Chasing $100M as a Sole Equity Partner with Robert Gauvreau

Hello, and welcome to the Big Four Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Robert Gouvreau, founder and CEO of Gouvreau Accounting, Tax, Law, and Advisory. Welcome to the pod, Robert. Hey, how are you? I'm great. I'm really happy to be talking to you. We had a little chat before this, but I came across your profile, someone mentioned you and they were like, oh yeah, this firm's doing so well based out of Toronto. And it was just one of those things, I couldn't believe that I wasn't already following everything you were up to. And so I'm really happy to be on board now. Well, 100%. Well, and thank you for reaching out. And maybe one of the reasons, we didn't really chat about this, but we're actually not in Toronto, we're in Peterborough. Which is pretty much off everybody's radar, right? And everywhere we go, they say, where are you from? We say Toronto, because it's an easier, more recognizable location. So we do get looped in there, but probably to off the radar a little bit in Peterborough, Ontario, where our head office is. Right, right. Yeah. When people look at me like glassy eyed, when I mentioned Ottawa, I go, like near Toronto kind of. And then they're like, oh, okay, okay. Oh, you know the capital of the country? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, nobody knows about us. So. So to kick things off, something really interesting about yourself that I wanted to dive into first. So you're at a firm doing about $20 million in revenue, but you're the sole owner from an equity perspective. Is that right? That is true. Interesting. How, like, was that like a very conscious decision of like, we're only going to do like principals or income partners? Or is that just sort of, you know, happened circumstantially? Like I'm curious to understand some of the like rationale and the planning behind that. Yeah. So honestly, it was very, very deliberate. And it was from day one. For a few reasons. One, I think the old model is broken. When I was articling and got my CPA working with not one of the big four, but one of the larger global firms, you know, when they were talking about partnership and what that would look like and the time frame, you know, I was pretty successful when I was young and I was ambitious, of course. And, you know, I looked at that and said, are these the partners that I want to be partnered with? Do I not get to, is business not about choosing who those people are and, you know, how you contribute and how you work together? And so when I left and started my own firm, it was very conscious that I would never take on an equity partner. Not that I don't love my partners. I have the greatest partners that are in business and they come in with a salary. We share the wins together. But here's the thing I know about accountants is that we're very, very conservative in nature. When you get multiple people who are focused on the conservative side versus the optimistic future growth oriented side, because we all get down there and it's really hard to align. When that's all we're focusing on, the answer is going to be no, no, no, no. And we're going to be in an industry that has zero growth. Shocking. That's sort of where we're at, right? And so I decided right out of the gates, yep, we're going to bring partners on. We're going to compensate them. They're going to be the highest income earning partners in our area. They're going to be extremely successful, but they have zero risk from a debt perspective, from a working capital perspective. They're going to help with the operations, they're going to be included, but that there's no downside for them. And yes, when I eventually exit from this, when I'm old and gray, I'm going to get a nice little check, but they're also going to participate in that on the positive side versus the negative side. So that was very, very intentional. And I think that is the way that even the bigger firms are starting to look at now is more so non-equity partners, more so income-related partners, and how that model can help support people being successful and mitigate the downside. Mm-hmm. Well, that's interesting because a lot of the conversations I've had around equity partnership at these huge places, people say, right, it's like, yeah, you're an equity partner, but you are just basically an employee because you're one of thousands of equity partners maybe or something like that. And ultimately, you're not driving the bold decision-making and Alan Colton wrote an article about that, the problems with the partnership model that I think make a lot of sense where you then end up with so many people involved that there's no bold decision-making, there's no real strong leadership bringing forward new ideas, pushing the firm forward. So I think that's a great answer. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think one of the things being a $20 million firm, which is from zero up, the reason that we've been able to grow is that we focus on that and we're very entrepreneurial. We can make decisions fast because I don't need a unanimous signed agreement every time we make a decision. We can hop on a call and say, hey, do we feel like this is an opportunity we should pursue? They're totally focused on the positive sides of it. We bring in the, hey, let's have a discussion about why this wouldn't work. Great. Decision made. We don't have to have a vote. It's an open dialogue, consensus decision on making them. But we act very entrepreneurial and that's part of the intention too. Our goal is to be a $100 million firm here in the next five years, which we will accomplish. But we want to be able to make quick decisions to capitalize on opportunities. Just thinking of the traditional model, before we started solidifying that this was the way that we were going to do it, we were looking at all the models, right? We were looking at the national firms, maybe not so much the big