Scaleable To Saleable with Sharrin Fuller

This episode is sponsored by Anchor. Anchor is your proposal to paid automation platform, streamlining engagement letters, e-signing, and billing that will flawlessly reconcile with your GL software of choice. You can also pre-program annual pricing increases, a hot topic on this pod and my favorite feature of their product. And this is not just any ad read. The guest of this episode is also an anchor user. So enjoy the conversation. Hello and welcome to the Big Four Transparency Podcast. I'm joined today by Sharon Fuller, CEO of GlassWallet, an advisory group focused on helping firms scale more effectively, as well as the CEO of Core Financial Pros, an accounting firm focused on the health and wellness sectors. Welcome to the pod, Sharon. Thanks for having me. I feel like, um, I should be wearing headphones as well. I, whenever I do these things, I don't have headphones and I always feel like I should have a, an imposter pair on. Nah, your, your, your audio quality is plenty good. It's, uh, yeah, for me, it's, it's more of just kind of, uh, some guests are a little bit less clear and I already have horrendous hearing, so I'm like, okay, I need all the help I can get, but you're good. You're good. Yeah. Good. Um, so to, to start us off, um, you know, right there on the t-shirt, you've got it all branded scalable and sellable. Um, and so that's kind of some of the work that you're doing through GlassWallet, I understand, and is also obviously a super hot topic in our industry right now. Can you talk us through what you're doing there? Absolutely. So I sold my firm a couple of years ago and I had been a part of most of my clients with my last firm were, um, VC backed startups in the software industry. So I had sat through so many acquisitions and mergers, just all, all sorts of exits. And I was always part of them until the ink dried. And then when the ink dried, I was, I wasn't a part of it anymore. It wasn't needed. Right. So when I sold my own firm, I was able to get to the other side of that ink drying. And I learned all the missing pieces that I did not fully understand, especially when it comes to an accounting firm or a professional services industry, it's a completely different world than that of a, of a product or, you know, of software. So in doing that, I realized, okay, so all of these people, and I know plenty of them are setting up their firms and they're doing it wrong and they're doing it, not thinking I don't have anything for sale. Nobody wants to buy what I have. So it doesn't matter. I thought the same thing. And so what I want to do is create the process, the roadmap, the blueprint of everything you need to do to make sure that you are starting and scaling your business properly with your exit strategy in mind, because one day someone's going to come up to you and go, here's a check for X. We want your company, but we need you to, to make sure that you're giving these things first and you're going to go, I'm not doing those things. And then I go, here's a check for a lot less money, but now you're going to take that check anyways, because once you see that dollar sign, it's, it's done. So, yes. So my specialty is absolutely getting people out of that stuck position, making sure they scale, but always making sure they have that exit strategy in mind. Nice. And I assume that that's something where it's a lot more effective if you start. Kind of early in the game before you even maybe know that you're going to go through an acquisition, right? Yeah. What is it? My dad used to say back in day, you know, it takes two minutes to do it, right. The longer to do it right the first time. Um, then what it does to go and redo everything all over again, but that's the problem is entrepreneurs. We have a fire under our seats and we just want to get it done. And not only that, we've probably left a company that was doing what we do not as well, we didn't like it. So we started our own business and we don't have time to worry about these little things we need to get money. We need to get clients. We need to pay our bills. Right. And then from there you, you get moving and then you end up in this, uh, what I call the Oprah's greatest thing, um, um, position, which is where you've been doing what you do for so long. And it's so great that now you've got all these referrals and all this business coming at you and you can either take it all and crash or say no and get nowhere. So you're stuck in this position of shoot. I need to be here, but I can't because I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't, I have nothing in place, but I don't want to turn down all this business. So it's, it's definitely a, a, it's something you're just seeing all the time now, especially with all these private equity companies coming around, just buying up accounting firms left and right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I, I imagine that like by the time either you decide you need an exit, you're probably so burnt out that it's horrific to have to go through these things at this point, or again, once they're knocking, they're not going to wait a year or two or three years for you to get your things in order to justify that higher valuation and, or that kind of cleaner transaction. Right. So in fact, they're, they're, they're counting on, they're betting on the fact that under the hood is a little messy. So the amazing dollar and the multiplier they offered you in the LOI or, you know, the initial conversation will not net out in the end. So they may come to you and go, you're worth 2.5 multiplier, which is actually going to be like $5 million and they get under the hood. They're like, we're thinking 1.25 and we're going to pay you after the fact. And there are just so many things