Ep. 013 – The Hidden Challenges of Building a Tax Practice with Chris Lazzurri

Jamie Gruol: Welcome back to Diary of a Tax Practice Owner. I have a special guest with us today, Chris Lazzurri, who is going to share with us a different perspective on tax practices. Chris is an associate certified coach through the ICF 

and founder and owner of CML Consulting and Coaching. His extensive experience working with professional service firms in business development and leadership training roles that have allowed him to work with firm owners, practice leaders, and individuals on reaching their growth goals. Chris is passionate about helping the industry evolve and leveraging change into personal and professional opportunities.

His background provides a unique perspective to organizations and people who find themselves in a period of transition. And I would have to say, Chris, right now, this industry is in a major period of transition.

I don’t know about you, but that’s my perspective.

Chris Lazzuri: No, very much so, and I agree wholeheartedly, and it’s really why I got into what I’m doing now, which is with CML consulting. I was within a firm, and I saw the changes that were coming within the industry, and I didn’t think individual firms were changing fast enough for what I wanted to be doing, and I had had some extensive experience with a couple of different size firms and really wanted to leverage that And hopefully help other people again, as you talked about in those transitions, those things where they were getting ready to leave a firm and go start their own firm, or for the first time ever in their career, they had a business development or a growth goal that they didn’t have otherwise.

And I thought it was important to be able to help those people become more comfortable with the growth aspects.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. So share with us. How did you get to this point? You said that you had some extensive experience in working in the accounting space. So what did that look like for you and how did you gain your familiarity with the industry? 

Chris Lazzuri: I mean, many years ago, I went to work for a smaller firm with an opportunity to move back to my hometown, and it was an opportunity where I was able to leverage my business background. I’m actually a recruiting background to find CFOs, controllers, and software engineers for our clients and use it as a door opening service, an alternative service to the traditional accounting that the CPA firm that I had gone to work for was doing.

So that was my background. There was a dot com bus. There was a rapidly, accelerated availability of people in the market needed fewer recruiting. So I got involved if I decided if I was going to work for an accounting firm, I might as well understand the accounting sit for the exam. I needed a few more classes to get to the 150 hours. So I have a particular interest in that 150 hour requirement and met that and was eligible sit for the exam. And then just. I never finished taking the exam. I didn’t complete that. There were some things that went on, but I understood enough of the industry. And after 20 years in the industry, both with that firm and the acquiring firm, gave me that experience to be able to do that.

Probably years in. Um, they’re like, you’re not like the typical account and you’re not afraid to go talk to somebody. Would you be interested in leading our business development efforts? So I started that when we were still a single office firm that had grown to about 10, 000, 000 and then, uh, as part of the larger firm was the only person in the firm when I was hired to, um, Or when we were acquired that had strictly business development responsibilities, no client service delivery, no hands on doing of any of the work

Jamie Gruol: So how are you doing? Uh, I’m curious about how were you doing the business development activities? Were you networking? Were you focused on marketing skills? Was it conference facing, development? Like what was the role that you were carrying there?

Chris Lazzuri: we were very intentional and what we’re trying to grow. So part of my role was to lay out the growth plans for the year and what markets we wanted to go after what particular services we wanted to offer what industries we wanted to be in and then work with the partner group. So part of my role is business development was actually managing a sales team that did. Telemarketing calls for outbound on a couple services that we had working with the partners on developing their business development plans the year and the goals that were laid out from a firm wide growth perspective to help them meet that with the appointments that are setting appointments for them in some cases with certain services. But others, it was just leveraging local networks. As I said, I moved back to my hometown, so it had a lot of connections there. It was the typical networking chamber events, but also being very intentional about what we were going after.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Interesting. And so how large was the firm that you were working for at that time? Cause I just, there’s a lot of people that are very small and so they’re probably thinking, Oh my gosh, outbound sales. I need to be doing that too. Yep. Yep. I just want to set the scale for them because then we’ll kind of pivot into the smaller firms in a moment.

But how large was this firm?

Chris Lazzuri: Yeah. As I said, when I first started there, we were probably three or 4 million, we grew to 10 million, um,

Jamie Gruol: Okay.

Chris Lazzuri: the acquisition, but we were In a situation where we didn’t have a whole lot of recurring work, we were probably generating 60 to 70 percent new business each year because of the nature of what we were doing in the special projects.

