Episode 178 - Current Trends, Human Connection, and the Future of Advisory - The Woodard Report Podcast

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Woodard Report podcast where we enrich businesses through business advisors. This podcast is your source for information and news you need for your accounting, bookkeeping or tax practice. And it is proudly sponsored by Puzzle, the next generation firm AI powered human led puzzle replaces manual QuickBooks workflows with AI driven books built for review, approval and audit ready accountability. Learn more@puzzleio and now your hosts, Joe Woodard and Heather. Well, Heather, we're back together again. It's going to be another great episode.

Speaker B: It sure is. I'm, uh, always, always a pleasure, Joe.

Speaker A: Yep. Well, today we have the current events. We always cover the TV and movie quote of the week where we extract some goodies and some wisdom out of the things that we're watching. Excellent thing we learned. This week we're going to try to stump each other with two truths and a lie. Patricia Hendricks is here who heads up our coach program to talk about one of the members that she personally coaches. And Heather is going to pick her favorite Water Report article of the week. So, Heather, before we get started, you know we have a game that we play over here where we give each other a word and you have to try to work that word organically and naturally into what you say in the podcast. Neither of us knows this word until after we hit the record button. So this week you'll be playing and I'm coming up with a word. The word today is aluminum. So you have to try to get aluminum into something that you say. All right, let's just jump right in. Heather, what are some of the current events that you're seeing out there in the world of accounting?

Speaker B: So really interesting news. Ah, article I stumbled upon and it actually pertains directly to me. And I was, I'm excited and a little disappointed all at the same time. And I'll explain in a minute. So, uh, five New England state CPA societies have merged to form the New England Society of CPAs, which I was so excited. I'm like, this is great because as you know, Joe, I moved from Rhode island to Connecticut last year and I was like, this is great, right? No more reciprocity. I can just, you know, merge with all of the states except for the fact that the states are Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode island and Vermont, not Connecticut. So I still have to do the reciprocity. So anyway, uh, so this is together.

Speaker A: I mean, they are in New England, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, in Connecticut is a New England state. So I really feel like I don't know why Connecticut didn't merge I, uh, merged.

Speaker A: I think it's one state, one football team. One state.

Speaker B: Oh, okay. So you don't think they should emerge at all?

Speaker A: Okay, I think, I think that's the actual baseline. You've got one football team. Should be one state.

Speaker B: Okay. All right.

Speaker A: And those would have. Two football teams should break apart into two states. I don't know why we don't just do this. Makes perfect sense to me.

Speaker B: I don't know. It's the changes affected July 1, Joe. So it's, it's, you know, it's coming up really fast. Um, in fact, it may. Depending on when this podcast airs, it may have already happened. Uh, but there's going to be 14,500 members at ITS. At its inception. And the current president, CEO of the Massachusetts Society is going to take the helm for the New England Society. So I, I've often said. And all of the New Englanders are going to be anti Heather Day, um, at, uh, the end of the. What I'm about to say. But I've always said that really New England should be one. One state.

Speaker A: Uh, so you and I both feel that way. Yeah, of course. I say people are like, no, no, from there. So you can say such things.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: But I'm glad that the societies are kind of banding together. I think it'll be much stronger. I think they'll be greater than the sum of their parts.

Speaker B: I agree. I agree.

Speaker A: And you can drive like two minutes and you're in another state. So it's going to help with you people that learn face to face for sure, too.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Yep. Okay. So, all right, now that we're done picking on New England, um, my news is that Pilot is no longer building its local partnership program. And we actually feature this as one of our current events in a previous episode. Um, they didn't launch it. It was a wait for it pilot program, but they decided not to move forward with it. And so I just met with their CEO yesterday, and it's not that they've backed off of local bookkeeping practice, um, empowerment. They're just doing it through a software approach instead of through a partnership approach. In the, in the, in the former way they were working this, um, it was going to be the, um, you know, like they were going to collect the money, they were going to price it, they were going to share revenue with the local practice. It was much more involved. Now it is a software play. There's. They're making the pilot platform available under a license. You can run your accounting as pilot Runs their accounting for the bookkeeping processes. And this is the interesting thing, you know, the very smart lady, been at this for 10 years. They service 4,000 clients. I learned on, uh, our podcast interview, which we'll publish here soon, or already just did, that she services the Firm for services 4000 clients. Their average revenue per professional is a million dollars per FTE. Where the gold standard in enterprise firms is 250, they're four times that. And she manages a half million dollar book of business as a side thing, while she's watching or binge watching television shows from her living room couch. You know, that's her, that's her, that's her hobby job is 500,000. So when she says that this thing actually does do bookkeeping and then it reports to you as the reviewer, there seems to be some teeth to what she's saying. And I asked her straight up in the interview, you all can go listen to it listeners, uh, it's out there or will be soon. I said, you know, a lot of people are going to be hearing what you're saying and they're going to be, yeah, I've heard this before. Everybody's been telling me for the last five years that computers can do the bookkeeping work end to end. You know, what do you tell people that, uh, that ask, are you different? And she said, well, I would say what makes us different is the fact that we're currently using it on 4,000 clients and I am currently doing this for my couch in one hour an evening at $500,000 in Billings a year. So it's not theoretical. I would encourage everybody to go take a look. The name of the product they're launching is called Meridian. It's uh, Meridian Pilot dot com.

