bit of a study and I think there's been a lot of studies done on this, but internally, so like if we hire someone and we have to let them go around their 90 day mark, we do a probation period like everyone else. It costs us about $20,000 in recruiting and training. So finding the right person, extremely important. Not only does it save us $20,000, but it saves us a lot of time if we can find the right candidate up front.

Wow, awesome. Do you know what that means, by the way?

Yeah, me too.

Okay. Exactly. Yeah. For those of you who are just on the audio only, I keep holding up my two fingers, which is, I agree with everything Aaron is saying. Fantastic. No wonder they're such a great business because they've got that, that key piece. And we also say that in UPB circles, always be recruiting motivation is like bathing is recommended daily. And Aaron and his team practice recruiting is like bathing. It's recommended daily. We've got a new one for the coffee cup. So yeah, I'll show you my coffee cup in just a couple of minutes. So at the end of the day.

Great stuff.

I also just want to touch very, very briefly on the fact that another reason that Aaron and his team is such a great organization is you also practice something that we've practice over time and that's eos. So you operate within that system as well to consistently be better, right?

Yeah, we just started maybe six months ago, so we're a little bit new on the EOS journey. It's not a cult for anyone doesn't know what EOS is. It can be because after, after people describe it, it sounds like a cult because everyone likes it. But no. Yeah, so we just started about six months ago and we've really, really enjoyed the process. You know, the first thing you find out are the people that are on board and that aren't they the ones that aren't on board with your vision, even though you maybe you thought that they were just kind of bubble to the surface, and it makes it really easy to, you know, pinpoint future leaders or just overall growth, make sure people are on the same page as what your company vision is.

Yeah. And the thing that came to my mind as you're describing your recruiting and interviewing system, et cetera, was right person, right seat.

Culture, strategy, and everything else for breakfast. I'm sensing another podcast sometime in the future because it seems like you and I have a lot to talk about in a lot of other realms. And ultimately, at the end of the day, we just want to help people, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. Helping people. And eventually you'll be helped. Right.

The law of reciprocity is always in effect. So speaking of helping people, you have also positioned your business internationally to be able to reach a greater segment of people because you can offer things in a different way. So you've also taken on the fact that you've got people that are team members, but they're based outside the country, correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

So why'd you do that? And how does it fit in and benefit everybody that does business with PFS?

Yeah, good question. So we're probably 10, 11 months into that, although it's been a couple years in the making. The reason why it's been a couple years, because we wanted to get it right. It's a very important to get it to get your international hiring done right. So, yeah, we started hiring in the Philippines about 10 or 11 months ago. Before that, like I said, we probably spent a year trying to get it right and just going through the motions of how it would be to have international staff. But why we did it is pretty straightforward. So, you know, wages here in California and even across the country are increasing extremely fast. In order to compete with those rising prices, we knew we had to do something to bring down our cost or we wouldn't be able to offer service to new startup agencies or people that have limited budgets.

The thought was we could add in international staff with a mix of our US Staff here in Diamondbar to bring down cost. And I would say it's been a tremendous success. I'm happy to go into any details about it you want, or we have time for Mike, but it's. It's been great. So we offer all of our clients the option to use both US And Philippine staff or just all US Staff. And if they choose the international staff combined with our local staff here, then it comes obviously with a discount or reduced rates. And so it's been overly popular. Almost everyone is agreed to it that we presented it to and we've really enjoyed it.

Fantastic. And one of the things that I've always loved about Aaron and his team, they're outside the box thinkers. They're always looking for the better way to do business to help their customers to take that experience to the highest level possible. And that's what I've experienced over time, not just a short period of time either. And I know lots of other people in the industry who have had that same experience with Aaron and, and his team. So kudos to you for building a phenomenal business so far. I know based on what we've discussed, this is just the beginning. So props to you. As we begin to wrap up today, any other thoughts, comments about anything that we didn't cover?

