Building Industry Influence with Rob Brown

Before we jump into this week's episode of The Pod, I want to give a big shout out to this episode's sponsor, Canopy. In this episode with Rob Brown, we talk a lot about how overwhelming it can be with all of the vendors reaching out to you constantly if you're running a firm, and how frustrating it can be, honestly, if these vendors are not doing their homework, if they're not learning about you, your firm's specific needs, and what makes you unique. And that's why I love working with Canopy. Canopy has been in the accounting industry for many, many years, and they are very responsible in how they do things. They learn about what firms need, what firms want, and they build those features. And so Canopy is a software provider that I'm very proud to be working with. Check them out for all of your practice management needs and to just unclunk your firm. Get those operations running more smoothly. Check them out. Getcanopy.com. Hello, and welcome to the Big Four Transparency Podcast. I'm joined today by Rob Brown, the founder of Accounting Influencers. I've attended many of his events at the Accounting Influencers roundtable and have met awesome people. So it's an honor to have you on The Pod, Rob. Dominic, it's a pleasure and great that you're shining a light on the wonderful profession that is accounting. There's so much to talk about. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you. And I'm very new to the game. You've been doing this thing for most of a decade, pretty much, in terms of the Accounting Influencers. Is that correct? Yes. And actually, I was one of the first accounting podcasts ever back in the day when it was only Skype. Do you remember Skype? Yeah. And I recorded our podcast on Skype, no video, just audio. And our Accounting Influencers podcast has been going a long time. So yeah, a decade, certainly, specialized in accounting. Before that, I was a former high school math teacher. I taught for four years in Hong Kong in an international school and four years in the UK. And actually, sadly, ended up coaching kids to pass tests. Okay. And there's a lot being talked about these days about how school is not fit for preparing people for the world of work. So there's a conversation around financial literacy and numeracy and AI skills and everything else. But I then moved out of there, did a Master's in Human Resources and thought, what can I do as a teacher? I can motivate people, I can inspire. And I ended up falling into business development training for bankers, accounts, lawyers, technically super smart people, but they're often a little bit socially awkward. They're not confident in selling themselves, they're not big at personally branding themselves. And that was where my life took me until the pandemic, really, when that shut down. It shut down everything, didn't it? The pandemic. Oh, yeah. But at that point, I'd already started my podcast and was going all out for accountants. And since then, I've wanted to be a great spokesperson for the profession to elevate the brand of accounting. And my life's crusade is to just shine a light on amazing people that are doing great things in accounting that don't always get the exposure that they want, and just amplify their messages and bring people together to talk about accounting in all of its different facets and really promote why it's a great thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. So for people who've never attended one of these sessions, basically, it's a very big Zoom call with maybe, I mean, typical attendance from those I've seen, maybe 60 to 80-ish folks. Yeah, it sounds about right. We might get a couple of hundred that register, but we play with the people that show up. And so it might be up to 100. It's like a Zoom call that you'd have in a business meeting, but there's just lots of us. So we're going to break out, Dominic, you know the score. And there's one coming up on the 20th of May, actually, depending on when this episode goes live. And another one in June for North America people, particularly. We bring people in and we say, right, whether you're an accountant or not, whether you're a practitioner, a professional, whether you're a tech vendor, a coach, consultant, selling and serving accountants, what are accountants doing? What are they saying? Where are they hurting? What do they need? What are they talking about? And what's happening in the world as you see it? So you get all these different perspectives and the tech side and the people side and the professional side and people that can have a bitch and moan and whine. And while they're doing that, they can do some great networking and connecting and raising their brands and getting their message out there. So it's a little watering hole, if you like, where we bring people from all over together to talk about what's going on in their world. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're kind of in the space where you're a provider to accounting firms, you might be going, well, how does this help me? There's no accounting firms there for me to sell to. And it's more than that, right? Like for myself personally, that's where I met Randy. So Randy Crabtree, you know, I ended up doing a podcast episode with him after I got to know him really well. I went to his conference. I'm going to be presenting actually at Bridging the Gap this summer. Like a lot of opportunities come from, you know, meeting other people who are doing similar-ish to what you're doing versus, you know, always just trying to hound after that customer and just like make the quick sale. You have to kind of build out those relationships and you're going to learn a lot from those people. Right. I'm just thinking, as you mentioned that, that I obviously need 20% of your appearance fee at Bridging the Gap for that introduction that I made, Dominic. But seriously, you bring