Speaker B: Interesting. I'm trying to process this and I'm thinking of like a, you know, I think it's exciting and uh, that's staggering that you could do half a million dollar book of business in an hour a day. Um, I think about quality, right? So when I think about the relationship building, it's, you know, having the task work. And we talked, Joe, about the fivefold model of cas, right, where transactional accounting is the core and then we build out our book of business around that, right? With controllership, with fpa, uh, with fractional cfo, um, or back office process outsourcing. So the question is clearly Pilot, is the technology is able to automate that transactional accounting, but where are we layering in these other areas of cas and then how much time is actually being allocated to those Relationships. Because we've been talking a lot about relationship building as kind of our saving grace in the age of AI. So that would be my big question. Did she talk at all about how

Speaker A: she's doing transactional, you know, record keeping for that kind of when she's servicing that book? That's, that's people that just want their books closed at the end of the month, they don't want the larger cast relationship. Um, but we did talk about that in the, in the interview. What she would be doing, if you're looking at the five fold model of cash, she would be doing the transactional accounting piece of the fivefold, and everything else would be left to the professional. So she's not saying that pilot displaces the professional. It just displaces those tasks of that one component of CAS so they can focus on controllership, FP and a back office administration and other tasks.

Speaker B: Got it. Okay.

Speaker A: Anyway, uh, and I don't think they're alone. I think increasingly we're seeing digits get there, we're seeing puzzle get there. The technology is catching up with, with the demand for this end to end monthly close. And, um, and so I would encourage everybody to explore all those technologies.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Interesting.

Speaker A: All right, so now it's time for the TV and movie quote of the week. What are you watching out there, Heather?

Speaker B: So I pulled a quote from one of my favorite shows of all time, Schitt's Creek.

Speaker A: Um, did the beep come after the, uh. Well, sorry, the beep was late. Keep going. I had to beep out the first word of that show.

Speaker B: Oh, you had to beep out the first.

Speaker A: Yeah, this is, this is a family friendly podcast episode, so keep going.

Speaker B: It's not spelled that way. It's the name of a town.

Speaker A: Well, okay, all, uh, right, we won't beep you anymore. Go ahead.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker B: Thank, uh, you for not beeping me. Um, I appreciate that. All right, so anyway, this is the episode where David is taking his driving test and he's terrified that he's going to fail and it's going to be embarrassing. Right. So he's with Alexis's sister, uh, and he's really, really worried about, about, you know, failing this, this driving test and what it's going to mean for the perception of people around him. And so Alexis drops this on him. She says, trust me, people aren't thinking about you the way that you're thinking about you. And so I think that's really important, and I think that's certainly something that I struggled with in my life is I assume that anything that was going on in my head that everybody could see that somehow there is like this, this, this, uh, billboard that just followed me around. Kind of like in the Sims, where everybody has that big bubble.

Speaker A: The marquee sign. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yes. And that the thought bubble, everybody could read what was going through my head. The reality is not true, that whatever goes in my head is mine. Um, so anyway, but the point is, is that people aren't paying attention to us as much as we think. So whatever is going through our perception is our perception and the outside world's perception is completely different. And so what happens when we get into this place where we're really worried about what people are going to think about us is that overthinking it makes the risk of what we want to accomplish much, much bigger than it actually is.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And then the reality is that confidence. Right. The confidence comes after action and not before it. Right. Every time we look to do something that's new or different that seems really scary, uh, it's not until after we've actually done it that our confidence comes. We go, okay, we did this. I remember, Joe, when I first started speaking, doing, speaking at conferences that I remember the second time I ever did it, I was there and I was physically ill and I, um, was really scared to get up on that stage. And I remember thinking to myself, it was a 20 minute panel and I was the moderator. And what I said to myself, Joe, was, It's 20 minutes from my life. This is important to me. If it doesn't work out, then I'll learn from it and I'll move on. But if it does work out, then this could changed my entire career, correct?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And it was terrifying. And I did it and it changed my entire career. And the risk was it was really just grounding. So anyway, that was my quote. Um, and, uh, and great show. Really funny. If you're ever having a bad day, just throw it on and you will feel better.