We were working in a lot of, profit recovery services, a lot of special projects, a lot of transactional driven things, as opposed to the traditional services of a firm that are compliance based.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Interesting. So you said that you saw trends happening towards the end of your tenure with that company. What were the things that you were seeing in the industry that really had you focus on the smaller firms and your desire to help them to make this transition in the industry that was happening?

Chris Lazzuri: Probably about six or seven years before I left the firm, I had windshield burn of being on the road all the time doing business development directly myself, working with a couple different industries. As I said, we’ve been acquired. So I’d become part of an organization that went from 10 million to a little over 100 million

Jamie Gruol: Wow. Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: particular industries. Spill it in a lot of time covering the entire state. And, you know, I was just at a point in my life where I was missing things in my kids life. It was windshield time. I was driving by my house from one office to another office waving in the afternoon because I had a breakfast meeting in one part of the state and a dinner meeting in a different part of the state.

And, was ready for that. So about, as I was saying, six or seven years before, I left the firm, I had switched my role and asked them to have responsibility for more of the development of the staff, making them more comfortable with business development, even very early in their career, developing a training program down to our intern level of business development so that they could have an understanding of it, as opposed to somebody becoming a principal or director or a partner and suddenly having growth responsibility, making it more comfortable. Earlier in somebody’s career so that they could do that, and it led to a lot of coaching, which is why I went and got the coaching certification and more of a learning and development internal role than it was an external role. And what I saw in the industry was there were so many people that needed that help.

They were being asked to do business development. They were doing things that were uncomfortable to him. Not many people in the accounting space went to school for marketing and sales and business development. So just trying to get them to think of it in a different way that they were providing a value added service that they were providing a solution to a client to a need that they really had and serving the business as opposed to being a used car salesman or trying to promote something just to sell something.

And so I saw that as a need in the industry, as I said, the other transitions I saw happening were what’s going on with private equity, what’s going on with acquisitions and mergers and I just didn’t control enough of my own future to stay inside a firm and thought I could impact the industry better outside the firm.

And I got connected through tax, Twitter and some other communities

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: quite a few people that were more entrepreneurial and going out and starting their own things. The people that I’d coached, even within the firm had left in some cases and gone and started their own firm. So a lot of work with smaller firms that are more at that startup stage and dealing directly with firm owners at smaller practices.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. What do you think is the biggest thing that is, I mean, you mentioned it’s the skill base, but when people move into building their own firms, what is the number one thing that you think they have to overcome? Is it truly The marketing of themselves and seeing themselves as a valuable asset to the clients that they serve or what is your kind of common denominator that you see in people that are building businesses that maybe experience quick growth in the delivery, but things kind of stall out after that initial burst, how do they move past that?

Chris Lazzuri: I think a couple different things lead to it, but it’s almost shiny object syndrome of not having the focus of what you need to do. You constantly hear about people that need to, you say niche, whatever the term is that you use depends if you’re in the U. S. or Canada or

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. 

Chris Lazzuri: But that focus and that intentionality that I’ve even mentioned before being intentional of what we were going after in the market is huge. And I think it leads to, keeping people from, from burnout. I mean, a lot of what you all have talked about on the previous episodes of the podcast are automation to create freedom. And the same thing is that that intentionality, some people don’t want to niche early in their, their career of their own firm, because they’re afraid they can’t get to where they need to be on a revenue goal, or they can’t replace the income from whatever they were doing before. it doesn’t mean you can’t do those things. What it needs to be is that you focus on the things that you want to be doing.

Jamie Gruol: Yes.

Chris Lazzuri: you left where you were. There’s a reason you started the firm. What is that goal and keeping that goal in mind and making sure that you’re aligning the activities towards that goal and towards that end game versus okay. This is what I need to do this week and this is what I need to do next week 

Jamie Gruol: yeah,

Chris Lazzuri: and not having a focus and trying to do too many things to overwhelm yourselves and then you get back in a situation where you no longer have that freedom that you left for you don’t have the decision make.

Jamie Gruol: absolutely. And you’re also like so deep in the skill based work that you don’t even have the feel for. The time that’s necessary. I think that’s one thing that I have realized in my own business in supporting tax professionals is, and accountants is, I got so deep into the delivery that I didn’t give myself enough space to be creative.

