Uncorking Excellence & Navigating Niches with Zane Stevens

Hello, and welcome to the Big Four Transparency podcast. Today, I'm joined by Zane Stevens, founder of Protea Financial and accountant to the wine industry. Welcome to the pod, Zane. Hey Dominic, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I actually mentioned your firm in a previous podcast very recently. I think it was when I was talking with Roman and we were talking about interesting niches and branding that will kind of keep the job fun and how that can kind of influence the operations of your company, and I actually mentioned Protea as like the perfect example where you specialize in the wine industry, which I think is, is super interesting. And I'm sure it comes with a ton of unique advantages and challenges. So, um, I'm kind of curious how that came to be. Well, firstly, it's way more glamorous than it sounds, right? Like, you know, there's not a lot of glamour in going into people's books, cleaning it up and helping people who really just want to hone their craft and make a beautiful product and tell them like, Hey, we have to do your accounting and make sure it's accurate. But the story sort of starting it out is that I moved to the US in August, 2013. Um, January, 2014, I started working for a winery and investment consulting company. Their main sort of idea for me was to be an analyst, help them create long-term projections, specifically for new projects where we're buying a piece of land and it could take 25 years to get to a point where a multiple will come into play. A couple of months into it, we realized, well, this is wonderful to be able to help people sort of forecast what's going to happen, but we can't make any adjustments to that forecast. We're not getting good accounting information. You know, an analyst job is pretty useless if you're just don't have financials to work with at all. So we've tried to figure out how would we solve this problem? We went to the market, try to see if there were opportunities and options out there for us to use. And generally speaking, we didn't like what we saw. Either they were really expensive, uh, or poor quality, or unfortunately, a lot of the care times, poor quality and expensive. Um, we're talking about really small projects, you know, family owned wineries, less than 5,000 cases. So you're in the 500 to $2 million revenue range. They don't have a ton of free resources to be able to spend on accounting. So they end up using, you know, their mom's brother, sister's uncle's cousin who once took an accounting class in high school. So we thought we could do it better. And we decided in March, 2014 to get going with brilliant financial, where we provide this fully remote outsourced accounting product to the wine industry to provide them with high quality accounting, you know, source documents through to management reporting so that they were able to provide good information to stakeholders to make better decisions. And it was very important to us to maintain an affordable price, a very competitive price, so that it would be less of a grudge purchase and a purchase that could be seen as a partnership to make your business better. Interesting. And how did you kind of like launch that business? Um, so part of the way we started it is, is we had these investments we're already involved in, right? So those were some of our first clients at that standpoint. Uh, we started with one, I grew to three, and then I think our fourth or fifth client was our first external winery, which we got going on. Um, so, you know, we have a little bit of like, these people need our help anyway type situation. You know, we created a company to solve these people's problems and we got started straight away. And the way we started was basically the way we still operate right now, which is our unique offering where we use resources in my home country of South Africa to support a team in the US to support these wineries. Yeah. So let's dig into that kind of South Africa point as well, a little bit, because you hear a lot of kind of outsourcing, you know, initially it was mostly in India and recently you hear a little bit more about, um, in the Philippines and a lot of the people I've spoken to have been really happy with the quality of work in the Philippines, but I haven't actually heard of anyone prior to you talk about working with people in South Africa. Um, so I'm curious, like why that was the decision and, and how maybe they, they differ from some of the other places that are more popular. Yes. The people I was working with and who are now my business partners are American, you know, entrepreneurs that had worked with South Africans in different forms and really liked the quality of work that came out of South African counties. We obviously very much liked the exchange rate difference as well. And we liked the attitude of most South Africans, which is just get the job done. And we took all of that into account and we said, well, can we hire people in South Africa to make it work? Christian, my answer was, yeah, we can definitely hire people. Can we make it work? Who knows? Let's give it a go and see what happens. So I reached out to some people that I was with in college, people that were generally smarter than me. Most of them were moms trying to get back into the workforce. And we started by hiring one person in South Africa to get going and, you know, it worked out well. And we sort