Speaker A: That's great. And, and, um, the getting out of your own head thing, I couldn't agree more. Um, yeah, nobody, nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you. But when we think that, they do. Yeah, we overthink. All right. Lots of things in one sentence. All right, so. So I just finished, uh, watching Half man and just viewer caution here. Um, if you have a, if you have a weak disposition to anything that's intense, dark drama, please don't watch Half Man. Um, but because it's very dark drama, but what, uh, an intense storyline. These, these two stepbrothers are connected deeply in this codependent relationship that's the name of uh, the name of the show. They're both kind of half people that they only are one person if they somehow try to complete each other, but that, that just always ends in disaster. And, and frankly if the two of them were to somehow fuse and combine together into one person, I don't think I would like that person either. So they were both incomplete and terribly broken at the same time. Um, so there's a, there's a quote in there that says some people can't live with each other and can't live without each other. You know, and that just kind of is the uh, that could be the tagline for the whole show really. Um, and I know that I've harped on this particular thought many times in many podcast episodes, but I want to bring it up yet again. Um, that when we end up in these codependent relationships with anyone, um, we are somehow less of a person. It diminishes us. It, um, and so we typically do that with clients. I mean it's outside the context of this podcast, um, format to speak to your personal relationships, but I can speak to your client relationships and say if you're looking for that relationship with the client to somehow complete you as a professional, validate you as a professional professional. If you identify too strongly with the fact that they're your client, if that's where you get your confidence from, your self actualization from, um, then you're in too deep psychologically. You need to pull back. Um, the definition, textbook definition of codependency psychologically is making another person's problem your problem. And therefore like if they're uh, addicted to drugs, then you become like an addict because you're carrying their dependency alongside them, which is not interdependency. You know, it's, it's, it's um, it's ah, it's codependency. So if you've made the client's problem your problem, remember this quote you've heard me say before, that there's an endless vacuum of human need and it is not your job to fill it. It is your job to service the client within the scope and boundaries of your professional relationship. Do it with all your might, love them, and then hold that boundary line.

Speaker B: So true, Joe. And I think that's definitely a trap that we fall into and it's what keeps us up at night. And so centering yourself to understand that they own that problem is really important.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I've quoted the Pit several times here too, and I would. I would recommend people watch that if you don't, if you're not squeamish, because it's very graphic. It's an er. Um, and they did a. There was a lot of that with the interns and a lot of that with the brand new residents. Um, of them, you know, they. They would just only be able to help somebody so far. There was somebody being sex trafficked in one episode, and they did everything they could to get her pamphlets, get her information, give her resources, but she just was not going to. To participate. And then, you know, next thing you know, she's gone and, you know, what do we do now? We move on to the next patient, they say. I mean, what. I mean, don't let me wrong. They weren't not caring. They were caring, but they realized that there's an endless vacuum of human need and they can't now make their entire profession around trying to help her. She'll be back when she needs more help. Um, and there's a. There's a healthy degree of detached there. Let the universe take it from there kind of thing. We've done our part.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay, so let's get on now to the excellent thing we learned. Excellent. All right, Heather, what'd you learn this week?

Speaker B: So I learned something really cool from, uh, one of my colleagues or, uh, friends. Um, Kristen from Auburndale Bookkeeping shared a really cool thing that just happened back earlier in May. Um, there was a lawsuit, uh, from. Called Kwong versus United States. And this ruling dropped on May 11th. And what they found. The ruling was that they found that the IRS should not have assessed certain penalties and interest from January 20, 2020, during COVID through July 10, 2023. And you can file for an abatement. This could be a lot of money on the table for folks because it includes penalties, uh, related to failure, uh, to file, failure to pay. And there was a, uh. The IRS had actually said that during COVID they weren't going to assess penalties, but then they did based on the automated system. Right. So if you filed late, an estimated tax payment was late, and you filed with your return those, uh, uh, those late payment penalties, those can actually now you can file for an abatement. Ah.

Speaker A: Of the penalties, only under certain kinds of penalties and interest, most are covered.