that you could have done in your business to get you lined up for that, to actually land that higher multiplier and that, that full revenue payout. Yeah. And so is that a little bit based off of kind of like lived experience by the sounds of it, like with your firm, did you kind of have like that, that negative experience where you got all excited about an exit and then somehow ended up way below it? So I don't want to say negative. Um, every experience is an experience and I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't go through what I did. Um, and then after I went through what I did, I really took some time to start just talking to a lot of other people and went through what I went through to make sure that I wasn't a lone wolf where I am and what I learned is everybody that had been through it had been through the same thing. So just gathering the information that I have on the corporate due diligence and the corporate exits on the backend. And then the, the piece that we don't take into account is that emotional personal side of it, right? Which so affects everything and affects your decisions and, and the outcome and having that experience, I'm able to actually combine all of that together and go, okay, hold on, let's make sure this is done correctly. Um, so you don't make the mistakes I did, especially if they, if somebody comes to you, for example, I was, I normally take off the last month of every year I take after Thanksgiving. I am out. I'm burnt out. I'm a workhorse. I work 20 hours a day. If I'd work 25, if I could, um, cause I'd love it, but come holidays, I don't want to work. I want to like make things in my Instapot anyhow. So I take that time off and I was burnt out and that's when they came to me and I'm like, forget it. I don't care. Give me a check for a dollar and done. I don't care. I'm just done. I don't want to do this anymore. And if I would have had somebody next to me that said, Sharon, wake up. What are you talking about? This is not your goals. It's not what you want to do. This isn't in life. What are you doing? I probably would have made different decisions, but like I said, um, our path is our path, our journey is our journey. And I wouldn't be where I am here in today. So now my, my goal really is just to make sure that nobody has to go through what I may or may not have went through and what others may or may not have went through. Mm hmm. Yeah. First of all, I really applaud your attitude towards that. You know, it's not a negative experience per se. It is what it is. And you've learned from it. So my decisions I made and what happened were the results of my decisions and whether or not they were good ones or what, what drove it. And that's on how I can't control how people respond. I can only control their decisions I make. So it's all about making the right decisions and being lined up to not have to worry about whether or not you're making the right decision. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so the focus that you take, or like the approach that you take with the firms that you're working with, like, cause there's 101 angles to attack this from, right? Like there's a tax angle where, you know, you want to optimize for multiplication of QSBS and then there's, you know, the, the pure finance angle of like, oh, you want recurring revenue because you'll get a higher valuation multiple on that versus non-recurring, et cetera, et cetera. And so like, what's the kind of primary angle that you're taking, or is it a little bit of like a full suite approach where maybe you'll, you'll just make sure people are set up with the right professionals for the kind of external areas and then you take on one area. Correct. So everybody comes to you at a different point. Um, the sellable scalable is actually, it's a six module course itself led that I created, but I use that, that blueprint, that roadmap. So people come to you at different points and where I come in is I am that exit strategy advisor. So I sit down and before they put a number in front of you, we go through everything that needs to be gone through. First of all, I get your goals, where you need to be. And then we look under the hood. I see where you're at, so I can see how you're going to pass and due diligence, really kind of give you a general idea of what to expect and then what to expect if we change those things. And then I work with you through the entire exit strategy process to make sure we're in line. You're going to have to bring in a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer, but I work, I will work with you and your lawyer. Um, and then I have plenty, I am not a CPA, but I have plenty of friends, um, of course in this amazing industry. And a lot of the firms tend to be taxed anyways, so it's not something I have to get into too much. But when I do, I have other strategy advisors that come in on the tax end, um, just to make sure that everything stays in line. But, um, you know, they, they come to me either because, Hey, I'm looking to sell. I've had two or three people come to me and say they want to buy my firm. Two of them said, no, I don't understand why they wouldn't tell me, or one of them came to me and said this, but then they said this. So that right there tells me there's an issue. A lot of times when you look under the hood and you see what's there, you actually can tell people, look, you're not going to get your valuation, but if you can do this, this and this, you're actually going to increase your revenue and you may not even want to sell. Um, so there's been plenty of times where people came to me and we've actually not talked them out of, but we've come to the conclusion that they don't need to sell. They were just stuck. They need help. And selling it was just their, their lifeline. I just, just give me some money and let me do something else. But what I tell them when you ask them, well, what do you want to do if you get that money? And they're like, well, I'll probably start this business again. We'll stop it. You probably won't be able to, if you sell your company, you're probably going to be in some handcuffs. You're not going to be able to start another competing business. So let's figure it out. So, like I said, everybody's, um, everybody's path is so different. I don't think there's been anybody the same. Um, but it all comes down to it. I'm tired. I'm out of money. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I can't handle my team. I just need a break. Every one of them. It's exactly the same, almost same story. I've spoken to some firm owners who have, have kind of talked about that before. So like Chad Davis, I did an episode with him. He's, he runs a Canadian firm and he's like, yeah, it felt like we were at this point where it was like something had to change. And he's like, I do understand now that that's where a lot of people kind of pull the parachute. Cause they're like, oh my God, I can, I can still get this amount of money for it. Um, I might as well just take it. And so instead what him and the people at his firm did is they like really, really kind of refocused on like operations and they, they really took a step back and kind of like fixed all these processes internally and then kind of deprioritize growth for a period of time. And he's like, at the end of the day, like if you're doing partner distributions, like that makes all the difference. Cause within the same firm, you can increase the profitability massively and you might actually end up getting that payout that you're hoping for as like an annuity instead of selling. Right. So it is cool. I do like that. Your focus is not just on like, let's get you an exit. It's actually like, let's get things right. It'll help you if you exit, but you might then not want to. I think that's a really good mentality. Yeah. Yeah. You have to, like I said, you really have to know what you, what you want at the end, because if you're just going to start it and do it all over again, it's a, it's a definition of insanity. If you're not going to do it right, you're just doing the same thing over and over again. And then what, you know? Yeah. And so you kind of did redo a firm all over again to a certain degree, right? Can you walk us through the story of how that happened? Cause my understanding is it's not quite so straightforward as you just decide that I'm going to start it over. No, as soon as I sold my firm, I thought that's it. I don't want to do accounting anymore. I'm done, but it's so easy and it's what I love and it's what I know. Um, I thought I want to get into education. I want to do what Glass Wallet is doing. Well, then after I exited the firm that bought mine and my, my handcuffs were released, my, my team came to me and said, Sharon, where are you at? We want to go where you're at. And I said, I'm not anywhere. And they said, well, figure it out. So I didn't want to do my own thing. So I started, I had a partner and he started up a firm and he added, we went in 50, 50 and all the team came over there and we built it. And then I had another, um, uh, friend who had a, um, CFO advisory firm and he said, I'm going to give you 50% of my company help let's build it up into a full back office or, you know, full accounting firm and they specialized in, um, fitness and nutrition. And I thought, okay, two different niches. I got this. Um, but then after being in there for a couple of years, I thought I, I am, um, I'm a terrible person to work with. Nobody should want to work with me on as a partner level. Um, and so, and they probably were like, Hey, Sharon, you're kind of a pain. And just cause I'm very, very, this is how it has to be because I've done this before, right. And I'm working with a CPA and I'm working with a wealth advisor and not that they're not absolutely amazing accounting is just a different beast. So I finally went to them and said, can I just buy you out? Can I just buy out your ownership? So I bought out the two firms, merge them into one, merge the team together, merge the client, merge the clients together, and then rebranded as core. And now our niche is health and wellness, which is actually a little bit more vast than, um, fitness and nutrition. Um, but I still have a lot of my same team and, um, you know, it's growing from there and that's definitely been merging. The two companies was a little bit of a struggle because you have two different cultures, two different sets of systems and you put them together and they kind of went, but we got through it pretty quickly. I would say it took us about three months to really get it together. Um, we turned a few clients in the process, which is always disheartening, but I had to keep going back to him saying, Hey, Sharon, you've already, why are you trying to reinvent this? You've already done this. You teach this to other people, step into those shoes and read what you're teaching people and follow it. So we started doing that and I started making my team follow the scalable syllable method. I'm like, Oh, Hey, look, we're successful. Imagine that. So I actually put my own product to test and it, it worked. Um, so now I'm really confident when I say, Hey, this, this, this works. Um, so it's, it's going well now. And I have an amazing team and, um, I, like I can, I truly sit a CEO over there being that I just come in and work with my directors and, um, Probably visionary and I asked them to do things that they're like, please stop, please. You know how it goes. Um, so I try to let them kind of take the rain, the rains and I just give them the blessing and they, you