up an interesting point that these calls are not specifically for accountants. You're right. They're for the people that serve accountants and sell to and through them. There's a big ecosystem. We call it the accounting industry. The profession is the professionals themselves, but the industry all around them, there's a whole swathe of people and sectors there and we bring them together. But accountants do show up because they want a relationship with the vendors and the providers and the suppliers and the solutions out there. And they also want to brand themselves. There are accountants out there that do want to be seen as the obvious expert, that do have thought leadership and opinions to share. They want to be an advocate for the profession. So they show up, they want to be interested in what other people are doing and they want those different perspectives, whether that helps them lead better or accelerates the career. It's about knowing and being known, isn't it? It doesn't do us any harm to go to the watering hole and have a few interesting conversations, turn a few strangers into friends. Yeah. And so your decision to kind of create this ecosystem around, you know, what we're calling accounting influencers, like, was that driven at all by seeing any kind of a trend and like their role in the industry really evolving? Because right now it seems like that's a pretty major part, right? If you're a tech vendor, you know, you try to get that coveted Jason Stats demo and you try to get a couple kind of, you know, and there's very specific people. And when you actually like boil it down, like a lot of the attention is going to like 50 people, right? And this starts to play a huge role in the education ecosystem. Like, you know, if I'm a firm operator and I'm just kind of going about my day and then I discover Logan Graff, I'm like, holy crap, maybe I really need to look at pricing, right? And I think like these people play a huge role in educating people on running practices that they're going to be happy in. You're getting me on a pet peeve, if I can call it that. What is influence? What is an expert? We can play around with this as a phrase. There are certainly people out there that speak into the world of accountants that you would think are influential, but actually there's a lot of vanity metrics, Dominic. There's a lot of hype and follows and likes and engagement. And really it's just their own friends and their own pals and their peers. And it's not really accountants that are tuning into those messages. So what is a thought leader? What is an opinion maker? And in Accounting Influencers, we keep a spreadsheet. It's not in the public domain. It's got about 5,000 names on it of people that are moving in this space. Some of them may be accountants and leaders and partners and owners, but the majority are in the ecosystem outside of them. And we monitor who are the real deal and who's saying what, and who's just regurgitating and coming out with hype and clickbait and who's selling and pitching and being really salesy and not really adding value. So there's a lot going on here that's trying to get the ear of the accountant. So a really relevant question is who do accountants listen to? Who do they pay attention to? Now some of the less discerning accountants will pay attention to the people and the vendors that make the most noise. And we're all gullible of that, but are they really the best people in the space? You've mentioned a couple of names already. There's a few that we have on what we call our no fly list. I won't reveal any names right here, but there are people that are toxic, that are actually bad for the space, that have a history of plagiarism, stealing people's ideas, regurgitating old material, just being in it for themselves and their brand and their sale, and they've not got the heart of the accountant at the forefront of what they're doing. There are a lot of well-intentioned influencers and tech solutions and providers and vendors and startups and all kinds of people out there. But it comes down to this. What really moves the dial for accountants? We know they are the second most sold to profession in the world. Really? Wow. What do you think is the first on it? Probably doctors? It is. Every pharmaceutical company in the world wants a conversation with a doctor and a surgeon. We can see why that is. But accountants is the guardians of data and the gatekeepers of all businesses. They're second. So when you think there are thousands and thousands of tech solutions out there and vendors and software people and coaches and consultants and trainers that want the ear of the accountant, podcasters, YouTubers, and they all want to get in front of the same audience. Now, there's three ways to do it, and I could share those with you, but you can see how bombarded an individual accountant might be, and they are very fearful of showing an interest in any particular solution. Because they know if they do, they'll get bombarded by requests and demos and all kinds of sales pitches, deals, and everything else from that one provider. So imagine multiplying that by 100. There's a lot coming at them, and they could be a lot more discerning. They don't buy tech well, honestly, they don't buy it strategically on the whole. They don't choose solutions very well and the right coach and consultant. They're great at due diligence when it comes to financials, but when it comes to marketing of the vendors and solutions out there, those people do a really good job of getting accountants to buy it. Not always for the good of the accountant. So there's this whole play around influence on what moves the dial and what's good and what isn't. Imagine this. There is an event in the UK called AccountEx. It's the biggest agnostic event in the world. It's over two days, takes place in London, and it has three, 400 exhibitors, sponsors, vendors there. Four