of just developed a plan. Okay, this is the way we're going to do it. We're going to have a client facing person in the U.S. and we're going to hire resources out in South Africa. Vast majority of them, I think all but two at this point, really have professional qualifications, have gone through, you know, CPA firm or audit firm in South Africa, got the training, you know, highly skilled, highly educated and have got to a place where they understand that it's more than just doing bookkeeping, but it's actually, you know, even if you are the bookkeeper on the project, you're thinking of it as accountant and looking for problems, looking for changes, looking for ways to be better. Okay, interesting. And I imagine the language is English. Yeah, English would be kind of the primary language as well, right? So. Yeah. Well, South Africa has 11 national languages. Oh, okay. So there is that complexity, but English is widely spoken. Yeah. So everybody in our office speaks English to some extent. There's obviously some where it's more conversational than, you know, first language level, but that's good enough for what it is. It's a business language in South Africa. So we don't have the language barriers that you potentially could get in other countries. I know there's, you know, a lot of move to the Central America, South America, obviously India and the Philippines. And, you know, though it's not necessarily an issue, it can be an issue, the language barrier. We don't have that in South Africa. And obviously I just sort of know how people operate. Having been in South Africa for the first 29 years of my life, I sort of got a sense of the culture, how people behave, how they respond to different things. So it gives me a big advantage because I understand them culturally and able to integrate them as part of our team, even though they sit on another continent. Mm hmm. Yeah. So you mentioned doing kind of your first hired there directly, and you shared previously that this is like a wholly owned subsidiary of Protea rather than kind of working through like some sort of outsourcing service or something like that, which seems to be increasingly common from what I understand. Is that do you think that that makes like a big difference in like the cultural integration of the of, you know, of the talent down there? I mean, to get like, you know, to be honest, when we first started, I didn't know any better. So I thought this was the only way to do things right. So I'm just going to hire some people down there firstly as consultants. And then we opened up a company in South Africa and hired them directly. And my big belief, whatever we were going to do, you know, South Africa, Philippines, India, wherever I was going to do this project, it was very important for me to make sure that we're hiring people and not resources. And it was really critical for me that whoever works on any of our clients work is a part of our team, believes in us and sees themselves as part of the team. And it doesn't matter where you're sitting, you know, that's just, you know, that's just location, we've got enough tools in place, even in, you know, 2014, where this was pretty rare, and working from home wasn't the norm, there was enough tools available for us to be successful by just jumping on a phone call and having conversations. So it's always been critically important for me to develop a team that really cares about the company, really cares about our vision for the company, buys into our values so that they will give their best because they believe they're part of something bigger than themselves. I love that. Yeah, I'm sure and I'm sure it makes it like an employer of choice versus other places that aren't necessarily being as intentional about that in terms of like working remotely. So what are some of the like concrete things that you've been able to do to like really integrate them and make the people hired from that subsidiary really like feel as, you know, one unified team with the kind of local establishment that you have in the US? Like, are there any kind of concrete tips to integrating them better? Well, I think one of the advantages we had is that I had maybe seven people in South Africa before I hired my first person in the US, right? So it really was just me and a team in South Africa to get going with. So everything that I was building from the get-go was to integrate this, you know, multi-continental team and making sure that they understand they're part of my team. And even if we never grow any bigger than this, it's me and you guys and you're going to support me, I'm going to support you and we're going to work together to be successful. You know, we've obviously grown from that to the point now where we're 41 people with eight of us in the US, right? So 33 people down in South Africa, it's a slightly different situation. And it is very important when you are building teams on different continents that people do see themselves as one integrated team. The worst thing you want is this you versus me mentality because that just, you know, and that's in any business. It doesn't really matter if you're a multi-continent. There's nothing worse than the accounting team is fighting with the ops team that's fighting with the sales team in a normal business, right? So you're just trying to effectively do what you would do in any business, which is create a good culture where everybody believes they're part of the same