four because there's so many people there. But looking at the national firms that had smaller offices and saying, how are they doing things? Sometimes they were pinned against each other because it was almost like a profit share in the office. I know one of the global firms, there were three partners and they had to submit to another office that was doing a review on how the income should be allocated to each partner on a profit sharing standpoint, which I thought was ridiculous. And then there was another firm locally, a larger firm, that they did have equity partners in there, but they were equity at like $250,000. So that was more like the golden handcuff to say, hey, you're going to pay us $250,000. We're going to get you in here. And then you'll just never leave because you're concerned about your $250,000, which is relatively nothing in the grand scheme of our careers. So again, it wasn't like we just blatantly said, this is our model. That's it. We've constantly looked at it. And I'll continue to look at it and use references like Alan to say, what is the best model going forward? Is there a new, better way? Then we'll adapt to it. Mm-hmm. So you mentioned scaling, the goal being to scale to 100 million. Was that the goal when you started this? And did you start this as just like a sole practitioner? I did start this as a sole practitioner. In 2008, I made the leap. We had this retiring couple. They were doing some bookkeeping. They had maybe 40-ish business clients that they were doing year ends for. And so I jumped in and I was like, okay, we can update this. I'm a CPA with experience and knowledge and definitely committed to being the most advanced in knowledge and implementation. So I jumped in there and at that point, it was just survival mode. Not so much trying to build a $100 million company. And so at that point, and now it was really hard actually, the first couple of years to get things rolling. And I think we were talking about this before, I was a business development guy too. I was really good at the shaking hands, connecting with people. But it took a really long time for those relationships to come to fruition. Because we know in the accounting world, we sign a client now, we might not generate any revenue for 18 months, depending on their cycle. So back then, it was really just to build a firm where I could generate a nice enough income to feel happy about it and make a difference. And maybe innovate the space a little bit and have a real great client focus. And so as we evolved, again, we're year 17 right now. So I would say about year 10, we were probably still in that $2 to $3 million range. It was hard to get there. And then we started talking about what $10 million in revenue would look like 10 years out. And we chatted too about operating systems and looking at different areas like that and when they should be implemented. And this was really when we started to look at EOS as our first operating system back then to say, what's our 10-year plan? What's our 10-year goals? And how do we start building this out? And even recently, some of my team who are my partners, actually, at this point, said when we were having that discussion back when we were $2 million, they thought $10 million was almost unachievable at that point. And now that we talk about $100 million, I say, well, does this seem unachievable? And one, Patrick, my longest standing partner, says, well, yeah, it seems unachievable. But you do everything that you say we're going to do. So I believe it. I just can't believe it. So it's a little different. It's definitely been an entrepreneurial run. And it's been a lot of fun. Yeah. So you mentioned being stuck a little bit at the kind of like $2 to $3 million or that being particularly hard. And I hear that a lot. What do you think changed after that, that unlocked growth? Because it seems like it was a long time to get to $2 to $3 million. And then from $2 to $3 to $20 seems like it wasn't too long of a slog, right? Yeah. And I think for anybody who's in that sort of part of their journey, reading books about people who have had the growth stories, everybody had that sort of challenge. In fact, I was just down in LA speaking at an event and the founder of Ugg Boots was there. And he was talking about the struggles in the first 10 years of Ugg Boots. And him sharing his revenue numbers were unbelievable. 10 years was like $2 million. That's what he got to. And he ended up selling Ugg Boots for $16 million, which is unbelievable being a multi-billion dollar brand. And anyway, what a fantastic story. So looking at all the stories, the most challenging part is getting that revenue up and running and being able to scale it. And one of my... I think our greatest challenge and we have 2,500 clients across North America too. A lot of their challenges is you're doing a lot of the work early on. You've got your sleeves rolled up, you're working hard, you're getting everything done. And then it's the investment in building the team. You're getting rolling, you're working hard, you're maybe making some good money. You have to make a conscious decision to reinvest that money back into building a team. And it becomes a little scary, especially if that income has become your lifestyle. And now you can't go backwards. So it's really, really challenging. And so what we did is we doubled down on building team. And at that scale, you're not being able to bring in the 20-year veteran who's the top in the industry, which we have now. But at that time, it was, okay, how do we get the three, four years experience people to come in and start to be able to build this out? They can work independently. Let's build them as professionals. And it just takes time. It takes a lot of time, because you can't go from zero to 100. And it takes a lot of cash resources, because we're a non-asset industry. We're intangible assets. We're not getting a lot of funding to help support hiring growth. So