Speaker B: So you got to go read it. And I'm going to drop the link to it, but from what I understand, most of these penalties and interest are covered it's individuals, businesses. So because of the, you know, the COVID pandemic, um, was catastrophic. They had actually put kind of a moratorium on the penalties and interest. Now, the thing to keep in mind is this isn't a sure thing, right? So this isn't final, and it most certainly will be challenged, um, and has been challenged by the irs. However, there is a limited window of time for you to actually file for this abatement so that if it does get upheld, you actually get that refund. And that is July 10th.

Speaker A: So they'll have until July 10th, 2026. If you're listening to this after the fact, um, that's really good to know. Um, I actually had the inverse of this, and so I hope that they don't turn around and do the inverse. I had interest earnings from the IRS because they failed to process my, uh, employee retention credit for years. I'm still waiting on one of them, and it's because it all got held up. So I hope they don't turn around now and want to crawl back the interest they paid me. That was the first thing that went into my mind. I mean, who actually earns interest from the IRS very often? But I've earned about $15,000 the last four years.

Speaker B: Well, I mean, this is an insurance policy. It's not a sure thing. It's like taking your favorite leftovers that have a very short, um, life and putting some aluminum foil over it to keep it, to kind of stretch it out a little bit. But, um, uh, if it does come through, great, you get to eat those leftovers. And if it doesn't, then the aluminum really didn't do, uh, a ton, um, to help you, and you can just metaphor.

Speaker A: Um, but, yes, that's great. I appreciate that. All right. It worked. All right. So then my, um, thing that I learned was both and thinking. So both and thinking. This came from Kate o'. Neal. Um, just interviewed her. In a recent podcast episode, she spoke at scaling new heights 2026. Did a fantastic job. She's the author of Tech Humanist, um, as well as several other books. But that one particularly addresses the being more human in a world of AI. And it was in that book that she talked about both and thinking. And she said humans can retain opposing ideas, opposing truths. Right. If you want to use that in sort of an ontological sense, um, simultaneously and find a path forward with them, we can navigate that kind of conflict. We understand the world has mystery, that it has gray in, has uncertainty in it. Um, and we can reconcile those in real Time in a way that allows us to interact with both our world and people. And artificial intelligence, in her opinion, will never be able to do that. And that's one of the traits that will make us uniquely human. We, we talk about emotion, we talk about wisdom, uh, we talk about the human connection in relationships. And all of those are things she brings up in the book. But the one that I learned this week, that was not one, that was in sort of my lineup of what the bots cannot do is they cannot have opposing truths and simultaneously reconcile them in real time. That takes a human mind.

Speaker B: That's really interesting. And I agree that a single bot can't do that and may never be able to do that. But what I, where I kind of poke a hole in this, Joe, and I could be completely wrong and I'd love to hear our listeners thoughts on this is that we're talking, we're seeing now where they're creating environments where multiple bots can communicate with each other and collaborate on, um, different.

Speaker A: Yes, right.

Speaker B: So the question is single bot. No, but what about multiple bots? What if multiple bots hold opposing views? Can they actually work through that together in an environment where they're able to collaborate?

Speaker A: Only if we can achieve general artificial intelligence. Right now we're in the world, as you know, Heather, of specific artificial intelligence. And what would happen is those two specific agents would collide head on, disagree with each other, and either go their separate ways or fight it out until they burn up all the data centers. Probably go their separate ways. Um, but in a world of general artificial intelligence, AGI, um, then that could theoretically be possible. But AGI is only theoretical.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Um, a lot of people don't even believe it's possible that it will ever happen.

Speaker B: Okay, so are you saying if it

Speaker A: does, it will take this one off the list? It still won't be able to feel?

Speaker B: No, it won't be able to list to feel for sure. I guess the question that I have is it would depend on how that AI model was trained, on whether or not they were able to convince each other that, that, that their, I guess, Prime Directive was wrong and then can

Speaker A: be convinced they could agree to disagree, um, that kind of thing. Now we do know that, that, that agents can have biases, so they can hold an opinion that is incorrect. Um, biased by information on the Internet. That's actually a big problem with artificial intelligence and governance. But they're still biased in one belief. They can't hold diametrically opposing beliefs and reconcile them in real time and and we would call that mystery. Right. They can't be m. They can't. They can't, uh, process the mysterious.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it makes sense.

Speaker A: Yep. All right, so now on to two truths and a lie. You want answers? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Since we're recording this in June 2026, we thought, well, why don't we both make them about June? But that's coincidental. All right, Heather, you go first. Try to stump me.