final outcome. What we found very important is making sure that we have sufficient touch points with our team members so that nobody ever feels isolated and not sure what's going on. So that, you know, in the beginning was me talking to every team member every single month that obviously didn't maintain, you know, it's not the most repeatable task in the world, especially when your team gets bigger. So only what, like 16 months ago, I stopped talking to every team member every month, but I do make sure I talk to every team member at least twice a year. You know, I still go down to South Africa and have in-person meetings and one-on-one meetings. We have meetings where the whole team gets together to hear me talk. We make sure that the account managers are talking to their team leaders on their projects. We call them seniors on a regular basis to make sure there's touch points. You know, we've got rules in place around interactions when new projects come on board. We use software for weekly check-ins so our team members can tell us how they're feeling, what they're struggling with, where they need help. We use a system called 15-5. We have an HR manager that's making sure that's checking on people's wellness, making sure that, you know, focusing on their performance improvement. Each team member has a performance manager to focus on their performance, the integration of the team where they need help. We have, you know, we have buddy systems where people can work together. And we've got, you know, sort of many social events, both, you know, in the specific continent as well as cross-border events where people get together and get to know each other a little bit more. So it's finding ways to make sure people are having conversations, communicating with each other, and getting to know each other so that that cultural difference doesn't become too big of a problem. Because obviously, as our team grows in South Africa, it becomes more and more culturally diverse with many different backgrounds and experiences and different age groups, right? I think our youngest team member is probably 27 and our oldest is in their mid-50s. So you're talking pretty, you know, multi-generational as well. And even that can be a hard factor for any business to deal with. So it's finding ways for these people to connect and find level ground and make sure that they're all trying to achieve the same outcomes. Nice. And what does employee retention look like for that team? Maybe even kind of like versus your US-based employees? So we're very, very fortunate that our retention is extremely high. I should have probably pulled up the numbers to have them ready to talk to you about them. But, you know, in the US, we're about to have, I mean, obviously, I'm more than five years, but it'll be one, two, three, four, a fifth person here five years with the business. And that's, you know, we're a 10-year-old business. And it was like three or four years before I hired somebody for the first time in the US. In South Africa, I think we have now four or five people that are over eight years with the company. Wow. And I think we're averaging around four years tenure at the moment for people in an order. I mean, we're 33 people, we've hired 50 people in total. So it hasn't been perfect along the way. But yeah, there's 20 people that have left, there's four or five that lost in five years. And then there's 10 or 11 that didn't last three months. Yeah, I mean, for your tenure is incredible, right? Like for my whole cohort, who started together at an accounting firm, only one of five of us made it past three and a half years or four years or something like that, right? Like, I think that's incredible in the industry. So and I've never had a job for four or more years and probably never will. So yeah, I mean, I spent four years at KPMG. And in my cohort that we started with, I think I was the only one that did a fourth year. Now, that was 2008. And they weren't really handing out too many jobs. So that might have been part of it. But there was a good out of the, I think we were nine people, there was a good six of them that had no interest of even considering an extra year after their three year requirement to become a job accountant. So we do pride ourselves on that. We do want to keep people in place. We obviously understand that it is really expensive to hire new people in terms of training, onboarding, getting them up to speed. And we know as much as like, you know, sometimes people will say, oh, you're just a bookkeeping firm. We understand that it's way more than that. And the complexities of the type of work we do, the systems we have in place and the industry we're dealing with, it really takes people about nine months to really settle in and be comfortable with what they're doing. And that's, you know, and that's not even taking into account if they are involved on inventory costings, because cost accounting is a big part of what we do. And a lot of people just don't have the depth, the experience on that. And it can be really complicated in a space where your inventory cycle is three, four, five years long because it takes a long time to get, you know, wine from a vine all the way to into the bottle. Is that one of the big things that kind of makes accounting for the wine industry unique is like sort of like the inventory costing and how all of that works? A hundred percent. It's definitely the most complicated portion of