Resilience & Rebuilding it Right with Randy Crabtree

Hello, and welcome to the Big 4 Transparency Podcast. Today we are joined by Randy Crabtree, co-founder of Trimerit, a specialty tax firm specializing in tax credits, and the host of the Unique CPA Podcast. Welcome along, Randy. Tom, thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to having a great discussion today. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we've spoken in the past a little bit, and I actually got to meet you at the Accounting Influencers Roundtable, where at the time I wasn't actually familiar with you. So I'm starting to get to know a lot of these people, and everyone was kind of hushing, oh, Randy's in the room, Randy's in the room. So, you know, something of an industry legend. So it's an honor having you on here, I really, really appreciate it. Well, I don't know about the legend part, but it's an honor for me to be on here. So thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. So I mentioned in the intro that you are the co-founder of Trimerit, and we've interviewed a number of firm owners on here already. What's very unique with you is that Trimerit is actually not your first rodeo. Can you walk us through kind of that whole journey with your previous firm, and how you end up starting one firm and then now running the next one and having that also be hugely successful? Yeah, sure. Let me give you just a little bit of like entrepreneurial journey in general, I think. And I'll do this fast, because it started at age 16. So I think when you're an entrepreneur, it just somehow comes into you early. And I didn't even realize that I had that passion. But at age 16, I started a window washing company, and that really just got me to a point where I was like, okay, I kind of like this, being able to work for myself, being the decision maker. Now, as we go down the journey, you'll realize that I'm not always the best decision maker. And it took me a long time to realize someone else should be making decisions, but did that. But then, yeah, I started my first accounting firm or my accounting firm back in 1991, I'm pretty sure is the year. I actually graduated with a computer science degree and was out doing that for a year, decided that the money was in sales, went to do that for a year, and it was awful at it. I learned, but I was awful at it. And that's not an understatement, it was awful. And then had the bright idea that, hey, I had one accounting class undergrad, I really liked it, I just decided, boom, I'm going to quit my job, I'm going to go back to school full-time, I'm going to get enough hours to take the CPA exam, I'm going to become a CPA. And four years after I do that, I'm going to start my own firm. So this whole plan came into my mind driving down North Avenue in Chicago, like instantly. And so I did that, three and a half years after I started working for someone else, I started my own firm. And I'm not really normally a goal setter, I just am a doer, I see opportunity and I do it. This one was, okay, I need some experience. So I started that firm, I don't know how deep you want me to go, but bottom line, we were a generalist firm, we were helping everybody, honestly, looking back, realizing that I was really no expert in any industry, but I was trying to help every industry and that was something that came into play later on when we started TriMerit. So I did that, was also in 2003, started a real estate development firm and a construction firm and we were doing, we had about $220 million of projects underway, about 90 million of it under construction. And beginning of 2006, I sold the accounting firm because I couldn't deal with both, it was just too much. And the risk and the reward were both higher in real estate development, so I thought that's where I better spend my time. Did that, six months later, after I sold the accounting firm, my partner and I couldn't get along in real estate development, that's a learning curve too. And we decided to part ways and then I was jobless. Took some time off and then in 07, I realized I needed to do something and R&D tax credits just kind of found me and saw an opportunity and so we started TriMerit, which is a specialty tax consulting firm. We deal with all kinds of credits and incentives. We've been in business now almost 17 years, a couple of brags. The last two years, we've been listed in Inc. Magazines, 5,000 fastest growing privately held companies in the US and it's, I think, the model that we chose to do that, working directly with tax advisors to go to their clients. So that's, sorry, probably the long version of my journey to where I am today and thanks for asking that. Yeah, well, it's good that listeners can get a little bit of an overview of your journey because some of the questions are going to make a little bit more sense knowing everything they know. Just hearing the founding of TriMerit being, I just needed something to do to what it is today. This tremendous high growth firm, being recognized as absolutely a kind of specialist within your field is pretty incredible as an outcome of, I just needed something to do, right? I think I maybe would have tried wine tasting or something like that, but hey, each their own. That's awesome. It doesn't pay as much. It's fun, but it doesn't pay as much. And speaking of that, I currently