it's a challenge. Once you get past that, and once you start scaling out your team, then you start upleveling your team members, different industry experts. We've got one of the top tax practitioners in the country who was a national director at one of the big guys, who's now working with us because it was the right culture and the right fit. Those are the guys, the talent that we can go after now. At $2 million, I couldn't afford these guys. Yeah. So really, it's one of those things. You've got to reinvest heavy in people. You probably have to start thinking about an operating and accountability system, because things are going to start getting a little bit out of control quickly. And you still have to have your sleeves rolled up and really be investing in yourself and becoming a leader. Because if you can't figure out how to lead a $10 million business, when you're at two, you're never going to get there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you talk a lot about the need to be very intentional about reinvesting into the right talent. And I imagine that's probably a lot easier to do, right? As the sole equity owner, because we talk about this conflict a lot. If you have some old partners near retirement, they might say, no, no, we need to optimize for partner draws this year. We need to optimize for partnership distributions. Whereas you can really just put your foot down, go, no, I'm going to pay out whatever it is, 5% of the bottom line, and then the rest is all going to go back into growth. And because you hold the equity, and ultimately, you can liquidate that when you're done with your career, whatever type of format that might come in, you're then incentivized to really make those calls and reinvest. Plus, you're young while you're doing this, right? Thank you. Or at least you look very young. Thank you. And so you really have that proper incentive alignment to chase that real growth. So that's interesting. For sure. But let me say this, though. It doesn't get easier from the reinvestment standpoint. So if you're going from $2 million, and let's say that you're growing at 30%, that's half a million, $600,000 of growth. It's not that substantial, but you've got to reinvest that. We're at about a 30% plus growth in 2024, organically. Congrats. Thank you. It's a lot of, again, intentional, deliberate, structured growth, which is fantastic. But reinvesting at this level for people... We created, I think, seven new positions that didn't exist before at higher levels in 2024, which was millions of dollars. So to reinvest in the people ahead of time to keep up with the growth and the more sophisticated services, it is a massive reinvestment. And it doesn't become easier, especially if you want to keep that 30% growth track, which we do. Yeah. Because our goal is, and why I started this, was really to help business owners have the financial confidence to make important decisions so that they can really change the world. I think of the salon owner who is... People go in, they've got their hats on, they come out with a big smile, they're standing a little bit more proud. They're creating confidence and happiness in everybody that comes out of that store. And we're indirectly supporting them to help more people. That means everything to me as the founder and really means a lot to everyone that we're working with. I have this need to continue to reinvest because I feel like I'm letting everybody down if I'm not helping more people. So it doesn't get easier with the cash contributions though. And you would never be able to do this if I had everybody trying to make that same decision. To your point, different people are at different stages. People are growing families, they're buying homes, they need a little bit more cash. I can say, no, this is all going back in. And I'll work with the banks, I'll sign the guarantees, I'll do whatever needs to happen so we can continue to fulfill our mission. But I don't have to worry about the downside of everybody else. When you talk about the mission, this is a bit of a sidebar. But when you talk about the mission, I love your framing of the mission of like, imagine me as your personal trainer, helping you get that six pack. But in this circumstance, I'm the one doing the working out and you get the six pack. I really like that. That's a cool one. So I got to give kudos to my guy, Dean Jackson, who is an incredible marketing, brilliant mind. Definitely anybody listening, check him out. He's yeah, he's just he's absolutely brilliant. We were at a table one time and we were talking about how to differentiate it and he goes, you know what you are? You really are the gym trainer. Although your clients don't have to do the workout, you're just doing the workout for them and giving them the six pack. And I was like, I'm using that. That's brilliant. Yeah, that's that's an incredible framing of it. I love that. Pardon me. So as we talk about scaling here, obviously, your role has to change, right? You started as a sole practitioner. And then like at a certain point in that scaling, that's not going to make sense anymore. And you mentioned, you know, making some of those transitions a little late. So like at what point or or if it's still in process, like at what point have you changed from being like the expert to becoming right, like the CEO or to use EOS terms, the visionary or whatever that might be, right, the person in charge of actually just operating the firm working on the business, not in it. Right. Yeah, that is a tough transition. So I you know, we just kind of chatted about this offline. And I said that was maybe one of the hardest ego bursting sort of transitions for someone who prides themselves in being a top level expert to now giving that up to other people, which is great. You know, I'm more proud that I can build more of those people. But watching my skills diminish because I'm not practicing as much and watching other people surpass