any project that we deal with. You know, just think about it takes 12 months to grow the grapes and then at least three months to sort of ferment and get into a point where you can sell it. Now, we're dealing mostly with ultra high end wine. So wine that's sort of selling for more than $25 a bottle. And we've got clients up in the two, $300 a bottle. So those wines are aging for a much longer period of time. So it's not just allocating the cost of what the grape is, the farming cost, but you're also having to allocate overheads, labor costs for an extended period of time. So the tracking of around that does become complicated and it does take a lot to think about it. And with a lot of our wineries being small wineries, we have additional complications where, you know, minimum order quantities get in the way. So you want to print some labels, you have to print a thousand of them. So maybe you think it's three cents a label, but they only bottled 500. So now it's six cents a label and people don't think about those additional costs. To a point where we have run into projects where we've had to do massive write-offs because people haven't thought about that. So those dry goods just, you know, grow on the balance sheet. Additionally, because our wineries are smaller, one of the other complications that we do have is that their tax providers have told them they can do it on a cash basis because that's what the tax laws are. Now, that's not perfectly true because they're an inventory company. They should be doing it on a hybrid basis. There should be some inventory on the box, but even if they do have that little bit of inventory, it's not sufficient to be able to do gap financials and definitely not in management reporting level where they can make good business decisions on where they will sell. Because depending if they go distribution or DTC, the margins are significantly different. And if they don't have those true numbers, they shouldn't be making decisions around this production. Right. So, I mean, the importance is obviously, and, you know, probably most people know this, but like, yeah, you can't, it's more than just like a regulatory compliance thing, having, you know, strong accounting and helps them with the decision making and all that. Is that usually pretty easy to communicate to these kind of small wineries? Because I imagine a lot of small firm owners probably just view this as like an extra cost, right? Like, I'm curious to know how you manage those conversations. Yeah, I mean, there's the two sides of it, right? It's the one point. A lot of the time we get brought in as like with a stick where the lender goes, hey, we can't give you money unless you get good costing so we can understand the true margin versus your competitors. Okay. So we come in and they're like, oh, geez, okay, I guess we have to do it. And they will fight us as well. And a lot of the times, unfortunately, tax providers will fight us as well. They're like, but that's not the way we've done it. Like, well, we can do an accrual to cash conversion. Like, that's not very difficult, right? It takes some time, but it's not difficult. So those are the guys we fight back on a tour. They've been forced to do the costing because their bank has told them to. And those can be much harder conversations specifically because the costing isn't cheap. You know, it takes a significant amount of hours to get it right, especially if you're going back in periods to correct numbers. It takes some work. The other side of it is there's a lot of business owners that come in and understand they really do need to understand their margins so they can make better decisions around it. And those people are obviously really great clients to come with because they understand the value behind the work we're doing. And then if we can do it efficiently and effectively and their bill doesn't go high, it makes a very happy customer, which also allows us to then have more conversations and get into more of a consulting world. So it really is split between the two. There isn't much middle ground, unfortunately. Yeah. And so with being in a niche kind of like the wine industry, how much of an advantage would you say that specialization is? Because I look back to when I was at Deloitte, I'd get thrown an occasional farming client and it would take me four times as long as it should, right? So when you're kind of like quoting out a project versus someone going to a regional firm who maybe doesn't handle a high volume of wineries, what does that advantage kind of look like? And what sort of internal processes enable that additional efficiency? Yeah. So I think the big part about that is the internal processes and the languages we speak and the training we're able to get, right? Because we're so heavily focused on wine and the alcohol beverage industry in general, but wine makes up 99% of alcohol beverage clients, it allows us to simplify things a lot. When we first started out, we were very much generalists. We'll take on any work we like, even though wine was always more than 50% of our books. We decided at the point, and we were doing a large music festival, it took a lot of hours. And when that left, when we helped them sell to a listed company, we decided, okay, well, this is the opportunity now to really focus in on the niche and what we do well at and where our advantage is because we're very good at cost accounting. So that created a situation