am in wine country. That's why my background, this Airbnb I'm in, there's a lot of wine things in the back. Yeah. Yeah. That really works out as like, you know, a champion for mental health in the accounting industry and just make sure you take time to relax. We're kind of about to go into busy season for many and taking some time for yourself. So I'm happy to see that. So a lot of kind of when you left that first accounting firm, mind there's things that kind of coincided with some health concerns on your end. And that was sort of the catalyst to make some changes in your life. But in addition to that, were things already kind of ramping up in a difficult way and you just maybe hadn't noticed it yet? Like, were there like structural issues with the way you were running that firm at the time that you've now kind of resolved for TriMerit? Yeah, it was. So when I started Crabtree and Associates, which it turned into Crabtree Anderson, eventually brought in a partner. It was a way too tax heavy of a firm. One thing. That was an issue. It was way too 1040 heavy probably as well. And I personally had an issue with I needed to look at everything. I needed to see everything. I needed to review everything. And that just limited what we could do. And that took me a long time to even get rid of that mindset. Even after starting TriMerit, I still had that mindset. But that mindset's gone now for sure. Way gone. But yeah, so from a structural standpoint, you'll start in a firm with three and a half years of experience. I mean, people do it and people, I mean, you've had Brandon Hall on and I know Brandon's done a really good job early on in his career building it out. I wasn't that way. It took a lot of learning for me. And so yeah, there was a lot of things, a lot of missteps, a lot of going the wrong direction and just not, from a planning standpoint, having things in place. And that's completely changed now with TriMerit. Were there any core competencies you can point to where maybe, like you mentioned, Brandon, where that did work out for him and maybe was an issue for you? Because there seems to be this common thread. I actually did an interview with Scotty Scarano as well. He runs like a Paget franchise firm and he mentioned also that similar issue where he felt like he needed to be involved in everything and that that was actually kind of eventually hurting the business. And so he somewhat removed himself. He took a little bit of a step back in terms of his involvement. So that seems to be some sort of a common trait with accounting professionals. Yeah, actually, I had a 45 minute call with Scott yesterday just talking about what's going on with him and with me. And yeah, he's really stepped back. I mean, when you talk about stepping back, I guess if you look at me, I've really stepped back as well. But yeah, I think it's a common trait from the standpoint that it's one of just a personality issue with accountants is we want to control everything. We have all the answers. We need to do it. The clients have issues. And so we don't step back and look at, OK, what's best for me, what's best for the firm, what's best for the client, because it's just go, go, go. I have the answers. I'm going to do it. And so once you realize that, once you step back, and it took me the longest time to do this, but people that have been able to do this early on in their careers, I mean, you can just see the difference it makes and how quick they grow their firms and what kind of, you know, just from a profitability standpoint, from a work-life balance standpoint, it all is affected positively when you re-evaluate your skills and passions and just make that the role in your business. And it doesn't have to be running the business, doesn't have to be managing the business. Where do you enjoy hanging out? Yeah, interesting. So what was the mentality for you going into this other firm, right? So you talk about having had a stroke, kind of working at your first firm, not necessarily directly linked, like there was some underlying health conditions and whatnot, but like obviously the stress didn't help. And then before necessarily being fully kind of mentally over that having happened, sort of launching this other firm, like, did you really feel like this was kind of like the answer and almost like a challenge to yourself to do it right this time? Or was it just kind of, this is the thing I know, and like you mentioned, I got to do something? Yep, it was. And sorry to make a little adjustment on that, the stroke actually happened during tri-merit days. Oh, it was during tri-merit days. Okay, I didn't know that. But the story still fits completely. Because what it was, was I was managing partner at tri-merit at the time when I had the stroke. And so I was still in that mindset of doing everything. So I was still in that, hey, this is my identity, I'm managing partner, you know, I have to manage this firm, I have to get this firm growing. And so that stress that was kicking in very well contributed to the stroke. You never know for certain, but it very well contributed. Because we were at this point in the growth of the firm where I knew we were just about to take off. We were, you know, about $2 million at the time. This is back in 17, we were about $2 million in revenue. And just based on tax code, I knew we were about to