me and intentionally letting that happen is tough because we... So much of our foundation in our career is based on that advice and, well, here's the newest thing. Here's the newest tax plan for you. Here's the newest advice on how to help you become more successful. And I do more so the mentorship and the business strategy side, still, because that's what I do. And I just share it with everybody. But yeah, watching that transition happen has been a challenge. And I would say 2024 was a huge year for that for me. Every year, we have our team come in to Peterborough, large, big city of Peterborough, and we fly them in because we've got team members all across Canada. We fly them in and we have a two-day planning session. And it's my biggest presentation. I think I did 44 presentations and talks this year on stages, which is a lot. And this is my biggest presentation of the year, which is regrouping everybody, making sure everybody's aligned, getting them excited about why we do what we do, and then helping build the vision out. And I remember at the start of 2024, knowing that we were approaching this momentum building growth that just is happening with consistency, going, am I the leader that they need me to be to get them to the next level? And I didn't know the answer would be yes. But I said, I'm going to damn well try. And I'll die doing it if I have to. And so completely invested in becoming the leader of a business. Not necessarily a CPA firm, but what is it that the best leaders in the world are doing to help lead their team to success? And I focused on that. I spent a lot of money on coaching and programs and guidance and reading a lot, hundreds of books this year, which is great, but it's something that has to happen. And if you want to get to a level, $20 million is no joke. If the wind blows out of the West, it could be a bad day. It's just when you get to that level, but you need to become the leader of the $20 million firm before you get there. And that's, I'm working on becoming the leader of the $100 million firm right now. And wherever you're at, you need to know where you want to get to and you have to become that leader now in order to bring your team with you. Nice. So you mentioned coaching, what are you doing in terms of that to get ready? Because there's so many communities out there as well for like firm operators and ones of different size, right? So like Brandon Hall, friend of the pod slash now, I guess, part owner of Big 4 Transparency, he is starting this community for very, very ambitious firm operators. And then there's kind of these other ones which are meant for like starting up and things like that. Were you part of any of these communities or you really did more kind of like executive coaching type of stuff? Yeah. And it's interesting. I had a podcast yesterday. I have a podcast called The Wealthy Entrepreneur. Make sure that you check it out. But I was talking about this yesterday. And I feel like every different stage of your career and your development is going to require a different skill set. And for me, this was my experience. So to each their own. Early on, I had a coach that was specific in building an accounting firm. His name was Rob Nixon. He is one of the best in the world. Rob is a very dear friend. He's got a firm called Profitable Partners. They're out of Australia. Highly recommend him. He's got years of experience. And I would contribute a lot of my early success in getting the business built. Not the accounting, but getting the business built to be successful was related to him. Whoever it is that you're working with, friends of the podcast, not friends of the podcast, whatever it is, you've got to find the right fit for you at the right time. And then beyond that, I went, okay, there's not too many CPA firms that are building multi-million dollar CPA firms. There's a lot of capping that happens at the $3, $4, $5 million level. So who's the $10 million coach? Forget about accounting now. Because if you're talking about building a $10 or $20 million accounting firm, there's no coaches out there that talk to you about that because it doesn't really exist. Who's the business coach that can help you get there? So I've had multiple mentors and coaches. I'm actually just looking at the next level coach for me right now for 2025. These investments get crazier and crazier, by the way, as well, but they're worth every single penny. So yeah, continuing to find the coach for the right period of time, and you will likely grow out of them. When you achieve what they're teaching you, and what they've done and accomplished, then you find the next level and you carry on and you are very grateful. Like Rob Nixon helped so many accounting firm partners become financially successful. But he self-admittedly was like, yeah, you're beyond my program. So let's stay friends, but you need to go find... And he actually helped bring me into a couple other communities as well with high performers. So again, yeah, finding the right community, the right coach, the right person who's done what you want to do, and getting them to help you get there fast is super important. Yeah, coaching is underrated. And I think it gets diluted a lot by all these coaches who are not so good. Yes. It's funny to make the comparison. But back in the day, when I was working at Deloitte, actually, I was DJing on the side. And I was like, oh, this is such a problem in the DJ industry. So many people call themselves a DJ and they don't actually know what they're doing. And so people lose faith in that. And I feel like coaching is another thing that's really been hit hard by that. And these days, maybe virtual CFOs are starting to get hit by that too. Where that title starts to lose its name because so many people are claiming to be that it becomes really, really hard to dig through. And my coach is not at all in the CPA space. He runs an engineering agency, a tech agency, and he's been tremendous. And