where we could simplify all of our processes and our service offerings. I mean, this is what we believe the clients in the wine industry need. And we're just going to focus in on selling these services. We can then create standardized procedures that will definitely need tweaking per client as the different softwares they use, but we can focus in on doing that. We can then also make sure that our marketing budget is very much focused to the wine industry and spending time by going to industry events to get in front of the decision makers to allow us the opportunity to work with these clients. So by being able to put that niche in place, it simplified everything for us, gave us the direction we needed to be able to focus in very much on what are we good at and what does the industry need, which allowed us to provide a better product at a higher quality with the efficiencies. So when we walk into a winery, it doesn't take us months to sort of get up to speed. Once we have access, we know what we're looking at, we know what we're talking about, and it's very easy to onboard clients and basically hit the ground running without too much interference within their processes. We do see a lot of work being taken over from other clients, other competitors, but they aren't wine industry experts. And it sticks out like a sore thumb. They're trying to use QBO standardized template for an agricultural company. Like, yeah, that's not going to work. Or they're not quite understanding what needs to go in. And most of the time, the most critical portion of all of this is they're unable to talk the language with proprietors. So the proprietors never feel like they can really trust the information they're getting because they don't believe that they actually understand what they're talking about because they're not using the right terminologies. Interesting. And then I guess from a business development perspective, even, when you go to these wine industry events, are you kind of like one of the only sort of professional services providers who's there? Like, does it help you kind of stand out in terms of like advertising to a less crowded room or? It definitely does help. You know, there's a couple of we've got some competitors in the space that do a really good job. So I'll probably, you know, I'm going to just tomorrow I have a conference that I'm attending. I'm sure I'll run into at least three of them tomorrow. So it's not like I'm lonely in the space. And then there's a couple of regional CPA firms that do a very good job at that as well. And I know at least one of them, probably both of them will be there in terms of trying to get clients to, you know, getting their clients on board. Obviously, the very important part that we have, and sometimes it's a bit of a competitive advantage, is that we're very clear on what we want to do. You know, we very much want to do bookkeeping to controller plus level work. We can do the CFO level work. We have an FBA option. We handle compliance for all these clients. We get them tax ready. But what we're focused on is a very specific set of tasks that is involved with the day to day, getting their books ready and getting them financials on, you know, a good speed. You know, we aim for the 10th business day so we can give it to the clients, give them what they need, and then they can ask questions if they need it. So because we're very focused on what we're doing, we're never trying to sort of upsell these clients or try, you know, shove services down their throats that they don't need. So it creates a situation where we feel a lot more trusted and we're not constantly in the sell mode because we understand what we're good at and the best way to help these clients at this point in time, which means even some of these regional CPA firms will bring us in on projects as well because they want to do the taxes and understand that to be able to do that job, they need really good accounting. So, well, I'll turn to Zane and his team because we know we can trust them. We also know that they're not going to come and try to steal our tax work away from us because they don't do taxes. Yeah. Yeah, I've run into this a few times recently where it's very counterintuitive, but I almost find having a scope limitation on your services can literally be like a competitive advantage. Like I've found that with Trimerit as well, right? Where like firms feel incredibly comfortable kind of handing their clients off to them because they're not worried that they're going to then lose the client. And it feels like there's always this like push and pull between that where like it feels like a really natural progression for your firm to start offering tax services. But like that might actually competitively be a bad choice, right? Like I find that really, really interesting. Same with like financial advisory. I had Craig House on here who does kind of wealth management for their customers. But then I've had so many other people tell me that they get a lot of referrals from wealth managers, right? That's really interesting. And would you say a pretty significant amount of the work is coming from like referrals from tax firms? Yeah. So my last check, 75% of my referrals came from bankers and tax firms. Okay. And that sort of flows between the two, between 75, 25% just sort of depending on the period of time. You know, there's just different times in the year where each one of them do it. I would say