or 500 education slots and seminars, it's huge. And it's not vendor specific. Now last year, and this was a bit too many, they've admitted it, but there were 37 exhibition stands or booths for outsourcing for accountants. Now there'll be a bit less this year, but that just shows you how crowded a particular sector of the accounting industry is. And if you're an accountant walking onto that floor space, which is about the size of three football pitches, and you were looking for an outsourcing provider, how difficult would it be for you to discern the good from the great and to be able to cut through the hype and the sales messages and the promises and the websites and the slick demos and everything else? And you multiply that by all the different payroll providers and onboarding solutions and practice management solutions and everything else that you might be looking for. It is really, really difficult to cut through the noise and define what's good versus what's great versus what's lousy and what's going to bite you in the ass six, 12 months from now because the support's no good. So listen, I'm throwing a lot in the mix, but you get me on influence and it's a sore point for me because it's not understood very well. Yeah. No, that's interesting to hear you speak about that because, again, that's kind of not necessarily the perspective I had, you know, the error that I expected you to have. But as someone who is selling a product in the accounting space, ultimately, so, you know, a bit of extra light on big four transparency, but we're the largest crowdsource database of accounting salaries and we basically sell salary benchmarking to accounting firms. Do you see just how guarded people are? You know what? As soon as they receive an outreach, it's like, no, leave me alone or, you know, whatever. And people are extremely, extremely guarded. Now I'm operating in a space where there aren't actually a lot of salary benchmarking providers, but I think there's so many that do, you know, basically like you contribute all of your payroll data and we'll do like a whole, you know, salary sharing thing that they're bombarded with that. And they just kind of assume it's that and they just sort of block it out as noise. So it has like, it has become really, really, really difficult to get the attention of people. Now what I have found is kind of the way is like, you got to play the ultra, ultra, ultra long game of like, actually get to know these people, actually understand their problems, you know, meet them at conferences, have a beer with them and like let them vent about their problems. And then if one of the problems you can solve, then you can kind of, you know, later at a later date, follow up, like don't try to make the hard pitch at the, you know, at the event or anything like that. But yeah, no, accountants are extremely guarded and it's interesting to hear you say that they're the second most pitched to profession. I didn't know that. So. Well, there are certainly challenges that accountants have. If you talk to accounting leaders and owners, they'll talk about the three big drivers of change. Financial technology and private equity. So that's the accounting side of things, the professional side of things. But on the vendor side of things, they're all struggling for lead generation right now and eyeballs and ears and hitting the targets and hitting their quotas and getting people to re-subscribe to their software. So there's all of that going on. I alluded earlier to three ways to reach busy accountants. Can I touch on them, Dominic, for a moment? Yeah. I mean, I'm taking notes. I'm learning as much as I am hosting a podcast right now. So this is great. Well, if you're the best sales benchmarking outfit out there that I've seen, because you're very specific on accountants and you know this world extremely well. So I definitely recommend Big Four Transparency. So you've got my endorsement. But let's just look at it this way. If you want to reach busy accountants with a product, a service, a crusade, a message, then there's only three ways you can do it, really. The first is to have a lot of money. So when you've got a lot of money, a big war chest, a big marketing department, you can advertise at the Super Bowl. It will cost you $8 million like Intuit did recently, but you can do it. And you can buy traffic and you can put ads out there everywhere and you can be seen and you can sponsor every single event and you can endorse every single exhibition that's going on out there. So you pay your way to cutting through the noise and you win by sheer force of message and momentum and frequency of message. Because in the end, accountants get weary of it all and they will buy most likely what they see a lot of. So that's the first thing is buying your way to business. The second way is content or thought leadership. Now this won't burn money, but it will burn time because there's so many people out there trying to own a narrative and push out content and thought leadership and stories and examples and LinkedIn posts, not so much Insta and TikTok and Facebook and Twitter. But those platforms, we know accountants are on there to an extent. LinkedIn is probably the premier for where most professionals live. But that aside, it doesn't matter so much where it is, it matters what strategy you are using because a lot of content gets lost. If it doesn't arrive in somebody's feed at that moment that they're looking, it becomes yesterday's news. Podcasts are a little bit better. You've got a great show here and you know that has a long tail. So people will discover that and scroll back through previous episodes and pick up stuff that is a year old. So in that respect, it's good to create some evergreen stuff. But this is content, it's thought leadership, it's putting ideas out there that makes accountants think that when they have a problem that you can solve, you