a lot of those concepts do carry over, which makes a lot of sense. For sure. I know my wife. My wife, we were watching. And so I had the privilege to work with Tony Robbins for a few years. Oh, cool. So he has his business mastery events. He has his global accounting advisors. I was the global accounting advisor group for Canada. that worked with Tony for 3 or 4 years. It was a fantastic experience. But I remember my wife... I know he's got his Netflix show documentary and whatnot. But there was another show that came on. It was talking about scams. And it was all about coaches who are scamming people. And her and I had this conversation where she was like, what a scam. This entire industry is a scam. It's illegitimate. I'm like, I coach people. She's like, yeah, well, but you know what? So are you wanting to be part of this scam industry? And I'm like, it's not. It really isn't. Yeah. But to your point, there's been a lot of... We always say this, it's the bad apples. They make the rest of the batch look bad. But coaching is such a powerful space when you find the right people who aren't putting selfies out there in front of exotic cars and private jets that they've never been part of. They've never earned... There's a lot of coaches out there that are extremely successful and they want to share and mentor the next generation. And it's overshadowed by a lot of the fluff. So I'm with you. Yeah. So changing gears a little bit, something really unique about your firm I wanted to make sure we touch on is that you do law as well as the full suite of accounting. And I find that really interesting. So I've spoken to a number of people who do wealth advisory plus accounting firm. And I find that that's really interesting. It's like this higher margin work. You're already investing in the relationship, so why not have this other thing where you can earn way more on the hours that are being invested based off of that trust. But law, I think, brings a little bit of a different spin. And I'm curious for your take on this. But to me, I feel like a concern for a lot of these mid-market type firms is that your client base might one day graduate to a big four or whatever. So you kind of keep losing those crown jewel clients. And this is a concern that I've heard from a big four partner who had considered leaving doing their own thing. And I think law might be a little bit of an unlock to maybe make it so that they don't need to graduate. They can get all those services in one place. Has that been the case for you? And thank you for essentially justifying why I did it. Okay. But ultimately, so our... A bit of background about our firm, we specifically just focus on the SME community. So we've circled them, we feel, with a lot of the services that they need so that they don't need to go somewhere else. Bookkeeping. Obviously, their financial reporting. We've got a boutique tax group with cross-border and Canadian in-depth. We've got valuations. We've got fractional CFO services that may or may not be diluted in the market, but we offer that. Because I feel like if you don't offer it, they'll go somewhere else that does that offers everything else. And then same with the law firm. There were two main reasons why we decided to register as a multidisciplinary firm in Ontario. So our law firm is very Ontario specific. Law Society rules a little bit different than tax filing rules, specifically. But in this case, we had a lot of clients and maybe an undersupplied legal community, where we went, okay, we're constantly waiting, and our clients aren't a priority versus their own existing clients. How can we help support them get what they need faster? So the first one was, let's bring in legal so that we can make sure that they're getting the advice they need in conjunction with tax. Second is looking at this professional ego issue that's out there. And it is wealth managers, it's CPAs, and it's lawyers, where everybody comes in is like, no, I'm the expert. I'm the expert. And there's competing interests sometimes when it should always be in the best interest of the client. And so we brought the law firm in to say, this is a very collaborative, client-focused, there's no ego on who's better. It's how do we collaboratively work for the clients? And then the last would be, yes, if they go somewhere else that offers legal and accounting as a one-stop shop or a family office, we're looking at some of our high net worth people wanting to transition somewhere else. And so we said, no, we're going to bring these services to you instead of you looking to find them elsewhere. And it's worked really well. I got to tell you, building a law firm is harder than building an accounting firm. Interesting. And that's even with all of the referrals internally of legal work. But legal doesn't have that same reoccurring revenue model as a bookkeeping, a tax, personal tax, and annual tax compliance and financial reporting. So it's slightly different. You focus on the minute book updates, which is huge. Every client needs to go get their minute book updated. Where are they going? Well, they're going to somebody else. And now you've got to have ongoing correspondence. If you bring it into one spot, it makes it easier or it should be. So yeah, that was our intention. And thank you for foreshadowing why we would do it. And it's true though. And it works. Yeah. And so this is corporate law. Do you have tax law as well, or it's specifically corporate law? Yeah. So with our experienced tax experts as well, and a corporate lawyer, the collaboration between the two gets that done. So not specific tax lawyers, but corporate lawyers. So the tax team is more so taking on that significant tax expertise component and the corporate lawyers documenting some of that. So from a legal standpoint, we focus again on the small business owner's needs. We've got tax planning, so corporate restructuring. We've got corporate formation. We've got real estate