Right. And that’s where The development, the vision holding and like the drive forward comes from. And if you fill your days from, you know, 7 a. m. to 7 p. m. with client delivery and service delivery, you just don’t have that space that you need to try new things and network with people that could maybe really open the gates for you.

Or even to your point, have this bandwidth or the space in your brain to identify what do I actually enjoy doing and who do I enjoy working with? If you don’t give yourself the space, how do you? When you’re working with people that are in that spot where they’re feeling like they’re just on this constant hamster wheel and they want to create more freedom in their lives and have more growth in their businesses without the burnout.

How do you give them that? Like, what is the first thing that you have them do? Is it really kind of visualizing and envisioning what that future state is and how far out do you encourage them to go? 

Chris Lazzuri: I’ll ask him the question of why did they start their firm? Why are they doing the things that they wanted to do? And it’s either, you know. More time with family or it’s more money or have more control of my own destiny. There’s common themes amongst what people are doing.

So ask questions around that. And that’s way that I think even people, whether it be from a growth standpoint, professional development standpoint if somebody can maintain curiosity a little

Jamie Gruol: Yes. 

Chris Lazzuri: Being empathetic and understand that there’s different perspectives and then being true to yourself as well.

Why is it that you want to do something? You see so many people having success out there doing something maybe different than you would have and you want to emulate them. You don’t have that same personality. You don’t have the same fears. You don’t have the same strengths.

So how are you leveraging it? What is you want to do? So I usually start out with a basic question along the lines of, Hey, if you could only focus on three things, what would they be? And somebody usually gets three and then they start adding four and five. I was like, hold on. You said three, which were the three?

Well, I got to do all five of these. Well, if you’re going to do all five, which three do you want to prioritize? And really getting them to prioritize. What they want to be doing, but making sure that that aligns with what they’ve said they want to accomplish as well.

Jamie Gruol: I think it’s so easy to kind of fall into our old habits sometimes. And as a technical producer, tax accounting for me, systems and creation of systems. Like it’s so easy when things get challenging and it’s challenging to have those, Thought processes and go through those exercises. It’s so easy to just kind of like poo poo them and then slide back into your producer stage and the producer mindset.

How do you keep people on track once they kind of get that glimpse behind the door, that there’s more out there for them and that there’s a possibility of actually achieving this desire that they had and moving away from this overwhelming burned out feeling. How do they keep moving forward and not slide back into old habits?

Chris Lazzuri: I mean, I think one is self accountability. The person’s got to think about the reasons that they did it. Like you said, why did they start the firm and what are they trying to accomplish? And how are they keeping from sliding into those old habits? Because it’s very easy, especially. for people within a tax practice to, you know, from January through April, not think about those things, 

Jamie Gruol: Um,

Chris Lazzuri: getting the returns out the door.

They’re trying to do that. And then again, for a lot of people, the second season of being able to do the same thing come September and October as you’ve got extensions, but they forget that that’s why they left a firm. They didn’t like working those hours and they continue. 

In some cases, it’s they’re not charging enough. They need to be doing fewer returns at a higher rate so that they can focus on those things they want to do. Some people aren’t very technical and need to hire somebody. So it really depends on the individual and getting them to do it. But from a standpoint of help and hold them accountable, if, hey, this is what you want to accomplish when we talk again in two weeks, or we talk again in three weeks, what is it you want to do and then follow up and help hold them accountable from a coaching standpoint and from a, even a mentor standpoint of, okay, this is what you said you want to do.

Okay. You didn’t do it. There’s several excuses there, but what’s the real reason and really find that. Underlying reason when their motivation, so it pulls from a lot of different things, but, um, that’s the key is trying to get them to hold accountable and see things that they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

So,

Jamie Gruol: that’s interesting. How, so some people may not be familiar with coaching. Could you kind of give us like what an explanation of a coach is and identify for those that are maybe new to that idea, how it’s different than continuing education or some of the more traditional industry terms around how people are expanding their skills?

Cause I think coaching is a very unique perspective of how one. Achieves goals and achieves the desires that they have.