Speaker B: All right. Thing one, June's strawberry full moon is named this because of the pink tinge that the moon has during the full moon in June. That's thing one. Thing two is a June bug, uh, is not actually a true bug. I don't know. Um, and then thing three is the earliest sunrise of the year is usually before the June solstice.

Speaker A: Okay, So I believe June 3rd sounds correct, because summer solstice. It would be the summer solstice, um, which I'm pretty sure takes place in June. And that would be the earliest sunrise because it's the longest day of the year. So that would make sense to me. Um, as long as you don't stunt me on Summer vs June Soltis if it's not that small. All right, so then, um, the June bug could be an arachnid. Never counted its legs. Um, so come back to that one in a minute. And it makes sense of that. The strawberry moon would be pinkish or reddish. Um, so I'm gonna go with the June bug is not actually a true bug is the lie as. That's. That's. No, that. That's the, um. The lie. Yes.

Speaker B: So a June bug is not actually a true bug. It is.

Speaker A: Okay, so I got it. I got it. Is it an arachnid? It is.

Speaker B: Um, it is. That. That is the. That is a true. Right. The June bug is not actually a true bug. So that's true.

Speaker A: Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, yeah, never mind then. Sorry. So I didn't get it.

Speaker B: You did not get it.

Speaker A: But what is it? It must be a racket or it must be something else.

Speaker B: Okay, so it is a, uh, beetle, not a bug. So it's not technically an insect.

Speaker A: Not a bug. So beetles aren't bugs. It's related to beetle car is a bug. The Volkswagen's called both.

Speaker B: I don't understand. Technically not.

Speaker A: All these years I've been deceived.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a scarab. So it's in the scarab family.

Speaker A: Interesting. Learn.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Something new. Um, now I could Put that on next week's. What did you learn this week?

Speaker B: So do you want to know what the lie is?

Speaker A: Oh, please.

Speaker B: Yeah. The lie is June strawberry moon is not pink. It's called a strawberry moon because strawberries typically are harvested in June.

Speaker A: Interesting. All right, let's see if I can stump you. All right. June has more daylight hours than any other month in the Northern Hemisphere. Next June is the only month that never begins on the same day of the week as any other month in the same year. And June is national candy month in the United States.

Speaker C: Gee.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, so June having more daylight hours than any other month in the Norman have in the Northern Hemisphere. I think that may be the lie. And the only reason I think that may be the lie is because I think that the way the earth turns may kind of throw that off so that in certain areas, that that's not totally true, like from east to west. So, um, I think that's the lie, and I could be wrong.

Speaker A: That is absolutely right. Yes. It is the month with the most daylight hours, depending on the year and location, it contains the solstice, but is not necessarily the most daylight hours.

Speaker B: Yay.

Speaker A: Very good. Yeah. I did not stump you. You stumped me. Now it's time for our member spotlight.

Speaker B: Barbara, you look marvelous.

Speaker A: Absolutely marvelous. With us today, we have Patricia Hendricks, and Patricia is the head of our coached program. She's here to talk about one of her members. Patricia, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker C: Oh, uh, thank you very much, Joe. Hi, Heather. Good to see you as well. So I wanted to spotlight one of the Woodard members that I coach directly. His name is Steven Roderick, and he has really exemplified the adoption of our ideal practice model, which is built on seven ideals. One of the exciting things that we're working on together right now is adapting the seven ideals of the Woodard model to his niche market, which is restaurants in the Provincetown, Cape Town area. And so each one of the ideals is being rewritten, uh, or put in, um, into the filter of what would this mean for a restaurant. So, for example, when we talk about ideal brand as our first. First ideal that we work on, it's more about the passion of the restaurant owner or what got him into that restaurant, what he's trying to accomplish, and the change that he's trying, the impact that he's trying to have on his customers. Uh, when we talk about the ideal engagement, we're like, well, what is the experience of that customer when they walk in the door, when they see the ad, or, you know, when they get Served the meal or greeted with a certain language, um, and then with the ideal client, it's like, well, is this for the seasonal, uh, tourist that comes in? Is this for Canadian clients that come down and have a different mindset or different idea of what they should be served or how they should be served? So it's really fascinating on how he's taking the seven ideals that we work on for an accounting practice and he's just modifying them, uh, so that they fit into this seven epic steps for an Epic restaurant.

Speaker A: It's basically taking our model for accounting practices and adapting it to industry. I love that.