transactions, wills and estates, and shareholder agreements, contracts. So it's really no family law, no litigation, but let's keep it tight so that anything a business owner would need, we can likely support them or have a good relationship with somebody else that we can refer them out to. That's awesome. I find the corporate law scape a little bit awful here. I needed a bunch of help and I had to change people halfway through and then it was a whole ordeal. So that's good to know. I might be hitting your email at some point, maybe rather soon, which is good to know. 100%. Well, and hey, it can all be done in one spot. Exactly. Yeah. No, that's a tremendous value prop. I'm a little bit conscious of time here. I don't want to run too far over, but one thing I'm really, really curious about, and I've been curious about my whole career as a CPA so far, is the FCPA designation. So I don't know if that's a thing in the US, but in Canada here, it's a fellow CPA. So you get recognized for essentially above and beyond contributions to the profession. I'm curious to hear the story of what you think made the difference for you to be able to get that designation and then what that designation means, both personally, but also practically. Has it unlocked a lot of things for you or what does that look like? I wish I could... So the last part, I wish I could answer that it would be more, but not that many people really know. When I put that I'm an FCPA, a lot of people don't understand what it means. And that's okay. It wasn't for business development purposes or anything like that. Really, it's a recognition that, for me, meant a lot. Because essentially, the FCPA, the fellowship is more or less like a lifetime achievement award. You're being recognized as someone who's had a distinctive impact on the profession. And for me, this has just been part of my nature from being a younger person. I've gone and I've worked with young CPAs across the country, specifically with CPA Ontario. I've done a lot of events with them helping mentor their young next generation. I've done a lot of speaking with them. I've been the CEO in residence at Trent University, which is our local university, contributing to the success of students, and the recruitment of people into the profession. Obviously, building a $20 million CPA firm, as well. Helps. Growing it. Yeah, there's that part. So somewhat innovating the space that it... I wouldn't say that we're completely niche-specific in the CPA world, but we're very much small business, small to medium sized business owner specific with a few very specialized niches like law firms, other professionals, contractors, and then, obviously, the rest of the small business community. So we have had an impact in those specific areas as well. And when we got the call that I was nominated, and that I was actually being received in the fellowship, it was actually a little bit of an emotional time as that recognition because as much as I'm active in the community and contributing to large magazines as a writer, I've got a book and that stuff. It's not for attention. This is a very intentional business plan of continuing to make progress. But the FCPA was... It was a recognition that they gave me that I didn't need, but really appreciated. Yeah. I remember going to the event and everybody was in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And I was in my 30s at the time. And I remember going into the event and standing up. It was alphabetical and they were trying to put everybody in and they're like, Oh, sorry. What are you looking for? I was like, I'm supposed to be in this line. And they said, No. What line do you think this is? I'm like, it's for the fellowship people going up on stage, shaking the hands of the president of CPA Ontario, getting your FCPA, your photo, and you walk off the stage. It's very formal, very quick. And they're like, we're not used to seeing people younger in this line. And that meant a little bit more as embarrassing as it was for that moment. But really, again, it was for me to say, we appreciate everything that you contribute. Um, even though it's not a very loud statement, it was just something that recognized my contributions to the professional for me personally, and it meant the world. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to hear that it's not as like widely recognized because again, for some added context, uh, for those who aren't familiar, like I know probably two other FCPAs and like, they probably both wear bifocals, you know, like it's not, it's not something that's tossed around lightly. So, uh, yeah. Congratulations on that. That's huge. Well, thank you. And, you know, again, because a lot of people don't know what the FCPA means when I meet, I've worked in the contractor space. Again, that's one of our niches and we get a lot of characters in that space and you can just imagine what they think the F stands for, but it's not, not failed, but you know, other names that you might be referred to as so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it's interesting that nobody really has a concept for what that is, but again, it's something that I wear with pride and just saw my email signature and that's pretty much all I talk about it, but, uh, something I'm very proud of. Cool. Well, uh, yeah. Thank you so much for joining me on the pod, Rob. There's a, uh, uh, you know, a few other topics that I would love to dig into, but in the interest of time, maybe we might keep those for a follow-up episode or something at some point. Sounds great. No, this has been a lot of fun. Love being able to even share my insights with the CPA profession and other practitioners, uh, for anyone, if I can help in any way, feel free to reach out. Awesome. And I'll make sure I link your podcast, uh, book, and then I'll have your kind of social media profiles as well for anyone looking to get in touch. Thank you so much, Robert. Excellent. Thank you.