Chris Lazzuri: yeah, I would say that coaching usually gets lumped in with training. And mentorship. And those three have their own distinct characteristics. those aspects of what you’re trying to do with training, trying to teach somebody how to do something with mentorship.

You’re trying to show them how you did it and how they can follow in your footsteps. Coaching, on the other hand, is less direct and more. Um, relationship driven. And as I said, maintaining that curiosity and asking the questions to help somebody get there on their own and figure out how they would tackle it.

But also leveraging the experience and knowledge that they have. To have somebody look at something, as I said, with a little bit different perspective, maybe a different lens than they would have without having somebody asking them the questions that they are.

So some people get frustrated because they’ll hire a coach and be like, well, they’re not telling me what to do. Well, they’re not necessarily looking for a coach. They might be looking for a mentor or somebody along those lines, but. Even with mentorship, not everybody has the same skills as I talked about before, nor do they have the same desire.

Not everybody wants to grow their firm to 10 million to sell it. Not everybody wants to be put in a position to be acquired by private equity or to hire 10 people or outsource a certain amount of work. Everybody’s got their different goals. And that’s where coaching comes in because it can be very individualized to that person and what they’re trying to accomplish. Enough experience on the coaches part to guide the conversation where the person needs it to go to accomplish what they’re trying to do.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, I like that. And I think it’s the outside perspective. I think it’s funny because this industry from my assessment and I, my background is I have an accounting degree and I, opted not to sit for the extra hour a year school. And cause I didn’t want to, you know, I was done with school at that point.

Um, and went into private accounting as well and spent a few years there and just realized that it was not really my calling. And so I ended up the long route to healthcare it and doing software and then ended up where I am now helping tax professionals and accountants. Cause I can speak to speak, right.

 What I have found is even though I have had that different, you know, perspective into it in my life, the, what I have seen in this industry is that there is so much reliance on the old way that things have been done.

And so when we’re talking to people who are going out on their own and starting new businesses, if they come from a large firm like yours, like you guys obviously had a lot of it and like saw and we’re creating systems to make things more efficient because there was the, the, uh, the, the money to do it.

Right. But when you’re starting out on your own, you kind of revert back to what you knew. And so when you’re limited by the resources you have available and the technology and the team structure and the support that you maybe need, I think a lot of people sometimes also carry over poor processes and poor ideas about how a business should be run.

So when you’re doing your coaching, do you see that that outside perspective? Cause I see it with my outside perspective, right? I’m like, here’s how efficiency can work. Here’s how systems can help. Here’s how. You can streamline and make, you know, let go of administrative work through automation. Like that’s the perspective I bring when you’re looking at the development and the work that you have done because of your unique perspective.

Do you feel that there is a, um, A way of kind of taking off the blinders for people and making them realize that they actually, in fact, do have the skills that they need in order to build a successful business and grow. And what do you think some of those things are that somebody that is looking to grow their firm in the next, say six months going into this next tax season, what do you think that they need?

That is something they maybe haven’t heard before.

Chris Lazzuri: um, confidence is one of those

Jamie Gruol: Oh, good. Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: to know that everybody’s got a different skill and it doesn’t have to be one way that they approach something that it’s not necessarily going to chamber events. If that’s not what you like, but you’re a very technical person. Then when you speak in an event, your audience suddenly becomes your targeted audience.

Uh, clients, they were there to hear you speak about a topic. So what are you doing to follow up with them? What are you doing to stay connected with them? It’s going to probably take more touch points than you ever think to close opportunity. If you’re trying to go out and grow business that way, because so many times the phone will ring or you’ll get something in, are you taking on the right business?

So having that focus to make sure that you’re taking on the right business and where that you want to be to, to make that happen. So, I mean, for example, Well, you asked about perspective and a little bit different. Um, I viewed my success as a business developer in one way because I was more of a journalist.

I wasn’t an audit or a tax or an advisory or a transaction. I had to ask the questions of the people that I was talking to, the clients and the prospective clients to connect them with the right people. And that was really my job as a business developer was a connector of, it wasn’t me knowing how to do something.

It was a matter of me knowing that the firm could do something and who the right person was to connect. To do that. So with the firm owner and somebody that’s just starting their practice, it’s kind of remembering, Hey, what do I want my focus to be? If I want it to be hours a week and make a six figure salary, but still have time to spend with with my children, then what is it?