know, they're like, go, go control the glass wallet side, let us, let us do this over here. So that's, that's where I am right now. Nice. And where you talk about visionary, do you have like EOS implemented at this firm? Um, cause that's like a common kind of vocabulary I hear for that. Um, we have, we have, um, we have a lot. At this firm, we have, I'm a very, um, I'm a very streamlined, efficient, technical person. I like to use technology. First and foremost, um, anybody that we bring in, I want to make sure that they have some sort of relationship role. I'm not gonna bring in somebody that's just going to do data just because of where we're going. So every, everything, when anybody in the company comes up and says, Hey, should we do this? It's always, hold on. Can we wait on that? Because there's actually software that's coming out or something that's coming out. So, you know, we're extremely streamlined, efficient and technical, which I'm trying to always get ahead of the curve. So I love going to the conferences to seeing what software is out there. Um, getting ahead of, of things and really kind of understanding what's coming up so we can be a step ahead. And so when you're going into these firms who are kind of like stuck in terms of scalability or again, like attractiveness to be acquired or whatever that might look like, what are kind of some of the, you know, the most common pitfalls that they've, they've kind of fallen into where, like, where are they usually most lacking? Um, it typically tends to be solopreneurs, um, with maybe a right hand that have, um, built themselves into a success hole. They're very successful. They do very good, but they either need to, but they're not getting anywhere. Right. Like if I leave my firm stops, if I go on vacation, my firm, I don't get to go anywhere. I don't get to take vacation because I am the business, but they can't scale because they've been doing everything on their own. So they don't have time to stop and train somebody. They don't have time to get somebody else in or teach them what they, what they know, and they don't even know how to do that. So almost everybody that comes to me that is stuck is they've they're, they're doing great, but they want more, they want more, or they don't want to work 25 hours a day. That's not where they're at in life. And getting them out of that hole is the hardest part. Um, it's a mentality thing. I think more than it is a actual do the work thing. It's a, I don't have time and I'm like, but you do, if we can, let's create some efficiencies to carve out an hour a day for you. Like let's carve out an hour a day and during the, then we'll set what you're going to do during these hours. And then we can slowly start bringing things in. But also with entrepreneurs, um, we're impatient. We want results. Now we want tomorrow. And if it doesn't change, we're done. We're it's didn't work, didn't work. We don't, and accountants don't like change on top of entrepreneurs. Accountants hate change. We hate it. Like every year when the new IRS code comes out, you know, they're just in their bar, you know? Um, so it's, it's, you're, you're, you're, you're going uphill against as the stream coming out, you know, it's an uphill battle the entire way. And you just kind of have to almost have to break people down mentally, you know, like, um, I just break them like the military. And I'm like, now that we've got you to nothing in a puddle, I'm going to rebuild you back up and we're going to do this. Yeah. They salute me moving for, after they work with me, they walk by and I'm like, please don't, this is weird. So I joke, I think one of the huge missing pieces for a lot of accounting professionals is like the understanding of leverage, like for your time and stuff like that. And I've had a lot of these discussions and even someone who transitioned from like a small firm with like two, three partners, they got acquired and went into a really large firm. He was talking, he was like the, the biggest thing I was not prepared for was the need and the expectation that I would then learn to leverage my time. Cause he's like, I'm working on the same clients I was working on before. And he's like, my hourly rate just went from two 50 to seven 50 an hour. And so I'm expected to not write off my time, but then these clients are expecting the same level of service. And so he was saying like, what I needed to figure out was like, I now need an EA, right? Because I can put their time on the bill sheet at 40 an hour, not seven 50 an hour and little things like that. So I think that having someone with a bit of an outside perspective and where you mentioned that you're not a CPA, like I think, you know, there's a little bit of a filter of the type of people and I'm, I'm overgeneralizing. Cause I would say that I don't really fit the envelope of the typical CPA either. Um, but I think there's a bit of like a personality filter for the type of person who generally follows that path. And I think there are often people who have this mentality of like, I'm working so hard. I don't have time to implement this thing. And that's just who I am. I'm a hard worker. I grind. But like you have to recognize and stop and look at the processes that you have because you might need to put in 10 hours now to save yourself six hours a month. Right. Like, yeah. Yes. But they want to see that. That's what I've learned with, um, entrepreneurs. And I'm saying that cause I work beyond the accounting industry. I work, I really, my professional services. And what I found is you have to have it. I have to, I roadmap has to be in writing. There has to be a roadmap of deliverables, what we're going to do, what we're going to accomplish and when we're going to do it by. Um, and then we have to follow