take off. And the more I thought about it, and the more I at least looked at it, I don't think I thought it completely out at the time, but looking back, I was like, I wasn't the guy to take us from $2 million to $20 million. I can be the guy out promoting us, and I can show what we do, and I can bring in business. But managing going from 12 people then to 80 people today, that is one, not my passions, not my skills, not my, I had no desire to do that. And I honestly knew that, but it wasn't at the forefront. The bottom line was I just, okay, I have to make a change. I had a stroke, I'm struggling mentally, what do I do? And so then I stepped down as managing partner. The stroke was actually at 14, in 17 I stepped down as managing partner and took on this new role. And this new role is basically being able to talk to you. That's what I do. And it's a lot of fun. But yeah, that, when I said early on, I learned things that took me a long time to implement, that was one of those things that I knew I understood years ago that, hey, I don't have to do everything, but it took a stroke for me to realize that I can start implementing this, not doing everything role. And that's really helped us take off from a growth standpoint. My partner taking over the KPIs and processes and procedures and all that stuff that bores me and me taking over the whole, you know, let's get our name out there. Let's show what we do. Let's help the profession, but let's also educate people on how we can help them be heroes in their clients' eyes. The combination of the two of us getting into the right, use Jim Collins, the right seats just made such a huge difference for us. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So you kind of taking on a bit of like an evangelist role for your firm obviously has been very successful because ever since that sort of initial intro to you through air, I've been seeing you pop up absolutely everywhere. So I mean, it's obviously working and is getting your name out there. And with your firm being more of like a service provider to other accounting firms, you becoming a voice in the accounting field obviously like makes a ton of sense, right? But beyond just yourself being in that role, you, your firm invests a lot. And from my understanding, probably an unusual amount in what we can call maybe like pipeline generation, right? Oh yeah. So we were talking about some of your headcount and essentially it seems to me like about a third of the entire company, including, you know, the face of the company is directly involved in business generation. So I'm, I'm really curious to hear kind of your take on that and if more firms should be doing that because a common thread with a lot of the discussions I've had with a lot of the other firm owners who are doing really well is that pipeline generation solves actually a lot of your problems. So I'm curious for kind of your advice on someone who maybe realizes like, wow, Trimerit's got a third of their headcount on this. Like I only have one person and a 50 person firm. Yeah. Like what's kind of your, your advice on that? What's your take on that whole? So, so traditionally I was the mindset of, Hey, you know, I started this firm, I'm going to generate business. That was my traditionalist firm. That's what I did. My journalist firm, when we started Trimerit, that was still the mindset I had at the beginning. And again, I've learned, but it took me a while to implement these learnings. So I, you know, the first year and, and I think my numbers are accurate. I think the first year in business, we did about 700,000 in business, which, which is a big number for a first year. And then the decision was made, okay, well, we need to bring on another engineer because you know, Andy, my partner couldn't do all that work. I was pretty much useless, useless at that aspect of the business because it was a technical R and D tax credit things. And then when we brought an engineer, then we like, okay, well, you know, I can't also bring in all the business and then just said, okay, we're going to hire someone to do business development. And this is a friend of mine was actually one of my very first clients when I started my accounting firm whose businesses were just kind of ramping up. And so we went to him and brought him in and then it just kind of evolved into, okay, you know, it was the, okay, we're growing another engineer. Okay. Now we need more business and other business development. So it was kind of like one to one for a while we would bring in one and we'd bring in the other and then just the way we've grown it, it, it is very heavy on a standpoint of, of sponsoring conferences, associations. And so we need, you know, presence everywhere. Over the years, we brought in a marketing team, which is about seven people in marketing. And, and as you said, they're really good because my face seems to be everywhere. People are going to get sick of seeing my, not on this podcast, obviously, but places. But from, from looking back, I look at this and I go, okay, why do we have this mindset in public accounting that because you know, we're the partners, we're supposed to generate the business. I mean, that's not everybody's role. And that shouldn't be a prerequisite to becoming a partner is you have to sell to become a partner. It just makes no sense. You can