Speaker B: I love it too. And you know, Joe Trisha, what I really love about what, uh, Stephen's doing is that this is true advisory. Right. We think of, you know, as an accounting professional. We're focused on the numbers, we're focused on KPIs. But what he's truly doing is going all the layers, you know, lower than the actual financial statements to talk to his clients about what's driving those numbers. And he's doing it by understanding their business, leaning into the knowledge that he's acquired over his career. And that is like the gold standard of advisory.

Speaker A: And I'm coaching is really. He's moved into coaching, um, which we could almost treat as a tangential or synergistic with advisory, um, because he's gotten into the operations of the business. Now what, what, Patricia, does he do with our ideal services? He just turns that into ideal product.

Speaker C: Yes. So, uh, the ideal services is going to focus on what exactly it is that they're providing to their clients. So it's part of, it's part of the experience, but not in the engagement sense, more in the, you know, what are we doing a to go food model? Are we doing, um, historic, you know, locale, geographic types, uh, type services? What, um, what do they, what does he want his clients to feel? Uh, do they need to feel known? Do they need to know their name when they walk in? If it's a, if it's a restaurant for the locals?

Speaker A: Um, so he's focusing on customer experience. It's just in this case, it's a product, not a service. So you just adapt.

Speaker C: Yeah, right. And this sort of part of the service is food. Right. But part of the service is, you know, what this, what the staff does, how they treat you. That's part of what's. I've heard of these restaurants here in Atlanta that have the, um, they like beat you up verbally when you walk in, they abuse you when you Walk in like, and people go there because it's so funny that the waiter or the waitress is going to be abusive to them. Uh, so that's an experience.

Speaker A: Be kind of the ideal engagement. Then, you know, kind of how do you structure, package the service, what's the wrapper? But no, I absolutely love it. I love the idea of adapting the sevenfold model. And then some of them translate perfectly well. I mean, you're going to manage a team, you're going to have a brand. But, uh, and then the rest of its services become products in some models, some might not. And then, um. Yeah, and then I love this whole customer experience piece.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's really cool. And when we started talking about the ideal processes, it was fun where the conversation went. Because all of a sudden we're talking about not just kitchen flow, but dishwashing flow and how the equipment should be put in a certain order so that the flow of the dishwashing is going to turn the dishes fast enough for the next set of customers to come.

Speaker A: Process translates over one to one.

Speaker C: Yes. And then that moves to equipment which we would call ideal technology. But it's like, what's the right equipment that we need to have in this restaurant to facilitate the workers being able to do their job to the best of their ability?

Speaker A: Some of it could be straight up tech, it could be point of sale, it could be back office solutions.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Could be mobile apps. Yeah. So, um, this is great. I would love it if more of our members did take that run with it. Create industry specific SKUs of it.

Speaker C: Yeah. The model is solid for really any business. It's not magic, it's really just common sense. Um, but it's a container that I found. People really needed something to like, tell me what to do. Right. Okay. We'll build this container and start filling in the gaps. Now we're adding this new layer of. We'll just change the language. Yeah, you know, we're in the restaurant language now. We're in the construction language now. We're in the legal industry language. You know, it's just, it's a good, solid model that fits across all industries.

Speaker A: Uh, I think that's fantastic. Well, thank you, Steven, for doing that and believing in the model enough to adapt it to your clients. Love to see where that goes. And Patricia, thanks for being with us.

Speaker C: Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Heather.

Speaker A: All right, Heather, we're wrapping up here with your favorite Woodard Report article of the week. What did you pick this week?

Speaker B: I actually picked an article that was on niching as well, um, so Brandi Derrick is a member of our instructor writer Coalition here at Woodard. She's presented at Scanlan New Heights before. She's, um, awesome. And she is she niches in legal. So she wrote a couple of articles about, uh, how to get into that niche and what it means to get into that niche. So the article is why law firm bookkeeping is not regular small business bookkeeping. And she digs into why that is. What are the unique needs of attorneys? What are the unique compliance issues that you need to pay attention to? And then how do you lean into set or how do you set up, uh, an accounting system and, and a deliverable for accounting firms that is unique to them? So, uh, definitely, if you're thinking about leaning into that area or you have legal clients and you're looking to, uh, expand your services. Great article for you to check out.

Speaker A: So I'd encourage everybody to read that article. You can find a link to that article in the listening guide. You can find that listening guide@woodard.com podcast all right, so, Heather, this wraps up another week. Thanks for being here.

Speaker B: Thanks, everybody. See you next time.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us. For more information about this podcast and its sponsor, please visit woodard.com podcast.