through with that. So if I can have that for them, it gives them a sense of peace. And I just say, let's compartmentalize based on what you want. Let's compartmentalize. Let's hit this piece first. Let's not think about this when we're done with this, then we can move to this. And it allows them to kind of go. It's okay. Um, it's okay. But when you just, you really kind of have to have that visual visual and that list. So they take accountability. Um, otherwise you just get somebody that's just barking at them and telling them what they're going to do. And they already, they already know what they need to do. They need somebody to tell them how, when and why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I find that interesting. And so how much of this typically boils down to tech? Cause I mean, ultimately, like, I mean, you know, anchor anchor sponsoring this, this episode. Oh, I love anchor. Well, we know I love it. Yeah. Yeah. If you would have asked me two years ago, I would have been like, ah, text like 30%. I think at this point in our industry, tech should run a good 50% of your business. And that's a high, strong number. But I have over 200 zaps, um, shout out to stream because they keep trying to, they want me to move over. I'm like, you're going to have to move all my zaps. But, um, my, everything is everything that we do. I look and we look at the time and I think, why are you doing this? There is, let me get software. Um, book, keep a code. I, they, they put in all those. Stripe transactions that we don't need to. Um, there's, there's just so many things out there that, uh, that are replacing the data entry. And what I also tell my team is if you just want to do data entry. You're going to have a hard time because tech is replacing you. So what we need to do is let's find out what you're passionate about in this industry and let's turn it into advisory and let's teach you how to be an advisor. In that skill set, because then you will always have a job, at least for a long time, people, relationships are going to be harder to get rid of when it comes to technology. So automate and add tech wherever you can outsource where you can and bring in people only when they have that one-on-one relationship with the client. That's where they want the people. Yeah. I think that that, I think that that's so true. And again, that kind of comes down to like leverage on your time of like things you don't need to be doing. And then you can, if you've cleared off half the tasks from your plate, you could spend twice as long doing the things that you actually have to be doing. So yeah, streams is something new. I actually just met the Corey CEO. Yeah. So I just, I just met kind of the team behind them at some meetup in Montreal. And yeah. And so I had never thought of that before, but it is so true as well. Right? Like you need these kinds of like workflows and so many firms need the same workflows built. And again, I think it's so daunting to just get over that first hurdle of like build your first zap, your first automation. And then, then you realize that you can, and you know how to spot opportunities for them. And from then on you're off to the races, but there's this thing like self-limiting belief, I think, where like people are just like, that's not what I do. I'm not like an automation person and they just don't bother trying. Right. And so that's a huge issue. Yeah. You're going to mess up. I'm, you know, I'm very set in how I do things. This is where it is. This is what I know. And especially when you're a solopreneur, you, you can't drop a ball. So if you change things up, you have no control over it, but it's, that's why I said you can't do it all overnight. Let's bring in one thing first, identify the needs, fix that. Um, for me, it's project management tool. Your project management, if you're using something in an Excel spreadsheet or a piece of paper, you're there needs to be a project management tool, something that. Somebody can jump in and take over at any point in time. And believe it or not, there are a lot of firms out there that do not use, I can't tell you how many are like, Oh, we still use, um, Google spreadsheets. I'm like, yeah, unless your norm, the. Excel wizard in the accounting industry, you should not be using Google or Excel spreadsheets as your project manager tool. And I just made a very bold statement and I might get some hate mail for it, but I don't care. I stand by it. I stand by what I say. Yeah, and it's tempting too, right? Again, because it's like, ah, I don't wanna like learn the new thing. And so upfront you save the hour of tinkering, but like it's gonna cost you in the long run, right? When you go to scale, when you need to bring someone on, you can't, if I'm, if you're remote, which a lot of people are nowadays, you bring someone on, you can't, what are you gonna do? Scan them your notes that you've made from your head on your desk. Like, do I take pictures of my post-its? What do I do? There needs to be some sort of documentation. I think if you could see right behind me, there's a little sign that says, but did you document it? And I always see my team too. They're like, hey, Sharon, we wanna do this instead of this. I'm like, great. Send me the link to, send me the link intranual. They're like, oh, we don't have it yet. I'm like, that doesn't exist. If it's not documented and it's not intranual, it doesn't exist. It's not a process. Document or it doesn't exist. And they kind of get sick of me saying that, but now I'm, now they come to me and they're like, and yes, we documented it. And here is the link. I'm like, see, you know now. So sometimes that nagging terribleness just gets people, even if it's because they don't wanna listen to me, at least they're documenting it, but they