have great skills, but you didn't bring enough business in. Okay. No, you can't be a partner. And the more I look at this, it's like, yeah, every firm should have a business development team. That's the way it should be. They have different skills than I have there. They are out there, you know, building relationships, bringing in the business you know, being, being the evangelist as well out there when they're out, you know, promoting what we're doing. And so I'm, I look at places like, well, like Brandon, you know, they do it, Brandon Hall, they do a great job, Acuity, Kenji Cormado and, and Matthew May, you know, they have an inside sales team that basically they're just, you know, calling for new business. And these are firms have been very successful in their growth trajectory. Same with us. We're very successful. What's the common theme there? We all have business development teams. And so for me, yeah, I think it's extremely important to, to, you know, growth is one, the marketing has to be there. You have to have a message. You have to have a service that people want. But you also have to get in front of the people that can use that and what better than people that are professionals out there generating additional business. That's my take. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great take. Um, this might be a little bit too granular on the marketing side. So let me know if, if this isn't your wheelhouse, but do you know what channels like are kind of the most successful or more, most important drivers? Cause I know you mentioned sponsoring kind of associations, but are there other, other, other channels that have been big for you? So yes, I mean, we do a lot. I mean, the unique CPA is just a podcast that, you know, supports tri-merits name, at least it doesn't talk about tax credits incentives. So that's a vehicle we use. We like, we read a lot of articles for different industry magazines, journals. We host one or two webinars a month on our own platform where it is, you know, sometimes maybe one a month is tax credits and another each month is just something to support the profession. Like today we have a webinar titled the four components of record breaking performance. And it's not about work your butt off. It's about how you'd be better at work and come up with ways to, to be more efficient and break your revenue record or whatever record you want to set for yourself. And so things like that. And then just, you know, the SEO, which I have no idea what that means other than it's with, you know, people being directed to your website and places. Yeah. Some behind the scenes magic on SEO. I named my whole business based off of a bit of an SEO recommendation being like, Oh, big four transparency, you know, you could rank really high for big four salaries and whatever. And without really knowing what I was doing, I was like, yeah, yeah, sure. Let's do that. It seems to have kind of worked, but you know, ask me how got no idea. Well, they're very good at that. They know the keywords. They know what to put out there. They know how to market even the webinars to get more attention to them. So those types of things. So marketing, you know, they have this magic dust that somehow gets people to come to us and they do a great job of it. Yeah. Magic dust, unfortunately is often called money, but yeah, if you, if you sponsor enough things, definitely the word gets out, but that's interesting. And then another really big component for you is obviously this bridging the gap conference, which is coming out or which is coming up pretty soon. What kind of compelled you to start bridging the gap? Like what, like what was, what was the mindset behind that? Because obviously you've talked a lot about wanting to be less directly involved. And I've listened to a lot of content about kind of running conferences and whatnot, and it seems very difficult. So yeah. What was the, what was the thinking behind that? It was a huge mistake, honestly. So I love the accounting profession. I don't like doing the accounting or the taxes, but I like talking about it. I like finding ways people could be better at this profession because we're at a little bit of a, I should say a little bit, we're at a big time right now where just people aren't going into it. And so how do we make this profession better? When we started the podcast almost four and a half years ago, you know, the whole mindset was, well, I'm not going to talk tax credits incentive. I just want to talk to people and hear their story of what they're doing in the profession to be better. You know, what can we share? What knowledge can we share that someone else has? And so we did that. And then in probably early on, I thought, you know what, I wonder if we could make a conference with the same type of ideal. And then pandemic hit and we actually did a virtual conference in 21 and 22. That's kind of a little bit of a learning curve to Bridging the Gap, but it wasn't called Bridging the Gap. And they're completely different animals. It's not, you can't even compare a virtual conference to an in-person, but it gave us some ideas that, yeah, at least people will come, you know, if we talk about how you bring in new partners or if we talk about, you know, how you take a vacation during tax season or whatever the topic is. And so just, I mentioned