No, I think it was great. I appreciate you having me. If anyone has questions, even just on hiring internationally, we've been through the ups and downs and the culture differences and how it works. You know, feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy just have a conversation about that. It's. It's a big step and it's important to get right. Mike, really appreciate you having me on. It's been, it's been great. Sorry I surprised you with the, the gear. I want to go back and look at your face when, when I, when I pulled it all out, which I will. But yeah, thanks for having me on, Mike.

It's not the first time my team has gone behind my back. So anyway, and probably won't be the last.

They definitely assisted.

So it's all good. It's all good. Hey, you know, it's better to laugh than the cry, but you know, just in case somebody's in a position, they don't have time to go searching for info. Go ahead and give me your office number and your email address if you don't mind.

Sure. Office number is 909-294-7372 and just ask for myself or Bob who does our business development here. And if there's any new inquiries, you can send them to our email at Info info info@pfs like Paul Frank, Sam accounting spelled out.com and me and Bob both check that email. So feel free to send it over.

Yeah, fantastic. So again, this is the one and the only Aaron Stocks and they do a great job by the way. Hold on just a moment. I'll be right Back.

What do you got?

Yeah. So since Aaron has a specialized coffee cup and shirt, I didn't, I didn't get the specialized shirt on because I want to restrict everybody's time. But one of the things that we throw around in the up circles is, and I got a compliment, platinum coaching member Bill Hudson for this. We say that the Zig Ziglar quote is motivation is like bathing. It's recommended daily. Right? So this, this coaching member came to my home office for his one on one coaching session and brought this. Any not only did that, he took it to another level on the backside and said, learning is like bathing. It is recommended daily. So anyway, so now because of Aaron Stocks and our time together today, we've also learned that recruiting is like bathing. It's recommended daily. And so now Aaron, because my mind is like a trap with these kinds of things, I will be in a session somewhere in the country and I will go, oh, recruiting is like bathing is recommended daily. Thanks to Aaron Stock. So if somebody brings that up when they reach out to you, just so.

You know, just make sure you trademark it with my name on it. No problem.

You know, I recently found that in my own world because I've said for a long, long time, you know the definition of focus, right?

Follow one course until success. Every day focused. And one of our platinum coaching members sent me a text last week and said, hey, look, Robert Kiyosaki said it.

I'm like.

I forgot to put my name on it. So it's back to action, right?

Yeah.

But there's nothing new under the sun.

That's good.

And at the end of the day, numbers don't lie.

Numbers do not lie.

Yeah. And thank you for taking care of our numbers in a way that nobody else ever has. So thank you to Aaron Stocks and his team at PFS Accounting. So, hey, by the way, if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. We're grateful that you're here. My name is Mike Stromco. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker, and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can find me @unstoppable profit producer.com if you're interested in attending a virtual or a live event to learn how to grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms and learn some of the strategies like Aaron actually talked about today. Because business principles or business principles, you can go to a virtual event@uppfaststart.com or our live event portal is beunstoppablebootcamp.com both events are designed to share with you some of our best money making strategies developed over 36 years of research in your industry. Again to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And and please make sure if this is your first time to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss one episode and if you will, the gold nuggets that get dropped on the podcast like Aaron was dropping gold nugget after gold nugget today. And remember, subscribe to the podcast@unstoppableprofitpodcast.com the podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and of course our YouTube channel. Go to YouTube, search Unstoppable Profit Producer and go to the videos and you'll see how we started the podcast today and ended the podcast today as well. Thank you for joining us. It's our privilege and honor to be able to support everybody out there in their business adventures. And until next time, get out there and make a difference. Be unstoppable. Leave no regrets. Mr. Aaron Stocks, this was awesome. Thank you for being here today.

Thanks for having me, Mike.

All right man, keep being awesome. Keeping you and your team. You guys do fantastic stuff. And again, if you know accounting or anything around that is an issue in your organization, reach out to Aaron and have a conversation at a minimum and learn more. All right everybody, until next time, we believe in you. You got this. Be unstoppable. See you then.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to listen to more episodes or share this podcast with friends, someone you care about, please visit www.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.