it probably balances out to about 50-50 on top of that. So that's been pretty good. You know, in one of my strongest years, which was 2021, I would say close to 80% of my referrals came through tax providers though. Wow. Okay. So, I mean, that's something to consider for people who are listening and maybe considering adding on another service line is that like there is some competitive advantage to not offering something, which is really interesting. Yeah. I think you just need to be very clear on what you want to do and what you really like, right? Like I don't even do my own. taxes, so I don't trust myself to do other people's taxes. Now I'm not saying I'll never do taxes, but I'm probably not going to be ever hiring somebody to do company taxes. I might hire somebody that just does individual tax returns, so the single member LLCs, that's the flow-through entity, we can have somebody to send that to because these big CPA firms, the ones that we're currently working with, can't do that work. It's just not affordable, doesn't make sense, so they need some support. But where I stand right now is we know what we do, and that's what we're going to focus in on because that's the best way we can help our clients. That's very interesting. And then I guess my last niche-based question, but how has being in the wine niche impacted your talent attraction? Has it made it easier because people want to work on something they inherently find interesting, or have there been even challenges with that? There obviously is the one challenge that you always have to check before you're considering hiring people, is that to be very, very clear that you're working in alcohol beverage and make sure that people don't have religious or ethical reasons not to work in that space. So it does create a bit of an awkward conversation early on in the interview that this is what we do, there is nothing outside of it, we're in alcohol. If you're against alcohol for any reason, this is probably not a good interview. So there is that challenge, it's just an awkward conversation to have, and I have it with every person I talk to, try not to discriminate, but the fact is, this is what we do, make sure that you're comfortable with it. And we've had one person heard that, even though they knew it, and they're like, oh, thanks, I do appreciate that, I actually can't work on those clients for religious reasons. Okay, well then, I appreciate your time, let's move on. So there is that challenge. Now, again, that's once in the whole career, so it's not a big thing, once in 10 years is not huge, but it does create a conversation you need to have. I do think that it does create a little bit of at least intrigue from people, in terms of, oh, that sounds really interesting, but it does also create a situation where I do get a lot of people reach out to me and they're like, well, I really love wine, so it'd be great to work for you. And it's like, okay, I understand you like wine, passion is wonderful, but it's more important than that. Like, I really love cost accounting, so this is a good place for me to be, is a much better response than I really like wine, can I be in the wine industry, right? It does create an interesting hiring dynamic in the US, because when I am looking for people to take on a position, yeah, it is very beneficial if they have wine industry experience. Because teaching them the language is harder than anything else that we really do from the position we are. Obviously, we have to teach, most of the time, we have to teach client service, how to communicate all those things. But if they come from the wine space, it does make the onboarding of a US team member a lot easier. That's less of a factor in South Africa, because they're not client facing, and they're not having to communicate directly with clients. I wouldn't say that in the South African team, that the wine industry has been a big factor in hiring. I think the bigger factor in hiring there is working for an American company, with a perceived, this is a safer job than a local company. Okay. Interesting. And that just takes into the economies. I think during the height of the pandemic, South Africa's unemployment went over 50%, you know, so. Oh, wow. Okay. So, you know, security, job security is important. Okay. Interesting. Because I'm going to say, yeah, like, job security doesn't feel the best in general and sort of like North America right now, but I guess there is a bit of a sliding scale there, right? Like, our worst times may still be better than many others. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Interesting. And then kind of like a bit of a closing question I like to ask everyone. If you were a young professional just starting out in the accounting industry, do you have any sort of, you know, general advice to people who want to make the most out of like an accounting career? I have a lot, actually, you know, it's one of those, it's really weird things like one, fantastic, you're in the accounting industry, somebody sold you a good message. I'm happy for that. Right. One of the biggest issues right now is getting young people to actually want to do accounting and not just happen to fall into it. But there are, you know, I think, and we'll stick down to two key topics that I think all accountants should understand. One, realize that accounting is not just accounting and there's different facets within accounting that you can go into. And