early on, sometimes I do just, I kind of see an opportunity and go with it without fully thinking it through, unfortunately, sometimes. And that was like, okay, hey, I want to have a conference. And somehow I got everybody excited to do it. And we put the first in-person together last year and it was all about, you know, I'm a big, you know, people know me pretty well about just going out and talking about mental health and the profession and how we avoid burnout. And that was a major theme. That'll always be a major theme. It's not a technical conference. It's not, you know, here's tax, here's audit, here's CAS, here's accounting. It's more, here's how we can make this the best profession, the best professional that we possibly can be. And so we did one year, our marketing team was unbelievable. The kudos they got for putting on a conference for the very first time was just through the roof, which was amazing. But that didn't guarantee we were going to do it again because it was a lot of work. Like you said, it is a lot of work. And after about three weeks, four weeks of analyzing post-conference, the decision was made. Yeah, we're going to do it again. And so version two is coming out in July. Very good speakers, very good theme, expecting about 250 people overall. But yes, I had built a pretty much stress-free role for myself starting back in 17 when I changed roles. It took a couple of years to really get to the point where I knew what my role was. This conference was the one thing that stressed me out last year, and I try not to put stressful things on my plate. It is a lot less stressful this year, but when you and I were talking pregame here, I was telling you about a little stress we're going through today with the conference, but I think we've already solved that. So yeah, stressful, but the satisfaction of seeing what everybody got out of it is definitely worth it. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people that I spoke to, so I want to get involved in kind of conferences this year and start going to them and get a little bit like more plugged in and bridging the gap has been very much like the common thread that a lot of people that I respect a lot have recommended. So I'm definitely planning on going. Not the best timing for me. It's the it's the day I think it starts on a Monday, right? Yeah, it's so it's two days after a wedding that I think is going to be pretty rowdy. But I intend you can recover. Yeah. I tend to get myself there to get on a plane feeling not so good to be there. So I'll make sure I link the the tickets in the in the show notes as well. It seems very much universally kind of from people who have been last year to be recommended as one of the better conferences to go to. I'm in awe of that because there was a podcast out a week ago where they talked about bridging the gap, being firmly in number three behind QuickBooks Connect and Zerocon as the conference you have to go to. I'm like, wow, that's amazing. And then I saw an article yesterday where the same thing was said and listed the things you had to go to. I think we were one of the three they listed there. It's like this is just a pinch myself. How did we get to this point? But I think it's, I think it's because of the passion we show for the profession. Absolutely. And I mean, you have going outside of the box, right? Like sure. A technical tax update will get people there because they want their CPE, but it like people do it's refreshing, right? Like what people do want to hear conversations about topics that maybe more directly impact their actual lives rather than just, you know, some tidbit that they can apply to a tax return. Well, both are important, obviously, but that's, that's really what I aim to do with a lot of my materials as well. Right. I think there, there needs to be more conversations about wellness and like where this industry is going, because we can obviously see like there's all these pipeline issues. And, you know, I think conversations need to be had about changing the profession about mental health, about even just how to manage yourself without, you know, that you can manage your environment hopefully with long-term changes, but sometimes you also just need to manage your own mentality as well. Right. So I'm really happy that you're sharing, sharing that. Well, in community too, the community that, you know, came out of conferences in general, but our conferences, you know, I mean, I had, I probably shouldn't say it this way, but people have put an acronym or a title to the conference calling it RandyCon, and so there's a text chat called RandyCon in this community that we built, you know, last August, there was 50 texts yesterday on the RandyCon, it's the bridge in the gap text, this is just what somebody else titled it, I did not title it RandyCon, but it's still there and people are looking for, they're, you know, some of it's like, I need advice, I need this, I need that, and other people are just like, you know, talking to other things. So building community and knowing there's other people out there that are going through the same things you are and people that have answers that for the questions that you have is just so important in this profession. Yeah. Yeah. Names like RandyCon makes it hard to take the, uh, the back seat later on. So bridging the