are the go-to choice for what they do. Because they've seen something you've written, they've seen you speak, they've seen you on a podcast, they, to your point, are a little bit more familiar with you. They feel like they know you, they've got a relationship with you, they value your expertise and they've seen you in action. So content's great. It might take you longer because everyone's putting out content, aren't they? Very, very long tail. So I have an anecdote on that, but basically nothing happened for 40-ish weekly episodes of the Big 4 Transparency podcast. And then by episode 50, people were like, oh, this is actually going to stay. This is a real thing. And it fully, the script kind of flipped. And then now I start having some clients that I sell the salary benchmarking stuff to, who have just reached out with general firm problems. And I was like, whoa, this is cool. So it takes forever. And then it happens very fast, right? And you've been doing it for, yeah, almost a decade, right? So yeah. Yeah. And that's just one medium, isn't it? Because you can pick a social media channel as another medium and people put out video and building YouTube channels and there's all kinds of ways, there's sponsored advertorials and publications and online platforms. So the thought leadership, the content is a second way. And you'll see people doing a combination of one and two, depending on their budgets. The third way, and you'll start to see this now, people are talking to you about stuff that's beyond salary benchmarking because they value you as a source of intel and a signpost to great providers, influencers, experts, providers, solutions. So the third way is strategic partnerships. So if you want to get to accountants, if you can get close to people that already do business with accountants, you've got a chance. And that's what the Accounting Influencers Roundtable does. So we bring people together that serve accountants and they've all got lists of accountants, email list, databases, customer list, client list, communities, audiences, followings that are accountants. So if you do business with them and align yourselves with them, build a relationship with them, co-create content together, go on each other's shows, go to each other's events, there's that cross-fertilization where one person brings in a trusted advocate to their audience and then vice versa. So that is a good way to accelerate the penetration into the accounting market because you've got someone that already is trusted by the accountant and they're bringing somebody else that is valued and equally recommended, boom, you've got some acceleration of your goals. So a combination of those three is great. The Roundtable is mostly a UK group, but we do have some US members that love the international perspective and meeting people from all over and getting fresh ideas that maybe are happening well in other countries that can circumnavigate the same way everyone's doing it in the US for instance. And so that's why we run these international meetings, just to share these ideas and it's good, isn't it, to look over the garden wall and see what other people are growing or look in someone's bait box and say, well, what are you using, Dominic, to catch this fish? And even, dare I say, look in someone's medicine cabinet, what are you taking for this problem? What drug have you got in there that's solving this for you? So there is that curiosity, isn't there, of getting alongside other people that are trying to crack the same nut, get the ear of busy accountants, and that's why we're here. Rob, that was quite a segment. That was really, really informative, actually. I like the way that you have a whole structure around that and it's clear that you've written about this and spoken about this so many times because, yeah, the very, very clearly well-structured thoughts around how selling to accountants works and I couldn't agree more. And I wouldn't have thought it would be as difficult as it was until I started full-time out of business that does that because there's all kinds of things, right? Full shutdown for busy season. There's all these things that you don't necessarily expect and just how long it takes to get someone's trust and the levels of approval and all of that. This is an extremely difficult industry to operate in, which kind of makes me wonder, why did you choose accounting? Because you were doing business development coaching and things like that, so you could have gone into any field. So what drew you to accounting? What about it did you find special? Well, let me answer that question but come back on something else that needs saying here just to finish off that previous conversation, Dominic. One of the other problems with selling to accountants is marketing 101 tells you what is your avatar? What is your ICP? What is your ideal client profile? And good luck defining what an accountant is or good luck defining what accounting firm you want to get to because there are so many accountants and so many accounting firms and so many ways to describe an accounting firm. And if you describe it as a firm, who then within that firm is your ideal conversation that you want to have and how many times do we get to the wrong person in the right kind of firm? How many times do we get to wade through all the different hierarchies and org charts and things like that to get to the person you want? So if I said to people, who do you sell to and they say accounting firms, I said, what's your ideal sweet spot for a firm? And they'll say something like mid-tier firms, which you could break down in 50 different ways. Or they'll say owner managed firms or sole practitioners. Now you go to sole practitioners and there's thousands of them and they're all very, very different. And they'll have some commonalities, Dominic, you'll know, but there's a lot that differentiates them too in the way they