I need to do that. Okay.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: not going to a dinner event. It’s not having to go to breakfast, lunch and dinner with the prospect. It’s not having to. To do those things outside of hours. It’s not working 80 hours to get tax returns done because I’m the only person in the firm that I can trust

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: It’s being able to figure out a way to manage that with your goals in mind. So that perspective of being able to have that broader view of, what is the old saying that you can’t see the forest through the trees

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: you’re so focused on that. There was somebody I was talking to last week and uniquely, they said was so simple, but I would have never thought of it. I mean, it’s just a matter of

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: they knew it was a conversation they needed to have, but they hadn’t had the conversation and they’re like, it was laying right there in front of me, but I was so lost in all the things I had to do. I didn’t just have that conversation and take care of it or somebody that thinks they can’t focus on something and just asking them why and and there’s more questions and getting them to focus on.

What really needs to be done to accomplish what they’re trying to do.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Absolutely. I think, I think that’s just like everything is so simple when we sometimes just zoom out and sometimes we just get so deep in those weeds. Um, I love that. Well, Chris, I would love to hear if you were to give someone who’s either in an early stage of building their business or they are feeling stuck right now, a piece of advice that would help them move forward towards actually achieving the firm growth that they want to have.

What would the piece of advice be and how would you lay that out for them so that they could have success? Maybe give them a little bit of coaching right now.

Chris Lazzuri: Yeah, I mean, from that standpoint, what you just mentioned, take that step back and look at it. Why is it that you want to do that thing you want to do? Don’t get the shiny object syndrome of, I need to start a community because that’s what everybody’s doing right now. Or if it doesn’t align with what you’re trying to accomplish or, or what you’re trying to do.

So figure out what those goals are. And then what are the small steps to get there? So. Set that guiding star and then the path will change many times on the way to that end destination. So don’t get frustrated that you’re not there yet. Take those baby steps and do that. It’s from a growth standpoint.

It’s, it’s being selective in those clients that you’re taking on. It’s doing the tax returns that, that you know best. I mean, think about it from the, uh, the Pareto method. I mean, 80 percent of your clients are going to generate Um, or 20 percent of your clients are going to generate 80 percent of your revenue,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Chris Lazzuri: be 20 percent of your clients that generate 80 percent of your headaches.

So, um, so when you start thinking about it, which 20 percent do you want to be focusing on? It’s those that are generating 80 percent of your revenue, not the 20 percent that are are causing 80 percent of your problems, but it’s. The old adage of a squeaky wheel gets the grease. You end up spending your time doing those things that you don’t want to be doing or dealing with the problem clients.

So being selective from the very beginning on who you’re taking on as a client, I think is very important. And then maintaining that focus. And again, as I said, many people are scared of that because they’re like, okay, I got to take on everything I can to generate the revenue. That I want. But is it generating the lifestyle that you wanted by going out and starting your own firm or the reasons behind doing the business or what you enjoy doing? Because if you enjoy what you’re doing and you’ve got clarity in what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s a lot easier to be successful. It’s not as draining. It’s not as

Jamie Gruol: Oh yes.

Chris Lazzuri: talked about mental health in the industry and those things that are so important that it’s Yeah. That’s got to be part of your basis as well.

Deciding what you want to tackle next.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the mental health is one area that I would love to, maybe you can come back and we can talk about that on its own, like the show, because that is such a, an important part of it. And that comes a lot of the mental health stuff, I think, and the burnout that people are experiencing comes from that lack of awareness of what you actually need to.

survive and to, to have, or I shouldn’t even say survive, but to have the vision of the life that you actually want to have, because we are adopting so often that, you know, I can only do this if I have a thousand clients and I charge them all, you know, 75, then I can make a, you know, That’s not sustainable.

And so it’s like, if that’s not, you know, having that many clients is not what you want to be doing, then how can we have another path there? And it’s, it’s having that vision open up for you of like, Oh, there’s another way. It doesn’t have to be that way. And so just continuing to always reevaluate a Tony Robbins says that, you know, we’re two millimeters from the desired result, right.

That we want, and it doesn’t take massive shifts in your life. It’s just like you said, like it’s, it’s honing in on what that longterm vision is, and then slowly just making these little tiny tweaks can massively change your, your out, your trajectory. And it’s, it’s not, it doesn’t have to be a complete like dumping of all your clients.