thank me in the long run. But yeah, I was gonna say, I bet that your, your, your customer, or sorry, your employee onboarding is probably unreal, right? Employee and client. We utilize so much, like the, the train you'll is amazing for employees. We utilize our, we utilize client hub for our client workspace. And we use scribes and looms in our database to where if we answer something for someone, I'm like, do it once and do it neutral. Don't talk to this specific client, talk to the client in a whole, because a lot of clients use Chase. A lot of clients use Wells Fargo. So do it once, show them how to do it, edit out any identifying numbers, and then save it to the database. You never have to do it again. It takes you 10 minutes to do it the first time versus the one you would have done it every single time over and over and over. So. Yeah. And how did, how do you think that you developed this kind of mindset? Cause I just hearing you speak, I- Failure. Yeah, yeah. It was just by trying things and getting burnt out kind of thing. I have ruined so many amazing potential team members and employees. I have brought on so many people that are so amazing and I turned them into terrible employees because I didn't have documentation. I didn't have process. I didn't have efficiencies. I had everything in my head and just expected people to learn. Well, they can't. And after so long, they're like, I give up. What am I supposed to do? I'm like, there's nothing you can do. I need another me. I need to be cloned. And I, you know, I take responsibility for a lot of the employee churn I had back in the day because I wasn't set up for it. So you can only fail at that so many times before you start going, hey, maybe I'm the common denominator here. Maybe I need to actually ask these people why they're not succeeding at their job. And you know, when you're letting people go, they'll happily tell you. Oh yeah. I'm like, come at me, right here. I'm firing you. I'm giving you severance. And regardless, let's sign so you get the severance. All right, now we're signed. Now come at me and tell me what you really think. And they will. And I take that criticism to heart. So, I mean, it hasn't been recently, but it has been in the past. Yeah, and that growth mindset goes a tremendously long way, right? And I think it goes along with what you said at the beginning of like, oh, you know, that wasn't a negative situation. It was just a situation and we've moved past it and it got me to where I am today, so. For them as well. They know if I'm starting with a startup, they're like, now I know if I go to another startup, I'm gonna say, what do you have documented? What is your process? How is your training? And they know to ask those questions, things that I didn't even think to ask until. I would ask if I was going to some sort of startup, are you expecting me to just hit the ground running and figure this out? Or is there actual training? Even if you are selling your firm and you're gonna go and take a hiatus and then go working for somebody else, I think that's even harder. One of my friends, Sean Duncan, said a long time ago, he said, I can't work for anybody else. I'm unemployable. And I thought, I'm unemployable. I can't work for other people. I'm like an anarchist. I don't like being told what to do. For some reason, if you tell me no, I'm like, yes, even if I didn't want to do it. So I am stuck working for myself forever. So I have to succeed. I don't have a choice because I will, anywhere I go to work, I will get fired immediately because I don't, I'm like, I question everything. Yeah. And I love it. And I think it, like, I love that. It like kind of gets rid of the obstacle of like the what if and like the risk of going into entrepreneurship. You're like, I've burned the boats. I'm an entrepreneur. I got to make this work, right? Nobody's going to work for me. I used to work for Costco. If I tried to rehire me, I am, if you look in my file, it says unhireable. And I was an amazing employee, but I just hated having so many bosses. And I'm like, no, you're only in the role you're in because you've been here longer than me. Not because you're smarter, you do your job better, but corporate doesn't appreciate that feedback. So I, again, Costco will validate that I am unhireable. Yeah. I'm not trying to do that right now, obviously, at all in any way or form, but I'm very good at what I do. As long as I can do it myself. No, I, again, I love hearing that from people because I had a lot of problems or like difficulty with the rigidity of a lot of places that I worked. And I was just like, oh, I just need to find a different role. I need to find a different envelope. And I pivoted and I would still kind of find myself bumping up against the confines of the role a lot. And I'm like, it might not be to the same degree as you, but this is like, you know, I'm two months into self-employment and I was like, oh, this is nice. And so it's kind of like finding of like, okay, maybe that is sort of more where I'm at. And, you know, I love to see successful people such as yourself kind of tell that same backstory, which is great. I get so excited when I see somebody who's been in corporate for so, so long and they go on their own. I don't want to name a person, but a person that's very known in the accounting industry just left a lot of corporate world and is going out on her own. And I'm so excited for her. She's going to be amazing. She's absorbed, she's already brilliant, but she's absorbed all this information from these very large corporations. And now she can take that and go work for herself. But it's such a scary thing when you have your own business and you're, when you go from being an employee, you get paid every other weeks and my benefits of my retirement to, oh