set up their practice and the model and their approach and the niches that they're moving in. So that's a big problem is saying, what kind of business do I want to do with what kind of avatar? What kind of accountant? And until businesses and solutions really get a handle on that, it is very complex. And just to give you a feel for the market, there are more accounting firms and entities in the United Kingdom, but there are more accountants in the US. There are more accountants in the state of New York than there are in the whole of the United Kingdom. So you've got more accountants in less firms, which is crazy, isn't it? Yeah. And I think there's like a tragedy of the commons situation going on with like how people treat the nuances and differences in accounting firms, right, is because they try to push their product no matter what, even if it's a bad fit. And then when one comes along that is actually a good fit, you're like, whatever, you're the fifth, you know, spreadsheet vendor coming to me and this is completely irrelevant to what I do. And by that point, you're so fed up, you don't even want to hear it, right? And so, yeah, you know, anyone who's a vendor in this space, I would urge you to please do your research because the amount of outreach that I get for services for my accounting firm, because they've done, you know, less than 10 seconds of research is astounding. And you'd be surprised how many approaches I get of people thinking that I am an accounting firm. I don't know, I don't even respond anymore, but I used to say, do your homework, you'll see that I'm not a CPA firm. I'm not even a qualified CPA, I'm part qualified. I took a degree and came out after a year, so I have a diploma in accounting. So I'm not quite qualified. But you asked me the question, why accounting? There is a story behind this. In 2016, I had a stroke, a brain hemorrhage, which was very unexpected. And it obviously, it knocks your whole world on its edge. Now I'm out of it. Now I came out the other side, but I have some vision problems. I don't, I'm not allowed to drive. I take medication for epilepsy. You might not know it looking at me, but I do have some issues and I had to recalibrate my whole business. Back then I had an accounting firm in the UK, a big firm that was very loyal to me throughout my rehab. At that point I had to say no to a lot of things because I didn't have the energy, the bandwidth, the focus to keep going after bankers and accounts and lawyers and engineers and architects and super smart consultants that were in need of my services. So I think it's a Robert Maxwell quote. He says, say no to the good so you can say yes to the great. So I went all out for accountants and that's actually when I started my podcast, maybe 2017, 2018, because I wanted to be more well known in the space. I had some clients, but there were so many people I didn't know, particularly in North America. So I started a show and started to interview them to find out what they were doing, what their message was. I became more well known and to the point where I became the, the influencer of influences, if you like, because I'm talking to all of these cool people and finding out what they know and learning so much myself. And you do that a lot with your show. I know what a great learner you are and how you're always taking notes and taking on new ideas. So that was why accounting and it's a fascinating game. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And, and I wanted to ask you like, how has the podcast, you know, shaped your career and business progression? Because yeah, for me, like, you know, when I set out, I was like, ah, I'm going to meet all these great people and they're going to sign up for the product. And then, you know, I think I've done zero direct conversions from podcast guests to actual sales because it was really just like, oh my God, I'm learning so much from these people. Hey, I actually really like these people. And then, yeah, you do get some kind of second stream, you know, second order impact benefits from it, where maybe someone heard an episode and now is interested in finding out more. But like, ultimately it became about way more than that. It became like, you know, these are people that I are really like near and dear to me now. And I, I actually genuinely want to know how things are going for them. And so for me, like it's definitely shaped my career in the sense of I've learned a lot about the industry. You know, I came from big four. I was in a complete silo. You don't, you have no idea what's going on in the outside world. So I learned a lot about the industry, but then I also just kind of like met some tremendous people who like I would kind of consider friends at this point. And so I'm curious to know from like a 10 year perspective, what does that turn into? Because for me, like that's all happened in, you know, 60 weeks. So. Well, as you were asking the question, I thought about the three ways you make money from a podcast. I've got an episode coming up on my own show about what's the different kind of podcasts out there, because there are a few different ones all doing amazing things. And do I still have you here? Okay. And, uh, the first way to make money from a podcast is to sell a product or service. You're kind of doing that on the back of this in that you've got your salary benchmark and stuff, and you're trying to increase people's awareness of that. And if you can sell a product to service, then that pays for your podcast. Cause it takes, you know, it takes a lot of time and energy and effort and resources to not just record it and schedule it and scope it out, but to edit it and create something meaningful from it. So selling a product to service is good. Selling sponsorship is another method. If you've got a big enough audience of relevant people, then people will pay for ads and mentions to get in front