It can be. These are the 10 clients that give me the biggest headache. How can I replace them with somebody that’s more in my niche or more in my, my area of expertise where I’m actually getting paid what I deserve and, and like you said, confidence to make that decision. But once you decide, just take the action

Chris Lazzuri: Right.

Jamie Gruol: so much easier on the other side of decision.

So,

Chris Lazzuri: And people think of niches often as just an industry or I need to be working with a certain person or a certain profile. Sometimes it’s not even that broken down into demographics. There’s a gentleman out there by the name of David Allison that’s written a book called Value Graphics. And it’s more aligning the values of what your clients, Admire or use you for or are they’re trying to accomplish more so than the demographic?

It’s not so much a persona as it is that that value. What are they valuing? Is it that time? Is it that money? Is it the family? What is it that they value? And then how are you providing the service that’s doing that for them? Because if not, that’s when things become. Commoditized or you feel like you’ve got to do a certain amount of returns at a certain dollar amount

Jamie Gruol: yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: that, then the niching can be more finding those clients that value what you do versus just being a particular industry or a particular service.

It’s finding that that niche of people that you like working with and that fit into what your skills and passions are so that you can stay energized.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, I like that, that alignment. I, haven’t heard that, but it makes a lot of sense because when we’re working with people that are incongruent to our values, it, that’s when we start feeling that, uh, disjointed, you know, uh, reciprocity, right? Like if they don’t value your time and they start asking for all this free stuff and you start giving that to them and there’s not the reciprocity there.

And so it becomes. An unenjoyable relationship essentially. And so, yeah, I love that. So thank you for adding that, that tip. So if you haven’t done a values assessment of your clients, I bet if you look at the 10 clients that cause you the most headache, they’re probably the clients that are not aligned with you and values.

And that’s might be an easy shift for you to make some changes.

Chris Lazzuri: It could be. They’re the ones that are giving you the information at the last minute that are causing those late hours right before a deadline. They don’t value your time or treat you as the person that you ought to be treated as. You’re a service provider to them and you haven’t moved up, um, that value. To them or proven your value to them that they’re willing to

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: that and appreciate it more than anything.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Chris, this has been fascinating and I really appreciate you sharing your coaching expertise and all of the skills that you have obtained through the business development and how you’re helping people today. You’ve really given some new perspectives to how people can grow their practices in a sustainable way and in a way that really aligns for them, um, mentally and emotionally and become something that they actually value themselves.

Right. And, and that’s, that’s so powerful. Um, I would love for you to share how people can follow you, get in touch with you, find out more about your coaching services and the things that you’re doing.

Chris Lazzuri: Yeah. Um, the website is just www dot CML consulting dot com. So, uh, that’s 1 way. I’m a CCT underscore for the number four underscore G. R. W. T. H. So accountant for growth

Jamie Gruol: Oh, cool.

Chris Lazzuri: a person because that’s really what I was focused on when I was more in industry.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Chris Lazzuri: I will be speaking at. Um, into a connect in October, so I’ll be there and hope to get to meet a lot of people that I’ve only met through social media or

Jamie Gruol: Cool.

Chris Lazzuri: community involvement and those things before.

So I believe my section session number is 1694 when you when you register, but it’s all about the same things of how do you sustain growth? Um, intentionally, but with authenticity, curiosity and empathy, because I really think those three are what drive what I’m trying to do for the industry and drive not only my coaching, but I think they can drive growth for individuals as well, because you have to be authentic to yourself.

And if you maintain that curiosity and you do it with an empathetic view of the other person’s perspective that you’re communicating with, that you can really gain some success.

Jamie Gruol: Love that. I love that. And I think you’re spot on spot on. Uh, awesome. Well, we will make sure that all of those things are linked below here. And if you do catch Chris at Intuit, make sure you say hello and let them know you heard him on the podcast. So, uh, thank you again, Chris, so much for being here.

Really appreciate it. And we look forward , to hopefully connect in person sometime at a, an event. And if not, then on the Twitters, we’ll probably see each other there. So thanks for being here today.

Chris Lazzuri: Thank you, Jamie. Appreciate it very much. And I love what y’all are doing.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, thanks, sir.

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