crap, now it's on me. And now if I lose a client, this is me not paying my electricity or not paying my team, not, you know, hey, sorry, company, we'll get another one. Go tell yourselves team. So it's a different world. It's scary, but it's a feeling of freedom that I can't even define. Anybody that's, anybody that works for themselves will probably say the same thing. Well, most of them. Yeah, those for whom it's going well. Yes. Yeah, so I have a couple more questions for you before kind of letting you go. So I find what's difficult with some of these kind of like coaching programs and whatnot is that it's not concrete enough to, for people to be able to kind of say like, oh, that's me, I'm that person who needs that help. So when you go back to your first firm acquisition, I think you had told me you sold the first firm for over 2 million. And so once you start getting in that range, like small shifts to how it was done can actually be many six figures of dollars. So if there was like one thing, like if you were coaching yourself today that you would have recommended doing differently, like what would it be? And what do you think the impact of that one thing could have been? The thing I would have done, because I did do all of them. So my biggest, biggest thing, my contracts are written in 12 month agreements. Nothing is month to month anymore. And I tell that to everyone. You need recurring revenue. You need it to be in a long-term contract. Now that doesn't mean that if you're, that you can't let your client out of it. So if you're like, I have months and months, because if my client doesn't want to be with me, I'm going to let them leave. You wrote the contract. They're agreeing to your 12 months. You can let them from that contract to any point in time. But your business does not have as much value if you do not have a 12 month or longer agreement that has an auto renewal and also make sure your contracts are transferable and without permission. Those are the two things I tell everybody that are going to be a huge make or break on your acquisition or your purchase, your merger. Those two things are going to be, are huge, but people don't realize it. Yeah, so that transferable thing, would that mean like if you don't have that specifically outlined in a contract, the acquirer needs to draft brand new contracts with every client? It can, it depends. Some people have it written where you have to give notice to the client. Some people have it written to where the client has to give, they have to agree to transfer it. Other ones, they don't. You do have to get them to sign a whole brand new contract and then that allows them to get out of the contract. And as they get out, there's, you know, what incentive do they have for coming over? Yeah, that's interesting. Cause that's like a, you know, that's such an easy omission to make. I'm actually going to go look at my contracts. Definitely. 12 months with an auto-recurring, it'll auto-renew. I give mine a little bit more leniency for my clients. Like I do the, if they have a month after it expires to still cancel and then it auto-renews, but that auto-renewal with the price increase is everything. And no, like I can transfer the contracts at any point in time without notice, which nobody said anything, just tells me they don't read the darn things, but typically they don't care. I mean. Well, and at the same time, you know, the assumption is they're receiving an equal or greater quality of service in return for the money. And so at the end of the day, there is really no harm being done there. Like maybe they like the relationship with you better than the acquirer and that's not the end of the world. Right. So that's interesting. It's such a little, little thing, but I could see how that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. But let me tell you what, mine were month to month. And you had to get written. I had to get signed permission from everybody to transfer their agreements to the new company. Yeah. We churned a good 12 high paying clients during that process. Otherwise my acquisition would have been a lot higher. And they're like, sorry, we're not coming over. And then you've already gone to them. So it's not like I, if I, then they're, they're searching elsewhere. So it's not like I can be like, hold on, we're not going to do this. So it was a lot of money. I had no choice. Once you're in, you're in. And that's another thing people don't realize when you go into an LOI and due diligence, you have to keep your mouth shut. You have to be very careful and strategic about how you tell your team, your clients, everything. Cause it will implode. Yeah. And all the staff turns out. Oh yeah. And that's another thing is people don't realize their staff is not for sale. And especially when you have a professional services business they need the staff to come with it. So the new firm needs to give some sort of incentive for the staff to come over. But the staff is not, they should not be accounted for in any way. Even though the purchasing company is definitely looking at the staff cause that's what they need is we want those people here. So I usually put the burden on the purchasing company to give them new employment agreements with a one year guarantee and a sign on bonus and all these things. So the employee feels confident and then the firm feels confidence cause if the employee leaves they're gonna have to pay that money back. So at least they have that one year transition but the owner should get the heck out right away. Don't stay 90 days, get out, go away. No good will come of you staying on at the firm that purchased your firm. Very rarely. I've heard that a lot. I've heard a lot of people saying like it just feels like this is your baby and they're doing