of that audience. The third way to do it is if you sell guest spots, uh, some shows do this. We do it occasionally on our show where, because we're overwhelmed by guest requests, we will charge them at least just to break even on the editing of our show. The fourth thing, which you might be doing, it's not a money making thing, but it's, it's just using it as a tool to build awareness, uh, to market, to talk to interesting people, to build out your network, that's a really valid reason to do a podcast as well. And if you're interested in something, you've got a, um, you've got a ready-made vehicle there to talk to anybody. Oh, and that's how I started out. Yeah. I just wanted to get to interesting people. Back then when a podcast was novel, I could say, Hey, do you want to be on the show? I actually called it a radio show back in the day. Do you want to be on our radio show? And it sounded glamorous. It's a little bit tricky now, but you know, with a podcast, it takes energy. It takes effort. You've got to be really intentional. You've done a lot of episodes now. What is it? More than 60, Dom? Yeah, I think this will be 64, 65. Yeah. And you'll be aware of the phenomenon of pod fade because 80% of podcasts don't get past 12 episodes. Yeah. So people start with the best of intentions. However, they do not have the bandwidth or the energy, the longevity to keep it going. So, uh, you are one of the rare ones. We keep a list of podcasts in the accounting finance tech space, and we have two tabs on it, it's a spreadsheet. It's not in the public domain again. And we have active and dormant podcasts and there are more dormant shows in this space, more than a hundred that have started and failed, then there are current podcasts that are still going. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so like everyone I know who's had a long running podcast basically says that they're doing it for some reason other than I want to grow a podcast that is big and influential, right? Like for me, again, I need to meet some people. Oh, damn. I find this really interesting. Like for me, who knows, like a second chapter in business might be operating an accounting firm. Like I've almost sold myself on that idea just by doing all these interviews. Right. And so at this point it becomes like my own hunger for education. And then I have this beautiful key that can give me access to almost every, you know, almost anybody I want, which is unbelievable. And so almost everyone I hear has some mindset around why they want to do the podcasting that is independent of listenership. Because it is like, it's such a slog. Like I got lucky on a couple early episodes that really like boosted my audience. And then I also at the same time had some built-in audience from the newsletter and the website and all that. But, um, so you kind of started on second base on that front, but like I'm on a three month plateau of like no growth. Like it's just been completely even. And like, if I was just doing this for, for podcast listener growth, like I would probably quit. Right. So you kind of need to have some other reason and otherwise you're probably just making a bunch of noise, not necessarily, you know, that's not necessary. If you're just trying to do an episode to do an episode. Well, you do it because you enjoy the conversation. So your show's predominantly interview based. I do a few solo episodes. Uh, I'm passionate about helping accountants be more influential and relevant and informed in their role. Hence accounting influences podcast. It's not a technical show. And we don't talk about IR 35s or the IRS or anything else like that and spreadsheets, but we do talk about private equity or people or technology and AI and, and then inform the leaders, the professionals, here's what you need to know to be a better professional and to be more relevant and authoritative and have more of a voice in your firm. So I'm passionate about that. And I enjoy doing the solo episodes. Now, would I enjoy them if nobody listened? Maybe. It's a bit demoralizing if nobody listens, but even if you get a hundred, couple of hundred people listening to a show, then there's something satisfying in that if you can bankroll it, cause it costs maybe $500, $1,000 a month to put on a show and you'll know that these days more podcasts are sourced and consumed on YouTube than any other platform. So it's moved more than Spotify, more than Apple. So he's moved from an audio delivery to a video delivery and video is the currency for attention, particularly in the, in the under forties. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, I thank you very much for your time, Rob. I think you've shared some wonderful, wonderful wisdom. You know, hopefully we as an overall ecosystem can take some notes and do a little bit better, both in terms of, uh, you know, how influencers and vendors are playing the game, but as well as people who, you know, maybe should be stepping into a seat of influence and just haven't, uh, haven't been bold enough to do so. So, uh, I'll make sure I link your podcast. I've, I, you know, what, what, uh, prompted the outreach is that I kind of got into some of your recent episodes and I was like, Oh my God, I actually didn't know initially that you had a podcast. I thought you did the round tables exclusively and, uh, I've, I've really enjoyed the episode. So I'm going to make sure that I link those, um, you know, someone who's been in the game for quite a while and has quite an evolved perspective on things. So, um, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on Rob. It's, it's been an honor and I look forward to seeing you at a round table soon. The pleasure has been mutual, Dominic. It's been a lovely conversation. I appreciate you shining a light on what I'm doing and in return, uh, let's keep shining a light on the wonderful stuff you're doing. So good luck with the show.