you know, this is not just like, oh, I'm going to be in tax, oh, I'm going to be in audit. I would say take as many opportunities as you can to figure out which, you know, area of accounting that you really, really like and what you're really passionate about, because if you can find your passion, it will make like the accounting role so much easier because it is a stressful job. Even, you know, it doesn't matter what space you're in, you know, tax people have the busy season audit cut. People have to deal with all the complaints of being an auditor, you know, us as outsourced accountants, we have a busy period every single month because we have to get through month end closes. So there's always going to be tough times in accounting. So if you can find an area of an accounting that you really, really like, it will make your job a lot easier because you'll just feel more happy about coming to work. And I am a big believer in being happy with what you're doing. And also understand that the accounting is not necessarily the end. Like even though I'm still in the accounting industry, I'm technically an entrepreneur that happens to do accounting, right? So I wouldn't be able to have done that without the business knowledge that I've been able to obtain from my accounting background, my experiences in the accounting space. Secondly, understand that in the accounting space, you are always dealing with a customer. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, part of a consulting firm that's talking to actual customers or if you're part of an accounting department within a big company, your customers are the people that work at that company. So you are always in customer service and you're always going to have to communicate. So I highly encourage any new accountant to work on their communication from day one. That's writing clear, concise emails. That's being able to have a prepared conversation. It's the ability to stand up in front of people and talk to people in a way that people can trust you. So it blows my mind to this day, knowing what I know now, because clearly I was not the biggest fan of people in general when I started studying and became an accountant. So it was the benefit that I wouldn't have to deal with them, but here I am. And all you do is deal with people all the time. Doesn't matter what role of accounting you have and communication skills will set you apart from others. And if you can communicate well, you can be like me, the average accountant that has above average ability to talk to people and people trust me. I've seen a lot of accountants that are the smartest in the room, but they cannot communicate. So nobody trusts them and nothing gets done. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Like some of my, you know, some of the education bits that I've been most grateful to have gone through or the case competitions in university, I think taught me more than any of the courses that I ever took and give you those soft skills that you get to kind of carry with you for the rest of your life. And, you know, I took a business writing course recently and just kind of like a throwaway thing. I'll give it a try. But I actually realized like, yeah, it translates a ton into like your day to day life. And those are skills that even if you leave the industry altogether, like you're going to be super happy to have them. So I would definitely second that. I think it's a great, great idea to try to develop those skill sets as much as possible and just know that they'll help you as an accountant. And then if you end up pivoting, then they'll help you there too. Yeah. I mean, when I was in high school, when I was in high school, I did Toastmasters and I had no idea that I would ever need that or use that. And I don't always like remember that I did it. But when I, you know, I'll stand up and talk in front of people, people like, wow, you're so natural. I'm like, oh, well, I've practiced it, right? Like I've done the work, I've put in the time. And now obviously it's a repetitive situation where I'm dealing with it on a daily basis. So it becomes a lot easier. The other part is when it comes to trying to be at a better communication, do not be scared of technology. You know, I put Grammarly onto my computer a couple of years ago, and it has definitely improved my quality of writing, especially on the email side, because I can drop it in there, understand the tone I want, and then it can help me with being what I am, just a very lazy talker and writer. I just forget words all the time. Part of it is that I'm thinking a million miles of a second, so I'm already, I've said the sentence in my head, and sometimes it doesn't come out my mouth, right? But having that tool will basically tell me, Zane, you're being nuts. This makes no sense. Can we adjust it? I can read the adjustment like, wow, that was not what I was saying at all. So let me make those changes. So use the tools to your advantage. Any improvement in communication will make a big difference. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining, Zane, and thank you for that excellent advice for anyone listening. I could not second that any harder. But yeah, thank you so much for joining. For anyone looking to get in touch with Zane, I'll make sure to include the contact information in the podcast notes. But yeah, thank you once again for joining the pod, Zane. Thanks for having me, Dominic. It was great.