gap, bridging the gap. Yeah. We'll stick with that. Stick with bridging the gap. I shouldn't even have said, I could have said that the text chat was called bridging the gap. Why did I not do that? Don, you have to check my ego. No, no. Um, and, and how does bridging the gap like strategically influence your firm? Um, because I imagine that must bring some benefit and maybe, maybe it's a by-product. Maybe it's not the reason that you started it, but how does running this conference kind of strategically impact the firm? So there's two ways. One, we just want to be known as, as, as a firm. Obviously it does tax credits incentives. We're going to there to support you. But, but the more so from the conference standpoint, we're also, um, big cheerleaders for the profession. Um, and so it, it just, I think puts us in a light that, Hey, you know, this is not a firm that it's just about, you know, money, money, money, grab, and all this kind of stuff. And believe me, the conference is not about money at all. I'll guarantee you that. Um, um, and it's from that standpoint. But that being said, we are going to have a couple of sessions that tri-merit people will lead this year. Um, talking about some topics that I think are important to the profession. Um, one is about some tax credits. So there will be, and I lied, there will be one technical tax session. There'll probably be a couple. We have somebody coming in talking about state and local tax too. That's not us, somebody else. But, but from that standpoint, we made a decision this year that yes, you know, we are putting this on, but we should try to be a little more of a business generator with it too. So we will have a couple of sessions where we're not selling our services, but we're going to educate on opportunities for tax advisors to save their clients money. Yeah. Fostering the relationships, right? Like, I think that that's a great way of doing things. Um, you know, it's, I think it's a much better approach and, and you're going to build way better relationships that way. So, um, so changing gears a little bit to kind of some more general advice before we wrap up, but being such an advocate for mental health. In the space. What is your advice for like a young person entering this industry who wants to avoid falling into like, I've, you know, I struggled with kind of anxiety on the tail end of my CPA and my time at a big four firm. And honestly, like, I think the situation I was given in the big four firm was fantastic. Like I had great people around me, but even that just, it's a little bit of like a life phase thing for me and all that, but a lot of young people, I think struggle a lot early on in their careers. And so what would your advice be to them? Well, there's a couple of things. One, first off is, you know, find your passion within the profession early on. And that's one thing I didn't do. You know, it was, you know, I, like I said, at the beginning, I was, I was helping doctors and lawyers and burger Kings and hair salons and all of these and, and, and trying to identify which, and if, and I knew there were some, but identify which of those clients I really enjoyed working with, and then try to make that your role in the company. Try to try to, you know, and I mean, you're a big four, they tell you what you're going to do, but you still have decisions to make. I mean, you still can tell them, Hey, I really like this job. Just let it be known. I love working on, you know, auto dealer audits, which I don't, but some people do. So you love that. Just try to make that. So find something that you're really passionate about and, and learn everything you can about it, whether it's an industry, whether it's a service and then, you know, help set the direction of your career by building that passionate, because man, if you love what you're doing, it just makes your life so much better. And so that's, that's one thing I'm for sure. And then realize that it's not all about hours. I mean, there's some places where it is still all about hours, but if it is about hours, that's really tough to, uh, to deal with because, you know, the only way to move forward, if you're billing by the hour is to put more hours in because look how many I, I built 2,500 hours this year. So now I'm going to get a promotion, but you also just put yourself in a point where you're, you're going to get burnt out. So, so try to find a place where it's, it's more about the, the, the, the result that you're delivering to a client than the hours you put into it. And that's not the easiest thing to do because so many firms are still based on hours, but if you can get into a role that helps with that, I think just helps you mentally as well. So strong. That's awesome. Do you think firms should be less based on hours? Completely. I think it's, uh, in, in fact, um, you know, I'm, uh, uh, you probably know Ron Baker, who's the, uh, value-based billing and now subscription pricing. Um, he and I are talking in 16 minutes and, uh, that's one of the discussions we're going to have. Uh, he asked me to, to read this book that, uh, uh, is about moral injury. And, uh, we're going to have a discussion on if that's what's going on in the profession or if it is burnout or for, it's a combination of both. And if it's based on hours, is it based on this? So I'm really looking forward to that. But for me personally, um, hours and sometimes you can't get away, you can't get away from it, it depends on the firm you're at, but to me, it is one of the biggest culprits to burnout in our profession is the billable hour. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think having everything you do be reduced to that can be really difficult. Like I found myself very passionate about business development as an which is a little bit of an unfortunate timing to find that passion because my only evaluation metric was billable hours. Right. So, and I think that was largely a reason why I left is because I was like, it was actually starting to bring in a little bit of business as like, you know, a first or second year analyst at the firm and everyone was cheering me on, but then evaluation time, it was literally like, how many hours did you bill? And it's like, well, yeah, but like, you know, it's more than that, but at that level, it wasn't really. And, um, even structurally, I think that was an issue. Cause I think I had, I think I had a partner kind of in my corner advocating and trying to make it so that that could be the case and so that that would work out, but I think just old school firm structure and it was like, nope, it's gotta be all about the hours. Right. So. Yep. I'll tell you this with Tremerit, we haven't tracked hours ever in 17 years. And, and, you know, people are, you know, at the leadership level get concerned. Well, how am I going to know profitability? How am I going to know if we're making money on this job? Bottom line is, are you making money? Is your profitability at a level you want, you know, if there's a job that's more profitable than another, it's not a secret. We're all smart people in this. And so for me personally, we haven't, we haven't tracked hours in ever. And our profitability is, is, is pretty nice. So I wouldn't worry about the hours. If you can get away from it, I think that is one of the biggest things that can help our profession. Yeah. Yeah. I believe being niche probably helps a lot too, which follows a lot of your other advice is like, if people are coming to where you're the best at R&D tax credit, or you're the best at, you know, maybe for some younger listeners, like, uh, influencers, like doing tax for, for major influencers or something, some unique category where you save yourself the step of doing the in-depth research that someone else would have to do to be able to tackle that industry. Because that's all you do. I think you can probably be extremely profitable that way. Right. So, yeah, that is a, I'm a huge fan of we can have the argument, the niche niche argument at some point, but I'll go with your niche right now. Um, but I'm a huge, huge proponent of finding this neat niche. All right. I, I said it this niche that you enjoy. Nick niche is good because it makes that, that, uh, that line work, which is make riches. But I grew up French. I went to all French school. I only transitioned to English in like third year of university. So I, that's not even just in my DNA. I can't go niches. Understand wrong. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on Randy. Um, I think, you know, with the, with the conference coming up, it'd be good to maybe call out some of the conference details for listeners and as mentioned, I'll include a link in the show notes, but, uh, yeah, let, let us know when, when bridging the gap is and who is the listener who needs to get themselves to this conference. So the conference is July 22nd, 3rd and 4th, it's two and a half days. It's in Chicago, right outside O'Hare airport. So very convenient to get to a rival date will most likely be the July 21st Sunday evening, which we all have an event. Uh, the attendees are, are all, you know, firm owners or at least high decision makers in their firms that can help make changes. And honestly, you don't have to be, you can be a first year and still help make changes in your firm. Um, but that's who's typically, um, attended well, typically last year who attended, but pretty much they were all at some level, an owner or, or close to owner. Uh, we did actually extend a special pricing to students this year because we do want to help show that this profession is, is not the perception that a lot of people have of the 80 hour work weeks and you can't ever see your family. That's not reality. So we're trying to help change that profession, that perception as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you're a young person listening, you know, I think you can bring a lot of value to your firm by being the champion of some of what you might learn at this, at this conference or, or introducing some of the ideas that are here. Um, maybe don't be naive if you're a co-op student, march into the partner's office and demand change, but you know, there, there's things you can learn and things you can be the champion of internally where I think you can add a lot of value that way as well. So, uh, yeah. And, and if you go, I'll, I'll probably see you there. I probably won't be feeling good, but I'll see you there. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Randy. I really appreciate you taking the time. Well, thank you. And now you got me excited. I'm looking forward to meeting you in person in July. Yeah. Yeah. Same goes for you. All right. Thank you so much.