everything wrong even though they might be doing things right. But in your head, you're like, no, that's not. And it's not up to you anymore. Right? One in 10. And working on it right now I actually acquired a colleague's firm and brought her on as my director of accountants soon to be VP of accounting. And I love her. We work very well together. So fortunately that is an acquisition that has worked where she actually is staying with the team and the company. And, but we're on the same page and we had a lot of conversations to make sure that we're on the same page. And I guess she trusts me. We try to put as much of it in writing as we can. Like we promise not to be jerks. And we promise, I'm gonna give it to my lawyer. Can you put this in legalese? And he's like, okay, let me find the statute on jerk. That's funny. I love that. And the last thing I wanted to ask you because it's really actually quite notable. You're on a lot of like accounting tech advisory boards or have been on a number of them anyways. And I'm always curious talking with people who are kind of involved to that degree, like what's in it for you? And like, what does that actually look like concretely? So most all the boards I am on, I am not paid. It's a volunteer position and they try to entice you with one amazing trip a year and you know, some cool swag and things that they sent you. For me, it's not about that. I love FinTech and I love FinTech that's going to advance my company and others. So if I can get involved with something from the very beginning, like Anchor, like Client Hub, Ripley, these are underdog softwares that came in and they have so much potential. And since they're new, they'll listen. They will actually listen to what you want and how it should be. So I'm able to get in and go, hey guys, I know a lot of the other people that you talk to, they just own the firm, but I'm actually using your stuff and I'm telling you what's wrong. So Anchor has been amazing. When they first came to me, they didn't have an integration in QuickBooks and they said, will you help us get, will you introduce us to people? And I said, I'm not introducing you to anybody until you have an automatic integration in QuickBooks because accountants are fickle. I will introduce you, you won't have it. They'll say no, they'll go to your competitor and you'll never get them again. They don't care. I'm gonna introduce you once. So they got that in and I was like, all right, now we're talking. And they're just amazing. They do, the Client Hub has been amazing. I love the startup software. I was a beta user of bill.com back in the day. Now they're massive and, but it's still really fun to be a part of those, at the very beginning of things and then they get big and corporate and they get bought out and whatnot. But I'm really a fan of the startup, of the underdog. And they don't, you know, I'll take their bar tabs. That's fun, it's fun. But honestly, it's more about making a better product for our industry that really does what we need it to do. Otherwise you're just replicating what everybody's already done and it's just gonna, I mean, how many bill payment softwares are there out there right now? And then Intuit went and created their own bill payment software and increased our prices. So why, what's our, how are we enticed to go use a different bill payment software when it's already built into Intuit, right? So anyhow, that's just an example of where tech's going, but I love being a part of that. Just making sure that's something that's gonna, you know, do things for the industry. That's awesome. I love that. Well, thank you very much, Sharon. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate you taking the time. And thank you, Anchor. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so they made the introduction and, you know, they just kind of shoot you over a list of names and I said, oh, Sharon seems cool. I like that. It's a facade. Yeah, I really appreciate you joining. I'm so boring. In person, I'm very quiet and boring and you wouldn't even know I'm in the room. That's a lie. I have trouble imagining that. I'm also a liar. Okay, there we go, there we go. Will you be at any of the upcoming conferences? Yes, I'm figuring out my circuits still. So I'm almost definitely gonna go to Engage. I went to Bridging the Gap this year. So far, I'm considering Digital CPA, which I'd probably have to make up my mind on very soon. But I'm open for recommendations. What are some of your faves? Well, I'm cheering Women Who Count this year and next year, but, you know, you don't have to be a woman. I love the smaller one. I just came back from Bot Keepers Unchained and I thought it was absolutely amazing. Hector's Reframe is this year and unfortunately, I was gone all last week and then I was at the camp a couple weeks before and then I go to Women Who Count and then into it. So I needed a week off. But I do really appreciate the smaller ones. I think you get far more out of them. But Scalings Education is top-notch. If you're looking less for net, I mean, there is a lot of networking, but their education is amazing. There's just so many options. So we're very lucky that we have an industry of such amazing conferences and speakers and education out there. Yeah. Yeah, I'll probably be at Scalings. So I'll probably- I'm definitely gonna be at Scalings. Hopefully I'm speaking. Hopefully I'm teaching. They have an exit strategy track this year and I put in, hopefully I'll be speaking on it. So hopefully, we'll see. That's awesome. But I am speaking at Intuit Connect and Women Who Count. I have workshops, so. Okay, awesome. Right on. Well, yeah, thank you so much, Sharon. People know where to catch you now. So that's extra, extra good. And yeah, thank you so much for joining. Thank you.